Writing Prompt: A mundane action has prompted a visit from the Time Travel Police

I caught the egg.

It dropped out of thin air and into my hand like I was waiting for it to arrive.  Catching apported eggs is not something I normally do when I'm grocery shopping, so three things happened in quick succession:

•  - I was momentarily impressed by my own reflexes.   Like a boss  I thought.
•  - I was then immediately curious about the airborne egg, and looked up.
•  - A hand arrived on my shoulder and a gruff male voice with a North London accent said "You're nicked, son".

At which point, my hand closed on the egg and there was a crunchy noise and the ooze of raw egg, slimey and cold, through my fingers.
"You, you slag, are being arrested on suspicion of 'aving given Causality a right kicking.  You do not have to say anyfing, but it may 'arm your defence if you don't mention, when questioned, summink you later rely on in court.  D'you unnerstan'?"
There were two of them.  Middle aged men with greying hair and beer bellies wearing off the peg suits that were valiantly denying the existence of the beer bellies whilst at the same time drawing massive attention to them.  Both men were holding out wallets with warrant cards in them.
"What?" I said.  Eloquent under stress, that's me.  The man on my right, in a navy blue suit, rolled his eyes and looked pained.  The man on my left, wearing a grey suit with stains on the jacket lapel, sighed.
"You've been nicked, son.  I have nicked you.  Nicking is what is taking place at this time.  And you are the nickee.  On account of me being Detective Inspector Bloke of the Temporal Flying Squad, and him being Detective Sergeant Geezer.  Any questions?"
I blinked several times.
"Yes, many.  Can we start with you confirming for me whether or not you're having a laugh or not?  I'd then like to find out what kind of idiot you take me for and then, to round this off for for the moment, I'd like to know which of the many picturesque local villages is currently missing it's idiot."
D.I. Bloke seemed to think this over.  Standing in the hard and slightly flickering light of my local budget supermarket he had a hallucinatory quality and I might have passed him off as a bad dream had I not been able to smell him; cigarettes, coffee, something with sandalwood in it that might have been aftershave.  
"No," he said eventually "I am not 'avin' a laugh.  I don't take you for an idiot, I take you for a existential fret to the 'ole 'kin cosmos an' if you must know I'm from Pinner!  Now, are you comin' quietly or do I get to slap you about a bit first?"
I shrugged.
"Whatever.  I know there's no such thing as the Temporal Flying Squad, and I know there's no way I can be a threat to the cosmos.  This is some stupid TV show bollocks, so reveal the cameras and jog on."
Bloke turned to Geezer.
"Sergeant, taze this gobby bastard until 'ee wets 'isself and the slap the cuffs on him."
I was just about to protest when Geezer spoke up.
"No, Guv.  Think it through.  If he wets himself, we have to ride home with that.  Isn't today going badly enough?"
When he didn't get an answer, Geezer turned to me.
"Look, pal, you did it.  We saw you.  You caught an egg that hadn't been thrown.  Do you have a post graduate degree in temporal physics, physics, mathmatics or philosophy?"
"No!"
"Then you'll have to take my word for most of this," said Geezer "but it goes something like this: if you violate causality, even a little bit, it starts to unravel.  By the time you reach our era, the range of possibilities is absurd.  Time travel is possible, for example.  Literally, the only thing holding the universe together is the observer effect and that has some unpleasant side effects."
Despite myself, I was fascinated.
"Like what?"
Bloke leaned into my field of vision.
"Like the fact that D.S. Geezer here was born in Mumbai, but when he joined the TFS he slowly became a white middle aged Londoner. There is a strata of the popular consciousness which expects coppers in a Flying Squad to behave and look a certain way.  Even our names have changed."
"Under normal circumstances, I can't even speak English" said Geezer.
I dropped the remains of the egg, the better to wave my arms around helplessly and to no great effect.
"I don't understand!  This all sounds like bollocks!"
"Yes!  It is!" Geezer siezed me by the shirt and pulled me down to his eye level "And that's how the universe works now!  Do you want to know what our time machine looks like?  It's a phone box!  Because people expect time machines to look like phone boxes!  And that's not even how the Observer Effect is meant to work!  But there are nine billion people with ready access to the sum total of human entertainment and only low quality higher education reinforcing it!"
I tried to imagine what might happen to a world where nine billion people were imprinting it with their expectations instead of observations, but large parts of my imagination recoiled from the idea in utter horror and sat gibbering in a corner.  I work in tech support, so my opinion of people isn't exactly high.  If I was called on to give a "humanity has such potential" speech to visiting aliens, I wouldn't be able to say anything for laughing.
"All of this because I caught an egg that hadn't been thrown?" I asked, siezing on the one thing that still seemed concrete.  And you can tell how not concrete the day had become if an unthrown egg is your sole source of certainty.
"Yep" said Bloke.
At which point, I had an idea.
"If the egg wasn't thrown, but was caught, surely all we have to do is throw the egg?"
Bloke glared at me.
"The one you crushed?" he said.
"Yes," I said, "the one I crushed.  But the one which wasn't crushed when I took it out of the egg carton."
I walked over to the stack of cartons and picked one at random.  The space in the row at the front told me I'd picked correctly.
"But you didn't take it out of the carton," said Bloke "that's the problem."
"No, but I will have," I explained "when you use your time machine to pop us back so I can take the egg from the carton and throw it into the air."
Bloke seemed unconvinced.
"Look," I said, "it works, honestly.  I was waiting with my hand out to catch the egg.  I can't have known what was going to happen, but apparently I did.  And it would also explain why you two didn't have to come and find me.  You were right here the moment the egg arrived, as if you'd been waiting.  I should have heard you approach, but didn't!  Don't you see?  This is a predestination paradox!"
The two coppers frowned.
"Even if it is," said Geezer hesitantly "how will that help?"
"Judo" i said, and then had to explain.
I was proposing to use the problem against itself.  Based on what the Police had explained, causality had failed and the universe was being shored up by a sort of "continuity" based, in large part, on popular myth and ignorance.  The universe did what people expected it to do.  That effect started here, now, and must therefore be in action here and now.  
"Which means," I concluded "that if my expectation is that the completion of a loop is, in effect, a reset switch that resolves a paradox rather than perpetuating it, that's what the universe will do!".
They thought about it.
"Worth a try" said Bloke.
Time travel is weird.  As you do it, the experience of it unravels from your memory leaving you with the strong impression that someone has popped open your skull and licked your brain.
I stood in the supermarket and flicked open the carton.  I took the egg out, stood where I remembered standing before (or, rather, later) and took a deep breath.

