Future
by Steve Mitchell
an icy breeze
whistling through t- t- t- t- t- whistle ||| whistling ** wh*wh* wh* icy breeze an icy an i-i-i- wh********|||\\\\
*_*-*-*_ {————–}}||||||||||||||||zzzzzzzZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZzZzzzzzzzzzzzz . . . .. .. . .
*pop*
Hello? Hello?
Can you hear me?
Ah, yes! I did it! I’ve traveled through time! It’s me, future Steve! Steve from the future!
Yes.
That’s right. I’m from the future. I live there. In the future, time travel is as common as . . . well, it’s as common as not time traveling is in the past.
So. Anyhow.
Sorry to interrupt that cute little haiku or whatever it was.
Umm. I don’t know where past Steve is, or, as you know him, Now Steve. He’s probably in the future. That seems to be how it works. He’ll be back when I go home – to the future. I’m from the future.
Did I mention I’m from the future?
I know. I know. You have all sorts of questions about the future. Well why wouldn’t you? Of course, I don’t have questions about the future. I live in the future!
Anyhow, let’s see. Umm, well, I don’t pay much attention to politics so . . . you know, it’s about the same. Probably. Whatever. There’s some President; I guess. I don’t know. They do things – they sign things. It’s quaint. There’s lots of mobs and unrest.
It’s a utopia of unrest.
Oh! Oh! TV is now 4D. YES. How about that? 4D? It’s awesome. I particularly like the Love Boat reboot – Robot Love Boat.
Clanky the bartender is my favorite.
I also like the reality series, Time Chase Your Own Tail. It’s – well, it takes too long to explain. Suffice it to say, you won’t see any better knife fighting, anywhere, ever, any time. It’s educational, too.
And, also, brace yourself . . . Soylent Green is PEOPLE!
HahaHA! Not really! I’m kidding! I’m a joker. I’m a joker from the future! We don’t call it Soylent Green. Had you going, huh?
Okay, well. I’ve got to go. The past is . . . boring. I’m bored. I need to be entertained. There’s no entertainment here. So. Let’s see. I read this entry before I left the future. Now, I’ve got to try and reproduce it exactly or my time narrative will be destroyed. Can’t have that.
If I remember, this post was exactly four hundred and thirteen words long.
And it ended, something like . . . . wait for it . . . something like . . . .THIS.
*pop*
.. .. .. …. . . .. .
\\||an icy||-*_*–*
. .
an icy breeze
whistling through bare limbs
the future
—-
© Steve Mitchell 2011
Heed not Steve 
Hhe very clever – and very funny Past/Future/present Steve 🙂 Don’t forget to eat your greens (soylent) What? you already did?
😛
Thanks Lynda. I like to call it “People Chow”!
“We don’t call it Soylent Green.” That’s my new motto.
The haiku here is brilliant. (Well, I mean, the prose is too. But the haiku both complements the prose perfectly and works perfectly on its own, too, which haibun haiku do not always so.)
I think you might like “Super Sad True Love Story” by Gary Shteyngart. Similar sort of funny bittersweet near-future dystopia kind of prose …
🙂
Thanks, Melissa. This post didn’t start out as a haibun. It was just some silliness which needed the beginning of a haiku to interrupt. As I wrote the prose, it occurred to me I should finish the haiku I started and make the whole thing a haibun. So I did. It’s still silliness, to be sure!
And thanks for the recommendation. I’m going to have to look that one up, that and Snow Country.
Excellent! Creative! Especially like what you did to that Haiku at the beginning. I could almost hear the transition!
😀
Thank you, Leslie!
Theme song from Robot Love Boat:
Thanks, Cos.
🙂
I had a feelin’ it’d be Daft Punk!
It sounds better in 4D, btw.