SEE YOUR FUTURE!
only $1.00
The ad appeared in the back of a Fantastic Four comic book.
At the top was an image of a tear away calendar with progressing years printed on it. 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971…
SEE YOUR FUTURE!
It was inconspicuously placed among ads for Sea Monkeys, X-Ray Specs, BB guns, and one promising to transform the reader from a 98-pound weakling.
Johnnie usually ignored them all, but there was something about the prospect of seeing his future that called to him.
He read the ad again.
SEE YOUR FUTURE!
Your destiny revealed! Stuck in the past? Not anymore! See the future! Love! Money! Success! It’s all waiting for you! No. 042 _______________ only $1.00
by Kalico
Johnnie had a dollar.
Why not?
Two weeks later he came home from school.
His mother turned off the vacuum just long enough to tell him there was a package waiting for him on his bed.
Johnnie rushed to his room and closed the door. He tore the package open to reveal a round, plastic dial.
A yellow slip of paper fell to the floor, floating beneath his bed.
There were three concentric circles that could be rotated in either direction. The inside dial had the day, the middle dial had the month, and the outer dial had the year.
The third dial started at 1968 and went all the way to 2068.
“Oh wow! A hundred years!”
Johnnie was excited and couldn’t wait to try it out.
He couldn’t wait for the weekend, so he checked his calendar first. It was Thursday, September 19th.
He set the inner dial to 21, the middle dial to September, and the outer dial to 1968.
Nothing happened.
He shook the device.
He tossed it in the air and caught it.
He talked to it.
Still nothing happened.
That was when he noticed the yellow slip of paper beneath his bed.
There were words on both sides.
On one side, in bold print was the word INSTRUCTIONS.
1. Set the day.
2. Set the month.
3. Set the year.
4. Hold the dial with both hands and press the center with both thumbs.
Aaaaaoooohh!
Johnnie tossed the paper aside, ignoring whatever was written on the other side.
He held the disc in both hands, like the instructions said, and pressed down on the middle with both of his thumbs.
The world spun around him. Wind whipped his hair.
The next thing he knew, he was at the playground spinning Martha Jenkins on the merry-go-round.
She was screaming for him to stop.
Johnnie had no idea what led to this. He stopped the merry-go-round and let her off.
“What day is it?” he asked, offering a hand.
“You’re such a creep,” Martha answered, pushing his hand away. “It’s Saturday.”
Martha ran away, crying.
Johnnie hardly noticed. He was too excited that was actually in the future!
It worked! It worked! It worked!
He felt the dial in his back pocket.
Thank goodness! He didn’t want to lose THAT!
Where else… or when else could he go?
Johnnie sat on the slowly spinning merry-go-round and pulled the dial out of his pocket.
He had an idea!
Eighteen! A legal adult!
He set the dial for his birthday in 1971 and pressed his thumbs against the middle.
The world spun around him. Wind whipped his hair.
Johnnie was in his bedroom. It had changed, but not much. There were some different posters on the walls. The blanket on his bed was new.
He looked in the mirror. He was taller. Stronger. There was a football helmet on the dresser behind him.
Was he a football player now?
Far out!
He went to the living room. His mother stopped vacuuming long enough to wish him a happy birthday. She had a few grey hairs that he hadn’t seen before.
His father was in front of the tv. He wore glasses. He hadn’t had those before.
The news was on. War in Vietnam.
Johnnie hadn’t paid much attention to that before. He was surprised the war was still going on.
His father pointed to the screen and said, “you’re eighteen now. Better watch out or you might get drafted.”
He was joking, but in a way that wasn’t actually joking. Johnnie’s dad did that a lot.
The doorbell rang.
Mom turned off the vacuum.
“I’ll get it. I bet I know who it is, birthday boy!”
Johnnie wondered what she meant.
A moment later, in walked Martha Jenkins with a gift in her hand.
She had gotten taller… and she had… err… grown in other ways too. She had make up on.
She was pretty.
Really pretty.
Martha kissed him on the cheek and handed him the gift.
Johnnie opened it. It was a record album from some band called Led Zeppelin. He had never heard of them before, but Martha insisted they were his favorite.
He didn’t know what to say really. He thanked her, then excused himself to go to the bathroom.
Standing in front of the mirror, amazed at his older, more manly appearance, Johnnie wondered what he was like even further into the future.
Thirty?
Why not?
He pulled the dial out of his back pocket.
How about the summer?
He set the dial for June 1, 1983.
The world spun around him. Wind whipped his hair.
He found himself sitting on a couch in a strange house. He was facing the television, but what was on was like no show he had ever seen before. There were colorful… things moving back and forth across the top of the screen with small lines dropping from them. One of the small lines hit a thing that looked like a building at the bottom of the screen.
The words GAME OVER appeared.
Game? What?
A small person. A child who Johnnie hadn’t noticed before smacked him on the back and said, “tough luck, dad! You lose. That means we’re going to the movie on Saturday! Yay!”
The child… a boy… looked like Mar…
“Honey, did you lose on purpose? You didn’t have to do that. I know you wanted to see Return of the Jedi too.”
Martha Jenk…
Wait. Was it still Jenkins?
Were they married?
Oh wow.
He married Martha Jenkins!
She looked mature. Very pretty. She was wearing strange, brightly colored pants though. And her hair was unnaturally curly.