I threw the egg.

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Writing Prompt: Adam and Eve want to make children but have no idea how to get started.

First of all, for those of you reading this because there's potential sex will be sadly disappointed.  There isn't any.  I did some research and it turns out, according to Genesis, that Adam and Eve don't get it on until after they've been kicked out of Eden.

In fact, it looks like they didn't have time to do much of anything before the Serpent persuaded Eve to eat the apple.  We can discuss the plot holes in Eden story another time. For now, here's my take on what happened next:


Adam sat near the fire and sighed.
"Look, all I said was He commanded us to be fruitful, and if we want to get back in His good books we should probably do that."
Eve threw another twig on the small fire and stared at him.
"Oh, NOW you're interested in doing what God said.  I like these sudden impulses of yours.  Like that sudden impulse to stand up for me when we were being thrown out?"
"I didn't have a..."
"I KNOW!"
There was silence.  The wood popped and squeaked as the fire consumed it.  Around them, the night seemed full of movement and small, disconcerting sounds.  Back in the Garden everything had been simpler and the animals had at least been polite.
"So much for all that 'Your desire shall be for your Husband' business" Adam muttered.
"It is" snapped Eve "and very inconvenient that is, too.  I mean, you're literally the only man in the world so it's not like I can leave you and take up with someone who has an actual backbone or anything."
Adam sighed.
"I'm sorry," he said "it's been a really trying day.  I don't need to tell you that. This morning when the sun came up everything was so simple.  Now look at us."
"And you blame me?"
Adam shook his head, staring out into the darkness.
"No.  If the serpent had come to me, I would have done exactly the same thing.  It might have taken longer for me to give in, but that's only because I've spent more time around God and I'm more used to obeying Him.  This is our fault, collectively. I'm just sorry it happened."
Eve shrugged, brushing her hair away from her face.
"And I'm sorry I've reacted so defensively.  It's just that...He said I'd bear children in pain.  I'm not looking forward to that.  And one thing kind of leads to the other."
She paused, hiding behind her hair again.
"Also," she said "we've never done...that...before and I'm really not sure how it all works.  Will it hurt?"
Adam grinned.  Finally, he could help.
"It's not painful at all," he said "actually, it feels really good.  You'll enjoy it, I promise."
Eve peered at him from behind her hair.
"How do you know?" she asked quietly.  Adam, warming to his subject, moved closer.
"Well, my first wife really liked it, so we did it a lot."
There was silence.  Adam, about to put his arm around Eve, sensed the temperature around the fire drop quite substantially.  He moved his arm away.
"First wife?" asked Eve.
"I've mentioned Lilith before, surely?" said Adam "I'm sure I've spoken to you about Lilith.  She was...come on!  Lilith!  She got kicked out because she wanted to be in charge and be on top all the time!  I'm always talking about Lilith!"
"First I've heard about her," said Eve quietly "first I've heard about Lilith the domineering sex maniac. Wow.  Sounds like you two had a really good time.  And God kicked her out, you say?"
Adam nodded, was about to speak, caught sight of Eve's expression in the firelight and closed his mouth.
"If only," said Eve "if only we'd had even an inkling that God's typical punishment for transgression was exile.  If only we'd known that, if things didn't go His way, He'd kick us out.  That might have been really useful information to have at some point prior to us eating that apple.  
"That," she said "would have been *really* useful to know, ADAM."
"Granted," said Adam "and you know what, I feel pretty bad about not telling you, but frankly I only realised that I'd done the wrong thing after we ate the apple, but what with the sudden need to make clothes because we're suddenly aware it's bad to be naked and then the pressing business of God's Judgement followed shortly by being told I'll have to be a farmer all my life - and let me tell you, I have no idea what that means or what a farmer is, I expect you'll be asking me to work that out starting tomorrow morning because we've got nothing to eat.  So, you know, with God not being exactly forthcoming with instructions, all I know is that I'll be eating food farmered with the sweat of my face!  Like that makes any sense!
"So, yeah, Lilith slipped my mind!  I would imagine that, if you'd had much of a past, bits of that might have slipped your mind today too!  But no! Not Eve!  Eve was created by God as the perfect companion for me after he'd worked out how to get you right.  He didn't make any mistakes with you, did he?"
He became aware that he was standing, and sat slowly back down.
"Sorry," he said "this is ridiculous.  You're the last person I should be angry at.  The worst of it is, I'm not.  I'm angry at Him.  But you're the only other person in the world that I can talk to.  Can we forgive each other and start again tomorrow?"
Eve thought about it for a few moments.
"Can we forgive each other and start again tonight?" she asked.  Adam nodded slowly.
"Yes.  I'm sorry for losing my temper with you, sorry I didn't tell you everything up front...I think I was just really excited to meet you at first, and then later I didn't want to think about anyone else...and, well, then we got thrown out of Paradise."
Eve smiled.
"I'm sorry I was angry at you.  Everything is new, and scary, and I don't know what's supposed to happen next.  I thought God loved us, and I thought we could trust the Serpent, and everything's gone horribly wrong, and it feels like it's my fault."
Adam sat next to her, put his arm around her shoulder and held her.  She leaned against him, just for a moment enjoying the way she could relax and let his body take her weight...and curiously impressed that he seemed to be able to support her with no sign of effort.
They sat together for a time, body against body, sharing the warmth of the fire and a companionable silence.  She rested her head against his shoulder.
"Is that how forgiveness works?" she asked.  Adam looked at her sideways.
"How do you mean?"
"Is that all there is to it?"
He threw another stick on the fire.
"I don't know," he said "maybe.  And maybe we get to decide how it works.  Do you want to make it more complicated?"
"Not more complicated..." said Eve "...just...thinking about, you know, my desire being for my husband."
"Oh" said Adam.
"And if it's as much fun as you say, maybe it's a good way to show we're not angry at each other?"
"Yeah!" said Adam "I think...good plan!"
"So," said Eve "show me how that works?"  
They wrapped arms around one another, drew closer and decided to worry about farmering, and childbirth, and everything else, in the morning.

