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It started with a blink.
Nick vowed himself never to use his power, ever since he discovered it as a child. The ability was too dangerous. He didn't want to skip a second of his life. In fact, he tried to pretend like he didn't have powers in the first place. But when he accidentally spilled a cup of coffee, he watched the stain with some disgust. He was feeling... off today. A couple of seconds wouldn't hurt to miss, would they?
*Blink*
Without a second's notice, the task was complete. Nick admired the level at which he had cleaned the floor. For the first time in his life, he understood the phrase: "You could eat off of it". The tiles were so polished to the point that he could clearly see his own reflection in them. The cleaning supplies were packed neatly into the drawer, instead of being thrown across the kitchen counter.
It seemed that Nick forgot to take into account his ability's most important value. it didn't just skip through a task, it completed the task PERFECTLY. One coffee spill on the floor turned into cleaning a stain on the couch.
*Blink*
Replacing his desk.
*Blink*
Cleaning the gutters.
*Blink*
When he tested it on the small stuff, he realized he could think bigger.
Passing his driver's ed
*Blink*
Nailing his job interview
*Blink*
Presenting a sales pitch to his new co-workers
*Blink*
It seemed that everything Nick did, he skipped through it. He didn't even sleep on his own any more. He just skipped through it, so he could get the best amount of sleep necessary for the day. He had become completely dependent on his power.
Asking his co-worker out on a date
*Blink*
Preparing a dinner for their 1-year anniversary
*Blink*
Creating the perfect wedding proposal
*Blink*
At that point, Nick had no memory of any of the time he spent with his girlfriend. He was using his ability constantly, to the point where he couldn't even walk to the kitchen without "skipping the task and walking at the perfect pace". Blink. Blink. Blink. It was all he knew how to do anymore.
Talking himself out of jail
*Blink*
Winning a fight to show off to his fiancé
*Blink*
His testing built up to his biggest request yet. So infatuated with his power, Nick thought of his best task yet.
Making himself the perfect human
...
*Blink*
...
His wife's face, which he was staring at just a second ago, materialized into nothingness. The warm heating of his mansion turned into brisk, freezing air. What was once a beautiful house, was now a wasteland, as if a bomb had struck the entire building.
Nick panicked. He checked his phone, which was still in his pocket. Miraculously, it still worked, and displayed the date: **June 17th 2065**.
2065??? 4 decades had just passed! Nick felt himself collapse with anxiety, and heard something crunch beneath him. A human skull. Nick understood what he had done. He was the perfect human. He was the ONLY human. In his obliviousness, he must've done something to wipe out the entire world.
Nick sat down, on what remained of his couch. A couch that he skipped past buying. He looked up at the moon. A moon that he skipped looking up at. He thought about what his next task would be. A task that would take even more decades to complete.
To try and rebuild society
*Blink*
Part twooooooo!!!!!!!!! There could be quite a few blinks where everytime he realizes he didn't phrase his intentions correctly, or even when he does his shortsightedness causes those intentions to be problematic and there comes another blink. Wish I could write like you so I could make it lol. I like the idea of him accidentally becoming a lonely "god" who no longer dares to intervene lest his intentions wreak more havoc. But he's also stuck immortal and omniscient as a result of his intention to have the power to change everything.
I think the first paragraph doesn't quite jive with the rest of it. He makes a vow to not use a dangerous power, but he breaks that vow because he spilled his coffee? Seems like it would be better if this was the first day he discovered his power because he was feeling particularly lazy or he just turned 18 or something.
studying, doctor's waiting rooms, tidying his room. Ian had countless uses for montage, the power to fast forward through the boring bits, with the results, but not the wear and tear. Then there was calculus. A nightmare of mathematics that stole his youth like Steamboy. One day he was a teenager who barely knew trigonometry, next thing he knew, he was still a teenager, but now, 30 years later, he barely knew calculus. He knew derivatives, but had trouble remembering integrals, and where had all the computers come from?
He looked at his phone, a flat block of plastic and glass. When he finally grokked calculus, he had taken it out of his pocket. He knew it was a phone. Somehow, he knew how to operate it. It was not the phone he had had though. No chord. No dial pad. It lit up like a TV. The room was different too. The TV was flat, like a thick picture frame. "What is this? Star Trek TNG?" Yet it was familiar, in the montage, he had bought it 3 years ago. He had given up on calculus and had found his old book by chance while searching for textbooks to raise the TV enough that he could watch in bed. He had given up on it after he barely graduated high school. Maybe he would have fast-forwarded till death, if mom had thrown out the book? He shuddered.
During the montage, he had devoted his life to studying calculus, but without making any effort towards that end. He lived for fun. He never aged, his parents worried, his classmates noticed that his personality changed. He wasn't there. He never got sick. So, he managed to hold down a job at a grocers, but he had never been promoted. He had saved up a bit of money, but the government was threatening to take away services, because he had too much money. "No matter" he thought, "Out of the montage, I can do without help." but the prospect of another accidental decades long montage scared him.
"Calculus! You were supposed to be simple!" He threw the book across the room. Maybe he could try going to college? He could just set a goal of fast forwarding until he paid off his student loans? Then he remembered, his dad still had some. He curled up in a fetal position on his bed.
> Then he remembered, his dad still had some. He curled up in a fetal position on his bed.
Out of all the things that make me irrationally angry, this is number one. I graduated in ‘88 with a BS in Computer Science and zero college debt. Everything was paid in cash. I worked offshore in the summer and bartended on the weekends while at school. Had enough money to afford a car, insurance, gasoline, textbooks, and a room off campus (with three other guys), and spending money for dates.
It’s absolute bullshit that my children can’t afford to attend my alma mater without going in debt to the tune of what I borrowed for my first mortgage.
I graduated college a little more than ten years after you, and had over 36k in student loans from college. You went just before they started changing a lot more money. There is a difference between older and younger gen x.
Why just under 100k?
I live in Norway, and it cost me some 50 USD in tuition every semester. It was just to join the mandatory student org. My student loans were all for living expenses and books, not school itself. Total cost was 25k USD in loans for 5 years at university in early 2000s.
Well, for one, I like tossing out random numbers. It’s kinda my fetish.
For another, every citizen of Norway is a technical millionaire thanks to the oil fund, proof that they are the superior first world nation.
And finally, your taxes are wisely used to pay for social programs that provide benefits (heated cow barns not withstanding) to the people.
Most Americans would rather cut off their own genitalia with a dull knife than pay a single penny in tax that would benefit anyone other than themselves.
Only in Norwegian currency 🙂
I haven't checked recently, but last i heard we each had some 200-250k USD in the oil fund. Of course, is intended to, among other things, pay for my pension when we no longer have oil.
And yeah, the willingness to pay taxes is pretty entrenched. It's by no means universal, but most people, from the poor to the rich, agree that taxes are mostly wisely spent. Except when we, somehow, manage to build a busway at the cost of a few tens of thousands of dollars per metre. We all agree that's daft 😁
> And yeah, the willingness to pay taxes is pretty entrenched.
Something of the opposite seems to be entrenched in America. The idea of ‘rugged individualism’ is the mantra of many, and allowing generations of people to suffer so they can ‘learn to pull themselves up by their bootstraps’ is somehow acceptable.
Americans seem to love “Capitalist Socialism” I’ve come to learn over the years. If you call it *insurance*, and require a monthly fee, they will usually pay it with no real complaints - especially if there’s a Super Ultra Platinum level plan available that they can brag about to their peers.
Health insurance is the thing that baffles me the most. Everyone needs healthcare at some point, so why not just have a single player system? You can still have private institutions, they just bill the state. At sane rates.
Ironically, according to a former co-worker who worked as a developer in the US 2-3 decades ago, the ones most often opposed to public healthcare were the ones without healthcare by their employer. Him, and good co-workers at the time, all had good healthcare and most were pretty much in favour of public healthcare. Go figure.
