Join the Club (a 350 word story)

Marty looked around the empty classroom.  He checked his watch again.  It was still 7:10.  He got up and made sure the sign was still hanging outside the door.  After verifying that, he went back to his seat and checked his watch again.  It was now 7:11.  He couldn’t believe he was the only person on all of campus that wanted to be a part of this club. He had put the meeting notice on all the school’s social media sites.   Everyone had to know by now that the interest meeting was scheduled to start at 6:30.  He looked over to the front table where two pizzas were getting cold.  He wasn’t hungry anymore but decided to grab a slice.  He opened the box that was the veggie lovers and took a limp piece out and placed it on his paper plate, dropping half his toppings back into the cardboard coffin it came from.  He was about to reach back in to get his remaining spoils when the door opened.

Marty spun around so fast that his pizza slice slid off the plate and landed cheese side down on the floor.  The woman who had entered was dressed all in black.  Her black makeup contrasted perfectly with her perfectly enhanced pale complexion.  She was a fallen angel, sent to him to give him the courage to move forward, he was certain for that.

The fallen angel looked around at the empty room.  “Is this the anime club?”

Marty blinked his eyes as he watched his waves of hope crash on the rocks of despair.  “No.  This is the interest meeting for the future world dominators.  It’s a club I was trying to start up.”

The fallen angel finally noticed the kamikaze pizza slice bleeding out grease on the industrial tile floor.  “You have pizza?”

Marty pointed at the boxes on the table behind him.  “Lots.”

A smile bloomed on her face.  “Sign me up!”  She walked past Marty to get to the pizza.

Right then Marty knew one day he would take over the world with her at his side.

 

Image: thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/pizza-slice-plate-pizza-slice-dropped-ground-112424802.jpg

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A Bad Time for a Phone Call

The phone rang on Dr. Michelle Funchess’s desk.  She looked up from the paper she was writing on quantum entanglement theory and picked up the receiver.

“Hello, Dr. Funchess speaking.”

“Yeah, I know.  Look you have to listen to me.”  The voice on the other end sounded exactly like Michelle’s own when she had a cold.

“Okay, is this Jenna?” Michelle asked.  “The voice is pretty good.”

“No.  I am you from twenty-five years in the future.”  Michelle thought about hanging up the phone.  “Listen, I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out.  I know about that time you were with Bobby back in the stacks.”

That took Michelle aback.  Yeah, that happened and she hadn’t told anyone about it, or did she?  There were a couple times she had gotten stupid with her girlfriends, so maybe it had come out?

The voice continued.  “And what about the time you felt guilty swiping that pack of gum from Albert’s Drug Store in fourth grade?  Remember that?”

Michelle smiled at how bad she had felt for weeks until she had “accidently” left like seventy-five cents in the need a penny take a penny tray at the counter.  “You need to do better than that.  If you are me you know I tell lots of stories.  I’m not sure I have a deep dark secret that would prove you are who, or when you claim you are.”

“Damn!” the voice on the other side of the line said.  Michelle could hear a ton of typing on a keyboard.

“Look, there is nothing you can say that will make this hoax work.  If you really know me you know I too much physics to fall for this.”

“One second,” the voice said.  “Ah, there.  Okay, I’ll give you a prediction for your future to make you believe.”

“You’re going to give me the lottery numbers?”

“That would take too long.  What time is it where you are?”

“It’s 2018.”

“Not the year, what time of day?  It’s like 12:30, right?”

“Close.  It’s like 12:46.  What time of crappy time travel do you have there twenty-five years in the future?”

“There are uncertainties, just like the ones you are writing in that paper.”

That stopped Michelle in her tracks.  No one really knew about that.  Well no one around here.  She might have hinted it at the last American Physics Society national conference, but still.  This was quite the scam.

The voice continued.  “It’s going to start raining in exactly three minutes.”

That made Michelle laugh.  They finally overplayed their hand.  She looked outside her large office windows.  “It is perfectly sunny here,” Michelle said.  “There is barely a cloud in the sky.”

“It will rain in the next two minutes and forty seconds.  This will prove I am who I say I am.  I need to hang up now and call back in four minutes.  The energy cost to keep the line is too much to just wait.”  With that the voice on the other side hung up.

Michelle hung up her phone and went back to her computer, but her curiosity wouldn’t stop her from checking the scene outside her window.  As she stared, wondering why someone was trying so hard to get into her head a sun shower began.  Big wet rain drops splattered against her window and her vision to the outside world, and her world in general, became blurry.

The ringing of the phone soon thereafter made her jump in her chair.  She stared at the phone, but didn’t try to pick it up.  She still wasn’t sure what was going on, but she knew she didn’t want to know.  Her future self should have known that.  Time must be able to change a person.

Glib (an acrostic poem)

Guaranteed to work or your money back

Look I know you don’t really need something like that right now

I think you should see of it as an investment in your future

Because yes I will even send you a second one, just pay separate shipping and handling

Image: goodfreephotos.com/albums/vector-images/hand-giving-money-vector-clipart.png

Boom! (an acrostic poem)

Busting out of the mold

Our destiny is in our own hands

Options abound in front of us

Making the future ours for the taking!

 

Image: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Nukeexplosion.jpg

Global Warming (an acrostic poem)

Glacial movement on a worldwide scale

Letting loose fears and hatred

Obliterating the facts on local perceptions

Blaming anyone and everyone else

All should look at it objectively

Listening to the data presented

 

We instead focus on the economic finger pointing

Alarms of false science on the scale used against Darwin

Relying on beliefs that stand upon sandy shores

Much of that sand being eroded away by the rising waters

Isolating those beliefs on a shrinking island

Now is the time to work on the problem

Giving our future a chance

 

Image:  blueturn.earth/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/BlueMarble.jpg

Remember (an acrostic poem)

Reeling in grief at the loss of life

Embracing the challenge to overcome

Mindful not to become the evil we abhore

Encouraging others as we take our stand

Memories etched in our collective souls

Becoming stronger by becoming one

Elevating our eyes towards tomorrow

Reaching for a better future