Scrawlers

The future is certain.

At the tender age of fourteen, humans are required to replace their bone skull with computerized plastic skulls after the 2030 Skull Replacement Act. Victims of the Skull Recall of 2033 receive full surgical rebates.

Spaghetti-O's are declared the national food of France in 2015. Chef Boyardee's defection to the land of espresso and wine sparks the disbandment of the European Union in 2017.

Tupperware introduces its first car in 2021. Toxic fuel emissions float away to the past when replaced by the periodic seal popping of the plastic-on-plastic "burp."

The future is certain.

The worst thing anyone could ever do to me is call me Gooses. When I was younger a boy named Chuck Taylor called me Loose Goose. My friends picked up a similar pet name thereafter, Gooses Looses.

This was before any sexual connotation, but regardless, the idea of a loose goose made me think of my grandmother's arms wiggling.

If I could do one thing, it would be go back to the day Looses Gooses was born and punch that Taylor in his face.

Then he'd know what a loose goose can really do.

The others here have shown me their plan to get off this planet. A tunnel boring through the entire world. Once complete, the insane gravitational force will slingshot something (or someone) through the tunnel, generating enough velocity to escape.

Days I slave with them to elongate the tunnel. I outwork them easily; gravity hasn't had time to crush me yet. Towering over them at nine feet tall, I still have hope. Nights are spent staring into the bottomless darkness, wondering how much work can be squeezed out of me before I'm like them? How far left to go?

"Aw cookies!", Sharon said as she tried to clarify what it was about the man on the TV that bugged her. Was it the hair? The flashing polka-dot bow tie. Or was it that this oversized mustache that passed for a man was mooning over the quality of his wife’s breasts?

Just then Sharon's eyes blurred. The mustache became a horse galloping through a star-filled sky. She could feel the huffing beast between her legs and she could see Auriga the Charioteer beckoning downward into the night sky.

As her vision cleared she thought, the mustache, definitely the mustache.

The future is certain.

A generation of teenagers connect with their parents in the 2060s when clothing styles from the 2040s become cool again. Parents shake their heads and laugh when their kids call cape slacks "retro." 2063 sees the return of the Swatch.

A group of explorers goes missing in the Appalachians for three years until their Starbucks colony is found in 2033 by a thirsty search party.

Global hunger is solved in 2067 when the anomalous six-legged chicken is cloned. By 2080, the world satiates its deep craving for wing-dings. Tofu cloning remains imperfect.

The future is certain.

Bobo woke up. Even though he didn't have to get up early, he still did. And the song played in an endless loop in his head. Over and over. Getting laid off from being an organ grinder monkey was harder than he thought.

Not that his new job was any better. When he answered the ad, he was excited about a place with more structure, and less children.

Now in the morning, when the researchers came back and stuck another needle in his swollen infection, he kinda missed simply being on a leash.

The future is certain.

Sandwiches will be outlawed in 2033 when a ham and Swiss goes rogue and insights sandwich riots across the world. Only the hoagie will survive the Great Sandwich Purge.

All horses will come equipped with their own carriage by 2048 and any carriage not attached to a horse will be burned, thus ending the need for the term "horseless carriage."

Backpacks will be replaced by headpacks when an industrious young man named Hugo Mortimer starts a trend with his head-strapped pack design in 2078. Back doctors go out of business by 2079.

The future is certain.