092317

Time Ain't So Simple

I've heard that time is the simplest thing, but I'm here to tell you that it ain't so. F'rinstance. Back in my trans-temporal youth, which is to say origination-1, I was lusting after this fine young lady I'd met at Rusty's late one night. Well, little did I know she done already caught somethin' nasty from another fellow looked a lot like me, who'd slid in on a trans-7 or trans-8 timeline, but she didn't know it. Well, there I am, pants down around my ankles and fixin' to you know what in the back of my Chevy, when here comes my own trans-temporal self, acting like a fool and telling me to keep it zipped if I knew what was good for me. Well, the origination-1 self didn't know what the heck was goin' on, and he figgered he was having the DTs from all that Jack Daniels he'd consumed over to Rusty's place. Which did save me from the fate that would have overtook me if I'd continued where I was headed. Anyway, some time later I'm shacked up with another sweet young thing (trans-2) in a motel room in Biloxi, and here comes my ex, wielding a sawed off shotgun.

"But honey!" I yelled, trying to disentangle myself from the young lady with whom I was associated, "You was sposed to be gone all week!"

"I sure was, you philandering jerk, but I come back (trans-5) and told myself to get my tail over here and see if I didn't need to blow your pecker clean off to keep you pokin' it where it don't belong," she retorted.

Well, I don't think that's any way for one lady to talk in front of another, even if one of 'em aint' wearin' nought but a raggedy ole t-shirt, and so I slammed my hand down on the button of my time machine, which I always keep handy for times like this. Now, I gotta find my ex's trans-5 and sweet-talk her into layin' off informing her trans-4 about my little indiscretion in the motel room, and probably that means a few drinks and a nice meal overlookin' the Gulf, and still get back to the motel bar and pick up that hot young thing before some other time-travelin' dude makes off with her.

Oh, I'm here to tell ya, time is not near so simple as it was in my pa's day.

Publ. Drowning Atlantis, 2007

With apologies to Clifford Simak.