The FuturePast Phone! (COMPLETE)

13 - Great Civil Wars

Lindy stared at the screen. A blonde girl was really, really trying to hit a high note. Her nostrils were huge! "Well why don't you guys just appreciate what you have?" she mumbled wisely to the general, hoping this would settle things.

"That's the thing. There have been some good things about the futurepast. For one, we are all spending more time with each other and less with stuff because we know it will randomly go away."

"Good," said Lindy. "You should go continue that."

The general was silent. Lindy thought she heart him growl. "Do you like your home?" he said.

Lindy shrugged. She knew he couldn't see the shrug but she didn't care. "I guess . . ."

"Well, imagine that one day you wake up to find your stuff in boxes. The next day, its all gone, replaced by other people's stuff! This is another part of futurepast we are dealing with! After a certain amount of years of future past, houses fill up with other people's stuff because it pre-dated the year a person moved in. We had to make laws that make people move back to houses they used to live in. But married folks didn't want to live with their parents again. Settled folks didn't want strangers reclaiming their houses. Great civil wars have been fought over just this fact alone. And what about those poor people who built their house? They got to see the house become newer and newer until they woke up and the walls were no longer there!"

"That sorta sounds like fun," said Lindy.

"It has been terrible!" shouted the general. "People buy things that disappear the next day! People stock food that is gone after the sun rises."

"No leftovers then!" Lindy said.

"Lindy, what happens when everyone who remembers your present dies? Who will remember things like Youtube and televisions and cell phones? Eventually, we will loose electricity, indoor plumbing, fire! We will regress to the middle ages, the stone ages! Then . . . poof! Human race is gone!"