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Lowther Park Lytham

Photo copyright: Fatima Fakier Deria
Photo copyright: Fatima Fakier Deria

It’s July 1904 and a bright day: so I sit under a tree. I find myself wondering about the future. They say that two brothers in America have invented a successful flying machine. Whilst in Germany a chap called Karl Benz is building something they call an automobile.

Yet around me I see the gorgeous flowing dresses, the fluttering parasols, and the majesty of the horse. Whilst I listen to the quiet murmur of bicycles. But I find myself fearful for the future. For already iron rails carry steam trains and trams into towns and villages.

Footnote: Genre – Thought Stream

barbers
Mike prior to his visit to the barbers.
This Post Has 41 Comments
  1. It’s difficult to pinpoint a time when we started heading down a worrying path. The industrial age brought with it so much good and prosperity and advances in health and science, but when you look around at the state of the world now, it does seem that it swept in a lot of bad things too. Nice contemplation Michael.

  2. Dear Michael,

    Your MC has every reason to fear progress. With every convenience and technological advance came the drawbacks. Airplanes made warfare even more deadly…and the list could go on. Nicely done.

    Shalom,

    Rochelle

  3. Progress can be a horrible things and, at the same time, wonderful. I can, however, imagine how he felt. My Grandmother went through all the changes of the last century and the thought amazes me. In the first sentence, I would take out the semi- colon or the word so.

    1. Thank you athling, my fathers mother told me so many tales about the ten years at the start of the twentieth century. This time I really struggled staying within the hundred word limit. In the end I just posted the story, even though I was not happy with the first sentence.

  4. Well done, Michael. So many changes happened in a short period of time. It must have been mind-boggling for those who witnessed it.

  5. The wheels of change had turned dramatically fast in that period. I can empathize with the confusion that it would have created in the ordinary people’s world-view.

  6. This is great, and timeless. You could sit down a protagonist today and muse about robotics, artificial intelligence and everything that comes with it. Things happen frighteningly fast, back in the past just as much as now, just different things. We have to be aware of the bad part to appreciate and protect the good part.

  7. Lovely imagery of flowing dresses and horses. The fear of steam of your narrator comes across well so I can only imagine how they might feel in a few years…

  8. You did well with the word count. The imagery of dresses and parasols, are almost like a final goodbye to the previous era whilst the iron rails bring forth the future.

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