The Future Isn't What It Used To Be

A friend of mine is a Mad Scientist. At first I thought, "What kind of research are they doing over at Mad Magazine?" Then I was watching a late night movie on one of the higher channels and I thought, "Maybe he's a crazy scientist, a lunatic, a wacko -- hopelessly un-sane." But something told me that wasn't correct, either.

So one day I was over at his place, brewing some tea on a Bunsen burner, and I asked him point-blank. "What kind of Mad Scientist are you, anyway?" He shrugged and said, "A pretty good one, I guess."

"No! No!" I said. "I mean what type of Mad Scientist are you? . . . What does the Mad part mean? . . . Like, why is it painted on your door and stuff?" I thought that was clearer.

"Oh, that." he replied. "It's mad as in angry or upset."

"What are you angry about?" I wondered.

"Actually, I'm more frustrated than angry." he tried to clarify. "More miffed than mad. But none of those things looked right in the Yellow Pages ad."

"Oh. Well, I'm beginning to know how you feel. Now answer the damn question before I get scientific on your ass!" I nearly shouted.

"I'm mad about the future." he confided.

"The future?"

"Yes. It's all wrong. I think someone futurer than us is messing around with the time-line."

Why do you think that?" I asked.

"Remember when we were kids, we thought there would be flying cars and spindly skyscrapers and robots and lunar colonies and micro-communication devices by the 21st Century?" he asked.

" . . . Yeah . . ." I said hesitantly.

"Well, we're in the future and all we've accomplished from the list is this lousy cell phone." he gestured to a photo-flip phone on his workbench.

I picked up the tiny device and opened it up, "Cool! Is this that one with the MP3 stuff and TV previews of my favorite Fox shows?" I asked.

"See!" he said. "That's my point. We've gotten so wrapped up in the minor shit that we forgot about the flying cars and the nude female android servants with the green cotton candy hair. Where's all the cool stuff?" he demanded.

"So what does this have to do with someone futurer messing with the time-line?" I asked him.

"It's the only explanation," he said. "We had a virtual blueprint of the future back in the 1950's. Between Popular Mechanics and Modern Science and the sci-fi mags, it was all layed out. Even Time and Life got in on it. We had World's Fair exhibits! We had plans!" he finished, slumping in a lab chair.

"And the futurer messing part?" I prompted.

"I think they have found a way to transmit a ray or beam from the future that makes us satisfied with the meager realities of the present . . . thereby taking the heat off themselves until they can get their shit together."

"That seems like the simplest explanation to me." I encouraged him, quietly taking a step backwards. "So, what are you doing about it?"

"At first I lined my baseball cap with aluminum foil to block the rays. Then I realized that was silly. If I knew enough to do that I must already be immune. So now I'm working on my own time machine. I'm going to travel to the future and kick some ass."

"How's that working out?" I wondered out loud.

"So far I've gotten mixed results. I've been able to create a time stream with this row of clocks and watches here. And I put this chair in the middle, hoping to ride the current. But I haven't been able to verify my results."

"Why not?"

"Well, it's very difficult getting them all set to the same time. And some of them wind up and some are on batteries and some are the self winders that required the wearer to move around and they are just sitting there. So, when I hop off the time stream for a sandwich or something, depending upon which watch I look at, I can't tell if I've gone slightly into the future or slightly into the past."

"My guess is that you are closer to now than you were before you started the experiment." I offered.

"That was my thinking, exactly!" he enthused. "The next phase of my experiment is to set the clocks and watches at progressive time differences and to move the chair around to different points in the time stream."

"Do you think it's safe to change more than one variable at a time?" I tried to keep my face neutral.

"We got into this mess playing it safe!" he shouted. "Now is the time for ACTION!"

With that he straddled the white kitchen chair, pulled a pair of goggles over his eyes, and just sat there -- a string of watches and alarm clocks stretching before him and behind him. I thought I heard the distant echo of a cuck-coo going off among the various ticks and tocks.

As I let myself out I realized I had learned one thing. With scientists like my friend, I now understood the science behind global warming and where all the flying cars had gone.