A short story about what happens if things that don't usually go together are brought together, about the unlikely, about making the impossible possible.
It is just a little fun thing that my mind came up with. It's an experiment, but I hope that yo...
The hopelessness of my task seemed confirmed when I got Brian's reply.
I'm not sure I can find that.. and even if I do, how do I get back to this programme where I can talk to you? I'm guessing it will disappear, right?
I sighed and let my eyes wander over the people who were around me before I looked back at my phone.
Yes, probably, but you'll find it again. If you click on a camera function within the app you'll automatically come back to the view you're having now. Otherwise, if everything fails, if you pull down the bar at the very top of the screen, there should be something happening. Try that if I send you a message, it should appear up there in the form of a symbol or something like that.
I waited for him to reply, hoping he'd figure it out somehow. I was curious about a photo of him now.
Yes! That works. I can see a little ... something happening up there. So if I'm not seeing your messages, if you send me a message it will appear at the top?
He did catch on to things quickly, which was good, because I probably wouldn't be patient enough for explaining this to someone slow.
Exactly, yes. How about you try to take a picture now, and if I haven't heard from you in ten minutes, I'll send you another message?
Slowly I was starting to have fun with this.
That sounds good. Alright, cross your fingers..
When I read that message, I couldn't help but smile to myself.
Fingers are crossed!
Now all I could do was wait. I made sure to look at the time so I'd know when ten minutes had passed. And yet I still found myself checking my phone every ten seconds, at least it felt like that. Until my phone laughed again, it took very long eight minutes, I could read a lot in that time. Which was partly good, but also partly not good because I was worried if he'd be able to figure out the phone he had. So when I heard the very familiar laughter, it was a big relief. With a smile I picked up my phone, genuinely a little excited for the photo. Hopefully there would be a photo.
There was a photo.
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I don't know if this works? I tried, maybe you can see me now? Can you see me? If you can, that's quite amazing. The photo was just there when I took it. I could look at it immediately, and I could delete it again. That's so amazing actually. I mean, I could take photos of anything and everything and sent them to you just like that...
Well... wow. What else was I supposed to say?
I like your hair... :)
It was a start, it was all I could say for the moment, because I was busy staring at the picture he sent me. I just couldn't take my eyes off him. He was really good looking. In a strange way, but he definitely was very attractive.
I shouldn't be surprised you noticed that as the first thing. Apologies for my ... looks.
Furrowing my eyebrows, I looked at the photo again. Why was he apologising for his looks?
Your looks? Your looks are perfectly fine, don't worry. And so is your hair. And to answer your rant about the photos, yes. You can take photos of anything, and you can send them to me just like that ;)
It was kind of funny how he was so excited about that. But then again, if he had never seen a phone like this before, it had to be pretty exciting. Which was exactly why I wasn't entirely surprised when the next messages I got were photos, of random things. The calendar, the street, his cup, stuff like that. All either with his face or his hand in it somehow. It was quite entertaining if I was honest. And it all looked like I imagined the 70s... just with good quality photos. And exactly that seemed to be what he was after.
So... does that prove to you that I'm not locked up somewhere, and that it really is 1972?
What was I supposed to reply to that? Yes? But that would make me the crazy one wouldn't it? Because that was ridiculous and simply impossible. Even though everything was making it seem like that. But 1972? And why?
I want to say yes, but that's impossible.. I mean, you're in the past?
He had to see my point, didn't he? Because it was impossible. And yet, here it was, happening.
I don't know... is it really 2017 where you live?
Yes. It was, I was certain of that. I decided that the best way of proving that was to send him a bunch of pictures as well. I sent him one of myself and a few from my surroundings. I even got up and took a few photos of some posters for events that would be going on here at uni, and of course all of them were for 2017.
I don't mean to sound creepy, but you're beautiful.. really. And 2017 looks interesting. But not as different as I thought it might be.
I knew I was blushing after I read that message. It definitely made me smile, both the compliment and the entire message.
Did you expect flying cars and robots all over? ;) (and thank you, it's not creepy)
I let my eyes wander over my surroundings, all the people around me. None of them had an idea who (and when) I was talking to. None of them would probably believe me. I wasn't entirely certain I believed myself, but I didn't really have a choice.
I'm glad you don't think it's creepy. And... I don't know what I expected, I never thought about what to expect of the future technology wise. Maybe you live in a parallel universe, and in my timeline we will have flying cars in 2017? Who knows. Only time will tell
Smiling to myself, I nodded a little. To no one in particular.
