{"id":4709,"date":"2025-06-28T15:57:32","date_gmt":"2025-06-28T19:57:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/?p=4709"},"modified":"2025-06-28T17:27:45","modified_gmt":"2025-06-28T21:27:45","slug":"blast-from-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/?p=4709","title":{"rendered":"Blast from the Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

The writing prompt for this piece was “Hot, Hot, Hot.’ I chose Climate change as my direction, looking back from the future.<\/em><\/p>\n

Blast from the Past<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI found it! I found it!\u201d That\u2019s all Charles said, over and over.<\/span><\/p>\n

His mother rushed into his cube and asked him what he had found.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think it is called a booker,\u201d was his response.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s a booker?\u201d his mother asked.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of those things that they had back in ancient times. It has all sorts of squiggles in it. I think they called it writing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWriting?\u201d she said, \u201cI\u2019ve heard of that. Refresh my memory. What would writing be?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWell, according to the research that I\u2019ve been doing, back in the year 2025, on Earth, that was one of the ways humans used to communicate with each other.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a long time ago,\u201d she responded, \u201cI\u2019m impressed. No humans are living on that planet anymore; perhaps some insects and fish remain. It\u2019s mostly dried up, with pockets of water. I\u2019m not very versed in history. What happened there?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWell, my cube screen told me that there was a great turmoil back then with humans disagreeing on everything. There was also a climate issue, which significantly altered the planet\u2019s structure. Too much heat melted everything, and then the water took over, until the heat dried up a lot of it.\u201c<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIs that how we got out here, in these bio cubes?\u201d his mother asked.<\/span><\/p>\n

Charles continued, \u201cYep, it turns out that people needed a way to escape Earth. Its wealthy humans spent lots of something called money to develop a ship that could go out into space.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut did they build one big enough for everyone?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey totally failed,\u201d said Charles, \u201cAnd then there was the issue of who would inhabit these vehicles. No one could agree on who would be saved and who would be left behind.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Charles\u2019 mom begged him to continue.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWell, it was a simple solution once the discovery was made. It was a female and a male, only 15 solar years old, who discovered the space bubble. That allowed people to reverse gravity, enclose themselves in a cube, and be taken safely away. The cube was flexible enough to accommodate lots of their belongings. I guess these bookers were not very important, so most of them were left behind.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat would also explain why there are so few of us here. I understand that there were billions of inhabitants there,\u201d his mother said. \u201cLucky for us, that some of those that were saved could build upon those bubble discoveries. How many Earth solar years have we been gone?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe best estimate I could find, through my screenmindtech, is four generations, about 400 solar earth years.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo what will you do with that booker you\u2019ve found?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI guess I will have to learn how to translate it, maybe it will give me some indication of what life was like back then. These squiggles must be some sort of words.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s interesting,\u201d mother said. \u201cWhy would you need to look at words when they are just there in your head. It would take too long to decode them visually.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what I want to find out.\u201d I think I\u2019ve managed to decode a word that is on the front of this booker. Its six squiggles were all different.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does it say?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t say anything yet. I\u2019ll need to do more research. I\u2019ve discovered at least 26 different squiggles that show up throughout the booker. I believe these squiggles were called letters. Those that have no spaces between them could be a word.\u201d Here is what the squiggles look like on the front of this booker: <\/span>EXODUS<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The writing prompt for this piece was “Hot, Hot, Hot.’ I chose Climate change as my direction, looking back from the future. Blast from the Past \u201cI found it! I found it!\u201d That\u2019s all Charles said, over and over. His … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[491,177],"class_list":["post-4709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-original-stories","category-story-writing","tag-hot","tag-writing-prompt"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4709"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4712,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4709\/revisions\/4712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hdhstory.net\/Storyblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}