When he finished writing his autobiography, he realized how much he’d missed in life by concentrating on pure science, so he went back in time to force his past self to enjoy life.
The resulting autobiography was also a disaster — no accomplishments.
On his third try, he became a writer.
Patricia had been plagued by that song all her life. It undermined her reputation at every turn. No one took her seriously.
One day, she decided she’d show them. “Now they’ll have to take me seriously.”
By the time her top came off, everyone was taking her very seriously indeed.
She’d been running all her life.
When she died, she was running. Kept right on running, actually.
People would wonder how she could still be running (being dead and all) but instead of asking that, they would ask,
“Why won’t you stop running?”
“Because I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I’m running late.”
They brought all this technology
And showed us how to use it properly
They taught us their way of life
And they introduced us to their culture
They solved many (but not all) of our problems
And they only asked for friendship in return
…and we weren’t ready for that.
He’d killed himself so many times that all his jokes about suicide rang hollow in his heart.
But he soldiered on, moving along the probability axis, from one alternate universe to another, killing any of his alternate selves that he found had not lived as worthy a life as his.
The last man on Earth died for the fifteenth time.
The machine jolted him back to life, repairing any damage within minutes.
It did everything to keep him happy, producing entertainment, stimulating conversations, and everything else it thought he needed.
But it could not give him a purpose.
Meaningless immortality.
“Life is like a bad video game.”
“There’s no tutorial.”
“It takes a while to figure out, and you never get it completely.”
“A lot of it feels more like work than a game.”
“The balancing is out-of-whack.”
“The graphics are meh.”
“The plot makes no sense…”
“Then, game over.”
The sage said, “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for life!”
The customer service rep said, “Teach a man how to fish, he’ll ask you how to hunt, next. Then, he’ll ask you how fishing works, again.”
After moving around all her life, never staying in one spot for more than a few minutes, flying everywhere, she saw the light.
She longed to know more about the light, join with it. She approached it, eager for the illumination.
ZAP!
“Goldurnit’, ah hates’ fly seasin,” said the man.