You can never get away

I’d had enough. I needed a get-away-from-it-all break. So I hopped in my time machine and went forward to the year 3,000,000. I picked that time because I was sure by then the Universe had enough of humans and was back to favoring dirt and rocks.

I was right. There I was, standing on a flat and treeless ground. There wasn’t a building, person, animal or car in sight. The silence was immense. I put my ear to the ground and heard the Earth creaking in its rotation.

Off in the distance, the wind whirled, creating a dust devil. The dust devil got closer. Soon it was hovering, inches from my face. The dust devil said, “Heeeyyy, how’s it going? My name’s Mitch. Do you wanna be my friend? Hmm? Hmm?  Hey, let’s have a tickle fight. Whaddya say, whaddya say, whaddya say?”

I ran in the opposite direction. The dust devil followed, saying, “Hey, where yah going? Can I come with yah? Oh, I get it, you wanna play tag. I’m gonna getcha!” I ran faster, but the dust devil kept up, just inches away.

I fell and the dust devil swept under me, lifting me forty feet in the air, spinning me around until I almost threw up, and saying, “I got yah, I got yah, I got yah!”

I yelled to be put down. The dust devil set me on the ground and said, “Okay, now you catch me!” It swiftly swept across the barren landscape until it was a tiny spike of dust in the distance. I ran to my time-travel machine, punched in today’s date, and found myself back home.

The phone was ringing, someone was knocking at the door, and a neighbor’s car alarm was going off. I closed my eyes and fell into a deep sleep.