It was far worse than that. Best not go there. But yeah - I would not be at all surprised if some of those Pink Floyds, if taken in sufficient numbers, would allow a person to time-travel. I'd say it's probably all in the mental focus. I have had a few very strange experiences in the past, essentially travelling to weird places, which I guess is a 'sort of' time travel, in a philosophical sense. I mean, how quickly would a person be able to get from A to Z normally, instead of instantly? Hmm.
Still - I do love your plot device of him leaping to another time every time he falls asleep. That's both ingenious and totally fun.
Totally agree about the original (especially the very last episode, which was beautiful). I haven't seen the remake and will probably consciously avoid it...
Alright, buttercups, strap in because boy oh boy, do I have a story for you! Remember that time-traveling robot I told you about? Well, hold onto your pumps because things just got a whole lot weirder!
So, our girl Alora? Turns out she's not just any old robot. Nope! She just accessed her origin files and - you're not gonna believe this - she's a futuristic version of a Barbie doll! That's right, a Barbie! But we're not talking about your grandma's Barbie here. Oh no, this is Barbie 3000, now with time travel capabilities and an existential crisis!
Of course! She's still got that classic Barbie figure, you know, the one that makes you go, "Wow, her organs must be the size of peas!" But now she's decked out in more shades of pink than a flamingo convention. We're talking pink metal limbs, blue laser eyes, pink quantum processor - it's like someone dropped her in a vat of Pepto-Bismol and said, "You know what? Not pink enough!"
Now, our Alora Barbie isn't just on a quest to find the perfect pair of plastic pumps. No siree! This gal's on a mission to find her soulmate. Can you imagine? A Barbie doll looking for love across time and space! It's like "The Bachelorette" meets "Doctor Who," with a sprinkle of "Toy Story" for good measure.
But here's the kicker - she can't control her time travel! One minute she's practicing her "Hi Ken!" in the mirror, the next she's watching dinosaurs play beach volleyball with meteors. Talk about your bad hair days!
And get this - she's still got all those language skills. She's like a Universal Translator with great cheekbones. She can say "Come with me if you want to live" in more languages than there are stars in the sky. It's like Rosetta Stone and Mattel had a baby, and that baby got zapped by a time ray!
So, chins up! We're about to dive into the diary of a love-sick, time-hopping, pink-tastic Barbie bot named Alora. It's got more twists than a pretzel factory and more laughs than a hyena watching a comedy special. Are you ready to take a ride in Alora's Dream Time Machine? Let's go, party people!
Very nice story, and a very moving ending. It's a bit like what Major Tom says in 'Space Oddity', and it's something that makes the character instantly relatable, despite the incredible circumstances. Great job! Meanwhile, I'm still working on last month's 'Brick'! Haha. It's tricky to fit things in during the summer months, but I think this is a really fun idea and I'm definitely going to try and post something soon... 😎
Cord Corker had not built Anschluss Acquisition into the Valley’s biggest devourer of venture ideas by leaving anything to chance. Or trust. So, when he promised a cool $1 billion in cash to anyone who demonstrated a working Time Machine he demanded proof. And to that end he retained renowned physicist Dr. Alvin Schvitzer from the Colossal Bohr Institute in Geneva to verify any claimant.
Corker and the good PhD thus were gathered in a small conference room along with Corker’s senior staff to substantiate the case of one Dexter Derbil, who confidently asserted that the device in his hand, which to an untrained eye looked like a garage door opener, could cause a stitch in time.
First, Cord proved unable to forego an opportunity for brief oration.
“Who could imagine the power to go back in time, to the crib of a monstrous enemy of society, and strangle such devil before it strikes?”
“Oprah?” wondered Earl from accounting.
“I think he meant Hitler,” replied Earl’s startled neighbor, “but you do you.”
“In any event, we hold such power today. Mr. Derbil, if you will.”
Dexter fiddled with his magic machine and the room was engulfed in a brief flash of light. Following that short burst, the meeting resumed. Apparently, nothing had changed.
It was-Earl who first noticed that his coffee cup was fuller than before the flash. He then checked his watch.
