Jack Gittoes pexels-photo-761543 Concert
This was fantastic. He never thought he’d see Lennon, McCartney, and Starr perform together again. They certainly showed their age, their voices not quite as vibrant as he remembered from childhood, but they were legends.
Oswaldo Gantz watched his grandchildren holding up their smartphones to take photos just like all of the other kids around them. People Oswaldo’s age tended just to watch and listen and experience both the current performance and all of those played through the halls of time.
It was all thanks to him that Lennon was still alive. There was nothing he could do about Harrison’s brain cancer, but it was a virtual piece of cake to arrange for Mark David Chapman to be stabbed to death in a mugging a day before he was supposed to murder Lennon in 1980.
Now that his trial run turned out to be such a success, he’d have to figure out how else he could improve history. Hopefully, he’d be able to fix the little glitch in the system. He never imagined that saving Lennon’s life somehow resulted in the laws being changed so Arnold Schwarzenegger could now be President instead of Donald Trump.
I wrote this for Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner – 2018: Week #23. The idea is to use the image above to inspire the creation of a piece of flash fiction no more than 200 words long. My word count is 195.
I already wrote one time travel story this morning, so I decided to try another. The image is obviously of a modern concert since you can see people taking photos with their cell phones. That stopped me from sending my character back in time to watch Lennon’s last live concert in 1975, but what if he’d never died? He’d be around 78 years old today.
Just having a bit of fun.
To read other stories based on the prompt, visit InLinkz.com.
Roger’s linkup still needs a lot of love, so please contribute a small story of your own. Thanks.
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Time travel is a bit tricky. Worse case senario, you step on a butterfly.
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Maybe he did. Thanks.
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I suspect your little twist at the end might be more poignant to Californians who experienced Schwartzenegger as their governor. In comparison, they might not be so hard on Trump as they have been in our current timeline.
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Actually, I think Schwarzenegger would probably have made a better or at least more acceptable POTUS than Trump. Sure, he’s had his sex scandals, but he’s a staunch environmentalist and is highly critical of many of Trump’s policies. I don’t think California is better off now that they have Jerry Brown running the show again.
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I wouldn’t argue your assertion that Californians are worst off with Governor Brown at the helm (again). But, given the Governator’s history in California, which traced continual retreat from his initial Republican positions, sliding in the direction of leftist ones, I think he would have been ineffective as POTUS — just as many predecessors have been, due to excessive compromise that blurred any distinction between Rep. and Dem. administrations. Just as it was said that only a Nixon could go to China (breaking prior precedent), so it may be that only a Trump can accomplish precedent-breaking resolutions to some long-standing injustices and hindrances to financial and other progress and liberties.
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This gave me cause to giggle this morning James. Hard to imagine Lennon being 78 yrs old thought isn’t it, I imagine he’d sound a little raspy these days.
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Mick Jagger’s still performing I think and he’s about the same age.
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Yes but often seems ageless but with a few wrinkles.
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“experience both the current performance and all of those played through the halls of time.” I find myself doing this all the time at concerts now.
“how else he could improve history.” If only this could be done without the repercussions… Enjoyed! (as always!)
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I like the last line 🙂
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Thanks, Reena.
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