Head 'em Off at the Past

  Elvis Kickthroat was a blacksmith in 19th century America, a time and place where everything was brown. He had a son named Ronald Thwirpwit (his father made him take on his mother's maiden name because he wasn't a bad enough dude for Kickthroat). Elvis wanted his son to follow in his footsteps, but Ronald's dream was to be a Mexican. One day, Ronald was impaled by a 1-dimensional woman and died. Please observe a moment of silence for Ronald now, as he will not be mentioned again in this story.

 Cue standard tavern scene. Men in the corner played that finger stabbing game, the women from upstairs offered themselves to blowup dolls, the bartender cleaned whiskey mugs with a cloth that had never been washed. Elvis waited until someone entered the tavern and then jumped in before the doors swung back shut. Not because he hated that cliche where you push them open dramatically and everyone goes quiet when you step inside, but because it was flu season and he didn't want to touch the door. Incidentally, everyone did go quiet when he walked in. Not because they were intimidated by Elvis; it was just one of those freaky coincidences where everyone took a breath at the same time and nobody wanted to be the first one to start talking again. And then an event happened. Not because of the reason you expect, but because of a reason you didn't expect.

 "Top o' the mornin' to ye, Mr. Kickthroat," olde tyme'd the bartender. "Can I get you the usual?"

 Choose your own adventure! Do you want Elvis to have the usual? Go to page 43. Do you want to take the story in a bit of a different direction? Read on.


 "No, I want something new and exciting."

 Suddenly someone with purple spandex and mirror glasses appeared.

 "Elvis!" said the newcomer. "You must come quickly with me back to 1947, where all blacksmiths have gone extinct and we need one to save the future! I mean present. It would be silly for me to refer to my own time as the future. Haha."

 "Why are you in such a hurry? You're a time traveler."

 "...Huh... Okay, take your time, then."

 "Let's do it."

 The stranger invaded Elvis's personal space and touched his chest, zapping them to 1947. It was as futuristic and awe-inspiring as he'd always imagined:  flying horses, self-robbing banks, and dynamite that could wipe out entire Japanese cities.

 "I'm Wonald, by the way."

 "That's a coincidence. I had a daughter named Wonald once. She got sucked into a black hole and died."

 "Or maybe she just got transported to the future and was stuck there until she could invent time travel and make up an excuse to get you to come to the future with her so she could experiment on you with her questionable new beauty products."

 "Good thing that probably didn't happen."

 "Oh, let me introduce you to my friend Faulty."

 "Greetings, fellow Earth mortal," said Faulty robotically.

 "Really? This is how future people talk?"

 "No, he's just being a jackass."

 Just then some robots from the even more future appeared and killed Faulty, since he would eventually give birth to the guy who would win the war for mankind against the cyborgs. Wonald, meanwhile, showed Elvis around her studio apartment.

 "So over here's the entire apartment. And out there's the rest of the world."

 "What do we do all day here?"

 "Watch the television set."

 "What's that?"

 "It's like a radio, but with images."

 "What's a radio?"

 "It's like real life, but without images."

 "Oh."

 They spent the next several hours watching Bonanza and snacking on off-brand cheese puffs.

 "This sucks. I should have had the usual."

The end




Page 43

 Elvis had the usual. Then nothing noteworthy happened, so the story ended.

The end