December 2017 -- 75 Word Writing Challenge -- VICTORY TO PETER V!

[SPoots]

Your New Present

“She’s waking.”

Mary winced, light stabbing her eyes.

“Easy, you’ve been frozen a long time.”

Blurs resolved into a white room and a woman’s face.

“Good news,” she said. “They found a cure for you.”

Mary’s throat felt dry. She tried to speak. “Thank...”

“Don’t thank me. You’re brother paid for everything.”

An old man took her hand. Mary saw her brother’s features, hidden behind the wrinkles.

“Welcome to your new present,” he said.

 

[Droflet]

The Experiment

David awoke. Remnants of once mighty structures littered the desolate landscape.
"So much for the future."
He set the instruments on his time harness to return home.
David awoke. This ancient visage wasn't his time.
He awoke repeatedly to a time not of his choosing.
The future and past were his but his time, his home, would forever be beyond his grasp.
The harness died.
Humanity's first time traveler found himself marooned in time, forever.

 

[Heijan Xavier]

The Present Lies Before the Truth

I sit before the Provider.
The Provider has gifted us the present; since we fear the future and lament the past.
The Provider controls us, though gives the illusion of autonomy.

I consume the present because,
I know the Truth: we want to be controlled.
What would happen if all these faceless fools learned the Truth?

The Provider presents the Lie.
The past never happened,
and the future never will.

“Bartender, another Blue Label!”

 

[Glen]

Present, but not correct

I thought it was nice old book that someone had sent me for xmastideyulefest, but it was a package from the ministry of reality, and we all know that means I have to get tested to see if I’m really me, or a dangerous AI projection. Bummer. I’d kind of got used to being on my own, but now I might find I can’t even do that.

Who’d send me a book, anyway?

 

[Peter V]

I Am the Ghost of Christmas Present.

They marketed them as facsimiles; holographic representations of deceased loved ones.

Christmas of twenty-seven I got one. It was sad, seeing my late dad but comforting too, so I kept him running for about twenty years, off and on. I just wish I’d known what he was saying each time before the loop reset but I never could lip read.

Hope my boy can.

“Turn me off.” I mouth silently at my grief stricken son.

 

[Culhwch]

The Omnipresent

'I’ve cracked it!’

‘You’ve cracked something.’

‘...’

‘Sorry, dear. Cracked what?’

‘I’ve solved Christmas!’

‘It needed solving?’

‘Of course! Finding the perfect gift - impossible!’

‘I … guess?’

‘No longer! I give you … the OMNIPRESENT!’

‘It’s glowing. You’ve gotten into the uranium again.’

‘No, it’s perfectly safe! Try it! It instantaneously fabricates the perfect gift based on a proprietary psychoemotional scan.’

‘Right. Let’s see. Oh, it’s ... a porcelain duck.’

‘Merry Christmas!’

‘Might need a slight tweak, dear.’

 

[reiver33]

Living In It

I stand surrounded by a wedding party of statues, confetti frozen in mid-air. My bride smiles, pretty as a picture, but a picture frozen in time.

I am alone.

No, not quite.

Robin Goodfellow, the Master of Ceremonies, laughs. “This is the space between ‘tick’ and ‘tock’, the silence between heartbeats, overlooked even by God. You have what you wanted - the happiest day of your life, without end. Now then, why so angry?”

 

[Hugh]

The Malga​

The Hierocracy had been informed of the Malga, beings from an energy dimension subtly interfacing our own. The Malga experience no distinction between past, present and future, living in full awareness of all that has ever been and will be.

It was traumatic enough learning of their longstanding benign symbiosis with the human mind.

What really stuck in the Hierocratic craw was the knowledge that this symbiosis had enabled humanity’s deepest and most profound revelations.

 

[mosaix]

Just A Minute...

Temporal Corporation Marketing Department – September 2033 Meeting – Minutes.

Present: M Jones (Chair), L Foster (Secretary), E Benson, T Giles, H Miller, D Cranbourne (Development Division).

MJ welcomed DC to the meeting.

August Minutes: Read and agreed.

Christmas Campaign:

DC presented the Corporation's first ever hand-held, personal, time-transport device.

MJ requested suggestions for the Christmas marketing slogan.

TG – There's no present like the time.

Agreed unanimously.

Meeting closed.

 

[Stable]

A Timely Gift​

“What is it, Professor?” asked lovely Miss Whitt.

“I don’t rightly know,” he said, waving a beeping device over the object. “It’s wrapped like a gift, but not from our timeline. Ordinarily I’d invent a lie like 'Chronomium particles' to impress you. Oh! I didn’t mean to say that.”

“But your scanning device…?”

“Merely a speaker that beeps when I press this button.” He did. It did.

“Apparently the present present’s presence prevents pretense.”

