The prompt was, inflicted by myself upon the group:
A secret government agency reaches out to you and informs you that somehow somebody in the future has built a time machine and used it to reach backwards in history – and they have a message for you. This time machine only allows for the transmission of limited data. It turns out these people from the year 2220 managed to finally penetrate the radioactive debris layer and found your remains, and were even able to extract enough DNA to identify your direct descendants – your great (8x) grandchildren. Those people were immediately notified.
And are they p***ed. Their message reads as follows (adjusted for primitive 21st century English, which still uses verbs):
“What – what were you thinking? What are you and all the people who are living in your time doing? Do you people not understand basic cause and effect? Please – STOP!”
You only get one chance at a reply. So please pen a brief apology (<500 words) – or at least explanation – for your descendants, explaining 2020 to them.
My improvised reply was:
To my descendants, my great grandchildren, the fruit of my loins, the bearers of the noble Jankowski blood line:
F*** you.
There is no reason my generation should have to live within our means. Screw that. As soon as I’m done writing this, I am going to text my Congressperson and demand more frivolous Federal spending. Have fun paying off our national debt. Quite frankly, I’m surprised my blood line made it as far as you, given the cuts we keep making to healthcare.
And why should we change to renewable energies when we can just keep on using the same old polluting carbon fuels? Saves time.
Oh – and you know what I’m doing now? I’m balling up plastic grocery bags and throwing them out my window. If you dig deep enough, you will probably find them. The ocean isn’t quite filled up in our time, so I’m gonna keep on doing that.
Also, I intend to vote for whatever bozo they manage to dredge up in the next election. Blindly. I mean, how bad can it really get?
And that’s right – we’re sticking with home schooling.
You may be wondering why we are like this. First, I’d like to point out my deprived childhood. I was born before the internet! We had to rely on primitive paper things called magazines for our porn back then. You kids have no idea how good you have it.
So in conclusion, I see no reason why we should have to be socially, fiscally or environmentally responsible. We leave those things up to you. If there’s anything left by your time.
Sincerely,
Grandpa
Write Free or Die 
Dear Sir or Madam,
I believe you have the wrong number. My IUD will attest to that. And if you think this thing is coming out before menopause hits, then think again. I’m sorry to inform you that I do not and will never want to inflict squalling progeny upon myself. No actually, I’m not sorry. Feel free to thank me for doing my part in combating overpopulation.
Please redirect your message to the correct DNA recipient.
And maybe come up with a better strategy to fix the state of the world. Whining at the generations before you has proven to be ineffective. Read up a little on history and you’ll see that all young people everywhere and every time think that the previous generation has failed and that they can do much better. Rinse. Repeat.
Good luck.
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A hell of a prompt it was, too, thanks, Tomek. (Is three commas in four words a bit much?)
Here’s my improv response:
Dear kids:
It’s great to hear from you, if for no other reason than to let me know that the world at large and my genome in particular has survived. From here in 2020 the odds of that look no more than even money, but frankly that’s an improvement over the way the odds have looked at just about any moment of my lifetime.
Which leads me to your plea, or plaint, or command, whatever you want to call it. “STOP” you insist but you don’t specify – stop what? Of course I’m assuming you have something specific in mind, don’t you? I mean if you just want us to “cease to be,” like the Great Polly Xparrot, then you lot are very unlikely to have your own shot at the world.
So… stop what? While some of us do indeed understand what you call “basic cause and effect” it can be a pretty tricky thing to connect those dots accurately given the vast ignorance we live with. Many of the dominoes are invisible to us, still, as smart as we think we are. And a great many of us don’t seem to think the rest of us are all that smart, and for the most part they may be right, but it’s hard to tell which of us are the smart ones sometimes.
So as easy as it would be for some of us to say “Right, stop burning fossil fuel,” or “Stop eating carbohydrates,” or “Stop smoking,” those may not turn out to be the big deals they appear to be from here.
What if humanity is about to undergo a pandemic of brain rot brought on by rhythmic repetition of human words?
So you mean stop reading poetry? Stop writing poetry? Stop playing music? That’ll be a tough sell.
So, kids, as great as it’s been to hear from you, I’m afraid your message is inadequate and we’ll just have to keep on keeping on as best we can. Look, how bad can it be? You’re still there 200 years later and have figured out time travel, right? So we can’t have fucked it up too badly, right?
425 words
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