Hello everyone.  Full details of the Manchester Climate Monthly short story contest (top prize £200) will appear here very soon!  Meanwhile, there’s a 400 word short story contest – theme “Past, Present, Future” as part of Chorlton Arts Festival.  Closing date is 26th April.  Here are the full details.

And here’s my entry.  No, I won’t be giving up my day job…

Marc Hudson
mcmonthly@gmail.com

Title: The future is always knocking incessant, trying to break through, into the present.

The blue box whooped and vanished. The planet it left was frying.

***

The blue box whooped and appeared, 150 years earlier, in the same spot; outside an upmarket cafe in Chorlton. Yummy mummies were swapping gossip and gardener tips over skinny frappuccinos. They didn’t even glance at the tall skinny man – his face all angles and doleful eyes – and his younger female friend (though they noted her looks, and muttered “bitch”) as they stalked in.

The Doctor paused, earwigging. People were planning weekend breaks in Barcelona and Tallinn. And a week in Australia with one night in Bangkok.

“We’re too late” he exclaimed. The blue box whooped and vanished again.

***

And reappeared miles away and another 150 years earlier, in June 1868. At the Mechanics’ Institute, David Street.

“What’s going on Doctor?”

“The first Trades Union Congress.” He looked at his fob watch. “I wrote to John Tyndall, asked him to meet us here. Today! He has to explain to the workers about the dangers of accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Where is he? He’s too late!”

***

The caveman tightened his grip on his club, still matted with scalp hair of a mammoth. The whooping stopped, and an impossibly tall man stepped out of the blue box. His brow furrowed.

“Too early! We’re running out of time!”