“Do you realize if it weren’t for Edison we’d be watching TV by candlelight? Al Boliska”
He strikes a heroic pose
his bicorne hat cocked at a jaunty angle
he gazes out across the sodden fields of Waterloo
stands in that iconic hand-in-waistcoat gesture
Napoleon’s hand cradles his iPod Touch
dials in the 1812 Overture
on the Classic Works of Russian Composers play list
The streets of Vienna are slick with new fallen snow
he works late into the night
hunched over a desk in the mahogany paneled study
illuminated by soft light from a MacBook Pro laptop
Dr. Freud’s face is a mask of bewilderment
as he Googles the meaning of the idiom:
“Yo Mama!”
The ship’s pilot peers through the astrolabe
sailors cluster together, speak in hushed tones
about sea serpents & sailing off the edge of the earth
Cristoforo Columbo emerges from his cabin
announces the East Indies will have to wait
his search on Mapquest has revealed
they are headed for someplace called The Bahamas
He picks up his fiddle
plays a tune that he can’t get out of his head
he’s just been told there’s trouble at Circus Maximus
“No reason to get get my toga in a twist” he thinks
“It’s only a little fire. How bad could it possibly be?”
Distracted, Nero sets the fiddle down & goes into the other room
to update his Facebook status.
How the tides of history might have turned
had Genghis Khan’s relentless advance
across the steppes been broadcast
on his twitterfeed & The Declaration of Independence
written on GoogleDocs
the Pony Express ~ going nowhere fast
had homesteading rights included
unlimited text messaging
Your Own Back Yard - Michael Gillan Maxwell 
March 26, 2012 at 11:22 am
I liked this little take on alternate history and future! 🙂
Especially:
Dr. Freud’s face is a mask of bewilderment
as he Googles the meaning of the idiom:
“Yo Mama!”
🙂
And I’d like to have read Genghis Khan’s tweets! 🙂
March 26, 2012 at 11:33 am
Hi Berit! Thank you so much for taking the time to leave such a kind and thoughtful comment – I relay appreciate it! I finally signed up for Twitter, but haven’t really spent much time interacting on it. You and Jules are the only two Twitter people I know, so my current list of people I’m flooding is TWO! I know it sounds like I’m a stalker – 🙂 – not so – just getting a slow start! If you have any writers to recommend?
March 26, 2012 at 11:40 am
No worries! 🙂 Everyone starts slow on Twitter. 🙂 Best way to get more followers is to chat with people and it’s a nice way to get to know them better. 🙂
Do you know MaryAnne Kolton from Fictionaut? She’s new to twitter too and I know she’d like more Twitter followers (@maryannekolton).
There’s a bunch of Fictionauters at Twitter: Sam Rasnake, Michelle Elvy, Stephen Hastings-King, Robert Vaughn, Marcus Speh, Foster Trecost, Lynn Beighley, Frankie Sachs, Jane Hammons, Myfanwy Collins, Kathy Fish, etc etc.
March 26, 2012 at 12:01 pm
Fantastic! Exactly what I need. At this point, my plan is to limit my Twitter to writers and artists and I can act like an idiot on FB if I so desire. The universe only needs so much of that anyway! I follow lots of these folks on the FB Writers page too. They are all familiar names. BTW – I’m about to launch into The Empty City – the REAL physical copy of the book this time! Will report back!
March 26, 2012 at 4:55 pm
Thank you very much for reading! I hope you will enjoy the story and the physical copy. 🙂
Most of the people who bought the book bought the paper copy. I hadn’t expected that.
March 26, 2012 at 6:39 pm
Yeah- I bought the e book last year – but found I really craved the physical book – even ended up writing a little essay on that whole subject on my blog. For all the reading that I do on electronic media, I still love books and guess I always will.
March 29, 2012 at 10:13 pm
Love the odd history lesson in this! Very cool. Like this line a lot: “Dr. Freud’s face is a mask of bewilderment/as he Googles the meaning of the idiom:/ “Yo Mama!”
And welcome to Twitter!
March 30, 2012 at 10:13 am
Haha! Thanks Jules. Considering most written history is an outlandish fabrication, why not have some fun with it and write our own damn history? Yeah – Twitter – for about a day the only 2 people I was following were you and Berit, which made me look like a total stalker so I added some more random people like Rupaul, the Jonas Brothers and Rush Limbaugh and suddenly my life has gotten very weird!
April 4, 2012 at 12:20 pm
Again I marvel at your wit and insight.
April 4, 2012 at 2:24 pm
Hi Ruth! Thanks so much for the comment! I will see you over at “your place” (blog) soon! 🙂