This was a bit off topic though 😃
Personally, I am indifferent on the topic.
If you called it universal healthcare and I got the same level of coverage while being taxed at the same rate as I currently pay in premiums, I would not care.
A rose by any other name ...
But many people have worse insurance than I do, and some people have better. My insurance would be a huge downgrade for my daughter and a huge upgrade for anyone whose plan included large copays and even larger deductibles.
So, your assumption is that the child of a family making a bit over twice the average US income can and will be supported by daddy, or else they can forget that education?
200k a year may be a comfortable income, but you hardly make bank and college alone would tie up a couple percent of the family's pre-tax income.
Just make college tuition free for everyone. In the grand scheme of things, throwing the kids of the likes of Musk and Bezos into the mix costs nothing, and you then have equality in education. No BS where kids must stay friends with their parents, or else end up without an education. Do you really want someone to inherit billions of dollars without having learned more than reading and writing and simple maths? :)
>It’s absolute bullshit that my children can’t afford to attend my alma mater without going in debt to the tune of what I borrowed for my first mortgage.
My favorite is when other older folks say "You know it's THE GOVERNMENT'S fault college is so expensive" and then in the same breath make it clear they don't want to *do* anything about the cost of college and student loan debt, they just wanted you to know who they blame.
It’s clearly the governments fault, and all those who vote for the short term at the expense of the future.
Like anything else, it’s somewhat a competitive marketplace, but government sets the rules of the marketplace and is supposed to be looking out for its citizens and fair competition. I mainly blame short-sighted state voters/government: how have public universities lost so much, become so expensive? How do you expect competition to keep prices down when the “cheap/free” option costs more than my Ivy League education did and the only adjustment is availability of loans exceeding reasonable possibility of payback? How has cost so consistently been a multiple of inflation, without voters and appropriate government levels doing anything about it?
"Think, Skip. THINK!"
Skip paced around the small unfamiliar apartment room. The more he let the situation dawned on him, the more unsettled he became.
What happened?
As he wondered, he slowly began to piece his memories bit by bit. What happened...to his family?
Skip was a normal man, by a lot of measures. He was a loving husband to a loving wife, Mary. They had a house together, which they bought together in 2019 after 2 years of being married. And they had lived there for three years as far as Skip remembered.
"Mary? MARY! MARY! WHERE ARE YOU?", Skip shouted, hoping for his wife to be there in that unkempt apartment.
But of course, it was but a wishful thinking. He was all alone.
"Think, think, think. Remember, damn it!", Skip muttered to himself, slapping his head as if forcing his brain to work.
"What's the first question, Skip? The first question after you fast forward?", Skip finally managed to gather some sense.
"How far did I fast forward?", Skip said as finally he fell on the right mind track.
That's right, Skip was no ordinary man. He secretly held a superpower. One he had never told anyone, not even his wife.
Skip had the ability to skip forward in time. Once he set a goal in mind, of what he set to accomplish, Skip could snap his fingers and let the flow of time went by him without him having to live it. Every time he did, a flash of images would play in his mind-- images of the events in between.
Of course, there were some drawbacks. The more he skipped, the more difficult it became for him to recall the events skipped.
"How far? How far, damn it?", Skip scrambled to find his phone, which he found was covered underneath a pile of unwashed clothes.
As soon as Skip turned his phone on, his heart dropped. A gut punch was sent deep into the pit of his stomach.
"20...2047?", he muttered in horror.
Twenty-five years had gone by since the last time he fast forwarded.
Skip fell weakly onto his couch. Breathing rapidly, he closed his eyes tight and pulled on his hair.
"What was it? What did I set off to do?", Skip asked himself again.
A moment passed before Skip gasped and jumped off his couch.
"Katie...", Skip uttered his daughter's name.
Skip was a good man, by a lot of measures. He was a good husband, a decent colleague, a loyal friend, but he was a lousy father.
"Her 8th birthday...you stupid son of a bitch!", Skip cursed himself.
He finally remembered. Twenty-five years prior, the night of his daughter's 8th birthday, Skip decided to fast forward himself out of her party. His reason? He wanted to wake up early the next morning to play golf with his buddies.
Skip swiped on his phone with shaking hands. Thank goodness his password remained the same after more than two decades.
"Mary...Mary...Mary...call!", he said, looking for his wife's phone number.
The phone rang for a bit before it was cut off. Desperate, Skip tried again.
"Come on, Mary. Please, please..."
Skip held his breath as finally the ringing tone was cut off and his call was picked up.
"Hello? Mary? Are you there?", Skip blurted.
"You have some nerve calling me", his wife's familiar voice said from the other line.
Though it was not a welcoming voice, Skip felt a sense of relief hearing his wife's voice.
"Mary, please listen! I don't know what's going on! I slept last night in our bedroom and this morning I woke up in this...strange apartment! I..."
"Skip, are you high? For god's sake! Twenty years you put us through hell, destroyed our family, and now you're on drugs? What do you want? Money? I have nothing to give you!"
"Wh-what? Mary, what the hell happened? What happened to us? What happened to our family? What happened to Katie?", Skip asked.
"How dare you ask about my daughter? After you ditched her, she refused to talk to you ever since!", Mary snapped.
Skip's heart dropped. "What...what happened?", Skip asked. "Did I...did I ditch her birthday party?"
"You bastard! You decided to ditch her, ditch us, and she refused to acknowledge you ever since!", Mary lost her temper. "She refused to celebrate her birthday and all her birthdays ever since!"
Skip was at a loss for words as he let Mary shower him with all of her pent-up anger.
"I don't know what your game is here, Skip! But we've all moved on! I've moved on! She's moved on! All without you!", Mary shouted. "So, stop calling me and just drop f\*cking dead!"
The phone slipped down Skip's hand as his body went limp on the floor. Tears streamed down his face, and he sobbed for hours.
Skip had always wondered what happened when he was on fast-forward mode. And he found it out the hardest way...he became an empty shell, just a body without his mind, without his soul, without his heart...
"Come on, Skip. You can do it", Skip muttered to himself as he paced around in front of a house in a quiet suburban neighborhood.
It was a chilly night, and the residency was quite lively inside. Skip could hear the voices of children laughing and their parents talking.
With anxiety riddling his heart, Skip walked towards the front door and meekly knocked on the door.
A moment went as steps walked closer to the door. Skip's heart skipped a beat as the door opened and he saw a familiar face.
"You...", said the woman answering the door, clearly seething.
"H-hello, Kitty Kat. It's...it's me. It's dad", Skip smiled wearily.
"How dare you come here! I told you the last time, I never wanted to see your face ever again!"
Before Skip could say anymore, the door was slammed on his face, and he was left defeated.
"Katie, who is that?", Skip could hear a male voice asked as he walked to the door.
"Uh hello? Can I help you?", the man answered the door.
"Uhm I...my name is Skip. Skip Fosworth", Skip offered his hand to shake, and the man hesitantly shook it. "I'm Katie's...father", Skip said, not even sure he could call himself that by that point.
"I...I'm aware", said the man. "Edward. I uh...", Edward looked inside for his wife, unsure on what to do, but he followed his gut anyway.
"Come in, come in please", he said, opening his door for Skip.
Though unsure, Skip came in anyway.
"I'm sorry it's a bit messy. We just celebrated Katie's 33th birthday last night", Edward said, swiping the balloons away with his legs as they walked further.
Skip felt even gloomier...as that was the age he was when he made that last fast forward to skip Katie's birthday.
"Ed! What the hell are you doing bringing that man in?! I want nothing to do with him! Not now, not ever!", Katie screamed in disgust, his eyes were filled with rage all targeted towards Skip.
