A disheveled-looking man approached an officer one afternoon. His hair was dry and dusty and knotted in clumps, his clothes were ragged, dangling, and torn. And ever so bizarre, too. Like aluminum foil! Dark bags hung under his spacey brown eyes. Cuts and bruises decorated his cheeks like tribal paint. He walked with a limp, courtesy of the busted ankle on his left side.
"Officer," the man wheezed, reaching out weakly and clutching the enforcement's collar for support. "Officer, do you have the year?"
"The year?" the officer asked, cocking an eye at both the man and his question. His fingers danced along his belt, waiting for the order.
"Yes, yes. Do you know what year it is?" Stink from the man's breath wafted up the officer's nose.
The cop gagged on the stench, in his disgusts finding that he, too, had forgotten the year. He checked his watch (the same one he'd worn since third-grade. With the press of a button, he could send a two-bit surfer half a mile over blue LED).
"It's 2013, sir."
"Oh, right, yes, 2013, of course it is." The man pulled himself straight, releasing the death grip on the officer's collar. His clothes crinkled with each minor movement. "That should be good. Perfect actually. We-we still have freedom of speech around here, right?"
"Uh, yeah," the officer replied. He scratched his head. "Listen, what's this all ab—"
"I can say anything? Absolutely anything I want? Anything, anywhere, anytime. That's the law?"
"Yeah, guy. It's in the Constitution. You have the right to free speech, you can say anything. Give it a try sometime. Knock yourself out. But right now, bud, I'm a little concerned about you. You been hitting the bars already? Need to go sleep it off?"
"No, no bars. No time for that now." The man spun around, bounding away from the officer and in the general direction of an out-door cafe shouting: "Listen! Listen! Hey, listen!"
The tea-sippers all turned, most all with one eye twitching in utter incomprehension at this most uncouth of disruptions.
"Listen, you have to listen." The man waved his arms about frantically. "I'm from the near future. 2023, to be exact. Just ten years from now. Listen, please, there's no time. You must act now! You must not elect—"
"Wait! You there! Halt!" The officer came racing after, baton at the ready. In twice the time he was with them, nabbing the outlandish man by the arm.
"Wh-what's the problem, officer? I thought—"
"Yo-you can't say things here. Not in public. Somebody might hear you!"
The strange man hasn't been heard from since.
