Self Help

Our story so far:- Older Nick has discovered an actual, honest-to-murgatroyd, working time machine. Following an exciting and preposterous adventure which is far too expensive to be shown here and in which he procured enough plutonium to power the flux capacitor, Older Nick travels back in time ten years to offer Younger Nick some sage advice. And now the saga continuums....

OLDER NICK enters. We see him approach YOUNGER NICK as he props up the bar in the local (well, time does move on but some things never change...)

OLDER NICK
Come with me if you want to live.

YOUNGER NICK
Oh my God, you're me from the future!

OLDER NICK
Ah, James Cameron, helping dispense with the need for exposition. Pint?

YOUNGER NICK
I need to be asked that in the future?

OLDER NICK
Sadly, no. That hasn't changed.

YOUNGER NICK
Well, as it looks like I don't escape either "fat" or "bald", might as well have another.

The BARMAN (didn't mention him before? Well, he's stood there) pours two more pints of Stella*

YOUNGER NICK
So is this the part where you tell me I've become some sort of terrible, tyrannical despot who rules the world in an iron grip of fear and must be stopped at all costs?

OLDER NICK
Unfortunately not.

YOUNGER NICK
Shame.

OLDER NICK
Yeah, still a source of disappointment to me, to be honest.

YOUNGER NICK
Well, you've got the look.

OLDER NICK
True, true. Oh, you're gonna want to start cultivating this look, by the way. Your hair's going thin.

YOUNGER NICK
It's not thin, it's long.

OLDER NICK
Yeah, it's long. It's just very widely spaced apart.

YOUNGER NICK
You came back to insult yourself. That's good.

OLDER NICK
No, the insults were just an added bonus.

YOUNGER NICK
So we still think we're possessed of a dry wit in the future then?

OLDER NICK
Much to the disappointment of our friends, yes. No, I came back to offer you important information, something vital that could alter the very course of your life. You must promise me that, no matter what happens, you will remember what I have to tell you now and act upon it when the time is right.

YOUNGER NICK
OK, I promise.

OLDER NICK
Lean in closer.

YOUNGER NICK leans in.

OLDER NICK
Closer still.

YOUNGER NICK leans further. OLDER NICK looks furtively from side to side then leans in conspiratorially.

OLDER NICK
Next year, a new Star Wars film come out. Don't get too excited. It really isn't that good.

YOUNGER NICK
Argh! Imposter! Evil doppelganger! Heretic! Burn him! Burn him!

OLDER NICK
Ah, the folly of youth.

OLDER NICK travels back to the future (after finishing off his pint, naturally) to discover that he obviously didn't listen to himself as he still has that copy of the Star Wars Episode I script book he bought before the film came out. Bugger.


* Hey, blog product placement could be the way forward. It's the coming thing, I tell you.