Futures Near and Far by Will McIntosh

Author:Will McIntosh [McIntosh, Will]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-11-20T18:30:00+00:00

The Fantasy Jumper

Rando passed his wrist over the credit eye on the Fantasy Jumper kiosk. The darkened window flashed to life, revealing a full-length, three-dimensional image of a young woman with pale, perfect skin lightly dusted with freckles.

“This is the one I wanted to show you,” Rando said to his blind date, Maya, who had an artificial eye that drooped slightly, but was otherwise very cute in a chipmunk sort of way.

“Make her blonde,” Rando said, while Maya peered over his shoulder. The woman’s hair changed from brown to golden blonde.

“Old-fashioned romance dress.” It hurt to talk, because Rando had accidentally bitten the inside of his cheek while eating oysters at the underwater restaurant. The woman’s simple white shift morphed into a flowing mintcream gown with a diving bust line, like on the covers of the books Rando’s elderly mother read.

“Big pointy dunce hat,” Rando said, laughing, and the woman was suddenly wearing an oversized red cone, with “Dunce” printed top to bottom in plain black letters.

“Finished,” Rando said to the kiosk, simultaneously puffing his cheek to keep the wound from rubbing against his molar.

The window glided up, and the woman stepped out.

“This time, maybe I’ll reach the fountain.” She turned and leapt off the roof.

Maya gasped.

They leaned over the short wall and watched her plummet, her dress billowing, arms spread wide.

“Isn’t that something?” Rando said.

The woman seemed to fall for a long time. Rando stared, rapt.

Finally, she hit the ground. Her head bounced violently, then she lay motionless. The dunce hat, which had come loose during the fall, clunked to the ground a few feet away from her. A wide swatch of blood blossomed on the pavement around her head. People on a pedestrium that wound past the fountain pointed, their words indecipherable. Then they seemed to recognize that the woman was not a real woman, and went back to their conversations.

Rando looked at Maya. “Isn’t that something?”

Maya smiled and nodded. She glanced at her watch.

“Watch this, watch this.” Rando pointed down at the broken body. The pavement under the body slid open until the body dropped out of sight, then it returned to its original flat grey.

“Let’s try it again,” Rando swept the credit eye a second time. “Can you do that movie star, Ellie what’s-her-name?”

“I only have copyright permission to simulate three celebrities: Cotton McQue, Gym Hinderer, and Lena Zavaroni,” the woman behind the glass said listlessly.

“Those all suck,” Rando said. “What about a little kid?”

“Age?”

“Five.”

The woman became a five year old girl, cute as a button, but with the same haunted grey eyes.

“Finished!” Rando said.

The little girl stepped out. “This time, maybe I’ll reach the fountain.” Her tiny legs scrambled and churned until she finally cleared the low wall. She jumped, tumbling head over feet once, twice, before slamming to the pavement.

Rando glanced at Maya again. She looked a little distracted, like she wasn’t having a very good time. She was so cute. Rando imagined what it would be like to arrive for Thanksgiving dinner holding Maya’s hand.

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