Mario’s Time Machine

It’s a summer’s day, you’re playing hockey in the street with your pals, as all North American kids your age do, when you notice what appears to be a Super Nintendo cartridge lying on the ‘side-walk’.  You run over to it and read the label – sound it out – “Maaa-rii-O’sss…Taiii-mmm…Maa-sheeennn – Mario’s Time Machine! Cool!  A new Mario game!  And he can travel through time!”  You reach down to pick it up, but it’s pulling away from you, across the front lawn, up the driveway – it’s attached to a length of string!  You follow the cartridge-on-string up the driveway, and you notice the garage door rolling up ever so slowly.  It’s a surprise from Mom and Dad!, you think to yourself, squinting to see what might lie beyond the gaping maw.  As your young eyes adjust to the dark, you begin to make out shapes of a chair, a desk, an apple, a man with right arm outstretched.  Depth of field returns to you, and shapes give way to objects.  The apple, red and juicy, sits gleaming atop the desk beside pencils, books and sheets of paper; the chair tucked neatly underneath.

This familiar conglomerate of images evokes a feeling of immediate danger; you swirl them around in your head as if to taste them all.  DANGER.  Before you hear the next five words, you know you want to run, but you can’t.  Your joints are frozen; your legs like pylons sink into the concrete floor.  All you can do is look, listen, and taste.  The figure steps out from the shadows – it’s your father, and his right hand is holding a stick of chalk.  Your dread is confirmed by the final image – a blackboard mounted on the wall behind him – and those five, fateful words:

“WELCOME TO HISTORY CLASS, SON!”

Your summer is ended.

Fade to black.