“This meeting started at noon sharp. After a brief (he rolled his eyes) speech, the gizmo went off at maybe 12:10. Well by my watch it is now 12:05. We’ve gone back in time five full minutes.”
Awkward silence followed, until Cord struck. “What is this? This is not what I asked for. What good is this?”
Earl volunteered helpfully, “Well you know how when you are steaming it’s a lot harder to rewind than it was in the old days with cable and DVRs…”
“Not helping,” whispered his neighbor with an elbow.
The CFO had a better idea. “What if the president hits the atomic button by mistake. This would let her go back and undo the error.”
Cord was apoplectic. “I want time travel not electronic white out. Schvitzer??”
The old scientist mulled it over and finally offered his judgment. “It is good (he said it ‘goot’ in his thick Austrian drawl), not great. Actually, it’s not even goot. But it works. It seems your problem is one of scale not function. Pay the man.”
Derbil sheepishly admitted that he hadn’t quite worked out the kinks, actually couldn’t control it at all, adding hopefully that five minutes was a new record.
Corker wired the fortune and cleared the room in a rage.
Earl was last to leave. “I guess maybe it’s a bad time to remind you about the contract that says you can’t go back in time to reverse payment of the reward. Shoot, it’s more than five minutes, might be too late now anyway.”
The last bit of that unhelpful advice was uttered to a slammed door.
Corker, defeated, slammed the worthless Edsel into the trash bin. Inside, a drop of remains from Schvitzer’s discarded coffee cup landed on the controller. Unknown to the other witnesses, the doctor had dosed his Java with a healthy hint of Goldschlager the delicious cinnamon liqueur laden with flecks of real gold. Remember my children that gold is more than an expensive bauble, it also is a metallic element, atomic number 79, and when exposed to the terminals of Derbil’s folly it produced the morning’s second blinding flash and …
Cord stood in a muddy hellscape populated with scrofulous peasants and teeming with vermin. Corpses piled high like cordwood. He stood in a line of ragged wastrels, coughing blood into their filthy cloth masks. On occasion a rat would break from its conga line and theatrically expire on the spot. Corker had taken a minor in history at Stanford (mostly due to a lost fraternity bet, long story) and knew a little about the Dark Ages. He knew 14th century couture when he saw it. This was prime time for the big one, the Black Death, the Plague.
The workers who were passing pails of bubonic waste down a long bucket brigade, noticed the gleaming stranger with alarm.
His Canali shirt and Armani slacks were wholly alien to them, not to mention their shock at someone not caked head to toe with refuse.
They pointed and hollered at the spotless VC, speculating about his origins.
“The son of a god, from Phoebus’ chariot gleaming bright.”
“No, a devil from the spell of a woodlands harridan.”
The foreman quickly got them back in line. “You plebeians. Can’t you see the tailoring. Plainly he’s Italian. In any event get back to work.”
And then to Cord. “You, new guy. Guiseppe. Get in line. That slop’s not gonna move itself.”
Miguel, your flash fiction about flash time traveling was very good. I love the protagonist; I think his generally stoned condition helped him to take the time changes pretty much in his stride. I just might take up the challenge and try a time travel story myself.
Time travels in mysterious waves and if you hold your breath, you missed something that passed you by while looking the other way. My magic carpet ride takes me places, I just say go and she unfurls her curls, stretches out and the u have the ride where the Arabian nights are long and genies smoke lifts spirits from the hookah tube that takes me into realms where Ruby’s navel button pops out and I discover in now rests in places I had not known before when I held my breath down under the covers of sheets on my carpet ride that slips and slides . . .
This is why I stopped taking acid.
To avoid accidentaly (there's no way that's how it's spelled) traveling through time?
two ‘L’s - accidentally
It was far worse than that. Best not go there. But yeah - I would not be at all surprised if some of those Pink Floyds, if taken in sufficient numbers, would allow a person to time-travel. I'd say it's probably all in the mental focus. I have had a few very strange experiences in the past, essentially travelling to weird places, which I guess is a 'sort of' time travel, in a philosophical sense. I mean, how quickly would a person be able to get from A to Z normally, instead of instantly? Hmm.
