Well, I thought I’d challenge WordPress by giving it a date long before this blog ever started… 1976 English class at Bishop Moore High School in Florida. It worked. So I guess my time-travel task, in fairness, is to give you something from that time…
“Challenge”
It is still for there is no one to move. It is old for there is nothing new. The silence is only broken by Its slowly dying hum. Softly, swiftly, It prepares for the final hour with Its own objective pride in a finished mission.
It had given them immortality during their last years yet the two had gently refused, just as any of their number had earlier refused to continue while life was still high in them. Nevertheless, It could not feel remorse, It had fulfilled Its mission. It had cared for them as It had been told. All they desired was provided; they had no anxieties. It had been created by them, It had fulfilled their greatest wish, and now It too was preparing to leave.
It had been unprepared for their departure. They had informed It of procedure in the event of excessive arrivals or individual departures, but only in the early era had It used the arrival instructions. It had recorded for their related-ones-to-come the later era, when individuals were far less responsive to Its ministrations and voluntary departures grew more frequent.
The damp gray It knew to be most suitable for them was clearing as It relinquished control. It scanned the mechanically ordered files for the closing command and read, “… if the experiment is voluntarily terminated, the last significant messages of the participants are to be duly noted for the…” It had recorded them, displaying for the related ones, “You prepared well. We were in need of nothing original. You took care of all possibilities…but without…it was not worth it. It and I know nothing of creating.” It remembered him only as the last to concern himself with learning speech.
The mists cleared as the power waned and It noticed the Shield Wall for the first time since the Beginning. Remembering that Its own departure would end the Shield Wall, It was satisfied, something It had almost made them,
Its rapid thoughts came to a close, It almost wondered if the related would read the message. All was in order, all was finished, and It departed. The Shield Wall left also. The sun shone. Had It been there for the challenge of the new day It would have noticed the far larger Shield Wall beyond. Their related ones would never read the noted words.