âUnbelievable,â the man with the welding torch murmured through the fizzes and sparks of light against the patchwork of copper and silicon in front of him.
âI canât believe Iâve heard that word uttered more by you than me during this exchange.â
The response came from the pony-tail haired girl sitting cross-legged on the floor across from him. She wore a tight-fitting denim jumper, sooty from hours of playing the role of engineerâs assistant, a fuzzy purple scarf hanging loose around her neck. Her large, round spectacles seemed to blink against the light.
âYouâre telling me that in your time-â
âOur time,â she cut him off, absentmindedly flipping through the pages of the book she held in her hands. âYouâre just a crazy person.â
The man stopped his work briefly to wipe his brow. His plain black shirt down to his unassuming cargo pants were covered by long, entangled copper wires that hung over his shoulders; spare parts that he could pull from quickly.
âYour,â he drew out the syllable, âtime.â He continued to work. âYou mean to tell me that in your time, you still hold onto spurious notions of love?â
âYep.â She ran a finger down the spine of the book she held, which read âPetrarch.â
âAs if it isnât just a euphemism for chemical reactions in the brain and blood to further the chance of gene propagation.â
âMost all the books in this placeâll tell you the opposite.â She gestured around the library, mahogany shelves lined with texts from Spinoza to Heloise.
He looked at her briefly. âI canât believe I have to rebuild my machine here...â
âYou talked ME into letting you work here!â She earmarked her page and put the book down, closing it. âYouâre just lucky I had my work key on me and I decided to humor you.â She threw her hands in the air exasperatedly. âFor some inexplicable reason!â
The green eyes behind her spectacles seemed to dance. After staring for perhaps a few seconds too long, he shook his head, as if to dust off his brain, before continuing to work through a few moments of silence.
Making a face, she flipped back her scarf. âWell I bet your time isnât so fashionable.â
A scoff. âI canât believe uttering the word fashionable still isnât punishable by scarf asphyxiation.â
She stood now and shot him a stare that threatened to set his entire workstation ablaze, which would have been cause for concern, if he'd bothered at all to look up from his mangled pile of circuit boards to see it.
âAs if fashion hasnât yet proven to simply be cyclical marketing used to propagate wasteful consumerism.â
âItâs self expression!â
âAs if self expression hasnât yet-â
She walked over. He could feel her tense breath as she stood over him. Looking up, his auburn eyes caught hers, green through round frames.
He put down his tools, and her breath calmed.
âWell..." he started. "I never said chemical reactions couldnât be a good thing.â
Prompts: Narrow-mindedness, Time Travel, Librarian, Temptation. 500 word limit.