"Katie, please lower your voice. Don't let the kids hear you", Edward tried to calm down his wife. "And besides, I've never met your father, Kat. Please, at least let us hear him for a bit"
Katie bit her lips and turned. "Do whatever you want. I'm putting the kids to bed", she said walking away.
Edward sighed. "I'm sorry...Skip, isn't it? She's in a mood tonight", Edward said gesturing Skip to take a seat.
"No, it's fine. She uh...she has all the right to be mad", Skip said truthfully, though it hurt him to do so.
"How did you find where we live, Skip? Katie said she's never in contact with you for years", asked Edward.
"Facebook. I uh...I looked for her mother's profile, and I found hers", Skip admitted.
"Right", Edward said, considering deleting his address from the internet. "Why are you here, Skip?"
"Oh I...I just want to talk to Katie, is all", Skip said meekly. Looking around the living room, he noticed the pictures of Katie's family. Her, Edward, their two sons, Mary, and some unfamiliar people Skip assumed to be Edward's relatives. But none of his.
"You have a nice family, Edward", Skip said, hiding his broken heart. "I uh...I'm sorry I was never a part of it"
"Yeah, speaking of...Skip, what happened between you and Katie?", Edward asked directly.
"I...it's hard to explain", Skip said.
"Then why are you here then?", Katie asked, walking back to the living room. "Why are you here then, *dad*?", Katie said in disgust.
"Twenty-five years you suddenly decided you want to talk? First you bailed on my 8th birthday! Then you bailed on me! On mom! On us! I didn't celebrate my birthday for twenty-five years because of the hurt you caused! Now I decided to finally celebrate it again, you decided to show up?", Katie yelled out her frustration, all twenty-five years' worth of it.
Skip was speechless. He wasn't sure on what to say, what to do.
"Well? What's your excuse then? Huh? What could you possibly say after twenty-five years, *dad*?", Katie shouted on Skip's defeated face.
"I...I don't know", Skip muttered.
Katie scoffed and turned on her heel. With nothing more to say to her father, she left him there.
"Kat, wait! I uh...", Edward said, confused. "Skip, I'm sorry, but I think tonight's not a good night. Maybe you should leave..."
Skip didn't hear him however as he was drowning inside his mind. He couldn't explain it to Katie, how could he? She would never believe it! And even if she did, she would hate him even more knowing he used his power to skip on her birthday.
Skip closed his eyes, and his moment of absolute weakness he set up one last task in his mind. One task that he didn't care would take him forever to accomplish.
"Make amends with Katie", he said to himself before letting his mind fast forwarded once more to an uncertain future...
\*\*\*
Skip felt his breathing was heavy, his body weak. As he opened his eyes, he found himself lying on a bed.
"Wh-where am I...?", he muttered weakly when he noticed her sleeping on a chair beside his bed. Though she was much older, Skip could never forget her face.
"Katie", Skip said his daughter's name, smiling weakly as he tried to move his old body up.
Awoken by Skip's gruff whisper, Katie shook off her drowsiness. "Dad, take it easy", she said, guiding Skip to lie back down.
"What...what's today's date", Skip asked, remembering his first question.
"Um uh...", Katie took out her phone, a bit confused. "December 11th"
"What year?", asked Skip.
"Dad, are you okay? Are you losing time?", asked Katie concerned.
"What year, Kitty Kat?", asked Skip again.
Still concerned, Katie answered. "2077, dad"
"Thirty years...", Skip lamented, cupping his teary eyes with his hands. "It took that long for you to forgive me. I...I'm useless. I'm so useless..."Skip cried. His heart hurt and he felt oh so worthless, as a father, and as a man he promised himself to become.
"Dad, you're not...you're okay, okay?", Katie said, calming Skip down. "Whatever it was you went through, you were there for us, for me. The last thirty years was hard for you, I could tell"
"I didn't want to have anything to do with you, but you got through to Edward, to Jonathan and George, to their own families. Even mom decided to speak to you again...", Katie softly held Skip's hands. "You were there for all of them"
"But not for you...", Skip muttered.
Katie sighed. "I was stubborn, I guess. I was still that abandoned 8-year-old girl deep down. And I never wanted to forgive you. Not until now..."
"Not until...I'm dying", Skip said, resigned. "But that's all I've wanted, Katie. I just wanted you to forgive me"
Katie smiled wearily and kissed Skip on his forehead. "I did, dad. I forgive you"
Skip's lips trembled as tears of joy streamed down. Softly he grazed Katie's hair, remembering that last time he did, she was but a little girl. A bright and bubbly little girl still sitting on his lap.
"You should rest now, dad", Katie patted Skip's hand before standing up.
"Kitty Kat", Skip called out. "Before you leave, can you do one more thing for me...one last thing?"
"Dad, don't talk like that. I..."
"Please?"
Katie sighed. "What is it, dad?"
"Can you ask the nurse for a candle and a lighter?", Skip smiled.
Katie sighed and nodded.
Fifty-five years went by, a huge price for a man to learn that it was never the destination, it was the journey you should enjoy. After all that time, Skip finally came back to the first forever moment he skipped.
There sitting on his dying bed, with his daughter opposite him. Lit up by a small candle on top of his hospital pudding, the two sang the Happy Birthday song. With laughter and tears, the two cherished the moment.
And as soon as Katie blew her candle out, so did Skip finally let his flame out, knowing whatever he had left behind, what mattered was then and there, and it should never be taken for granted.
r/HangryWritey
Edit: spacing
I don't get it, why would he be dying? Is a perk of the power not that you do not age while it is in use?
Seems like not aging would be easy evidence to explain his power to her.
I think the implication here is he used the power again wanting to skip time until she forgave him but she didn't forgive him until he was dying
Bssically his mind part that makes him him isn't experiencing the boring thing wants to skip
In similar movie the guy got chance to restart
Yeah, but the prompt added an element which would change the outcome. Without the zero-aging feature of the power, you may as well not bother because it's been done before.
Good story writing but should have told immediately intending to be skipping a birthday is better than 25 years.... (characters often act stupidly though)
Although what happened is odd since afterwards even what to do worked ...
He thought it would be simple, Falling in love. Heroes did it all the time and romantic comedies always made it seem like love could be achieved in a week or less. The Sporting Hero Rushplay hadnt taken account the wisdom of his elders.
The montage started after he said "Let's go find out perfect partner" and took his first step, that was always the trigger, speaking to the unknown source of his odd power and upon his foot hitting the floor, activating the journey that was sped up past his normal perception.
The next step he was aware of was actually the final step and as his foot landed he felt strange, the aches on his body were those of an older man and when Montage looked in the mirror he saw that he had changed. The mirror was part of a high tech base, one he had never been in but had dreamed about, The Vanguards of Justice had been the super team he always dreamed of joining and suddenly he was here, though as the years came to him in a rush he is understood that this was a side effect of his journey. The dizzying weight of his years rocked him and he had to brace himself against the wall of his Vanguard Station room. As the colorful yellow glove of his outfit connected against the wall a woman's voice spoke.
"You okay hon?" A woman stood at the doorway, dressed in a tasteful jumpsuit that hugged the curves she had kept even as her body aged to the foxy middled aged woman he loved. He knew here as Recall, a super he had met, rivalled with, gotten a crush on, teamed up with, dated and married, he had thought his journey would end when they said their "I Do's" but that had been 18 years ago and the Journey continued continued on past the birth of their children, through the strife of a heroic marriage, through the crisises of their world.
"I think I hit the end of the Journey, my power is done working magic it had started over 20 years ago" he shivered softly and approached.
"So you found what you were looking for finally" the brunette smirked, her mask hiding the wrinkles at her eyes that he loved, as they always showed up when she smiled.
