These stories were written live on stream based on prompts provided by the viewers. They have been edited, with this second more in-depth edit occurring much later, but not meaningfully rewritten or expanded so as to preserve the spirit of the exercise. Sadly, the prompts themselves were not recorded until many stories in.  Sometimes the prompts were silly challenges, or quirky thoughts, or dark ideas, or utter nonsense.  I did my best each time.

If you enjoy this, please check out the other activities from the stream. If you would like something longer and much more thoroughly planned, simply investigate my more traditional work at the top of the page.

Who has the Green Expectations?

Prompt provided by dark_lord3

The man seemed to misplace his name. All of a sudden he couldn’t remember it, although he remembered his situation just fine. He was currently traveling through time, strolling through it really, and observing the effect. The time tunnel was a pleasant light show, his mind having difficulty following it, what with the quantum confusion and all.

He recalled what he was doing before the time tunnel, just ten minutes ago, if minutes still existed. He was very devoted to his idea, having spent years getting everything arranged, those years now looking like nothing more than plastic bags over his shoulder. Time travel had eluded everyone else, but his idea was fresh.

Others had focused on physics degrees and complex machinery that took lifetimes to earn and invent. He, on the other hand, the man whose name time had been swept away like his years, focused on the poetic side of reality. What he did was, he interviewed the oldest grandfather clocks he could find, patiently listening to every tick and every tock, even the tocks that voiced somewhat outdated social opinions. Eventually he learned their language, and that all clocks were asking for company, so he gave them company every way he could…

By collecting clocks from around the world, with the only required trait being their continued ability to both tick and tock. Once collected they were assembled, from all ages and periods of craftsmanship, in his living room, lining the walls until there wasn’t enough space between for a garden snake to slither. Then he kept his mouth glued shut, let the tick accents speak to the tock dialects, sharing their stories from across expertly recorded time.

After a while the clocks, and the man, realized something. They now had enough information to see time’s whole picture. They could see its tunnels like an ant farm, and the man spied one leading directly to the future. Peer-pressuring clocks egged him toward it.

“Go on,” they ticked. “Aren’t you curious?” they tocked. “If I had legs you couldn’t stop me.”

In the face of these dares he took the first step into that tunnel and his old world was gone, along with his name. Perhaps it had been taken because he simply didn’t exist that far in the future. Or maybe he’d been scrubbed from the records. If so, he hoped there was at least some mention of his efforts, of his incredible clock congress.

After an amount of time he could not possibly comprehend, the end of the tunnel was reached. His clocks were right about one thing; it certainly was curious. He found himself in the middle of a forest that would’ve been dense if it weren’t under construction; half the pine trees lacked their tops. A pair of little, red, feathery wings flapped by, unattached to body or beak. the traveler stood there, observing dumbly, as his toes flexed over the patchwork grass and the half-pitcher of morning dew on it.

“Oh cheese wheels! Somebody’s here! Somebody’s early!” a tiny voice squeaked. The man looked down to see a sort of gnome, dressed in funny clothing, like a jester’s overweight child popping out of his tunic, shouting and waving his hands. There was a square of soil under one of his arms, with squat pegs atop it. The man thought it looked just like the EZ Clip toy blocks he built with when he was a child.

More gnomes crawled out of the holey woodwork. Some wore green, some red, some purple, some black, but they all wore the same startled and worried expressions. They dropped the tiny pieces of the world they held and ran around yelling for help.

“Maybe I can help!?” the traveler shouted to calm their hysterical yelping.

“Help!” one of them squeaked. “You’re the problem! You’re early! Nobody is supposed to be in the future until the future. We haven’t finished building it yet!”

“You build the future?”

“Of course you giant moron! Where do you think the future comes from?”

“What are those blocks? Is that really what everything is made of?”

“They’re expectations. You, in the past, think them up, and then we take the best ones and make the future. Uhhh-doy!” The man strolled over to the nearest gnome, careful to avoid the pitfalls in reality, and snatched the block from his grubby pink hands.

“Well I’m here,” he said, happy to annoy them. The calm clocks were much better company. “You should’ve had it ready for me.”

“It’s your fault you smelly cheese crumb!” the gnome exclaimed. “Our expectations arrived late! You were supposed to expect the future here, but you were too busy hanging out with dumb old clocks to expect things properly.”

The man did not agree with the gnome’s assessment of the situation; he had his own. After all, he’d always been a master with those EZ Clip blocks, having built incredible cities and breathtaking castles that actually tended to take breath away if you stepped on a rogue piece of a portcullis.

So he’d unraveled time. Surely he could build the future better than these gnomes, if it used the tools of child’s play.

“I’ll help you out,” he offered. Suddenly his name didn’t seem so important, as he was now the instruction booklet for the builders of the future. “Take that one over there. You, in the yellow, put that one there…. oh this’ll be a fun future. Everyone stick to your instructions!” One gnome wandered around in panic, unable to find the right piece. The others always hogged them.

“Who has the green expectations?” he yipped. An argument broke out: a genuine ankle-high riot. Perhaps it would take a little longer than he thought. Under his irritation it became clear, both why clocks had hands that couldn’t grab, and why they merely admired time in retrospect instead of touching it and leaving soiled fingerprints.