 

[LittleStar]

Christmas Time

"Henry indulged you wth his experiments. Play with things more becoming," Abi's mother said, leaving the room.

Abi's new doll hit the carpet. No capacitor. Now she would never get him back from the Flux.

Something glinted green and gold through her tears. A second present? It hadn't been there a moment before.

A signed picture of Henry and her; only she was twenty years older. "Never give up your dreams. Merry Christmas. Love, You.

 

[Starbeast]

Davros Holiday Special​

"Weren't those dancing Cybermen great?"

(applause)

"Silence!"

"What's wrong, Davros?"

"You humans are detestable. And, cheap. All of my gifts have been, canned Spam."

"Not all."

"Doctor."

"Open this one. It's from me."

"It's not more Spam, is it?"

"No. Tremendous thought went into choosing something, for my greatest nemesis."

"Oh. That was thoughtful of you. I'm moved by your kindness." (ripppppt) "Ice skates, and, sunglasses?"

"Happy days, Davros. Jelly Baby?" (chomp chomp)

"DALEKS!!! Exterminate!"

 

[Bob Senior]

Final Countdown December 24th


Row 1 "Dasher?"
"Present."

"Dancer?"
"Here."

Row2 "Prancer?"
"Present sir."

"Vixen?
"Present."

Row3 "Comet?"
"Here."

"Sparky?" "SPARKY?"
"Still deceased sir, taken out by an alien space-ship in 1932, replaced by Cupid, we should probably update that sir."

"Copy that."

"Cupid?"
"Present."

Row4 "Donner?"
"Here."

"Blitzen?"
"YO."

Driver "Santa?" "SanTA?" "SANTA???"

"He's saying goodbye to Mrs. Claus AGAIN sir, (wink, wink) if you know what I mean."

"HO HO, what a guy!"

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Romeo and Juliette and the Djinn.

Time with her was the greatest gift. But our families did not approve. So time with her required a miracle.

Or a wish.

The Djinn never told me why he'd crawled into the bottle. By the time I thought to ask, I'd burned through two wishes.

"I can't wish for more wishes?"

"It's forbidden." Like our love.

"Then I wish for more Djinn."

The last Djinn alive left his bottle. And smiled.

 

[crystal haven]

Lessons

A present is meant to bring joy to the recipient, isn’t it? At least that’s what I’d been told. I was wayward, difficult, a failure child. This war-riddled, poisoned planet, was nothing like a gift, just a scene of despair and devastation.

“This is no gift,” I said, disappointment dripping from my mind like tears shed by the occupants of the world beneath.

“The joy of giving,” my teacher answered. “The gift is life.”

 

[Ajid]

The planet

“But I can’t take it!”
“You have to!”

He held on to what had been drawn from his midrift.

“You can’t die here so don’t.”
“Huh, i’m done with all this, we thought this planet was dead, tell them it isn’t.”

“Nothing touched you.”

I scratbed my name in blood, something else drove me to. Get out.”

 

[johnnyjet]

In the Present

What if I stopped? Stayed in one place? In the present.

Time travelling is wearing me out. It used to give me purpose: righting things that went wrong, advising the past, sharing benefits reaped from illicit knowledge of the future.

I feel I don't belong anywhere. A ghost, a non-entity, belonging nowhere, passing through. Like Ahasver.

What if I stopped?

I sit alone and still now. And watch the world pass me by.

 

[Parson]

The Present Is the Greatest Enemy of the Future
​

Ezekiel, uplift prophet of the Star Alliance, could foresee an Apocalypse. “Maximize Your Present Pleasure,” was the Sha’ling’s dominant ethic. His calling was to help them embrace the universal truth: “Great societies are built on individual sacrifice.” Ezekiel sighed - the Prime Directive ordered: “Never reveal your uplifted state.”

He began quoting “The Teacher.” “You have heard it said….”

History taught Ezekiel what this teaching would demand. “A True Prophet is only recognized after their martyrdom.”

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

In Memory of the Princess’s Birthday


Rosabelle gazed at the ebony box, unopened all these years. Around her the courtiers gathered, excited, curious, in their bright garb.

She hesitated. How she had longed for and dreaded this moment! Fairies could be so unpredictable in their gifts.

Curiosity won. With trembling hands, Rosabelle raised the lid, lifted out a shining golden spindle, graceful in shape.

Everyone smiled. What could be more harmless?

Nobody saw the drop of blood falling from the tip.

 

[holland]

The Gift

The Gift arrived unexpectedly.

It made every human being on the Earth able to see the past, present and future of the entire human race.

The visions were clear, unambiguous, and most of all extremely convincing.

The Gift showed the humankind disappearing in a nuclear holocaust ten days after its arrival.

And, not surprisingly, in only ten days the humankind managed to erase itself from the face of the planet.