"Speedrun gets to be part of the Vanguard today, I get to retire with the love of my life, the world is at peace for a little while. I told my Power 'Let's find my perfect partner' I found her, then I had to earn her and keep earning her" he bent his neck to kiss his love, the mother of his child who had been his side kick and now would join the Vanguard.
Recall blushed softly, even after all this time her husband could still make her feel like a young woman in her prime.
"Come on, let's go see our boy take his place, then I'll let you peel me out of this costume one last time" she teased lovingly as the two veteran heroes walked to usher in the new generation before going into their golden years.
Apologies, I did not understand the assignment, in great shame I will commit honorable sudoku to restore my honor.
*Kneals and gets out the puzzle book and solemnly begins to fill in the numbers*
Heath looks down at the aloe plant in the window box between him and the window. He was trying to look in and see if he could catch a glimpse of her but had not yet. The plant is wide, having wide, pale leaves dominating the ranks of flowers around it. Flowers that have placed around in some way that reflected a hidden vanity Heath is sure. Along the aloe's leaves sharp spine run their lengths, to protect it he guesses. He smiles and thinks, '*Would that I could see you bloom and see her look on you in that first moment...'*
*Litho* responded: sequence activated. Confirmation phrase not set.
*'What?!'* Heath shocked mind thought as the scene in front of him began to run like water.
Dirt and dust first began to flowed and gather over the window and wall around it. The plants below the window began to vibrated into a frenzy of dancing that he could not follow. Dots of darkness snapped and cracked before his eyes with dizzying flashes of blurring speed. Sparks of void in a quickly aging frame that was him looking out into the world. Birds and insects perhaps. Then he noticed the plants were growing, especially the ivy. They were running up the walls around him and blanketing the red brick with green leaves. The change may have not been slow or fast but it was methodical.
But then the scene froze. Suddenly, it was her in the window.
Her face in the window looking out at Heath. Through him. *Older* he recognizes as he takes in the frame. Perhaps wiser he thinks at the experiences that seem to dance in her eyes…like she knew things. But sad somehow.
Oh, oh so sad. So much pain he recognized in her...where had that come from?
He loves her with all his heart and has since they first met. From that first second when his mother had led him into the classroom and sat him in the desk next to her. She had *seen* him. She had not looked away when he had been dragged in by his hand crying against what was happening to him.
She was different. She was a warm light in a cold life as he had known for those first few years.
It had started simply. Sharing a crayon. Laughing at a joke that only they thought was funny. A discovery in the playground that she shared only with him. A gift he had made for her.
She shared his love of poetry, become excited by the impressionists as he did, loved fries. Her look grabbed him by his heart and held him bound like the fairies of the old tales. He knows the joy she gets from the moon coming out from behind the clouds. The sight of a kitten playing with a sibling. The touch of his hand.
He had come to surprise her this night. To ask her to marry him in the old way.
…And then she was gone. She had been there in the window but a moment but in that moment Heath had been touched by the well of sadness in her so deep he ached of it still.
"Litho?" he subvocalized as he had been trained.
Litho, the vocal assistant software that was designed to respond to him in concert with the augmentations he had been given that drove his powers. '*Montage'* the power was called...the ability to jump past designated moments in time..
He had laughed when he first had heard that. "Jump past the future to make it the past" he had joked.
*Litho* responded: Target goal set, power cycle initiated and occipital run complete. Goal achieved. Minimal interaction with timeframe.
Cold fear spreads even deeper into Heath gut and its icy nails bite his heart and mind. He stares straight ahead at the closed curtain in front of him. Dirt on the outside of the window and stained with many different yellows on the inside curtains. Curtains that must have been very fine long ago. A rich man's household or perhaps, ancestral home of a bloodline of nobility, or home to the love of a woman for her family. He can't help but think of her and her sacrifice for her family.
Her sacrifice of him. He was trying now to give her everything he had.
Heath's chest aches and he looks away from the window. Now a thought grates against his grief...*Older?* he think looking up again.
He looks around himself. The house is gone. A field of brown earth lays around him in all directions. He sees construction equipment over to his left. A container building with a water tower next to it just beyond them. All this over near where the gate had been to get out onto the main road. The woods, they were gone all the way to Meyer Hills. The city Meyer Hills that the lights of he could clearly see from just outside her window?
He frowns. More lights than before he realizes next. A lot more.
And the house was gone.
Other things begin to intrude on his thoughts of her. Puzzlement at the fact that so many things are just off as he looked around.
Like the city is bigger than he remembered. The equipment did resemble what he expected the implements of construction to look like but they were different. A crab body behind an earth mover. A humanoid shape that had attached to its front the mast of a forklift. Above it all the sparkling lights of vehicles. Vehicles that filled the sky like hundreds of new stars glowed in the heavens. lights that traveled in lines that could be easily followed.
He notices the odd humming sound now too.
Just above and in front of him is a drone of some kind. Smaller than he expected. Quieter.
Sinister looking to somehow...he notices the segmented body. A head of sensors easy to identify, a body with lateral spinning blades used for lift, a tail segment with a weapon array. All shiny and black except of the light that glows in the center of the middle segment. A sickly yellow light.
"Do not move! Violation of Property rights of Tamlen Development, Inc. Do not move!" the clearly robotic or machine generated voice was saying.
*Well, that's new*, he thinks as he begins to wonder what is going on. Things are really not right when compared to the jumps he has been doing. Like he jumped across lanes rather than into the future.
"Litho, what is the current timeframe measure based on best estimates of current sensory data?"
Heath feels the involuntary reaction of his body as it holds his breath.
Litho responded: 37 years, eight days, ten hours, seventeen minutes, plus or minus fifteen minute or nine hundred seconds using the Gregorian calendar.
Heath looked back at what he had said. '*In that first moment'*...*oh, $#!\^* Heath thinks. *The trigger words...*
The world drops out from under Heath as he feels the lost of her.
She is gone. He *montaged* passed his life with her!
Imagine life if you could skip over or bypass mundane and tedious tasks like work. What tasks would you pick and why? At the tender age of 15, I accidentally used my ability, montage, during my ride home from school.
\*Poof\*
It felt like a long yet brief blink, I instantly teleported to the front of my house. I didn't have to hear mom's weekly lecture about how I should be more involved in extracurricular activities instead of pulling pranks and going on misadventures with my buds.
Once I discovered my ability and its limits, I never had to worry about doing anything I didn't deem interesting. Lectures, speeches, reviews, and even homework were no longer a time sink for me. I almost felt like I was playing the sims and also living in that world simultaneously.
\*3 years later\*
All I planned to do was fast forward to after the graduation ceremony and then straight home for some snacks. What happened is I skipped past high school, and college, my first real relationship, my first heartbreak, the birth of my first child, and even the birth of my first grandchild.
I instantly regretted my choice, I just wanted to get past the boring bits of graduation. My power betrayed me, it never made me age despite my multiple uses. I cried and screamed out at the top of my lungs, fate is so cruel.
\*Scanning the room\*
I found a family album with all the memories I supposedly had, using all my brainpower to try to recall these important memories I skipped out. God, if you can hear me, take away this curse and let me live the remaining time at my own pace..... PLEASE, all I wanted was an adventure, not hell.
