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3: FuTube [Nov. 2nd, 2007|05:06 pm]
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"Happy birthday to me oh fuck I want to die," Dave muttered to himself as he unlocked his flat door. 22, and the first day at the job he'd always wanted hadn't gone so well. If you're working at the Breakthrough Physics Institute, he told himself, you ought to be able to operate a coffee maker without setting anything or anyone on fire.

He was afraid to check email until he was good and drunk, in case they'd fired him during his walk home. Nothing there but a mail from YouTube, telling him he'd been sent a new video. He clicked through automatically, ran the video, and sat there looking at himself. "Happy Birthday!" he said to himself. "I'm drunk too!"

Dave peered at the screen. "I look like shit," he said.

The drunk in the video said, "That's because I'm thirty-seven, you bastard. I'm thirty-seven, I'm drunk, and I've cracked back-barrier QT!"

"How did you know I said that? This isn't live cam."

"I know you said I looked like shit because I said it, you drunken fuck. Listen. I am sending this from fifteen years in your future. Fifteen years of working on time travel -- the work you started today after you set the coffeemaker alight. I'm telling them in the morning. But I wanted to prove it first. See, when I send this back in time, into the upload software on YouTube, it'll turn up in their archive straight away up here, and I'll know it worked. So, listen, what do I want you to know... I can't give you stock tips or anything... yes! You're not too drunk to call Paula! Call Paula! Yes, I know she dumped you, but it turned out she just wanted to do some weird stuff in bed and you kept dropping your bottle. If you call her up now and say, I'm sorry, I'm an idiot, do anything you want with me, you'll probably stay with her forever. Go on! Call her now! And in fifteen years you'll invent a way to move information back and forward in time and be happy!"

Dave sat there for ten minutes. And then called Paula.

When he got home three days later, covered in red marks and stupidly happy, he went to watch the video again. But it was missing from his archive, as if it'd never been sent.



33degrees
flashfictions
do not post your fiction in comments
© warren ellis 2007
33D03

music: The4am 05
book: crooked little vein
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Comments:
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[User Picture]From: [info]dmann11
2007-11-02 05:09 pm (UTC)

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That's my favorite of your Flashfictions. That pretty much sums up time travel stories. Concise works are awesome.
[User Picture]From: [info]margoeve
2007-11-02 05:09 pm (UTC)

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Nice.
[User Picture]From: [info]fionn_mac_lir
2007-11-02 05:10 pm (UTC)

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If only the Year Zero websites were that uplifting. You'd figure the future would be at least sort of funny.

Loving the return of the flash fiction, by the way. You keep racking 'em up, we'll keep knocking 'em down.
From: [info]rozencrantz
2007-11-02 05:21 pm (UTC)

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Good flash-fiction makes me very happy. Thank you for this feature.

Do you have a maximum word-count you're working under, or just generally "short"?
[User Picture]From: [info]warren_ellis
2007-11-02 05:22 pm (UTC)

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Just generally "short." I don't have the time to write 100-word pieces right now.
[User Picture]From: [info]attilatehbun
2007-11-02 05:25 pm (UTC)

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A++

It would take a special, though admittedly likely undesirable, type of skill to set someone on fire with a coffee maker. Except in certain situations, of course.
[User Picture]From: [info]t3knomanser
2007-11-02 05:26 pm (UTC)

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FutureDave is a dick. If he had been really clever, he would have given PresentDave the secrets of time travel so that he could invent it sooner. Actually, he should have found himself in college and given himself the secret.

Paradoxes be damned.

//But then He would have to go back to the Revolutionary War to stop himself from giving it to the evil CEO.
[User Picture]From: [info]ihatepeoplealot
2007-11-02 06:35 pm (UTC)

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But PresentDave is happy.
How does that make FutureDave a dick? FutureDave is giving PresentDave exactly what he'd want.
[User Picture]From: [info]foi_nefaste
2007-11-02 05:31 pm (UTC)

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Nice. I like this a lot.

[User Picture]From: [info]dorkphoenyx
2007-11-02 05:32 pm (UTC)

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These flashfictions make me think how amazing it would be if there was some way to get these as text messages... They'd be a little long for a standard message, but I wonder. Instant ellis, on your mobile!
[User Picture]From: [info]warren_ellis
2007-11-02 05:33 pm (UTC)

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There are a couple of people doing it over Twitter, as I recall -- junkdna, for one.
[User Picture]From: [info]tundra_no_caps
2007-11-02 05:34 pm (UTC)

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The "22" is a bit loose there, makes you think it's the flat number, until later you find out it's his age.

