You Can Tell the Future

    We’re writers, and we make things up.  I think we can predict the future too, if we put our minds to it.  Pick one or more of the futures on this list and let us know how you see the future.

    • The future of bowling alleys
    • The future of carpools
    • The future of BBQ
    • The future of carnivals
    • The future of the courts
    • The future of pets
    • The future of magic.

    7 Responses

    3. I’d like to now if you got anything interesting with your telephoto lens. Do I hear someone knocking at your door?

    4. The “Yeah, I it was cool” line was supposed to have “I” crossed through, but that isn’t supported here.

    5. Yeah, I was so cool

      I was going to be all cool about it. You know, the old “butter wouldn’t melt” kind of cool. Alaskans aren’t easily impressed, or so we tell ourselves.

      In fact, when three Marine Osprey helicopters flew over my house a few days ago, I didn’t even go outside to watch them, just kept playing Candy Crush on the iPad and wondering about the noise.

      Why, just last night I told myself it was no big deal—those three tilt-rotor Ospreys scheduled to fly over again on their way to Seward. By the way, if you’re going to fly from Anchorage to Seward the most common route is to head up Turnagain Arm on the south side of Anchorage and then fly through the mountain passes.

      That’ll put you right over my house with about thirty miles to go. In fact, if you have a little mechanical problem, or the weather looks impenetrable down by Moose Pass where two passes intersect, why, you could just land right in back of my house on the airstrip my husband built.

      I day-dreamed about one of those Ospreys having to put down on that gravel airstrip. Of course, the other two wouldn’t abandon their buddy and would land, also. Why, I’d march right over there and invite them in for coffee. Oh, snap. I don’t drink coffee. I puzzled about what I could offer them to drink, something besides Coke Zero. Oh, well, I could let them use my restroom.

      So, I went to bed last night. Then I got up and put a pair of pull-on lounging pants and a tee shirt on the floor by my bed. I went back to bed. I got up again, went downstairs and got my good camera—the one with the telephoto lens—put it on the nightstand, aimed in the right direction for grabbing it in a hurry, and went back to bed.

      No big deal, but three Ospreys, man, that won’t happen again!

      Well, my brain flipped a switch at 7:45 A.M. and I was instantly awake. I pulled on the lounging pants, grabbed the camera, and started downstairs.

      Then I caught myself. Geez, Jeanne, you can at least get fully dressed. Be cool, I said, and got dressed. Then I went downstairs and waited. Thirty-nine degrees with a north wind and I opened a north-facing window so I could hear the Ospreys coming.

      I waited. TV volume on low or muted. Every half hour or so, I heard engine noise, grabbed the camera and ran outside. Just jetliners on their way to Anchorage, on their normal route.

      I waited some more. More engine noise, so I went outside just as two Ospreys flew over, flying high and fast! Took photos.

      Wait! Only two? There were supposed to be three. Did I miss one? I went inside. A few minutes later, more engine noise. I went back outside.

      And there they were: a huge Osprey flying low with a Blackhawk two-helicopter escort. Right smack dab over my house! How cool is that? Cooler than I was, I’ll admit.

      I even waved.

      And I stood there on my back deck taking pictures,hoping that someone in those choppers realized I was holding a camera with a telephoto lens extended to the max and not some kind of weapon.

      Why would someone think I was holding a weapon and aiming it at a helicopter?

      Because one of those choppers was Marine One with President Barack Obama, POTUS, on board and on his way to Seward to visit Exit Glacier National Park and cruise around Resurrection Bay on a Coast Guard cutter.

      Yep, a presidential chopper-cade flew right over my house!

      Yeah, I it was cool!

      The only thing cooler would be if they really had landed and I’d walked right over there invited them in. Without getting shot, of course.

    6. Not what you wanted but … what I came up with this morning:

      ……..

      The cat watched with starving interest the drain spout at the corner of the bowling alley, now closed and derelict. Her litter was for the time being safely hidden inside in a ball return. Her milk was drying up. She needed food.

      She crept closer. Her breathing controlled. Her body ready to strike. A nose of a mouse slowly appeared, twitching, smelling for danger. Sensing it was safe the mouse stuck its head out for a look. It never saw the cat.

      The cat sunk its teeth in the neck of the mouse, breaking its neck, and ran toward the safety of the structure. Vandals had broken the front doors and pilfered anything of value. Scavengers had stripped the doorway of its aluminum frame. As the sun set, darkness spread across the dusty lanes, eerie in their silence. Courts had declared martial law with extended curfews and strict punishment for being caught outside past curfew.

      After she fed, she went to her litter and let them nurse. The sounds of rats had been getting louder each night. Her litter would soon become dinner to the growing pack if she didn’t move them tonight.

      The cat clutched a kitten by its neck and crept in silent haste to the outer world. Automobile traffic was non-existent. Humans traveled in packs on bicycles like two-wheeled carpools. The cat remembered the comfort of human dwellings and went on a search for a safe human home.

      She found a house with a crawl space beneath the floor. A small hole provided her access. She carried her kitten to the darkest corner and rested for a moment. The kitten fell asleep, and the cat made its way back to the bowling alley. After five more trips all her kittens were nestled together. They slept the rest of the night.

      Morning came and the cat heard human activity. She began to explore her new surroundings and found a family processing a couple of chickens, plucking their feathers and carving them into smaller pieces. Embers from a fire in a pit glowed in the back yard. There was no electricity. The plucked skin was boiled for broth as well as the bones afterward. She sat in silence, temped to dash for a piece of chicken but fearful of getting caught.

      Soon the aroma of BBQ chicken reached her. She watched the humans eating. Their chicken bones went into the pot as well. One human dropped a bone which lay unnoticed on the ground. The cat ran with all the speed she could muster, clamped her jaws around the bone, and scurried under the house. All this went unseen except for a young girl who quietly followed her. The girl waited patiently until the cat reappeared.

      The girl held another bone in her fingers and called to the cat with her soft voice. The cat remembered children. Some were kind and loving. Others, mean and cruel. But this one had food, and the cat approached with caution. It took several minutes for an inkling of trust to develop and soon the girl was stroking the cat, speaking in her soft voice. The girl gave the cat the bone and watched it retreat through the hole.

      The girl returned to her family and asked for another piece of chicken. Her mother tore a chunk from a thigh and put it on the girl’s plate. The girl thanked her mom and put the piece of chicken in her mouth and ran off to her new friend.

      Cats have no concept of magic. In those days it was live or die. Life was no carnival. But as she crept toward the opening she found the piece of chicken that the girl had not eaten, but had saved for her new friend.

      As time passed the kittens grew past their need for milk. Each evening the girl managed to scrounge a piece of this or that. Often small chunks of canned meat which seemed to have an indefinite shelf life. As the kittens matured they caught the attention of the family. The father wanted to trap them. Her brother wanted to shoot them. But the girl only wanted to love them. And mom wanted to keep them as they were such a simple joy for her daughter.

      Other than starving, the family’s greatest fear was the rats that had been appearing more frequently. They could be heard in the attic and at some places in the walls. One night the girl awoke screaming as a rat had scampered across her tummy as she slept. The family began to sleep in fear.

      As the days passed the family began noticing dead rats at different places across the yard. Some partly eaten. Others showing evidence of a fight and a severe chewing. When a cat brought the father a dead rat and laid it at his feet the cats were now his welcome guests, if not family.