Friday, July 9, 2021

Microstory 1665: Rainrider

I’m going to get specific with this one. I kind of just chose a story at random to tell you about someone living in Salmonverse. Many people have the ability to manipulate time in some way. They can travel back and forth, or maybe even just back. Others can only teleport. Some people can do crazy things that you wouldn’t think called for temporal manipulation. Invisibility, for instance, is generally done by altering the path of light, but in Salmonverse, it’s done by creating the illusion that something is not there when it is, by superimposing what would be there if the invisible thing actually were not. Some of the restrictions and specialties—which are sometimes referred to as flavors—are bizarre, and seem oddly designed. They can suggest that there’s a higher power making these decisions, even when there’s not. There is in many cases, mind you. People who have no control are called salmon, while people who do are choosing ones. But choosers still have their own restrictions, and like I said, they can be almost too strange to believe. One man in particular could travel through time and space, but only in the rain. When he went outside while it was raining, it prompted his ability to make a jump, and he could land anywhere in time and space, as long as it was raining at his destination as well. Each jump would discharge the temporal energy, no matter how far, and the only way to recharge would be for him to dry off completely, and then go back out in the rain. If the storm had since passed, then he was stuck there until he could find another. I just think this is such a funny little story. There is no explanation for why he had to ride the rain, and he never even looked for one. He accepted his limitations, and used them to his advantage. Man, he loved it too. Once he discovered the power, he abandoned his old life, and used it all the time. He didn’t go back to make changes to the timeline. In fact, he was usually just doing it to see the sites. He didn’t run into any evil time travelers, or get stuck somewhere scary. He just traveled the world, and the timeline, enjoying life as one of the lucky few to see all this in one lifetime. Only once did he go into the future from his time period of origin, just to make sure there wasn’t some kind of temporal lid that would block him. He never had any interest in actually spending any time there, though, partially because he didn’t know the weather patterns anyway, but also because he figured all the beauty was in the past, before pollution and overpopulation ruined everything. Few other travelers ever met him, but it was one of them who gave him his nickname: The Rainrider.

No comments :

Post a Comment