I wonder if it's meant to be "grokked" on a second read only.
[User Picture]From: [info]tundra_no_caps
2007-11-02 05:39 pm (UTC)

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Also, he has a pretty good memory, remembering exactly what was said, and at what point.

Hm, another paradox? He only said those things because he sent the video, which happened in the future, relying on the past, heh.
[User Picture]From: [info]wyldkyss
2007-11-02 05:34 pm (UTC)

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Oh internets, you manage to screw up the past, present, and future in one brilliant blow.
[User Picture]From: [info]gdwessel
2007-11-02 05:37 pm (UTC)

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Oh VERY nice, Warren.

Time travel. Nature's perfect story device.
From: [info]mathemavixen
2007-11-02 05:39 pm (UTC)

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I feel sad now.
[User Picture]From: [info]bigscary
2007-11-02 05:42 pm (UTC)

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Wow, sweetly sad rather than eyeblast vile futureshock.

I like.
From: [info]themscarecrows
2007-11-02 06:02 pm (UTC)

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Oh god, YouTube lasted longer than a decade.

Nicely written! This was a fun read. :D
[User Picture]From: [info]ihatepeoplealot
2007-11-02 06:36 pm (UTC)

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now that google's got its hands on it...
[User Picture]From: [info]videocrime
2007-11-02 06:12 pm (UTC)

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i'm loving the flashfictions.

this one especially.

and the Jack baby... creepy.
[User Picture]From: [info]blackwell
2007-11-02 06:13 pm (UTC)

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Warren: Would it be okay with you if I made this as a video? A free, released on the web video with the words credited to you?
[User Picture]From: [info]warren_ellis
2007-11-02 07:39 pm (UTC)

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Sure.
[User Picture]From: [info]pirateman
2007-11-02 06:21 pm (UTC)

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Yeah! This is one of my fave things you've ever written on here! Really reminds me of "The Mysteries of Harris Burdick" in a weird way... Have you ever heard of that book? Oh, it is awesome.
[User Picture]From: [info]funranium
2007-11-02 06:30 pm (UTC)

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Well goddamn. I got a present from Uncle Warren today. I do love myself some time travel fun. Thank you.
[User Picture]From: [info]fatfred
2007-11-02 07:10 pm (UTC)

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Warren,
Your Black Summer has the cover of American Prospect Magazine.
"Liberal Intelligence" is their subtitle.

The Revolt of the Comic Books.

Don't blame me, I'm just checking it into my library.
[User Picture]From: [info]gdwessel
2007-11-02 07:53 pm (UTC)

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Just read the article online.

Innnnteresting.
[User Picture]From: [info]wedbertham
2007-11-02 07:46 pm (UTC)

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Damnit, Mr. Ellis, how do you do it?
[User Picture]From: [info]ratkrycek
2007-11-02 07:47 pm (UTC)

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Good one - time travel always has been a favorite thing of mine.

As good time travel fiction does, this one's making me think. Right on. Thanks for posting this.
[User Picture]From: [info]tekende
2007-11-02 07:51 pm (UTC)

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Of course it wasn't in the archive, because if he knew he invented time travel in the future, he'd stop trying now and thus it would never be invented and AAA--k my head just exploded
[User Picture]From: [info]izzy23
2007-11-02 07:52 pm (UTC)

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The SF premise is olda classic, but having a protagonist end the story "stupidly happy" is a particularly nice departure.
[User Picture]From: [info]sui_generis
2007-11-02 10:08 pm (UTC)

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"stupidly happy" is a particularly nice departure.


And also an excellent XTC song, one of my favorites.


Loved this story.

Anytime Warren wants to write time travel stories, I'm all for it. As many times as he likes, I could never get tired of them...


[User Picture]From: [info]beatonna
2007-11-02 10:30 pm (UTC)

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YOU

I keep getting emails and emails since this morning that name drop a certain Warren Ellis and have been told that you are the Warren Ellis that is to blame!

I think that you must be a very nice gentleman!

And yes, I get all my computer equipment from Siberian peddlers.
[User Picture]From: [info]warren_ellis
2007-11-02 10:33 pm (UTC)

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"I think that you must be a very nice gentleman!"

Lies, spread by my competitors.
[User Picture]From: [info]lunar_symphony
2007-11-02 10:38 pm (UTC)

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Oh man. That was remarkably bittersweet. That being said, you're a bastard to your poor characters.

~Tim
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