Still - I do love your plot device of him leaping to another time every time he falls asleep. That's both ingenious and totally fun.
I feel so sad after reading this 😭
https://open.substack.com/pub/scvickers/p/temporal-displacement-with-mushrooms?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=3qcfmg
This is begging for a Quantum Leap quote (the original, thank you, although the reboot was ok). “oh, boy.”
Totally agree about the original (especially the very last episode, which was beautiful). I haven't seen the remake and will probably consciously avoid it...
Good "oh, boy." or bad "oh, boy." ?
Good for reading, bad for your protagonist at the end there!
There might be part two to Larry’s story 😏
Miguel this is insane! I loved it.😂🔥
This was an enjoyable read! I loved it 💜
Alora's Journey
Alright, buttercups, strap in because boy oh boy, do I have a story for you! Remember that time-traveling robot I told you about? Well, hold onto your pumps because things just got a whole lot weirder!
So, our girl Alora? Turns out she's not just any old robot. Nope! She just accessed her origin files and - you're not gonna believe this - she's a futuristic version of a Barbie doll! That's right, a Barbie! But we're not talking about your grandma's Barbie here. Oh no, this is Barbie 3000, now with time travel capabilities and an existential crisis!
Of course! She's still got that classic Barbie figure, you know, the one that makes you go, "Wow, her organs must be the size of peas!" But now she's decked out in more shades of pink than a flamingo convention. We're talking pink metal limbs, blue laser eyes, pink quantum processor - it's like someone dropped her in a vat of Pepto-Bismol and said, "You know what? Not pink enough!"
Now, our Alora Barbie isn't just on a quest to find the perfect pair of plastic pumps. No siree! This gal's on a mission to find her soulmate. Can you imagine? A Barbie doll looking for love across time and space! It's like "The Bachelorette" meets "Doctor Who," with a sprinkle of "Toy Story" for good measure.
But here's the kicker - she can't control her time travel! One minute she's practicing her "Hi Ken!" in the mirror, the next she's watching dinosaurs play beach volleyball with meteors. Talk about your bad hair days!
And get this - she's still got all those language skills. She's like a Universal Translator with great cheekbones. She can say "Come with me if you want to live" in more languages than there are stars in the sky. It's like Rosetta Stone and Mattel had a baby, and that baby got zapped by a time ray!
So, chins up! We're about to dive into the diary of a love-sick, time-hopping, pink-tastic Barbie bot named Alora. It's got more twists than a pretzel factory and more laughs than a hyena watching a comedy special. Are you ready to take a ride in Alora's Dream Time Machine? Let's go, party people!
*strikes a pose and winks*
Haha! They need to make this as the 'Barbie' sequel... 😎
That was a fun read!
I loved the cheeky tone with that surprisingly emotional hit at the end!
Thank you! If Larry’s pills kicked in alright, we might hear more from him in the future, or maybe in the past?
Fun. I really enjoyed this.
Thank you Hanna!
Very nice story, and a very moving ending. It's a bit like what Major Tom says in 'Space Oddity', and it's something that makes the character instantly relatable, despite the incredible circumstances. Great job! Meanwhile, I'm still working on last month's 'Brick'! Haha. It's tricky to fit things in during the summer months, but I think this is a really fun idea and I'm definitely going to try and post something soon... 😎
Cord Corker had not built Anschluss Acquisition into the Valley’s biggest devourer of venture ideas by leaving anything to chance. Or trust. So, when he promised a cool $1 billion in cash to anyone who demonstrated a working Time Machine he demanded proof. And to that end he retained renowned physicist Dr. Alvin Schvitzer from the Colossal Bohr Institute in Geneva to verify any claimant.
Corker and the good PhD thus were gathered in a small conference room along with Corker’s senior staff to substantiate the case of one Dexter Derbil, who confidently asserted that the device in his hand, which to an untrained eye looked like a garage door opener, could cause a stitch in time.
First, Cord proved unable to forego an opportunity for brief oration.
“Who could imagine the power to go back in time, to the crib of a monstrous enemy of society, and strangle such devil before it strikes?”
“Oprah?” wondered Earl from accounting.
