Thursday, July 10, 2014

Silas Scarborough, Time Traveler

That sounds ever so poetic but that's not what I mean as everyone is a time traveler as there's not a single one of you who ever daydreamed about now.  You're always time traveling to most likely something in the past but the really trippy ones are looking to the future.  You will stay focused on whatever is needed to do what you are currently doing but the rest of your mind isn't even close to present time.

But you want that H.G. Wells time machine ... so you can go back in time ... and screw with things.  Since you still seem to think that's a good idea we shall have to release a few more movies to show how Earth and everything on it gets sucked into its own bellybutton by doing that.

There was a sci-fi story once that told of tourist trips back in time to when there were dinosaurs.  The tourists were told there was a small trail they could walk but absolutely do not touch anything outside it.  Any violation could have serious consequences over the time between then and now.  One of the tourists dropped his camera and it fell outside the boundary.  He thought it would do more harm to leave it there than retrieve it.  He heard a little snap when he did it but he couldn't see what it was.  They returned to present time and the tourist saw some lovely butterflies so he wanted to photograph them.  Before he could do it, all of them winked out of existence.

Billy Pilgrim was another time traveler but he was 'unstuck in time' and could pop up at any point in his life.  They tell you never, never, never look in a mirror while you're trippin' so, of course, you do it and you will be unstuck in time too.  You are young, you are old, and any of it is real.  Either that or  you will be eaten by the fire lizards behind the mirror.  Anything can happen when you're trippin'.

The trouble with time travel isn't that it's so difficult but rather that it's so easy.  There is very much more peace and contentment in now but we humans don't do peace and contentment so well, we need to shake things up.  So how about if I had been born in the future or could go there now.  No chance that would kill butterflies so bring on the starships and the alien beings.

Well, would you.

Or do you want to time travel in your own time to be younger or older.  Do you want something more than sticking plasticine on yourself until finally you look like Joan Rivers in "Brazil?"  Maybe you say Joan Rivers wasn't in "Brazil" but, oh yes, she was.  Recall Sam's mother and how they could pull her face to each side of the dinner table.  Yep, that's one kind of time travel.  As we've seen, it doesn't work.

Or do you want to be forty again.  You just got that Harley Davidson.  You're single with a good job and you're going to go out and find some leg.  But how does this really work.  Does this add to the memories you have from the last time you were forty.  Do you still know that the last time you were forty you were sitting on the couch with some dumpy broad and you still love her but you hardly ever nail her.  Now you're out hammering Tina the Cheerleader so how does that add to the love for the dumpy broad who still loves your cheap ass?  Keep in mind, this still is the same time.  She is right now that dumpy broad on the couch only in this time continuum she has been raising your kids by herself while you have been tooling around on a Harley chasing Tina.  How do you like time travel so far.

Time travel doesn't work, at least not for going back.  You get one shot, cowboy.  Don't fuck it up.

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