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Challenge of the Week XXXIX
You took your smartphone and moved back to 1984. For the sake of the plot, your phone works perfectly, but a condition of your year-long relocation in time is no one can see it, or know about it. You are to report back to 2023 the contrasts: With people, music, overall humanity, anything. Send texts, pics, videos, undetected. The elite group with whom you work has cracked the code of time travel and intervention, and while the race to colonize Mars rages on, your group has decided to instead go back to 1984 to reset the world, so to speak. Before that power leaves a seamless, yet indelible mark on the future, the group has to decide if it's for the better, or to go ahead and let it all run the course it's on, and start looking skyward for continuation. Make it funny, make it deep, make it dark, make it yours. Entry with the most likes takes the $25 wire. Go.
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EllenBogen
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(f)act of humanity

I was standing in the middle of a busy street in 1984, staring at the world through the screen of my smartphone. I had been sent back in time by a group of elite time travelers to observe and report the differences between the past and the present. But something felt off.

I took a picture of a group of people sitting on a bench, laughing and chatting. They looked carefree and happy. But as I zoomed in, I noticed that their clothes were worn and faded, their shoes scuffed and frayed. It was then that I realized the stark contrasts between the past and the present.

In 2023, people had more access to technology, better healthcare, and more opportunities. But in 1984, people had something that we had lost along the way: a sense of community. They knew their neighbors, they helped each other out. They weren't as disconnected as we were.

As the days turned into weeks, I became more and more attached to the people of 1984. I volunteered at a local shelter, helping those less fortunate. I went to concerts and danced with strangers. I felt alive in a way that I had never felt before.

But as my time in the past drew to a close, I knew that I couldn't stay. I had a duty to return to the present and report back on what I had learned. I took one last picture of the city skyline, tears streaming down my face.

As I traveled back to 2023, I thought about what I had learned. The contrasts between the past and the present were vast, but it was the similarities that stuck with me. We were all human, all striving for happiness and connection. It was up to us to bridge the gap between the past and the present, to find a way to bring the sense of community and togetherness of the past into the present.

I vowed to carry that feeling with me, to remember the lessons I had learned. The contrasts between the past and the present may be striking, but it was the connections we made along the way that mattered most.

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