A man returns from a trip to the future remembering just one small (but disturbing) thing about his adventure.
Under 1-minute read.
Before Williams went into the future he bought a camera and a tape recording-machine and learned shorthand. That night, when all was ready, we made coffee and put out brandy and glasses against his return.
“Good-bye,” I said. “Don’t stay too long.”
“I won’t,” he answered.
I watched him carefully, and he hardly flickered. He must have made a perfect landing on the very second he had taken off from.
He seemed not a day older; we had expected he might spend several years away.
“Well?”
“Well,” said he, “let’s have some coffee.”
I poured it out, hardly able to contain my impatience. As I gave it to him I said again, “Well?”
“Well, the thing is, I can’t remember.
“Can’t remember? Not a thing?”
He thought for a moment and answered sadly, “Not a thing.”
“But your notes? The camera? The recording-machine?”
The notebook was empty, the indicator of the camera rested at “1” where we had set it, the tape was not even loaded into the recording-machine.
“But good heavens,” I protested, “why? How did it happen? Can you remember nothing at all?”
“I can remember only one thing.”
“What was that?”
“I was shown everything, and I was given the choice whether I should remember it or not after I got back.”
“And you chose not to? But what an extraordinary thing to—” “Isn’t it?” he said. “One can’t help wondering why.”
I like the story. The summary, specifically “(but disturbing)”, feels both click-baity and inauthentic to the actual story.
That’s true, thanks. Modified it.
Cool story. Ive been reading up on the futures studies space, and there is an interesting split between assumptions of a single or most likely future (e.g. the Herman Kahn school), and assumptions of many plausible futures (e.g. the French school, Bertrand de Jouvenel). It seems like basically the old split between fate and free-will…
I’m French, and I have heard multiple times of Jouvenel, but as a classical liberal thinker (On Power, his most famous book). Just did a small research and saw some of his book aren’t about political philosophy, one of them being titled The Art of Conjecture. Guess you’re thinking about this one. Would you say it’s worth reading?
I have only read about him so far, haven’t read any of his works, so I can’t recommend any. I can recommend the Farsight podcast episode on him, it’s a biography from a futures studies perspective.
TY.
The jaunt was probably longer than he thought.
Wdym?
Spoiler if you ever might read the story:
