#TimeTravelingGhost EP 8: Post 85: 2025 Arkham 2 of 2 parts

#Wss366 Slip #MastoPrompt Brunt #TimeTravelAuthors 03/27. Alternate timelines?

[Continued from previous post.]

“The second is that I would like you to take notes on what happens. Deposit them regularly and secretly. You will want to review them later.”

“Where do you want me to leave them?”

I hadn’t thought about that. I manifested a phone and searched for a mailbox rental place. “Rent a box in the name of Sarah Lock…”

That was a #slip. I could feel Emily’s eyes boring into me. What is it with her and that name?

“Lockhorn. Sarah Lockhorn,” I improvised. “At Arkham Mailstop.”

“That’s too obvious. They’ll spot her depositing mail,” Emily said and took the full brunt of another of her glares.

“Who?” Ms. Dubois looked between us, mystified.

“I’ll explain in a minute. That’s item three,” I said.

“I could leave them in my office?”

“No,” Emily and I said together, and I continued, “It’s going to be ransacked.”

“I don’t suppose you’re going to explain that,” the professor said, her tone petulant.

“No, I’m sorry I mentioned it,” I said.

Dubois sighed. “You know the hole in the big oak in Franklin Square Park? I could slip them in there.”

“Where’s that?” I asked.

"Behind that awful modern art statue. You know, the one that looks like a rock gnome giving the heavens the finger.”

I didn’t know where that was, either, but I figured I could find it. There couldn't be many statues like that.

"That will do," I said. "The third thing is to watch out for anthropomorphic rabbits wearing ICE Nine vests. Try to stay away from them. But note anything you see. It's important."

“What? Rabbits?”

Emily and I both shrugged and smiled.

Faust:

#TootFic #MicroFiction #NMFic #UrbanFantasy #Mythpunk #TimeTravel #HistoricalFantasy #Serial #Slowburn #Yuri #Faust

Faust - Wikipedia

#TimeTravelingGhost EP 8: Post 85: 2025 Arkham 1 of 2 parts

#Wss366 Slip #MastoPrompt Brunt #TimeTravelAuthors 03/27. Alternate timelines?

Even with the abridged version, Emily’s eyes had glazed over by the time Professor Dubois finished. For my part, I only understood the high-level stuff. The salient details were twofold: first, that Faust knew more about time travel than I ever had and might have information on the Rabbits; and second, that while every time-particle had minor differences, alternate timelines were almost impossible. Time-pressure quickly erased significant deviations.

Emily had a question about that. “So you’re saying that saving Archduke Ferdinand or killing Hitler wouldn’t change history?”

"Exactly. There would be a short-term disturbance, but things would ultimately settle back into place. Faust tried to save Margarete several times, but she was always executed or died violently."

“But something like a meteor that caused the dinosaurs to go extinct would be enough?”

I saw what Emily was getting at, but I wasn't sure how she had arrived at the conclusion that there was a deeper reason for us to have witnessed that event. Besides, how do you influence a meteor?

“Possibly… I suppose. At least locally, but not on a universal scale.” Then, Ms. Dubois turned to me, said, “There were three reasons for your coming. What is the second?”

Goethe's Faust:

#TootFic #MicroFiction #NMFic #UrbanFantasy #Mythpunk #TimeTravel #HistoricalFantasy #Serial #Slowburn #Yuri #Faust

Goethe's Faust - Wikipedia

wind turbines
not surviving
the brunt of the storm

#MastoPrompt

The #MastoPrompt for Friday 27 March 2026 is:

#brunt

The poem or story can include the prompt word or be about the prompt word.

@ me, if you like, or just include the #MastoPrompt tag (to allow people to follow or filter their feeds), or keep your work to yourself - all the options are good as long as you're writing.

If you're including an image please do include alt-text if you’re able to.

#Writing #SmallPoems #Poetry #Fiction #MicroFiction #SmallStories

Concrete tiles in square
silent witnesses of times
when fascism storms ruled

#Mastoprompt
#CinderBlock
#dailyhaikuprompt
#gusts

#haiku
#senryu
#poetry
#SmallPoems
#writing
#photography

@stevencudahy
@dailyhaikuprompt

Prisoners' roll call square of former Nazi prisoner camp in Amersfoort, the Netherlands, during World War II. Now a remembrance symbol of the reign of terror of the camp commandant (boots) who let the prisoners (concrete tiles) often made stand for hours on roll call.

Life of a #Cinderblock / The Death of Jimmy Hoffa

This was not what I expected. I was supposed to be the foundation of an edifice.

Not to lie in the mud, seven fathoms deep, wrapped in chains.

#MastoPrompt #Cinderblock
#TootFic #MicroFiction #NMFic #JimmyHoffa

I once considered an old painted cinderblock apartment as a cheap alternative to my apartment at the time, but it didn't have all the amenities I was used to nor did I see it accommodating my nice furniture. Now that I no longer have those amenities nor that beautiful furniture and now that "bombs" and "nuclear" and "world war" are words in the news, I am thinking about that old painted cinderblock. I am thinking it would have been a protective father. #mastoprompt #cinderblock @stevencudahy