Dear Friends,
I’ve had this idea for a while. I’m going to just dive in.
*****
Time Travelers
This time.
We’ll shoot for the biggest one yet, they said.
Set the controls and let’s go.
If we run her hot, she’ll get us where we want to be.
Where we were, he asked?
Sure.
We’ve been there before, she said.
Last time.
We got so high.
We almost died, they all thought.
But nobody said it out loud.
The concussive effect of racing against time is harsh, at first,
But then it smooths out into something Burroughs once said.
It smooths out into “a thousand golden speedballs.”
They were junkies, too.
What’ll it be?
World War III?
A famine, a plague, and cataclysmic typhoon of epic proportions?
Let’s end the world.
Blow it all to hell.
Watch it burn.
Laugh and imagine the stomachs churning.
They are all dead anyway.
They just don’t know it.
You know what’s really fun, he asked.
What?
Confusing them. He laughed.
They all laughed at this.
They, she said, think we’re UFOs.
If only they knew how many people were watching.
If only they grew to know how many.
Earthlings are cute, she said.
Yes, we are.
They all laughed again.
How long will we be gone?
They laughed again.
No one would even know they left.
Those writers from back then called it a “Jaunt.”
It was nothing like that in real life.
A blast would be a better name.
Time waves travel at four million times the speed of light.
Four billion times the speed of a brain
And when done right, just a little faster than the speed of death.
It was death they loved to race the most.
But no one said it out loud.
If you got back
To your own time faster than death
You got the high.
If you didn’t, you got to die.
Everyone dies, though.
Would anyone survive this time?
Crime. Sublime. The craft’s bells began to chime.
This is what it surely was: a crime.
But only a few could pay
To play.
For this was
Just another day.
*****
See you tomorrow.
I want to be this comfortable again.
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