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Writing Prompt: Letter from the former President of the USA

So, today I got a comment from a reader saying he liked my work.

This about made my day.  To celebrate, some writing prompt fiction.  As usual, these come from my output on Reddit and r/writingprompts.

The Prompt: The outgoing President of the United States has written a letter to the newly inaugurated President. Instead of friendly advice, that letter contains the horrible truth that the public doesn't know about. Write that letter.

Hello, Mr. President.

If you're anything like I was in the first few weeks of my presidency, you'll be getting into everything and looking for answers to all the wacky questions you can think of. I now know where Hoffa is buried, who killed Kennedy, who performed the sex change on Norma Jean Baker, what's going on at Area 51 and a dozen other things.

It's all good fun, and your staff will brief you on whatever you want for any reason at all.

Trust me on this, though, none of it is as fun as it sounds before you know the truth.
The real surprises are about the things you'll never think to ask. This one blew me away.

The USA does not have a nuclear deterrent.

In fact, no one has The Bomb. It's not possible to make one. We've been lying about this since Hiroshima. The Soviet Union were lying. The UK and France are also lying. It is no longer possible to build nuclear weapons.

It was possible, thanks to a synthetic element fabricated by the Manhattan Project, but the scientists who created it used all of it at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They were then not able to make any more. We still have no idea why it worked and why it doesn't. Our best brains think Oppenheimer and Einstein cooked something up between them to end the war with Japan but to prevent the USA and USSR mass producing weapons.

Nations that discover the truth end up on the UN Security Council. We collectively bribe them to silence, although some leaders are smart enough to figure out what would happen if some nations found out our ability to turn them into glass parking lots was entirely fictional.

We have faked every test, spent millions and millions of dollars finding a reliable way to give people cancer, the whole bit. We even fake up reactor disasters, just to keep people on their toes. It's all a lie. But it's a lie that has prevented the start of another world war for over fifty years and we think it'll be good for another fifty.

Quite a lot of your presidency is going to be taken up with finding convincing reasons why we can't just nuke the crap out of some rogue nation so I strongly recommend you ignore that Kennedy crap and get serious briefings done on the geopolitical situation around the world. You need to have your game face on 24/7 in case someone figures out the Big Lie. This is why presidents in office age so damn fast.

Good luck.

You're going to need it.

Best,

The Former President of the United States.

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