When
President Walter Douglas woke up on January 17, 2065, he had expected
to have a normal day working on his State of the Union address and
various budgetary matters. He had no idea that a small
extraterrestrial spacecraft would silently land on the White House
lawn. A single small individual emerged from the strange spacecraft,
and made his way into the White House, where he was quickly granted a
meeting with President Douglas.
“So
this is the famous Oval Office I have heard about,” said the
extraterrestrial. “Somehow it seems a little smaller than I
expected.”
President
Douglas wondered what to say. Greeting visitors from other planets
was not in his list of skills.
“Uh....in
the name of the United States, and the entire planet Earth, I greet
you in a spirit of peace and cooperation,” said President Douglas.
“There
is no need for such formalities, Walter,” said the
extraterrestrial. “Let's get down to why I am here. I have some bad
news for you. Your time is up.”
“My
time is up?” said the President.
“I'm
not talking about you in particular,” said the extraterrestrial.
“I'm talking about your whole civilization. Your time is up. You've
tried hard, but we've decided that you're going to fail
catastrophically. Our projections indicate there is a 95% chance that
your planet will experience an environmental disaster that results in
the extinction of your species.”
“I
know about the environmental problems,” said President Douglas.
“The planet's getting hotter, and the oceans are getting more
acidic. But we're working on it.”
“It's
too late,” said the extraterrestrial. “So now we're going to take
drastic action.”
“What
do you mean?” asked the President. “Do you mean you're going to
conquer our planet?”
“No,
something much different than that,” said the extraterrestrial.
“Do
you mean – you're going to destroy us?” asked the President.
“No,
don't be silly,” said the extraterrestrial. “We're just going
to...rewind you.”
“Rewind
us?” asked the President. “What do you mean?”
“Oh,
sorry, I'm not explaining myself,” said the extraterrestrial.
“Where to begin? Let's start with the concept of the Arrow of Time.
I know some of your primitive physicists use that concept, and they
speak as if there was a single Arrow of Time that moves forward
throughout the universe at a constant rate. But the truth is there is
not a single Arrow of Time for the entire universe. Basically each
solar system pretty much has its own Arrow of Time. My race, which
has been monitoring yours for a long time, is in control of the Arrow
of Time of this solar system. We can move it backwards whenever we
think it is necessary. We call that a planetary rewind.”
“A
planetary rewind?” said the President.
“Yes,”
said the extraterrestrial. “A planetary rewind is what happens when
we Overseers rewind your planet back to an earlier time. It's a
drastic step, which we don't like to use unless it's absolutely
necessary. But sometimes you silly humans dig yourselves into a hole so
deep that we come to the conclusion that you have no further chance
for surviving. That's when we have to use a planetary rewind.”
“How
do you know this 'planetary rewind' won't fail and mess up the whole
planet?” asked the President.
“Because
we've tried it successfully several times before,” said the
extraterrestrial. “Let me tell you the secret history of your
planet. The first time the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred, it resulted
in a global thermonuclear war. So we Overseers did a planetary
rewind, resetting the clock of your planet back to 1960. The next
time the Cuban Missile Crisis worked out okay. But then in 1982 there
was another nuclear war during the early Reagan administration,
caused by a training exercise misunderstanding. That caused a
'nuclear winter' that killed almost everyone. So we Overseers did
another planetary rewind, setting your planet's clock back to 1970.”
The
President listened with his mouth agape.
“Then
things went well on your planet until the year 2035,” said the
extraterrestrial. “But then there was a horrible biological war
which put the human race on the brink of extinction. So we did
another planetary rewind, setting your planet's clock back to 2015.
We had hoped that would be the last planetary rewind we would have to
do, that your fledgling species would finally make it all the way to
becoming a successful star-faring race. But now you've got yourself
in this hopeless environmental mess, so it's time for another
planetary rewind.”
“But
won't the same things just happen again if you rewind time?” asked
the President.
“Not
necessarily,” said the extraterrestrial. “Quantum uncertainty
means there's always a chance of a different outcome after we do a
rewind.”
“But
if you've made up your mind to do this 'planetary rewind,' why did
you even come here?”
asked President Douglas.
“I
just thought it would be interesting to see the famous building
called the White House,” said the extraterrestrial.
The
extraterrestrial left the Oval Office, and returned to his small
spacecraft waiting on the White House lawn. The spacecraft lifted off into the
sky, and returned to its mother ship. Millions of humans watched the
event on their paper-thin holographic 3D wall screens.
The
next day inside the White House the President of the United States
woke up in his bed. It was the new president's first full day in
office. President Barack Obama thought to himself: I have no idea
whether I can handle this job, but I'm going to try my best.
No comments:
Post a Comment