All About Luke

by Ben Weston

Luke was bored. He had just finished the last hot pocket that was in his fridge, and was on his last sip of the half gallon strawberry lemonade that was at his side. The past four day Luke had camped out in his parent's basement. He hadn't showered or shaved. All he did was watch infomercials in the day, and adult swim at night. Why did he do this? So he could get an idea. Four days in and no idea yet. But Luke knew it was going to happen eventually.

He glanced at the clock, 1:29, one more minute and the Shamwow infomercial would be on. Suddenly it happen. An idea.

Shamwow, made in Germany...Germany, the third reich... third reich, ethnic cleansing...cleansing, shamwow...damn it back to where I started. Wait a minute. Germany...BMW, BMW...German engineering, engineering...machines, "That's it!" Luke yelled out loud.

Luke got on the phone and called his friend Mark. "Mark, I've got an idea!"

"CAN"T TALK!"

"Why?"

"Playing a Halo tournament."

"How long?"

"27 hours straight. All I've had to drink is Red Bull."

Luke heard a grown in the background.

"Damn it, I lost, so you were saying?"

"I have an idea."

"Great what is it?"

"We build a time machine."

There was an awkward silence before Mark said "Time machined don't really exist."

"What do you mean they don't really exist?"

"I mean they don't really exist, you can't really go back or forward in time."

"I'm sure it's possible."

"No it's not."

"Why not?"

"Because I already told you, time machines don't exist. Now I'd love to talk with you some more except I'm about to fall asleep while I'm still on the line with you."

"Let me come over to your place tomorrow, I'll give you the details to my idea."

"Whatever."

The next day, Luke laied down the frame work for his idea. "You know that movie idea I've been kicking around in my head?"

"The one about the schitzophrenic monkeys?"

"The main character is schitzophrenic, the monkey are just the over lords to the human race."

"Yeah."

"Well, there's this guy named Milton Longfellow-"

"Wait, the same Longfellow that owns Longfellow film productions?"

"Exactly, anyway, if he likes my movie idea, he'll sponsor it. We can use the money to get a time machine."

"How do we get a time machine?"

"We build one."

"Ok number one, you and I both know that we don't have the intelligence to build a time machine, and number two, time machine's don't really exist."

"Well it can't hurt to try, maybe we can buy one."

"Buy one, are you kidding. Go ahead be my guest, buy one, if you can find one. But I sure as hell am not going on a wild goose hunt looking for a time machine."

"Fine, I guess i'll just buy one myself."

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

"Fine, you go buy one yourself."

"That's what I just said."

"That is what you just said."

"That is what I said."

"OOO, great come back, saying the exact same thing two times in a row."

"You know we've just been repeating ourselves." Luke acknoledged.

"Yeah, I know." Mark admitted.

Luke waited nervously in the reception area of Longfellow Film Productions. Any minute now and the receptionist would lead Luke into the office of Mr. Longfellow.

"Luke," the receptionist called Luke's name," follow me."

She led Luke to Mr. Longfellow's office door and opened it. The walls were lined with posters of movies that Longfellow had sponsored. "Tommy: The Talking Lunchbox", "Adolescent Mutated Karate Sharks", "Vacation on Mars", and "Attack of the Telephone polls".

Luke entered the room. Longfellow was reclining in his desk chair with his hands clasped together at chest height. He was wearing wire rimmed glasses and red suspenders. His receding hair was a little messy.

"Hello," Luke said,"I'm Luke Anderson, it's a pleasure to finally meet you Mr. Longfellow." They shook hands.

"Please, call me Milton."

"Ok Milton. Anyways, I'm trying to get this idea for a movie picked up."

"Ok, proceed."

"Well, I call it "The Mind", that's the title, and it takes place in the year 3000."

"I'm listening," Milton said intrigued.

"So in the year 3000, monkeys have enslaved the human race."

"Ok."

"And the only resource left on the earth is bananas."

"Ok."

"But in reality, all of this is going on in the mind of a schizophrenic life guard who secretly has a crush on his best friend's mom."

"Sounds good, sounds good."

"So, the lifeguard, his name is Mike, accidentally rips a whole in the space time continuum while in chemistry class at his high school and goes to the future to try to save the human race from getting enslaved by monkeys."

"Very interesting. I like it a lot. It's part Planet of the Apes, part Beautiful Mind, part American Pie."

"I know, pretty brilliant isn't it." Luke said proudly.

"Indeed. I'll give you one million for it."

"OOO, one mil? Doesn't that seem a little low to you?"

"Ok 10."

"Still a little low, you gotta understand, it's gonna cost a lot of money to go from future to the present, to the future, then at the end, Mike goes back to the present and seduces his friend's mom, but that part will probably only be on the DV so we can talk about it later."

"Alright twenty five million, final offer."

"Milton, you got yourself a deal."

Milton gave Luke one million up front. Luke decided to look for a time machine. He went to Sear's and went to their home appliance section. Rows of dish washers and refrigerators lined the isles but Luke couldn't find any time machines.

Luke found an employee and asked him "Do you guys carry time machines?"

"No, but we do have a wide array of dish washers, dryers, and refrigerators."

"I can see that."

"We even have a new product that is a washer, dryer and refrigerator all in one."

"Really?"

"It's also a camera."

"Well I'm looking for a time machine."

"You should try radio shack."

So Luke went to Radio Shack. The walls were lined with different gizmos and gadgets. Luke asked the floor manager if Radio Shack had time machines.

"No, we don't care them anymore."

"I see, well, do you know who would have them?"

"The Apple store might."

The Apple store was crowded. The hustle and bustle of the customers and employees.