“That movie is all you’ve been talking about for weeks.”
Johnnie watched everything in a daze. He had a wife and a son.
Then came the crying. A baby.
“Honey. Can you take care of Jenny. I’m in the middle of dinner.”
Jenny? Who was Jenny?
Johnnie wasn’t prepared for any of this. He stepped into the hallway, pulled out the dial and advanced the year without looking.
The world spun around him. Wind whipped his hair.
Johnnie found himself in an office. Behind the desk.
His office?
There was a small, colorful television on the desktop facing him. On the screen was a sort of grid with lots of numbers on it.
In front of the tv there was a sort of typewriter, but with no paper.
Johnnie pulled the dial out of his back pocket. His pants felt strange. He was wearing… what… a suit?
Oh, this was weird.
The year on the dial was 2006. He was… he did the math in his head… fifty-three years old.
Oh wow! He was OLD!
Next to the weird tv was photograph. He recognized Martha Jenkins. No. Not Jenkins. She looked older than his mom and dad!
She was posed with two young men and a young woman. Johnnie assumed those were their children. There was snow behind them. The younger ones… the kids… were holding what Johnnie thought looked like surfboards.
They seemed like they were happy. Johnnie assumed he must have done something right.
A young woman opened the door to his office carrying papers.
“The report you asked for.”
She hummed a catchy tune. As she closed the door he heard her sing the words, “we’re all in this together.”
Johnnie wondered what that was about.
He looked around. It seemed like a very nice office. He had a secretary it seemed. He must have been doing very well for himself.
What about even farther?
Why not?
He fiddled with the dial, not sure how far to go. He was older now. He didn’t want to go too far that he was dead.
When did people usually die anyway?
He gave himself another ten years. Hopefully he would be okay at sixty-three still.
Why not see what Christmas in the future would be like?
Johnnie set the dial for December 25, 2016.
The world spun around him. Wind whipped his what was left of his hair.
Johnnie found himself alone.
Alone? How could that be? He had a family? Martha and the kids. Where were they?
The television, a giant flat screen hung on the wall. The news… something that thankfully in all this time hadn’t changed much, talked about some man named Trump who was going to be president soon.
Trump?
That didn’t even sound like a real name.
A lot of people on the television seemed very upset about it for some reason.
There was a card, a Christmas card in his hand.
Johnnie opened it up.
Dad,
We wish we could be with you for Christmas. Hawaii is gorgeous. Wish you were here.
Remember to take care of yourself. Mom’s not there to do it for you anymore.
Love,
Jenny
Mom? Wait. Not Johnnie’s mom. Jenny was the baby? Did she mean Martha? What happened to Martha? Did she leave him? Did she die?
Johnnie pulled out the dial to jump forward again. Maybe he would find answers in the future.
Five more years should do it.
He would go to his birthday again. Surely, he wouldn’t be alone then.
He set the dial for his sixty-eighth birthday.
The world spun around him. Wind whipped his bald head.
Johnnie ached. He was… what he was… sixty… eight? Yes, he thought that was right.
He was in another office. A doctor’s office by the looks of it.
The woman in the white coat on the other side of the desk spoke.
“Do you understand why you’re here with me today?”
Johnnie did not and shook his head.
“Do you remember my name? We’ve been meeting once a week for some time now.”
Johnnie had no idea who this woman was. He knew she wasn’t one of his children.
He shook his head.
“Do you remember your children’s names?”
Ah! He knew one!
“Jenny.”
“And your sons?”
Johnnie thought about it. He hadn’t seen or heard their names.
He shook his head.
He had an idea. He knew who could clear this all up.
“Where is my wife? Where is Martha? Can I see her?”
The doctor pulled her glasses off.
“Mr. Conroy. Your wife passed away eight years ago. Don’t you remember?”
Johnnie had a very bad feeling about where this conversation was going.
“I’m afraid I have no choice, Mr. Conroy, but to admit you permanently to our facility. Do you understand?”
Johnnie wanted to get out. He needed to get out.
Two large men entered the room and lifted Johnnie from his seat just as he was reaching for the dial in his back pocket.
The dial fell to the floor.
The men helped Johnnie into a wheel chair and began rolling him out of the office.
“Dial! Dial! Dial! Help!”
No one knew what he was talking about.
Weeks went by. Johnnie was given a quiet room. There were activities in the common room with a bunch of old people. They made Johnnie uncomfortable. They were slow and old and didn’t know what day it was.
He didn’t belong there. If only he could get his dial back, then he could get back to his own time.
One day, while playing Bingo, Melvin, the man next to him who drooled a lot because of the medicine the doctors gave him, said something.
“I’m not supposhed to be here, you know? This ishn’t my time. Thish is the future. I jusht need my dial back.”
Wait. What?
Someone else had a dial?
Slowly, the others around them chimed in. They talked about dials or circles too. All of them claimed not to belong there either.
It started to get out of hand. The whole place erupted in quiet frustration.
One of the large men shrugged at one of the other large men.
“Sometimes they get like this. It’s harmless.”
The second large man asked what they were talking about.
“Oh, the dial? Who knows? Some old-timey thing we don’t have any more I guess.”
Johnnie began to panic. To really, really panic.
Oh no. What had he done!?!
Imaginative & clever.
Holy smokes, this is amazing! Omg he gets trapped there forever! Be careful what you wish for 😂