“I think he meant Hitler,” replied Earl’s startled neighbor, “but you do you.”
“In any event, we hold such power today. Mr. Derbil, if you will.”
Dexter fiddled with his magic machine and the room was engulfed in a brief flash of light. Following that short burst, the meeting resumed. Apparently, nothing had changed.
It was-Earl who first noticed that his coffee cup was fuller than before the flash. He then checked his watch.
“This meeting started at noon sharp. After a brief (he rolled his eyes) speech, the gizmo went off at maybe 12:10. Well by my watch it is now 12:05. We’ve gone back in time five full minutes.”
Awkward silence followed, until Cord struck. “What is this? This is not what I asked for. What good is this?”
Earl volunteered helpfully, “Well you know how when you are steaming it’s a lot harder to rewind than it was in the old days with cable and DVRs…”
“Not helping,” whispered his neighbor with an elbow.
The CFO had a better idea. “What if the president hits the atomic button by mistake. This would let her go back and undo the error.”
Cord was apoplectic. “I want time travel not electronic white out. Schvitzer??”
The old scientist mulled it over and finally offered his judgment. “It is good (he said it ‘goot’ in his thick Austrian drawl), not great. Actually, it’s not even goot. But it works. It seems your problem is one of scale not function. Pay the man.”
Derbil sheepishly admitted that he hadn’t quite worked out the kinks, actually couldn’t control it at all, adding hopefully that five minutes was a new record.
Corker wired the fortune and cleared the room in a rage.
Earl was last to leave. “I guess maybe it’s a bad time to remind you about the contract that says you can’t go back in time to reverse payment of the reward. Shoot, it’s more than five minutes, might be too late now anyway.”
The last bit of that unhelpful advice was uttered to a slammed door.
Corker, defeated, slammed the worthless Edsel into the trash bin. Inside, a drop of remains from Schvitzer’s discarded coffee cup landed on the controller. Unknown to the other witnesses, the doctor had dosed his Java with a healthy hint of Goldschlager the delicious cinnamon liqueur laden with flecks of real gold. Remember my children that gold is more than an expensive bauble, it also is a metallic element, atomic number 79, and when exposed to the terminals of Derbil’s folly it produced the morning’s second blinding flash and …
Cord stood in a muddy hellscape populated with scrofulous peasants and teeming with vermin. Corpses piled high like cordwood. He stood in a line of ragged wastrels, coughing blood into their filthy cloth masks. On occasion a rat would break from its conga line and theatrically expire on the spot. Corker had taken a minor in history at Stanford (mostly due to a lost fraternity bet, long story) and knew a little about the Dark Ages. He knew 14th century couture when he saw it. This was prime time for the big one, the Black Death, the Plague.
The workers who were passing pails of bubonic waste down a long bucket brigade, noticed the gleaming stranger with alarm.
His Canali shirt and Armani slacks were wholly alien to them, not to mention their shock at someone not caked head to toe with refuse.
They pointed and hollered at the spotless VC, speculating about his origins.
“The son of a god, from Phoebus’ chariot gleaming bright.”
“No, a devil from the spell of a woodlands harridan.”
The foreman quickly got them back in line. “You plebeians. Can’t you see the tailoring. Plainly he’s Italian. In any event get back to work.”
And then to Cord. “You, new guy. Guiseppe. Get in line. That slop’s not gonna move itself.”
Miguel, your flash fiction about flash time traveling was very good. I love the protagonist; I think his generally stoned condition helped him to take the time changes pretty much in his stride. I just might take up the challenge and try a time travel story myself.
Thank you Sandy! Looking forward to see what you come up with :)
Time travels in mysterious waves and if you hold your breath, you missed something that passed you by while looking the other way. My magic carpet ride takes me places, I just say go and she unfurls her curls, stretches out and the u have the ride where the Arabian nights are long and genies smoke lifts spirits from the hookah tube that takes me into realms where Ruby’s navel button pops out and I discover in now rests in places I had not known before when I held my breath down under the covers of sheets on my carpet ride that slips and slides . . .
I loved it! It gave me a nice chuckle! 🤭
Thank you 🙏 that’s what it was supposed to do 😁