The 721

Here’s another writing craft exercise.

It started life as an image I found online and decided to use it as an anything goes kind of prompt. Literally, an anything goes prompt is one where I just start writing the first thing that comes to mind and then keep riffing on it for as long as I can.

An anything goes session can last from about 5-10 minutes. Up to an hour or more (depending on how much fun I’m having). If memory serves this one last for about 45 minutes.

The output of these prompts often ends up in a Notion database (I actually do most drafting in Notion these days) and that’s where they stay. Occasionally I’ll revisit them and do a light edit or rework (again just whatever feels right at the time).

I must have been on a bit of a time travel kick at the time I wrote this as my first thought was a historical newspaper article about a train crash that never happened. From there I dug into how that might have come to pass and the rest is history (or not 😉). Anyway the result is here for you to enjoy and if you feel like having a go at using this image as a prompt or even extending what I’ve got here then have at it.

Also feel free to jump in the comments with any editorial feedback you might have. One of the reasons I’m publishing these posts is so I can learn and in turn share my learnings with you.

Enjoy (unless of course you were a passenger on the 721 - in which case you have my apologies).

What was actually supposed to happen!

The guard stood on the edge of the platform frantically blowing his whistle. In another time, in another place there would have been a tannoy or some kind of public address system that would have automated this system. Although it’s entirely possible that the system would be broken or out of order and even then a guard with a whistle might have been required.

The guard didn’t phase me, there was not a lot he could do. Truth be told there was not a lot anyone could do. I’d done my job well. The train would crash on time exactly as it was never intended to happen.

What do you mean never intended to happen?

The crash happened, it was going to happen and yet by tomorrow it hadn’t. I checked. It was what caused me to go back and find out why and when I discovered the truth it was because I hadn’t made it happen. Turns out I’m the reason the train crashes and killed all those people. Or to be more accurate the bomb that I planted at the signal box a few minutes ago going off perfectly on time is what caused the train crash.

It’s so much easier to get away with things like this in the past. In years to come the authorities finally seemed to have learnt their lesson and security levels are a lot higher. But right here, right now there’s only a guard blowing a whistle and fat lot of good that’s going to do.

At this point you might be getting a little confused, don’t worry it’s only natural (actually the whole thing is pretty unnatural), I’m the one travelling through time and even I’m getting confused so don’t worry.

let me back up a bit (which given the whole time travel thing is a bit ironic, but there you go).

So, if you haven’t already realised it I’m from the future, and… Believe it or not I’m one of the good guys, or at least one of the good guys forced to do the not so good jobs.

So yes time travel is possible, dangerous but possible. Don’t ask me how it works as I haven’t got a clue - I just work here. For my sins my job is to monitor the time lines and look for any anomalies that might cause temporal ripples and quantum surges that are generally consider in my time to be a “very bad thing”.

How bad?

Somewhere between dinosaurs roaming the cities in the 41st century and the total eradication of all life in the known universe - ok maybe that’s a little overkill but you get the idea.

Anyway I digress (again ironic, it’s actually my job to prevent digressions). Turns out the real bad guys are the uniformed, stupid ones who think that they’re actually the ones saving the past by jumping back and preventing major disasters (plane crashes, political assassinations, terrorist bombs that kind of thing). Turns out the time stream doesn’t like to be poked and prodded like a cheerleader on her first date, she has a tendency to push back (the time stream that is, we at the agency like to think of her as a she - like Mother Nature only… bigger) and metaphorically slap the hand of the unwitting fool trying to push his… luck.

So like I said, some fool thought that they would prevent this train crash from happening as it’s actually quite a specific point in time and some of the unintended survivors actually go on to do so quite radical things which will turn out to have quite far reaching effects.

When I got here tomorrow they’d actually gone and succeeded and the papers were full of the miraculous near miss escape which was totally off plan from what was supposed to happen. It was also by that time too late to do anything about it as the people who weren’t supposed to survive had already gone on to interact with and affect the future so I couldn’t just take them out as that would mess things up even more. No the only real solution was to jump back, prevent the prevention (so to speak) and ensure things stay on track (again with the irony, I do love my job).

Now for the best bit, and pay attention because this will really “kettle your swede”.

The train crash that happened in the past that defined your future reality only happened because someone from the future went back and prevented it, meaning someone else from the future had to go back and ensure it actually happened as we remembered it. So if we hadn’t gone back and fixed it, it wouldn’t have needed fixing in the first place as it would have never happened and the people who tried to prevent it wouldn’t have needed to bother.

Mental isn’t it?