Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Key to the City


At the heart of much speculative fiction (and fiction in general) is a question. What if? On Tuesdays I like to throw one out there and see what you make of it. Do with it as you please. If a for-instance is not specified, feel free to interpret that instance as you wish. And if you find this becomes a novel-length answer, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements ;)

What if cities had actual keys? That actually opened something? That actually was useful for something? (You know, when someone gives someone a "key to the city", that it actually worked for something.)

17 comments:

  1. A key to...use all the city's pools? Unlock all the vending machines? Change traffic lights to my advantage?

    By the way, you won our Pixar contest - watch out for an email so we can get your details!

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    1. I didn't specify, did I? So, it could be any/all/none of those.

      I won? Cool!

      Delete
  2. Now that would be neat-my mind went to those 2 movies with Nicholas Cage where he had to search for treasure. On the other hand what if they key would open Pandora's box? The people given the keys had to be the guardians

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  3. Wow! How awesome it would be! I would love it!

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  4. That would be fun. I wonder if it would be something dangerous. Maybe they'd give out different keys depending on what you did. There's a lot of potential here.

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  5. As long as it would open up something good I think it would be neat; I'm trying to imagine what a key to a city would even look like.

    betty

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  6. I used to work for a municipality, and I've seen a lot of those keys. They're huge. You'd need a really big lock.

    VR Barkowski

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  7. Well, maybe it's not a physical key. Maybe it's a futuristic city under siege, and residents have a key code that they punch into a portal to get in. But the bad guys might hack into the system. Could be a big cyber/dystopian thing.

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  8. I'd hope I wouldn't lose any of the keys. It would be intriguing to think about what might be kept behind locked doors. Certainly something valuable, if it had to be locked away.

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  9. I always laugh at the key gesture. BUT if it actually did something, I have to imagine there'd be some high-scale thefts going on.

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  10. I would access the employee records so I could find phone numbers for all the useless lazy arses who I see every day leaning on shovels or in deed just shoveling in food while they enjoy the breeze under a tree. Yeh It could be a horror story of revenge.

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  11. There are cities that I would NOT want the keys to!!

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I appreciate your comments.

I respond to comments* via email, unless your profile email is not enabled. Then, I'll reply in the comment thread. Eventually. Probably.

*Exception: I do not respond to "what if?" comments, but I do read them all. Those questions are open to your interpretation, and I don't wish to limit your imagination by what I thought the question was supposed to be.