You decide to accompany your best friend on a trip to the future. But when you arrive, your friend has somehow disappeared. It's really a nuisance, because he was supposed to be this huge expert on the future, an old future hand in fact. He knew everything, where to go, how not to get assaulted or cheated, which giant centipedes to avoid, etc. “I thought we'd kind of agreed to stay together. Oh well, I guess he's off at some hot spot that greenhorns like me aren't meant to know about. But I don't care. I'm going to visit the dumb sites and get the postcards anyway, even if it is the corny tourist thing to do.” So you do that.

Then you return, alone of course, and eventually you try to find out what happened to your friend. Maybe people at the office or the bar know something, so you go around and ask.

Everyone says, “Who? What friend?”

And you say, “My friend X! That went with me on the trip! You all knew about it!”

And they say, “Sorry. Don't know who you mean. But maybe this friend of yours trod on a butterfly in the future or something. That could totally screw things up.”

Labels: Ripping Off Ray Bradbury et al.