short stories

See previous tweet…

Someone suddenly appeared at his doorstep. He never in fact saw this someone, just heard heavy footsteps creaking the weathered slats of his front porch. Perhaps a psychic, or maybe even a time traveler (if that’s possible), rapped on the large brass hanger that hung eye level on the monolithic frontdoor of his childhood home. The stranger left only a single business card, before disappearing as mysteriously as he had arrived. The boy of 12 slowly opened the door. Its hinges squeaked. And there, on the rough welcome mat, a tiny, neatly printed note.

The rather plain looking 2-inch by 3.5-inch piece of paper read:

Top tweets from mikedelrosso.com

Both hands clutched #burrito, while he spoke into #earbuds. He refused to let a phone #convo impede talking with a full mouth @bolococommons
@TeamCoco Boston is the Wolverine of American cities.”
@TheOnion In Focus: NBA Arrested For Marijuana Possession Onion.com
@natedog4th That pie’s gotta be cold by now!

The year: 1994. In the very first line, “mikedelrosso.com” resembled something he had seen on this brand new computer reality called “The Internet.” Yet he could not comprehend why his name appeared before the “DOT com.” The 12-year-old imagination ran wild on fresh Fresh Prince of Bel-Air episodes and an uncomplicated opinion of the opposite sex, igniting elaborately impossible scenarios. In 1994, these were perfectly viable universes.

The 12-year-old intellect then attempted an extrapolation of “@bolococommons.”

“Where is bolo- bolo- bolocommons?” he said. “Boloco Commons? Boloco on the Commons.” The imagination took it one step too far. “Boston Local Commons,” the 12-year-old said. “Oh, so they change Boston Common to ‘The Local Boston Commons.'” The odorless scent of humor wafted his 12-year-old nose.

He knew who Wolverine was. The early-’90s 12-year-old logged some serious hours watching Marvel’s animated X-Men TV show.

@TeamCoco needed some explaining. @ConanOBrien was barely causing ripples in the toilet, let alone lighting up the Nielson ratings, in 1994. And it would be a decade and a half before @tomhanks coined Conan as Coco.

He believed that the entire NBA had been arrested for marijuana possession, which was devastating. He was really into basketball that year. The 1980s-born @celtics dynasty had fallen, but the Chicago Bulls were about to conclude the athletic trilogy of a 3-peat. @Jumpman23 believed he could fly.

He read the last tweet.

He wondered, “Who was @natedog4th?”

Or was it Nate Dog IV? And why did he care how cold the pie was? If only, he could see the previous tweet.

Also, What is a tweet? he thought.

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short stories

Timing is nothing…

Our top story tonight: time travel is impossible. Scientists at Stanford University have proven that time, in fact, does not exist. It turns out to be a built-in mechanism within the human brain that helps to make sense of our reality. It actually creates the construct for our perceivable world. Biologists in the Beckman Center for Molecular & Genetic Medicine have isolated the gene that spurs creation of this mechanism into our frontal lobe, which is responsible for the reasoning centers of our brain. Much like the heartbeat, this biological ticker moves at a metronome’s tempo, more precise than even the most highly tuned and advanced time-keeping computers to date. It is for this reason that, scientists believe, all living humanity feel that they share in a collective time, when, in fact, within each of the now over seven billion people inhabiting this planet, an individual and unique ticker keeps them in stride. These scientists also speculate that anomalies, like psychics, are able to tap into this temporal center of the brain, accelerating or decelerating it, rewinding it or replaying it like the controls of a DVR machine, to achieve a sense beyond the realms of everyday existence. So, though we can’t physically travel to a distant altogether separate point in time from the present, we can view potential outcomes via these mediums and even have intimate glimpses into our past.

More and more psychics emboldened by this newfound legitimacy, all corners of society have emerged from the wordwork seeking out their advice for what the not-too-distant future may hold. Their answers for the fields of technology, medicine and even the spiritual world of enlightenment seem like something out of a science fiction novel. Yet, for this reporter, it may be only a matter of “time” before I report these incidences as fact. Here’s some of the more shocking “pre”-news…

Our most profound report comes from Shirley Surely, a tarot card reader from Kenosha, Wisconsin. She predicts that the world’s increasing dependence and simultaneous development of the Internet will eventually give birth to an all-knowing God-creature at the precise point when the World Wide Web reaches the complexity capable of housing intelligent life. Where literally every aspect of society (and in some cases humanity) is controlled by this now omnipotent being, civilization will be at complete and utter mercy to its will. Let’s hope He or She is nice.

Other Internet pre-news includes a modern-day Dark Ages of Creation. As every seemingly perceivable concept can be published at the click of a button, in the open for all to see, everyone now lacks the discipline to cultivate original ideas, as they knowingly or unknowingly are just plagiarizing from some other sector of the Web. This constant “wired in” feeling has thus shut down the centers of the brain responsible for dreaming, drawing from the more natural truer realms of pure inspiration. In this possible future, the bright, city-cyberspace lights have drowned out our mystical stars of creativity in the distant night sky.

More on this story, at 11…

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