Story time

Blitzkrieger

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Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice.

'Hi! Are these seats taken?'

Bob looked up to see a attractive blonde twenty-something looking at him enquiringly. His eyes had just started to wander downwards when he checked himself, the muscular guy standing with her didn't look like he was in a very understanding mood.

'Not at all, please join us', said his wife, giving him a light punch to make him put down his newspaper. 'I'm Carol and this is my husband Bob.'

'I'm Alice and this is my husband Ted,' she said turning to Ted and smiling.

Bob and Carol exchanged a knowing glance. For the sake of conversation Bob said : 'Newlyweds?'

'Yes, we're on our honeymoon actually', said Ted a little harshly.

'Well, you couldn't have picked a better place to take it', said Carol, pretending not to notice. 'Miami is a beautiful place, we come here every year.'

'Isn't it?' said Alice. 'We've been having a wonderful time here.'

'Except for that fortune teller', said Ted gruffly.

Alice gave him a withering look that made him feel like a sulking child.

'She was a total fraud! Twenty bucks and all she tells us is : "We will have a long and happy life together".'

'Madam Mindy? She's harmless. She just tells the tourists want they want to hear', said Bob.

Ted gave Alice an "I told you so" look.

In an effort to end the awkward silence Bob said : 'She's considered a tourist attraction by the local tourist board. At least she doesn't tell the truth!', he finished laughing.

Everybody else laughed to be polite. Something made all the more patronizing when Ted asked : "Wouldn't she be a bigger tourist draw if she told the truth?'

Bob bridled. He tried to maintain a civil appearance by putting on a Jack Nicolson voice and saying : 'People can't handle the truth'.

This brought another short polite laugh followed by an awkward silence. Bob continued : 'I mean, if for example, you were going to be hit by a truck. Would you want to know?'

'Yes, of course', said Ted.

'Why?'

'So that I could put my affairs in order, tell my wife I love her and say goodbye'.

'Oh Bob! Don't be talking about something so macabre on such a lovely day', said Carol.

'I couldn't imagine it myself', said Bob. 'I mean, if it was you. If you were going to be hit by a truck today what good would it have been to know before-hand? I mean if you knew you were going to die today, would you have bothered to get married? Even if you had you would have been so pre-occupied with it you would never have been able to enjoy the last few days you had left. And I can't imagine having to walk out in front of that truck, knowing you were going to be hit by it, mangled under it's wheels and left in searing agony for four minutes until you finally bled to death.'

Alice was obviously getting upset by the discussion and this made Ted even angrier, though he tried to appear like he was just having a friendly discussion his voice was a little too loud : 'If I knew that I was going to be hit by a truck, why would I walk out in front of it?'

'Fate. You can't cheat fate.'

Ted was about to say something more, but Alice laid a restraining hand on his arm. She looked pale but managed to smile as she gestured to her watch and said : 'We have to be going. It was nice meeting you.'

'It was nice meeting you too', said Carol, darting an annoyed look at Bob.

'Maybe we'll see each other again', said Ted, mentally adding 'Not if we see you first'.

'Goodbye', said Bob.

Ted was royally ****ed off as they walked down the street. He wished he could dismiss the guy as just some ******* but it kept nagging at him. Why he sound so certain? Why did he stop saying if? If you knew? If you were going to be hit by a truck? Of all the numbers that would roll off the tongue why four minutes? The finality of the way he said "goodbye" gnawed at him too. He turned to see Bob still watching him while being berated by Carol, stepped off the pavement without looking and was hit by a truck.

Carol turned at the noise and stared for a moment before turning to Bob in open-mouthed shock. Bob was already picking up his paper and keys to leave.

'You knew!'

Bob shrugged, then turned to walk away.

Carol was shocked that he would be so indifferent to someone's death. 'Why didn't you stop it?', she demanded, hurrying after him.

'I couldn't.'

'Of course you could! You knew he was going to be hit by a truck. You know he's not going to be dead for another three minutes for ****s sake!'

'It's fate. You can't cheat fate. If it wasn't going to happen, I wouldn't have seen it.'

'That's bull****! You could have stopped it!'

'Oh, and you know you wanted to go to L.A. to see the Stevensons?'

'Oh God.'

'We're not going to be doing that.'
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LMAO at the last bit

Interestig question tho - would you want to know if you were going to be hit by a truck? I know I wouldn't.

Hobbes

"There is no fate, but the fate you make"

Intresting story but knowing the end would change your life, but to say for the better or worse? Depends on the person.

What if you knew everything that was going to happen. Would it change your life then? What if you couldn't change it? What then?

DeVore

I'd want to know simply to be able to go round to a few people I know and either tell them what I REALLY think of them or simply punch them on the nose

DeV.

Blitzkrieger

Originally posted by Hobbes:
"There is no fate, but the fate you make"

Terminator 2? The whole area of "seeing" the future kinda bangs on the door of time travel - and then you're talking about temporal pardoxes.

Take T2 : If skynet was never built, then the terminator was never built either. Then the terminator never went backwards in time to save John Connor, and John Connor never sent the terminator back in time to save himself, and destroy skynet.

How could they destroy skynet if skynet was never built?

Hobbes

IF you bothered to read the books (although the movie hinted at it), Skynet actually sent the terminators back in time so that Skynet and the terminators would be built in the future.

Anyway I think the universe is much more sturdy and could survive a few smartass professors going back in time and killing thier fathers.

Paladin

If you knew you were going to die at a certain time, and you said **** it, grabbed a gun and killed yourself, who would be the idiot? The guy who told you incorrectly or you?

Blitzkrieger

Well if you believed in fate, then the gun wouldn't work or something.

Actually I'd love to read the books - it just seems amazingly hard to get my hands on any book I actually want. I'll have to try amazon or something. Anyone know if the delivery costs are reasonable.

Mills

Maybe your fate was to be told about your death and kill yourself out of the sadness of it

Personally, I think it's a pile of rubbish

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I am inflatible !

C B

It al depends whether or not you believe in fate. I don't. If somebody send I was about to be hit by a truck I wouldn't sep out on the road. simple really!!!

Shiminay

There's a valid arguement put forward in that you'd like to get your affairs sorted out and have some fun in the last few days/hours.

On the other hand, you could be so freaked out, you'd go catatonic.

I think I'd rather not know... but it's a close call.

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All the best,

Dav
@B^)
My page of stuff

Blitzkrieger

But then you would have been told a lie. I suppose the question is : "If you could know for certain when you were going to die, would you want to?" The whole shooting yourself in the head seems a little bizzare really.

"You can have three wishes, what's your first wish?"
"A million wishes."