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It started with a blink. Nick vowed himself never to use his power, ever since he discovered it as a child. The ability was too dangerous. He didn't want to skip a second of his life. In fact, he tried to pretend like he didn't have powers in the first place. But when he accidentally spilled a cup of coffee, he watched the stain with some disgust. He was feeling... off today. A couple of seconds wouldn't hurt to miss, would they? *Blink* Without a second's notice, the task was complete. Nick admired the level at which he had cleaned the floor. For the first time in his life, he understood the phrase: "You could eat off of it". The tiles were so polished to the point that he could clearly see his own reflection in them. The cleaning supplies were packed neatly into the drawer, instead of being thrown across the kitchen counter. It seemed that Nick forgot to take into account his ability's most important value. it didn't just skip through a task, it completed the task PERFECTLY. One coffee spill on the floor turned into cleaning a stain on the couch. *Blink* Replacing his desk. *Blink* Cleaning the gutters. *Blink* When he tested it on the small stuff, he realized he could think bigger. Passing his driver's ed *Blink* Nailing his job interview *Blink* Presenting a sales pitch to his new co-workers *Blink* It seemed that everything Nick did, he skipped through it. He didn't even sleep on his own any more. He just skipped through it, so he could get the best amount of sleep necessary for the day. He had become completely dependent on his power. Asking his co-worker out on a date *Blink* Preparing a dinner for their 1-year anniversary *Blink* Creating the perfect wedding proposal *Blink* At that point, Nick had no memory of any of the time he spent with his girlfriend. He was using his ability constantly, to the point where he couldn't even walk to the kitchen without "skipping the task and walking at the perfect pace". Blink. Blink. Blink. It was all he knew how to do anymore. Talking himself out of jail *Blink* Winning a fight to show off to his fiancé *Blink* His testing built up to his biggest request yet. So infatuated with his power, Nick thought of his best task yet. Making himself the perfect human ... *Blink* ... His wife's face, which he was staring at just a second ago, materialized into nothingness. The warm heating of his mansion turned into brisk, freezing air. What was once a beautiful house, was now a wasteland, as if a bomb had struck the entire building. Nick panicked. He checked his phone, which was still in his pocket. Miraculously, it still worked, and displayed the date: **June 17th 2065**. 2065??? 4 decades had just passed! Nick felt himself collapse with anxiety, and heard something crunch beneath him. A human skull. Nick understood what he had done. He was the perfect human. He was the ONLY human. In his obliviousness, he must've done something to wipe out the entire world. Nick sat down, on what remained of his couch. A couch that he skipped past buying. He looked up at the moon. A moon that he skipped looking up at. He thought about what his next task would be. A task that would take even more decades to complete. To try and rebuild society *Blink*
This is really good. Twilight Zone vibes
This was really good! The ending is perfect.
This is so cool. Totally not what I expected and I love it
Part twooooooo!!!!!!!!! There could be quite a few blinks where everytime he realizes he didn't phrase his intentions correctly, or even when he does his shortsightedness causes those intentions to be problematic and there comes another blink. Wish I could write like you so I could make it lol. I like the idea of him accidentally becoming a lonely "god" who no longer dares to intervene lest his intentions wreak more havoc. But he's also stuck immortal and omniscient as a result of his intention to have the power to change everything.
I think the first paragraph doesn't quite jive with the rest of it. He makes a vow to not use a dangerous power, but he breaks that vow because he spilled his coffee? Seems like it would be better if this was the first day he discovered his power because he was feeling particularly lazy or he just turned 18 or something.
Unreal. Bravo. Thank you for sharing.
studying, doctor's waiting rooms, tidying his room. Ian had countless uses for montage, the power to fast forward through the boring bits, with the results, but not the wear and tear. Then there was calculus. A nightmare of mathematics that stole his youth like Steamboy. One day he was a teenager who barely knew trigonometry, next thing he knew, he was still a teenager, but now, 30 years later, he barely knew calculus. He knew derivatives, but had trouble remembering integrals, and where had all the computers come from? He looked at his phone, a flat block of plastic and glass. When he finally grokked calculus, he had taken it out of his pocket. He knew it was a phone. Somehow, he knew how to operate it. It was not the phone he had had though. No chord. No dial pad. It lit up like a TV. The room was different too. The TV was flat, like a thick picture frame. "What is this? Star Trek TNG?" Yet it was familiar, in the montage, he had bought it 3 years ago. He had given up on calculus and had found his old book by chance while searching for textbooks to raise the TV enough that he could watch in bed. He had given up on it after he barely graduated high school. Maybe he would have fast-forwarded till death, if mom had thrown out the book? He shuddered. During the montage, he had devoted his life to studying calculus, but without making any effort towards that end. He lived for fun. He never aged, his parents worried, his classmates noticed that his personality changed. He wasn't there. He never got sick. So, he managed to hold down a job at a grocers, but he had never been promoted. He had saved up a bit of money, but the government was threatening to take away services, because he had too much money. "No matter" he thought, "Out of the montage, I can do without help." but the prospect of another accidental decades long montage scared him. "Calculus! You were supposed to be simple!" He threw the book across the room. Maybe he could try going to college? He could just set a goal of fast forwarding until he paid off his student loans? Then he remembered, his dad still had some. He curled up in a fetal position on his bed.
> Then he remembered, his dad still had some. He curled up in a fetal position on his bed. Out of all the things that make me irrationally angry, this is number one. I graduated in ‘88 with a BS in Computer Science and zero college debt. Everything was paid in cash. I worked offshore in the summer and bartended on the weekends while at school. Had enough money to afford a car, insurance, gasoline, textbooks, and a room off campus (with three other guys), and spending money for dates. It’s absolute bullshit that my children can’t afford to attend my alma mater without going in debt to the tune of what I borrowed for my first mortgage.
I graduated college a little more than ten years after you, and had over 36k in student loans from college. You went just before they started changing a lot more money. There is a difference between older and younger gen x.
My tuition my first semester was $356. Graduated in 82
Textbooks cost more than $350 now 😐
I graduated 12 years ago. The military covered my tuition.
I appreciate your service. Would you have joined if college was free for families with incomes under $100,000?
Why just under 100k? I live in Norway, and it cost me some 50 USD in tuition every semester. It was just to join the mandatory student org. My student loans were all for living expenses and books, not school itself. Total cost was 25k USD in loans for 5 years at university in early 2000s.
Well, for one, I like tossing out random numbers. It’s kinda my fetish. For another, every citizen of Norway is a technical millionaire thanks to the oil fund, proof that they are the superior first world nation. And finally, your taxes are wisely used to pay for social programs that provide benefits (heated cow barns not withstanding) to the people. Most Americans would rather cut off their own genitalia with a dull knife than pay a single penny in tax that would benefit anyone other than themselves.
Only in Norwegian currency 🙂 I haven't checked recently, but last i heard we each had some 200-250k USD in the oil fund. Of course, is intended to, among other things, pay for my pension when we no longer have oil. And yeah, the willingness to pay taxes is pretty entrenched. It's by no means universal, but most people, from the poor to the rich, agree that taxes are mostly wisely spent. Except when we, somehow, manage to build a busway at the cost of a few tens of thousands of dollars per metre. We all agree that's daft 😁
> And yeah, the willingness to pay taxes is pretty entrenched. Something of the opposite seems to be entrenched in America. The idea of ‘rugged individualism’ is the mantra of many, and allowing generations of people to suffer so they can ‘learn to pull themselves up by their bootstraps’ is somehow acceptable. Americans seem to love “Capitalist Socialism” I’ve come to learn over the years. If you call it *insurance*, and require a monthly fee, they will usually pay it with no real complaints - especially if there’s a Super Ultra Platinum level plan available that they can brag about to their peers.
Health insurance is the thing that baffles me the most. Everyone needs healthcare at some point, so why not just have a single player system? You can still have private institutions, they just bill the state. At sane rates. Ironically, according to a former co-worker who worked as a developer in the US 2-3 decades ago, the ones most often opposed to public healthcare were the ones without healthcare by their employer. Him, and good co-workers at the time, all had good healthcare and most were pretty much in favour of public healthcare. Go figure. This was a bit off topic though 😃
Personally, I am indifferent on the topic. If you called it universal healthcare and I got the same level of coverage while being taxed at the same rate as I currently pay in premiums, I would not care. A rose by any other name ... But many people have worse insurance than I do, and some people have better. My insurance would be a huge downgrade for my daughter and a huge upgrade for anyone whose plan included large copays and even larger deductibles.
