Scenes from a Backwards Universe

One. Car Shopping.

A car starts out crushed, stored away in a junkyard. Possibly formed into a cube from molten metal. Possibly assembled over centuries from bits of rust. Once the car is ready to be sold to its driver, it will be stretched back out by a large expander and some old seats and other various parts will be strapped into it, ranging in condition from on their last legs to fairly ratty. The driver pays cash for it, but it may not be in drivable condition yet. A Push-Truck might be needed to get it home. After some working, the car will be assembled into a barely drivable condition, where it will have great sentimental value for the driver. From this point on, the purpose of driving is to remove wear and tear from the vehicle. If any one part becomes new and works just fine, it will be popped out and replaced by a broken part that will start out not working at all but will gradually start to work better as time goes on. Eventually, the car will be at the peak of its performance, at which point the driver will sell the car to a dealer. The dealer will then ship the car back to a factory where it will be dismantled and broken down into its basic parts.

Two. Reproductive Cycle.

While individual sex acts would be, in their own right, quite horrifying in a backwards universe (this might find its way into a part two of this series), the reproductive cycle would take on a terrible twist. People would start old, and get younger and younger. At some point in time, they would begin to lose bodily functions, becoming weaker and smaller with the years. This would culminate into a descent into baby years, where their "parents" would forced to care for them long enough for the mom to reabsorb them into her womb. Over the next nine and a half months, the mother would digest the child slowly until it was nothing more than a single sperm and a single egg. Soon after, she would generate a good number of sperm and would return the egg to her ovaries. The sperm she would eject, where it would be reabsorbed by the man to be dissolved into his testicles.

Three. Smokers.

While individual sex acts would be, in their own right, quite horrifying in a backwards universe (this might find its way into a part two of this series), the reproductive cycle would take on a terrible twist. People would start old, and get younger and younger. At some point in time, they would begin to lose bodily functions, becoming weaker and smaller with the years. This would culminate into a descent into baby years, where their "parents" would forced to care for them long enough for the mom to reabsorb them into her womb. Over the next nine and a half months, the mother would digest the child slowly until it was nothing more than a single sperm and a single egg. Soon after, she would generate a good number of sperm and would return the egg to her ovaries. The sperm she would eject, where it would be reabsorbed by the man to be dissolved into his testicles.

Four. Christmas Shoppers.

On (or around) Christmas, people will exchange gifts, giving up things they did not quite want to people who generally want them less but consider them clever or sufficient. This will be taken home and placed under a tree for sometime before being taken back out and unwrapped. In the months after Christmas, customers will rush to the store to sell the gifts back to the stores. Stores will lose an immense amount of money during this time, especially the week or so after Christmas and the day before Thanksgiving. Stores will accumulate massive amounts of merchandise, and harried workers will do all they can to take it off the shelves and pack it up to send off. Within a couple of of months after Christmas, people will appear to be a lot more relaxed about things. Retailers will be bringing a few new promotions to an end every week, and decorations will come down (later and later every year). Customers will trickle down to a more reasonable amount, knowing that the good sales are past them.

Five. The Sleep Schedule.

Sleeping will stay much the same in a backwards universe. One will hate to get out of bed and be tired getting into it, no matter which way time flows. The only difference might be seen in a certain gentleman's bookends for the day: he begins the day by spewing an iced scotch whiskey into a glass (which is then poured into a bottle and shipped back to a company who will cook it over a fire to help get the peat taste back out) and will end the day by regurgitating eggs into a plate, after which he cooks them raw and places them back into their shells so that they may be returned to the chickens who will reabsorb them (see The Reproductive Cycle above).

Six. Reading.

Reading is the worst affront to education ever. People start out with knowledge of things and then find themselves going from ending to beginning of books and forgetting everything the book discusses. A woman might sit down with her favorite book, enthralled with the plot twist in the beginning, but by time she stands up again, and puts the book down, she will find that she will only recall the bare details on the front cover. Finally, reading that, she will learn that she knows nothing about the book at all. She will take the meaningless collection of words back to a bookstore, and sell it, so that they might ship it back to the printer where it will be bleached clean. Eventually, some final printing will be sent to a writer, whose primary job is to read the book back and forth, adding in mistakes along the way, until even he or she has completely forgotten the plot besides maybe some vague idea of the last line.

Seven. The Last Date.

There are numerous last dates, but most end and begin in the same way. The end with nervousness, dread and expectation. The begin with either a sense of delight and a kiss or a sense of despair and a stiff drink. In the middle, though, any number of activities can take place, most involving series of social activities where various establishments pay the couple to participate in their services. Common activities include sunrise walks on the beach, spitting posh food back on a plate in each others company, and going to a club to refresh yourself by dancing until you no longer feel tired while selling the alcohol extracted from your body back to a bartender. In a traditional last date, only one member of the couple is expected to be paid. In what is called a "dutch" date, however, it is considered more fair for both of them to be paid equally. The general gist of the evening to slowly but surely forget all the little details you knew about the person. Some family values groups are against dating, due to the large number of relationships that finally end with a last date.

Eight. Presidential Elections.

While the term of office begins because future books tell a candidate (who has been receiving a nice pension and other amazing benefits his or her whole life due to the fact that the presidency will one day occur) that he or she is now meant to be president, they must end in the presidential election. After a president runs out of a four year term, they must then divide the votes up to justify them being part of the system. It begins with the losers of the forthcoming elections conceding. They are grateful that they will soon have a chance to try, and know that the past president has done a good job. Invariably, the losers will describe the past presidency as a time of healing the rift. Said rift, by the way, they will plan to make over the coming months. The next step is figure up how to count electoral votes so that the past president can get the numbers needed. Then, they have to divvy up the popular vote to justify the electoral vote. This may be a time of faint controversy, mind you, because some will insist that the electoral vote does not need to equal the popular vote's verdicts while some will think that it should. After this minor and normally ignored debate, each voter is told want to vote and then goes home to watch mudslinging campaigns give way to nicer and nicer ads. A few months down the road, and they will find that they have forgotten what most of the main issues are, and will realize that they have forgotten who had been president in the first place.

Nine. The One Night Stand.

A cousin to the last date, two people who are uncomfortable around each other meet up somewhere to have sex so that they may later spend the rest of their time together flirting in brief bursts before getting tired of the game and going back to a more professional relationship. Sex is an extra-ordinarily annoying thing. It begins with two people relaxed and mildly sweaty. In the middle, the two work really hard to undo the orgasms they just had at the start, though it can still be quite pleasurable. The final goal is for both members to be clean, fully dressed and quite frustrated. Sometimes aft-play is used to help calm both people down.

Ten. Art Class.

The goal of art class is to take people who have some skill at art and then drive it out of them by having them destroy one piece of art every week. Through careful classroom instruction, each artist is required to put graphite back on pencils and paint back in tubes by scraping it off whichever painting or sketch is meant to be erased at present. Though the first few projects tend to be complicated, the teacher quickly will reduce the class to simpler and simpler concepts. For the final grade, students take a pencil sketch of an apple and to erase it completely. After which, they take the apple it barely looked like back to the store and sell it for a paltry sum. They then sell back their now clean paper and freshly crafted pencils for a slightly higher amount.