"...I got the hell out of Dodge"

I needed to get out of the 21st century so I folded time/space.

Kansas City October 24th, 2:46pm 1943~CE.

I stumbled into an air raid drill. I forgot WW2. Seems there’s worse things than COVID, and the Culture Wars. A cop shoved me down some stairs to a shelter. A “Coloreds Only” shelter. I forgot Segregation too. What would da Nazi think?

I had relatives in da Midwest in them days. I looked around for any family resemblances. Other than a few hipsters in Zoot Suits…google that. It was just folks. Colored folks doing the best they could and fighting for a better day. That, and they were eyeing my NASA jacket, and Reeboks. In New York in any century. No one would have gave me a second look. Well okay things got weird in the 26th.

After the all clear I went to a Nedicks for a real hot dog, and orange drink. Ain’t had lunch in one’a them since the late 50′s. Heaven. War time Kansas City. Soldiers everywhere posters for War Bonds. Real Jeeps drove by. We were divided, yet united against a bigger enemy than our demented squabbles.

Along a side street I stopped at a news stand. I asked if the guy had “Fantastic Four” No.1…he never heard of it. Seems I was about twenty years early. Anyway, I got a Hershey bar which is thicker ’n twice the size as ours. Costs five cents! Also, a copy of New Yorker with a Thurber cartoon on the cover. With that I was on my happy way. I went behind a phone booth…yeah these were all over the place. I then warped temporal shifted phased or whatever back to the glorious freedom loving demented divided hateful, and expensive American future. I hate it here.