"Can I help you," an employee greeted Luke as he entered the door

"Yes, I'm looking to buy a time machine."

"We don't have time machines," the employee said suspiciously.

"The guys at Radio shack said you do."

"Seriously, Radio shack said that?"

"Yeah."

"Ok listen," the employee's voice got tense," we've got time machines, but Apple's not trying to blab to everybody, we're keeping on the DL ok?"

"Ok."

"So I'm gonna go into the back, get you your time machine, you'll pay us, and we'll act like nothing happened. Now, what size do you want?"

"Size?"

"Yeah, apple time machines come in three different sizes, micro, normal, and alpha."

"Um, normal?"

"Ok, let me go into the back and I'll be right out."

After 15 minutes the employee came back out. "We didn't have any normals in stock, so I got you a micro."

"Ok."

"Open up your hand." The employee handed Luke the time machine. It could fit into his palm and wasn't more than a quarter inch thick."

"Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, you can't buy time machines, only rent one."

"How much is it to rent one?"

"50,000 a week."

"Dollars!?" Luke was astonished.

"No, door knobs, of course dollars."

"Couldn't I just go back in time at the and of the week, and relive the same week over and over again?"

"Theoretically yes. But we us the honor system here at Apple "

Luke drove straight to Mark's house. He showed Mark the time machine.

"That's it?" Mark said disgusted.

"Yeah, amazing, isn't it?"

"It's just a plastic box with paper in it."

Mark was right. Luke hadn't noticed it before, but their were about a dozen little strips of paper in the time machine, and a set of directions.

He read the directions out loud. " Take one piece of paper and place on tongue. Let paper soak on tongue for 30- 60 minutes to travel in time for twelve hours. Time traveled to will be dependent on the individual consuming. If you have a erection for more than four hours, seek medical attention immediately, even if it's medieval, but avoid leeches."

"So, do you wanna try it?" Mark asked.

"If you want to."

"I don't see why not, what's the worst that could happen?"

The two both took apiece of paper and put it in their mouth. They decided to just sit and wait for the effects to take place. Mark's eyes started to shift back and forth.

"Are you ok?" Luke asked.

"Yeah I'm fine, I think. Are the walls swerving for you?"

"Swerving, no, but the carpet is turning purple."

"Dude, the carpet is purple."

"No it's not, it's usually gray."

"Oh shit, I think were traveling through.." But before Mark could finish his sentence, he passed out and landed on the floor with a thud.

"Mark, Mark, are you ok?" Luke rushed over to Mark. As he ran across the room, his vision began to go fuzzy, his sight started to melt and he started to stumble around the room, landing on the couch, and passing out.

Luke woke up in the fetus position under a palm tree. He pulled him self up by the trunk of the tree. Little munchkins crawled down from the tree and demanded to see his credentials. He pulled out his wallet and the munchkins instantly snatched it from him. "Hey, come back here!" Luke yelled.

But the munchkins were too fast. They out ran Luke and then sprouted wings and flew away.

Luke looked around, recognizing his surroundings. Billboards with a weird language were on top of buildings. He couldn't read any street signs, because they were in the same language as the billboards. "This must be a language of the future," Luke said to himself.

Luke decided to ask a pedestrian were he was, and what the date was. He tapped the shoulder of a person in front of him. What turned around didn't resemble a person. It looked like a combination of a crab, a deer, and a red velvet carpet. "Um, where are we?" Luke asked a little intimidated.

"Grabs hal nark intu," the creature responded.

Luke was frightened. He looked at the creature confused. When the creature's facial expression changed from plain to menacing, Luke ran. He ran as fast as he could. Pasted the creepy billboards, pasted the street sighs, into a shanty town. He saw Mark and waved. Mark appeared to be talking to a park bench. "Mark, what the hell is going on?"

"I dunno but I haven't noticed my hands like this before. They can be used for so many things. It's amazing!"

"But are you seeing things like the billboards and street signs."

"Yeah I was wondering about those, what's up with those?"

"I dunno, but it's really freaking me out."

"Ok, I have an idea," Mark said," I say we find place to hunker down for a couple hours until we travel to a different time."

"Sounds good, but where should we go?"

"Lemme buy a a drink for some where, then lets discuss where to go. Hey look, a Safeway!" Mark said and pointed towards a Safeway about a block away.

The two walk across the street to the Safeway. "At least they have Safways in the future."

"Yeah, good old Safeway," Mark said in agreement.

They went to the drink isle and browsed through the drinks. There were drinks with names they never had heard of, Geeb Berry Juice, Chalutsim, Koof.

"Hey look, Gatorade!" Luke said in astonishment.

"Dude, Gatorade will always stand the test of time."

"Truth, truth."

"Hey you know what we should do," Luke said,"we should just stay here for a couple hours."

"In the Safeway?"

"Yeah. Think about it. We won't get lost, their plenty of food and cold drinks, here," Luke opened the door to the freezer where Safeway chilled their drinks, "we can just stay in the freezer, fall asleep, wake up, and we'll be back to the present."

"I like your thinking," Mark said and he also stepped into the freezer.

They huddled together for warmth, and eventually, fell asleep.

"Alright boys, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

Mark and Luke promptly woke up from their sleep to find their hands cuffed and a police interrogating them. "Sorry officer, we didn't know we were in the freezer"

"Yeah, yeah, that's what they all say, you two are going down town."

After posting bail, Luke called the guy at the apple store to ask him about the time machine. "Hey, my name is Luke, you sold me the time machine a couple days ago."

"What? oh yeah, the time machine. How do you like it?"

"Um, that was no time machine."

"Of course it wasn't. That was acid."

"ACID?!"

"Time machines don't really exist."