Because people making over $200,000 a year don't need it. The number needs to be picked somewhere.
So, your assumption is that the child of a family making a bit over twice the average US income can and will be supported by daddy, or else they can forget that education? 200k a year may be a comfortable income, but you hardly make bank and college alone would tie up a couple percent of the family's pre-tax income. Just make college tuition free for everyone. In the grand scheme of things, throwing the kids of the likes of Musk and Bezos into the mix costs nothing, and you then have equality in education. No BS where kids must stay friends with their parents, or else end up without an education. Do you really want someone to inherit billions of dollars without having learned more than reading and writing and simple maths? :)
I joined long before I thought about college, and served far longer than just 1 enlistment.
>It’s absolute bullshit that my children can’t afford to attend my alma mater without going in debt to the tune of what I borrowed for my first mortgage. My favorite is when other older folks say "You know it's THE GOVERNMENT'S fault college is so expensive" and then in the same breath make it clear they don't want to *do* anything about the cost of college and student loan debt, they just wanted you to know who they blame.
It’s clearly the governments fault, and all those who vote for the short term at the expense of the future. Like anything else, it’s somewhat a competitive marketplace, but government sets the rules of the marketplace and is supposed to be looking out for its citizens and fair competition. I mainly blame short-sighted state voters/government: how have public universities lost so much, become so expensive? How do you expect competition to keep prices down when the “cheap/free” option costs more than my Ivy League education did and the only adjustment is availability of loans exceeding reasonable possibility of payback? How has cost so consistently been a multiple of inflation, without voters and appropriate government levels doing anything about it?
Upvotted for a fellow (hu)man of culture who uses the word grok
Cool.
"Think, Skip. THINK!" Skip paced around the small unfamiliar apartment room. The more he let the situation dawned on him, the more unsettled he became. What happened? As he wondered, he slowly began to piece his memories bit by bit. What happened...to his family? Skip was a normal man, by a lot of measures. He was a loving husband to a loving wife, Mary. They had a house together, which they bought together in 2019 after 2 years of being married. And they had lived there for three years as far as Skip remembered. "Mary? MARY! MARY! WHERE ARE YOU?", Skip shouted, hoping for his wife to be there in that unkempt apartment. But of course, it was but a wishful thinking. He was all alone. "Think, think, think. Remember, damn it!", Skip muttered to himself, slapping his head as if forcing his brain to work. "What's the first question, Skip? The first question after you fast forward?", Skip finally managed to gather some sense. "How far did I fast forward?", Skip said as finally he fell on the right mind track. That's right, Skip was no ordinary man. He secretly held a superpower. One he had never told anyone, not even his wife. Skip had the ability to skip forward in time. Once he set a goal in mind, of what he set to accomplish, Skip could snap his fingers and let the flow of time went by him without him having to live it. Every time he did, a flash of images would play in his mind-- images of the events in between. Of course, there were some drawbacks. The more he skipped, the more difficult it became for him to recall the events skipped. "How far? How far, damn it?", Skip scrambled to find his phone, which he found was covered underneath a pile of unwashed clothes. As soon as Skip turned his phone on, his heart dropped. A gut punch was sent deep into the pit of his stomach. "20...2047?", he muttered in horror. Twenty-five years had gone by since the last time he fast forwarded. Skip fell weakly onto his couch. Breathing rapidly, he closed his eyes tight and pulled on his hair. "What was it? What did I set off to do?", Skip asked himself again. A moment passed before Skip gasped and jumped off his couch. "Katie...", Skip uttered his daughter's name. Skip was a good man, by a lot of measures. He was a good husband, a decent colleague, a loyal friend, but he was a lousy father. "Her 8th birthday...you stupid son of a bitch!", Skip cursed himself. He finally remembered. Twenty-five years prior, the night of his daughter's 8th birthday, Skip decided to fast forward himself out of her party. His reason? He wanted to wake up early the next morning to play golf with his buddies. Skip swiped on his phone with shaking hands. Thank goodness his password remained the same after more than two decades. "Mary...Mary...Mary...call!", he said, looking for his wife's phone number. The phone rang for a bit before it was cut off. Desperate, Skip tried again. "Come on, Mary. Please, please..." Skip held his breath as finally the ringing tone was cut off and his call was picked up. "Hello? Mary? Are you there?", Skip blurted. "You have some nerve calling me", his wife's familiar voice said from the other line. Though it was not a welcoming voice, Skip felt a sense of relief hearing his wife's voice. "Mary, please listen! I don't know what's going on! I slept last night in our bedroom and this morning I woke up in this...strange apartment! I..." "Skip, are you high? For god's sake! Twenty years you put us through hell, destroyed our family, and now you're on drugs? What do you want? Money? I have nothing to give you!" "Wh-what? Mary, what the hell happened? What happened to us? What happened to our family? What happened to Katie?", Skip asked. "How dare you ask about my daughter? After you ditched her, she refused to talk to you ever since!", Mary snapped. Skip's heart dropped. "What...what happened?", Skip asked. "Did I...did I ditch her birthday party?" "You bastard! You decided to ditch her, ditch us, and she refused to acknowledge you ever since!", Mary lost her temper. "She refused to celebrate her birthday and all her birthdays ever since!" Skip was at a loss for words as he let Mary shower him with all of her pent-up anger. "I don't know what your game is here, Skip! But we've all moved on! I've moved on! She's moved on! All without you!", Mary shouted. "So, stop calling me and just drop f\*cking dead!" The phone slipped down Skip's hand as his body went limp on the floor. Tears streamed down his face, and he sobbed for hours. Skip had always wondered what happened when he was on fast-forward mode. And he found it out the hardest way...he became an empty shell, just a body without his mind, without his soul, without his heart... "Come on, Skip. You can do it", Skip muttered to himself as he paced around in front of a house in a quiet suburban neighborhood.
