(One note—I just glanced at the picture and saved it to my phone and wrote it on my lunch break. Somehow, I didn’t notice the buildings!)

                           Doctor Livingston, I Presume

                                           By Jeff Baker

            “I thought I’d find you here,” the first man said.

            “What? Oh, it’s you,” the second man said.

            “Who were you expecting?”

            “At least you didn’t ask me if I was Dr. Livingston,” said the second man. “That’s gotten old.”

            “Actually, it hasn’t been said yet,” said the first man. “Not for about another, let’s see, how many billion years?”

            “Millions of years,” said the second man. “It’d be on the display in your machine. You know, I’d almost forgotten we’d made the working prototype. Very cramped, but it apparently works if you’re back here.”

            “Tracking gizmo works pretty well,” said the first man. “It’s how I found you. “I figured you’d used the newer machine to cut out of there.”

            “All that fol-de-rol about paperwork and procedures. Of course I left!”

            “You came all the way back here to the Jurassic just to get away from the office!” The first man began to laugh.

            “Well, we’re not in the Jurassic,” the second man said. “We’re in the Cenozoic, I think. No big dinosaurs. And this view is worth it. The clouds, the hills, the lake.” He looked up and grinned. “It does get wet, though.”

            “I noticed your umbrella,” the first man said.

            “It poured a few hours ago. Look over there! A bird!”

            “What kind of bird?”

            “Not sure,” said the second man. “But I think it had feathers. Maybe the first one.”

            “We have to get back you know,” the first man said, staring out across the lake. “But not just yet.” He sat down.  “I brought coffee.”

            “Good,” said the second man. “I thought about it, but I was in a hurry. Pass the thermos, will you?”

            “Sure. Oh, look at those birds!”

                                                —end—