Here are ten different visions of my life in alternate universes. Spoiler alert, they are all better than the miserable existence I lead now.
Toronto 1976
I am an entertainment journalist for the city’s largest paper, having just graduated university. With both cinema and rock music flourishing I have no shortage of content to write about.
Toronto 5183
I am a scavenger in the bone mines. Occasionally I attend The Opera, the retelling of the Great Fall. The ash has become lighter in recent weeks, and the voice from the citadel claims that we may see the sun soon.
Toronto 1990
I am a weather reporter with a reputable station in the city. The winter is cold but there’s a freshness to the air of this new decade, a palpable sense of hope.
Toronto 1200
I am a shipyard merchant’s apprentice, travelling between the island fortress and the grand city on the mainland. I deliver high quality lumber and have been told I will soon inherit the shop.
Toronto 1700
I am an aristocratic scribe, paid handsomely for my detailed historical texts about the city’s architecture. Tomorrow I meet with the local reeve who has commissioned me to write the records about Union Hall.
Toronto 1802
I live on an estate in the thick woods north of the city, venturing into the gothic metropolis just once a year for the masquerade ball.
Toronto 3010
With surface temperatures unbearable, nearly everyone spends their entire lives inside the vast network of interconnected skyscrapers. The barren wasteland is largely unmonitored, which leads to massive amounts of criminal trade by those willing to risk their safety in heat resistant bodysuits. As the city begins migration to the off-world colonies I am assigned to prevent any disruption to spacecraft boarding processes. It is likely I will also be left on the planet when transport of valuable property begins.
Toronto 1983
I am a part-time clerk in a pharmacy, living in a small apartment near the Danforth. It is a very cold winter.
Toronto 1955
I am an accountant with a small firm on the west end of the city. I spend my weekends painting.
Toronto 10000
I am the lone inhabitant of the city, other than the spirits that pass through. I have lived for thousands of years and there are thousands to go. I have yet to meet anyone who loves me.
Unknown – xxxx
Those who were left behind in 3010 knew they were destined to to remain on the planet forever. The Corporation allowed for one employee every month to take a vacation in a different time period, exchanging one life unit to spend one day in a select point in history. It was all heavily regulated to minimize disruptions to the flow of time. I of course took the opportunity to travel back to my youth and promptly broke all rules by attempting to change my history. I convinced The One I Loved to take a risk and change her mind, then used my return technology to escape into a different time period. Of course the Corporation sent their retrieval squad after me, but I continued to evade them as The One I Loved and I jumped from one century to another. Sometimes the retrieval squad would find us after a day, other times it would be a few months of peace. At last we used the return technology in an area where magnetic waves disrupted the signal, and the retrieval squad was not alerted to our location in space and time. We then lived in an unknown era for the remainder of our days, and I was finally happy.