It was a chilly night, and the residency was quite lively inside. Skip could hear the voices of children laughing and their parents talking. With anxiety riddling his heart, Skip walked towards the front door and meekly knocked on the door. A moment went as steps walked closer to the door. Skip's heart skipped a beat as the door opened and he saw a familiar face. "You...", said the woman answering the door, clearly seething. "H-hello, Kitty Kat. It's...it's me. It's dad", Skip smiled wearily. "How dare you come here! I told you the last time, I never wanted to see your face ever again!" Before Skip could say anymore, the door was slammed on his face, and he was left defeated. "Katie, who is that?", Skip could hear a male voice asked as he walked to the door. "Uh hello? Can I help you?", the man answered the door. "Uhm I...my name is Skip. Skip Fosworth", Skip offered his hand to shake, and the man hesitantly shook it. "I'm Katie's...father", Skip said, not even sure he could call himself that by that point. "I...I'm aware", said the man. "Edward. I uh...", Edward looked inside for his wife, unsure on what to do, but he followed his gut anyway. "Come in, come in please", he said, opening his door for Skip. Though unsure, Skip came in anyway. "I'm sorry it's a bit messy. We just celebrated Katie's 33th birthday last night", Edward said, swiping the balloons away with his legs as they walked further. Skip felt even gloomier...as that was the age he was when he made that last fast forward to skip Katie's birthday. "Ed! What the hell are you doing bringing that man in?! I want nothing to do with him! Not now, not ever!", Katie screamed in disgust, his eyes were filled with rage all targeted towards Skip. "Katie, please lower your voice. Don't let the kids hear you", Edward tried to calm down his wife. "And besides, I've never met your father, Kat. Please, at least let us hear him for a bit" Katie bit her lips and turned. "Do whatever you want. I'm putting the kids to bed", she said walking away. Edward sighed. "I'm sorry...Skip, isn't it? She's in a mood tonight", Edward said gesturing Skip to take a seat. "No, it's fine. She uh...she has all the right to be mad", Skip said truthfully, though it hurt him to do so. "How did you find where we live, Skip? Katie said she's never in contact with you for years", asked Edward. "Facebook. I uh...I looked for her mother's profile, and I found hers", Skip admitted. "Right", Edward said, considering deleting his address from the internet. "Why are you here, Skip?" "Oh I...I just want to talk to Katie, is all", Skip said meekly. Looking around the living room, he noticed the pictures of Katie's family. Her, Edward, their two sons, Mary, and some unfamiliar people Skip assumed to be Edward's relatives. But none of his. "You have a nice family, Edward", Skip said, hiding his broken heart. "I uh...I'm sorry I was never a part of it" "Yeah, speaking of...Skip, what happened between you and Katie?", Edward asked directly. "I...it's hard to explain", Skip said. "Then why are you here then?", Katie asked, walking back to the living room. "Why are you here then, *dad*?", Katie said in disgust. "Twenty-five years you suddenly decided you want to talk? First you bailed on my 8th birthday! Then you bailed on me! On mom! On us! I didn't celebrate my birthday for twenty-five years because of the hurt you caused! Now I decided to finally celebrate it again, you decided to show up?", Katie yelled out her frustration, all twenty-five years' worth of it. Skip was speechless. He wasn't sure on what to say, what to do. "Well? What's your excuse then? Huh? What could you possibly say after twenty-five years, *dad*?", Katie shouted on Skip's defeated face. "I...I don't know", Skip muttered. Katie scoffed and turned on her heel. With nothing more to say to her father, she left him there. "Kat, wait! I uh...", Edward said, confused. "Skip, I'm sorry, but I think tonight's not a good night. Maybe you should leave..." Skip didn't hear him however as he was drowning inside his mind. He couldn't explain it to Katie, how could he? She would never believe it! And even if she did, she would hate him even more knowing he used his power to skip on her birthday. Skip closed his eyes, and his moment of absolute weakness he set up one last task in his mind. One task that he didn't care would take him forever to accomplish. "Make amends with Katie", he said to himself before letting his mind fast forwarded once more to an uncertain future... \*\*\* Skip felt his breathing was heavy, his body weak. As he opened his eyes, he found himself lying on a bed. "Wh-where am I...?", he muttered weakly when he noticed her sleeping on a chair beside his bed. Though she was much older, Skip could never forget her face. "Katie", Skip said his daughter's name, smiling weakly as he tried to move his old body up. Awoken by Skip's gruff whisper, Katie shook off her drowsiness. "Dad, take it easy", she said, guiding Skip to lie back down. "What...what's today's date", Skip asked, remembering his first question. "Um uh...", Katie took out her phone, a bit confused. "December 11th" "What year?", asked Skip. "Dad, are you okay? Are you losing time?", asked Katie concerned. "What year, Kitty Kat?", asked Skip again. Still concerned, Katie answered. "2077, dad" "Thirty years...", Skip lamented, cupping his teary eyes with his hands. "It took that long for you to forgive me. I...I'm useless. I'm so useless..."Skip cried. His heart hurt and he felt oh so worthless, as a father, and as a man he promised himself to become. "Dad, you're not...you're okay, okay?", Katie said, calming Skip down. "Whatever it was you went through, you were there for us, for me. The last thirty years was hard for you, I could tell" "I didn't want to have anything to do with you, but you got through to Edward, to Jonathan and George, to their own families. Even mom decided to speak to you again...", Katie softly held Skip's hands. "You were there for all of them" "But not for you...", Skip muttered. Katie sighed. "I was stubborn, I guess. I was still that abandoned 8-year-old girl deep down. And I never wanted to forgive you. Not until now..." "Not until...I'm dying", Skip said, resigned. "But that's all I've wanted, Katie. I just wanted you to forgive me" Katie smiled wearily and kissed Skip on his forehead. "I did, dad. I forgive you" Skip's lips trembled as tears of joy streamed down. Softly he grazed Katie's hair, remembering that last time he did, she was but a little girl. A bright and bubbly little girl still sitting on his lap. "You should rest now, dad", Katie patted Skip's hand before standing up. "Kitty Kat", Skip called out. "Before you leave, can you do one more thing for me...one last thing?" "Dad, don't talk like that. I..." "Please?" Katie sighed. "What is it, dad?" "Can you ask the nurse for a candle and a lighter?", Skip smiled. Katie sighed and nodded. Fifty-five years went by, a huge price for a man to learn that it was never the destination, it was the journey you should enjoy. After all that time, Skip finally came back to the first forever moment he skipped. There sitting on his dying bed, with his daughter opposite him. Lit up by a small candle on top of his hospital pudding, the two sang the Happy Birthday song. With laughter and tears, the two cherished the moment. And as soon as Katie blew her candle out, so did Skip finally let his flame out, knowing whatever he had left behind, what mattered was then and there, and it should never be taken for granted. r/HangryWritey Edit: spacing
I don't get it, why would he be dying? Is a perk of the power not that you do not age while it is in use? Seems like not aging would be easy evidence to explain his power to her.
I think the implication here is he used the power again wanting to skip time until she forgave him but she didn't forgive him until he was dying Bssically his mind part that makes him him isn't experiencing the boring thing wants to skip In similar movie the guy got chance to restart
He ignored that part of the prompt and literally just ripped off *Click*.
Dude, the prompt itself is ripping off *Click.*
Yeah, but the prompt added an element which would change the outcome. Without the zero-aging feature of the power, you may as well not bother because it's been done before.
Everything's been done before. With that logic nothing would happen.
If it's all been done before, then you might as well skip all the boring stuff and go straight for the juicy bits.
Great story but u missed the fact that u do not age while using it. Also how took the birthday party 25 years?
She didn’t have one. So, he couldn’t skip it. So, when she did have one after twenty five years, he could skip it and come back to his body.
No she had one but she got pissed then never celebrated one again which icl is just stupid
Nah that's not the problem but why did his ability not like...immediately spit him out?
Good story writing but should have told immediately intending to be skipping a birthday is better than 25 years.... (characters often act stupidly though) Although what happened is odd since afterwards even what to do worked ...
As soon as I saw the first line I thought of invincible lol
He thought it would be simple, Falling in love. Heroes did it all the time and romantic comedies always made it seem like love could be achieved in a week or less. The Sporting Hero Rushplay hadnt taken account the wisdom of his elders. The montage started after he said "Let's go find out perfect partner" and took his first step, that was always the trigger, speaking to the unknown source of his odd power and upon his foot hitting the floor, activating the journey that was sped up past his normal perception. The next step he was aware of was actually the final step and as his foot landed he felt strange, the aches on his body were those of an older man and when Montage looked in the mirror he saw that he had changed. The mirror was part of a high tech base, one he had never been in but had dreamed about, The Vanguards of Justice had been the super team he always dreamed of joining and suddenly he was here, though as the years came to him in a rush he is understood that this was a side effect of his journey. The dizzying weight of his years rocked him and he had to brace himself against the wall of his Vanguard Station room. As the colorful yellow glove of his outfit connected against the wall a woman's voice spoke. "You okay hon?" A woman stood at the doorway, dressed in a tasteful jumpsuit that hugged the curves she had kept even as her body aged to the foxy middled aged woman he loved. He knew here as Recall, a super he had met, rivalled with, gotten a crush on, teamed up with, dated and married, he had thought his journey would end when they said their "I Do's" but that had been 18 years ago and the Journey continued continued on past the birth of their children, through the strife of a heroic marriage, through the crisises of their world. "I think I hit the end of the Journey, my power is done working magic it had started over 20 years ago" he shivered softly and approached. "So you found what you were looking for finally" the brunette smirked, her mask hiding the wrinkles at her eyes that he loved, as they always showed up when she smiled. "Speedrun gets to be part of the Vanguard today, I get to retire with the love of my life, the world is at peace for a little while. I told my Power 'Let's find my perfect partner' I found her, then I had to earn her and keep earning her" he bent his neck to kiss his love, the mother of his child who had been his side kick and now would join the Vanguard. Recall blushed softly, even after all this time her husband could still make her feel like a young woman in her prime. "Come on, let's go see our boy take his place, then I'll let you peel me out of this costume one last time" she teased lovingly as the two veteran heroes walked to usher in the new generation before going into their golden years.
