Hugh J. O'Donnell

“Hey Lenny!” The other raven sidled up to him on the railing. A beautiful spring morning was about to be ruined, again. He tried to fly away, but another raven had appeared on his left, boxing him in.
He could hear it building on the edge of hearing, a peppy beat from nowhere. The two ravens were telling each other terrible jokes, building towards the inevitable burst of show tunes, with him caught in the middle.
He had vague memories of another life, before the endless singsong. He remembered having too much to drink, a car crash, flames, and darkness.

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Time travel proved too dangerous for humans, but the technology still had its uses. We sent robots back to study the past.
We kept them out of the anthropocene to prevent any paradoxes, but the Jurassic was another story. We’d send back a geotagged bot, then dig up their data in the same spot. Their AI was super-advanced, almost human, which did lead to some foibles.
I tried to explain to my boss as they watched unit 77J’s ultimately destructive attempt to learn to surf.
“At least we learned a lot about tidal action of that era,” I ventured.

She began saving time. She kept it in a jar on her bedside table, next to the one that held her loose change, the minutes and seconds piling on top of one another until it was overflowing with moments that glittered in the morning sunlight. Then she moved it to her safe. She’d hate for it to be stolen.
“I was wasting so much of it,” She told a friend over lunch.
“What are you going to do with it, though?” He asked. “Take a trip? Pay off some regrets?”
“I’m going to keep it in a bottle,” she decided.

The gods were leaving.
They’d left behind their texts, the sacred fires, and vials of healing water, and boarded a silver boat that sailed through the sky. The high priests averted their eyes, bowing in supplication until their vessel was out of sight. Then, they turned on each other. Nobody understood why they had been abandoned, but each was sure it was one of the others’ fault.
Aboard the rocket, Lexy watched the undeveloped alien planet shrink, sadness mixing with a warm feeling. She was sure it was better off than when she’d found it. Missionary work was so rewarding.

The mall was abandoned when the sea rose to claim it. The boardwalk closed down and eventually fell into the water as life on the coast became untenable. The stores became undersea coves, as fish nibbled on designer fabric and and coral grew on ultramodern benches.
The warmer water and new environments were too much for some species, but others thrived, and evolved to do even better.
The jellyfish grew, and developed new defense mechanisms. They found they could hide beneath the crumbling mannequins, using them as camouflage. But as the years went on they also became something else: Fashion.

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