Trying out new genres in our workshops inspired me to get outside my nonfiction comfort zone. Instead I wrote not just a work of fiction, but challenged myself even more for one that’s entirely dialogue.
“I think we should do it.”
“Perry, you know we can’t. Forget the butterfly effect—you’re talking the last two hundred years—all of American history—annihilated. If we go back in time, if we convince them not to adopt the Electoral College, the world we know is gone.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But look around! Look at where we are now! Whatever the alternative, it couldn’t be worse.”
Maya bit her lip and looked at her friend. Couldn’t it? “You don’t think we can still make it better, here, now?” she asked. “You don’t think we can come out on the other side?”
Perry frowned.
“Germany came back after Hitler,” Maya said.
“Hitler was defeated by military might. No one can defeat the U.S., and if they try, he’ll nuke the world. He’ll destroy it. Everyone. I mean, the real apocalypse.”
“And if we go back, if we do this, who will stop Hitler then? What if America isn’t powerful anymore?”
“I know, it’s risky. But an America without military power might be a blessing. Think of Afghanistan, Syria, Nicaragua, Vietnam. Don’t you think the world could be a better place without our meddling?”
“Maybe,” Maya said. She pressed on. “But what about the end of slavery? What about President Obama? If Dubya hadn’t won in 2000, would Obama have won in ’08? That could all be gone. We could come back to a Confederate America, or a real-life Handmaid’s Tale.”
“Is that so different from where we’re headed now?” Perry cried, flinging his arms wide. “If we’re there anyway, we have nothing to lose.”
His voice softened. “But think where we could be. The good timeline. Think of the world we could have.”
Maya let herself see it—a utopian America. The good timeline. Clean, and healthy; kind people who value equality and community; an economic landscape where everyone has a fair shot; a political process where everyone has a voice.
“We can have that world,” she said. “But not by going to the past. We make it by going forward.”