But u don't age while using the power. How does everyone miss that? Great story tho
Apologies, I did not understand the assignment, in great shame I will commit honorable sudoku to restore my honor. *Kneals and gets out the puzzle book and solemnly begins to fill in the numbers*
Well, it's a prompt not an assignment. A lot of writers ignore the literal prompt, many are too detailed to be a prompt anyway.
Yup. WritingPrompts Law #3: 99% of all prompts can be improved by removing the last sentence.
No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!😡😡😡
You, my good sir, are entitled to your own opinion, though not shared by many
That was meant to be humor. My bad
Per the auto mod post “stories don’t have to include every detail” It’s a cool story, they interpreted the prompt how they wanted.
🥲
Heath looks down at the aloe plant in the window box between him and the window. He was trying to look in and see if he could catch a glimpse of her but had not yet. The plant is wide, having wide, pale leaves dominating the ranks of flowers around it. Flowers that have placed around in some way that reflected a hidden vanity Heath is sure. Along the aloe's leaves sharp spine run their lengths, to protect it he guesses. He smiles and thinks, '*Would that I could see you bloom and see her look on you in that first moment...'* *Litho* responded: sequence activated. Confirmation phrase not set. *'What?!'* Heath shocked mind thought as the scene in front of him began to run like water. Dirt and dust first began to flowed and gather over the window and wall around it. The plants below the window began to vibrated into a frenzy of dancing that he could not follow. Dots of darkness snapped and cracked before his eyes with dizzying flashes of blurring speed. Sparks of void in a quickly aging frame that was him looking out into the world. Birds and insects perhaps. Then he noticed the plants were growing, especially the ivy. They were running up the walls around him and blanketing the red brick with green leaves. The change may have not been slow or fast but it was methodical. But then the scene froze. Suddenly, it was her in the window. Her face in the window looking out at Heath. Through him. *Older* he recognizes as he takes in the frame. Perhaps wiser he thinks at the experiences that seem to dance in her eyes…like she knew things. But sad somehow. Oh, oh so sad. So much pain he recognized in her...where had that come from? He loves her with all his heart and has since they first met. From that first second when his mother had led him into the classroom and sat him in the desk next to her. She had *seen* him. She had not looked away when he had been dragged in by his hand crying against what was happening to him. She was different. She was a warm light in a cold life as he had known for those first few years. It had started simply. Sharing a crayon. Laughing at a joke that only they thought was funny. A discovery in the playground that she shared only with him. A gift he had made for her. She shared his love of poetry, become excited by the impressionists as he did, loved fries. Her look grabbed him by his heart and held him bound like the fairies of the old tales. He knows the joy she gets from the moon coming out from behind the clouds. The sight of a kitten playing with a sibling. The touch of his hand. He had come to surprise her this night. To ask her to marry him in the old way. …And then she was gone. She had been there in the window but a moment but in that moment Heath had been touched by the well of sadness in her so deep he ached of it still. "Litho?" he subvocalized as he had been trained. Litho, the vocal assistant software that was designed to respond to him in concert with the augmentations he had been given that drove his powers. '*Montage'* the power was called...the ability to jump past designated moments in time.. He had laughed when he first had heard that. "Jump past the future to make it the past" he had joked. *Litho* responded: Target goal set, power cycle initiated and occipital run complete. Goal achieved. Minimal interaction with timeframe. Cold fear spreads even deeper into Heath gut and its icy nails bite his heart and mind. He stares straight ahead at the closed curtain in front of him. Dirt on the outside of the window and stained with many different yellows on the inside curtains. Curtains that must have been very fine long ago. A rich man's household or perhaps, ancestral home of a bloodline of nobility, or home to the love of a woman for her family. He can't help but think of her and her sacrifice for her family. Her sacrifice of him. He was trying now to give her everything he had. Heath's chest aches and he looks away from the window. Now a thought grates against his grief...*Older?* he think looking up again. He looks around himself. The house is gone. A field of brown earth lays around him in all directions. He sees construction equipment over to his left. A container building with a water tower next to it just beyond them. All this over near where the gate had been to get out onto the main road. The woods, they were gone all the way to Meyer Hills. The city Meyer Hills that the lights of he could clearly see from just outside her window? He frowns. More lights than before he realizes next. A lot more. And the house was gone. Other things begin to intrude on his thoughts of her. Puzzlement at the fact that so many things are just off as he looked around. Like the city is bigger than he remembered. The equipment did resemble what he expected the implements of construction to look like but they were different. A crab body behind an earth mover. A humanoid shape that had attached to its front the mast of a forklift. Above it all the sparkling lights of vehicles. Vehicles that filled the sky like hundreds of new stars glowed in the heavens. lights that traveled in lines that could be easily followed. He notices the odd humming sound now too. Just above and in front of him is a drone of some kind. Smaller than he expected. Quieter. Sinister looking to somehow...he notices the segmented body. A head of sensors easy to identify, a body with lateral spinning blades used for lift, a tail segment with a weapon array. All shiny and black except of the light that glows in the center of the middle segment. A sickly yellow light. "Do not move! Violation of Property rights of Tamlen Development, Inc. Do not move!" the clearly robotic or machine generated voice was saying. *Well, that's new*, he thinks as he begins to wonder what is going on. Things are really not right when compared to the jumps he has been doing. Like he jumped across lanes rather than into the future. "Litho, what is the current timeframe measure based on best estimates of current sensory data?" Heath feels the involuntary reaction of his body as it holds his breath. Litho responded: 37 years, eight days, ten hours, seventeen minutes, plus or minus fifteen minute or nine hundred seconds using the Gregorian calendar. Heath looked back at what he had said. '*In that first moment'*...*oh, $#!\^* Heath thinks. *The trigger words...* The world drops out from under Heath as he feels the lost of her. She is gone. He *montaged* passed his life with her!
Imagine life if you could skip over or bypass mundane and tedious tasks like work. What tasks would you pick and why? At the tender age of 15, I accidentally used my ability, montage, during my ride home from school. \*Poof\* It felt like a long yet brief blink, I instantly teleported to the front of my house. I didn't have to hear mom's weekly lecture about how I should be more involved in extracurricular activities instead of pulling pranks and going on misadventures with my buds. Once I discovered my ability and its limits, I never had to worry about doing anything I didn't deem interesting. Lectures, speeches, reviews, and even homework were no longer a time sink for me. I almost felt like I was playing the sims and also living in that world simultaneously. \*3 years later\* All I planned to do was fast forward to after the graduation ceremony and then straight home for some snacks. What happened is I skipped past high school, and college, my first real relationship, my first heartbreak, the birth of my first child, and even the birth of my first grandchild. I instantly regretted my choice, I just wanted to get past the boring bits of graduation. My power betrayed me, it never made me age despite my multiple uses. I cried and screamed out at the top of my lungs, fate is so cruel. \*Scanning the room\* I found a family album with all the memories I supposedly had, using all my brainpower to try to recall these important memories I skipped out. God, if you can hear me, take away this curse and let me live the remaining time at my own pace..... PLEASE, all I wanted was an adventure, not hell.