Adventures
of Dr. Cook V. Winkle, Anno Domini 2019
Doctor Cook V. Winkle awakened from his apparent nap. He pulled
his wits sharply together and commenced to cogitate. The last thing he
remembers was sitting on a bench in front of the court house on the Sunday
afternoon before the United States legally went dry, reading the Sunday papers
and hearing the crowd congregated at the corner of the street laugh whenever
the officer “held” up any passing automobilist who failed to come to a “dead-stop”
at the STOP HERE marks at the intersection of those streets. The doctor was
cool sober and very thirsty. Even the Restaurant Keepers were afraid to sell
him or any body else. It being Sunday a glass of milk or tea that had been near
the ice for fear of breaking the Special County Law which barred the sale of “Any
Cold or Soft Drink” on this day. He thought of his ancient departed friend, Dr.
Salt Lake of Wilson, North Carolina, very wise in his generation, who when he
sold his Apples on Sunday always ran the m through his stove whether there was
any fire in it or not, so as to comply with them exisiting law prohibiting the
sale of any fruits on the Sabbath unless they had been put on the stove before
being offered for sale. On looking down at his body he was surprised to find it
entirely covered with hair which mingled and intertwined with his whiskers, now
of an enormous length. A newspaper lay at his side. Picking it up he was
confronted with the date July 6, 2019 and the doctor at once realized that he
had “skinned” the record of his illustrious ancestors by four-fifth of a
century, and his apparent nap in the year of our Lord Nineteen Hundred and
Nineteen had been extended into the year Two Thousand and Nineteen.
In other
words, he had slept a hundred years.
No one seemed to pay any attention to the doctor, in fact no one
had must time to pay attention to anybody as those on foot were too busily
engaged in dodging cars, all of which seemed to be running on only two wheels
located in the middle of the cars.
He commenced to study the pedestrians. They seemed at first sight
to have a double pair of shoulder blades, but he found that what appeared to be
hugely developed shoulder blades were simply wings in the process of formation,
resembling those of a chicken, so that in cases of “urgent necessity” the owner
could with greater ease “hop” out of the way and sometimes clear over these curious
vehicles. Also upon pedestrians with scales and shells so in this trains (what
was written, not sure what it meant), there was an absence of hair but huge rubber
scales instead of hair offered protection to the person from being killed
outright by screw drivers and monkey wrenches and other utensils carelessly
falling from the hundreds of air planes floating above. The doctor at once realized
that just as way back in saurian age all creeping animals were equipped with
scales and shells, so in this age of 2019, kindly nature was doing her part to
keep from being extinct the walking man of the present.
Those who rode in the machines did not appear to have such
pronounced “chicken wings” or “rubber scale” head pieces, but when one of the
Machine-men alighted from his car, he noticed that his legs were a great deal
shorter and thinner than the pedestrian-man, also that he had great difficulty
in preserving his equilibrium when attempting to walk.
Gone was the Bicycle and its rider. Thirty years ago a few of them
who had miraculously escaped their arch enemy the auto had been grabbed up by
circuses and with their old friend Horse were being exhibited in Side shoes and
museums, their descendants being the Trapeze, Bar performers and Contortionists
of the present age.
But little change had taken place on the principle street. As in
the year of 1919, so in the year of 2019, it was still the race course. The
streets had been broadened considerably at the expense of the sidewalks and
pedestrians so as to accommodate the increased auto traffic, and on Sundays any
pedestrians traveling that street had to first apply to a permit officer and
sign a document, waiving any right to sue in case of accident.
He was charged nothing for this document, but being printed on
Sanitary paper and signed with a Sanitary pen he was taxed a few cents which
with the tax for the Sanitary Blotter and the Sanitary Envelope and the
Government tax made about ten cents. He was told that about the year 1950, just
as in the year 1919, so few people had any respect for the speed law except for
a few days after some one was ??? or ??? though still on the Statute Books, it
was still utterly disregarded.
Gone also with the restaurants and in their stead he found a cross
between a Drug Store and a Restaurant in which were arrayed little racks of
syringes containing concentrated food, so that when a patron desired food there
was no waiting but it was injected into his system.
On the corners of several streets he found little “Dope Shops” in
which the Cola drinks were administered also hypodermically and the same old
charge as existed in the year 1919, prevailing of eight cents each. Gone was
the sanitary cup in use in 1919 in these places, but the extra tax was still on
to take care of the expense of the Sanitary napkinette with which the arm had
to be rubbed after the “shot.”
He also found the art of Dentistry becoming extinct for on account
of the great amount of food administered hypodermically, the race of men were being
produced lacking teeth.
Music he also found on the wane. As in the year 1919, “canned
music” had taken the place of the human, so in the year of 2019, the “droning
airships and the “hum” of the auto had destroyed that sensitive part of the ear
made to take in a concourse of sweet sounds. A few were found however, who
still retained their primitive instincts and produced upon a three stringed
instrument something like the Ukalalie and the aid of a drum, sounds which in
rhythm resembled the “Shimmey-Shim” and the “Sooethy.”
The court house and the Mayors office had long since been torn
down as the seat of government had been moved to Washington. There was no
election any more or any Town officers but various Commercial organizations met
in a large building which had been erected and made the local laws. In this
building was displayed the marble statue of a man over 12 feet tall and with a
foot nearly two and a half feet long, and in this building once a week a
professor of Archeology lectured on the prehistoric man which existed 30,000
years ago and of which the statue was a reproduction. The Professor stated that
this prehistoric man in passing through the marl beds of this section in the
age when the Atlantic Ocean covered this part of the country had left his track
upon a soft stone and from the aforesaid
stone had been constructed the man on exhibition. They sustain the genuineness
of his contention. The professor produced for the inspection of his audience the
original stone bearing the original naked foot print of the Doctor Cook V.
Winkle recognizing it as the identical stone which formed a portion of the walk
in the year 1919 in front of a certain enterprising merchant’s store and gave a
big horse laugh and woke up.
--R.W.M.
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