art by Shothot Designs
Buy You a Mockingbird
by Eric James Stone
It's time for bed.
Yes, I'll tell you a story. But then you have to be a good girl for Mommy and go to sleep. Promise?
Once upon a time there was a woman who worked in a lab. Yes, like me. And she had a little girl just like you. Now, one day the woman used a machine in her lab and it took her a hundred years into the future. Yes, a hundred years is a long time.
What did the lady find in the future? There was nothing... There was nothing bad there. Nobody was sad in the future. Nobody was poor. Nobody hurt anybody else. Nobody was sick. Nobody did anything bad.
You're right, that does sound like a happy place. But the lady wasn't happy in the future. She was all lonely. She wanted to see her little girl again.
Yes, she loved her little girl. So the lady came back from the future. That's when she found out the machine in the lab had created an irreparable quantum tear in the spacetime--had made a rip in the world that was spreading and would soon tear everything apart.
Did the lady fix the rip? Of course she did. She just took her needle and thread and sewed it back up. Then she went home to her little girl and they lived happily for a hundred years and met the lady again when she appeared in the future. And everybody in the whole world was happy.
That's the end of the story. Now it's time to go to sleep.
