The Horror Of Paperback Extinction

'God, I love this feeling!' Mommy sniffed the pages in her old book. She sat down with her dusty books spread across the floor, while Mojo tried to bite the stubborn blanket, probably because it was a fun task to let mommy sleep with wet blankets that had drool stains on it.

Archie sat on top of the shelf with his chin leaning down and staring at the family.
'Oh, this one is my absolute favorite' she opened a book and grinned from ear to ear.
'I used to read this book when I was 21 and I'd wonder how my love story would turn out to be. In fact, I've always wanted to write one on my own.' she spoke to the boys. Mojo managed to tear the bedsheet into two.

'Mojo! No! Stop!' She stood up.
'Bad boy, Mojo!' She snatched the bedsheet from him and threw it on top of the shelf where Mojo couldn't reach.
'I know where I'm peeing tonight to mark my territory, like every other night.' Archie thought.
She came back and sat down with the books. Mojo followed her and sat beside her while she rubbed his furry neck.
'Maybe now I will write.' Mommy blushed a little. 'I think I've found someone who puts the most beautiful thoughts in my head. There isn't a better time to start.'
'Do you guys like him?' she asked the boys.
Mojo looked at her from the corner of his eyes, readjusted to a more comfortable position and sat down. Archie knocked the vase on the shelf down that fell down breaking it into a few pieces.

'I'm too lazy to pick that up right now. And I'll take that as a yes.' She smiled.
In no time, The OCD bearing mommy had cleaned the shelf and put the books back in its place, while she also managed to clean up the broken vase pieces.

She took out an old typewriter that her grandfather once used and dusted it off with a brush. She sat down, putting things in place and started to type words out while she mumbled and blushed and did the strangest things with her face.

It was a quarter past 12 and she was up typing.
'Put her to sleep.' Archie nudged Mojo. Mojo walked to her and did his usual cry for attention while performing his infamous bum dance.
'Hey, baby! You both want to get some sleep?' She asked as she rubbed her eyes. She put the typewriter aside and hoped Archie wouldn't pee on it. She took them to the room and in less than 20 minutes, was fast asleep, adding more drool to her blanket.
The boys rushed to the balcony and opened the laptop.  They were going through the mails while an ad popped up.
'Read an e-book for free!' it said. The ignored it and went ahead with the mails.
Another pop up appeared and for some reason, it didn't seem like an ad. They clicked it open and it read.

''No more worrying about papercuts or heavy books.

Lose the 100 paperbacks because now we have it all on one screen.

Technology and the love of reading have merged.

Get rid of the annoying heavy books.

ALL PAPERBACK BOOKS TO BE BANNED FROM NOW ON TO MAKE PLACE FOR BETTER AND INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY''

'Uh. Okay. What's an appropriate reaction to this?' Archie asked.

'Put on my reading glasses, I guess.' Mojo said as he put grandpa's glasses on his huge head.

Archie stared back.

'What do we do now?' Archie asked. 

'Before we do something about it, I think we should see how this would turn out.' Mojo said.

'Do we have the time?' Archie asked.

'No, but we have a gadget.' Mojo responded like a smarty, breaking blonde stereotypes one at a time.

'Good job, Watson.' Archie walked ahead into the balcony, pushing Mojo's glasses off his face. 

They stood there and held the gadget in their hand.
'Long time since we've taken this route.' Mojo said. 'How many years?' He asked.

'Make it 5.'

Mojo typed into the gadget as he wagged his tail. '5 years into the future.' 

They opened the portal and dived into it. 

Blinding lights, zooming shapes and a lot of pressure later they dropped out into the balcony.  It looked so different. 

The entire house had changed and there were hipsters saying cliched words a 100 times with excess hi-fives and fists and other strange handshakes.

'Purrrssttt...' They heard a sound from behind the curtain. 'This way' they saw a familiar white furry paw pointing towards a space behind the curtains. The boys followed and stood in front of what appeared to be a 'straight out of the movies' scene.

They stood in front of their future selves, a slightly fatter Archie and Mojo.

'We were looking forward to seeing you guys.' Archie from the future said.
'Everything's so different now. Who are these people?' Mojo asked.

'We don't live here now. We have our own villa. Mommy is happily married. She works at a sports business firm now.' The other Mojo responded. 

'But she just said she wanted to be a writer. Isn't she one? And how's the no paperback thing working for the world?' Another question came.

'Not very well. In fact, they are planning to bring back books. A lot of little children who started off with tabs couldn't even hold a pencil right. Touchscreens were overused and now the finger muscles of little children aren't developing sufficiently to make them capable of writing. This is further affecting many other activities of theirs and has become a huge a problem.' Mojo from the future explained.

'And what's depressing is, when mommy found out about this she decided not to contribute to the problem and kept off of writing.' Archie said. 'That's the only thing she regrets. Not being able to write.' 

'Ruh-Roh, does Mommy hold me when she's depressed about not writing?' Mojo enquired.

'No, I'm sure she just smokes pot.' Archie responded. 

'She bought me an automatic house that gets me treats whenever I press a button.' Mojo from the future defended.

'That's because he's fat and they've sugar-coated the fact that he's on a diet.' Archie from the future smirked. 

'Can we get to the point?' Mojo made his 'Stop or I'll get mad at you now' face.

'Yes, there is. We've asked Mia to steal the research papers with the approval of the authorities. All you guys need to do is go 3 months before your original time and place the papers in the health department and education department of your government authorities.

'Mia?'

'Mia?' 

Archie and Mojo asked simultaneously.

'Uh, you'll know soon. We're here without the permission of the house owner.' Before anybody else sees us let's scoot.' 

The boys and their future selves went to their new house and chilled at Mojo's automatic house.

 'It's easier to sneak into this house.' Mojo said.

They ate the tuna ice cream that Mommy had gotten for them.

'This place has security cameras.' Archie from the future said.

'What?' Mojo spat the ice cream out.

'We know the blind spots. Nobody knows you're here.'

'At least the ice cream in the future seems great.' Mojo licked the spilled ice cream clean.

'Man, I used to be gross.' Mojo from the future made a face.

'You still are. You fart like a T-rex that ate cottage cheese for dinner.' His partner replied.

The future Mojo's belt beeped. 'Be wight back.' His accent had only gotten cuter. 

He walked back in with another friend. 

'Meet Mia.' He said. A beautiful and Majestic white cat with blue-grey sharp eyes and a blunt pink nose looked at them like she was secretly Beyonce. 

'Hey.'

'Uh, Hi, Meow.' Archie looked at her.

'Mia. Mia Pepperson.' 

'Well Mojo can't even spell the wrong name right.'Archie rolled his eyes.

'Thank you, again, for answering a question nobody asked, as usual.' he said.

'Hi, Bwiya.' He smiled.

'Uhh.' she started. 'I'll get there.' Mojo interrupted

She handed over the papers to the boys. The boys from the future, along with Mia, sneaked the other two into the balcony where they opened a portal.

'It was a pleasure working with you.'

'I mean me.'

'You.'

Mojo was confused.

'They get the point.' Archie rushed.

The boys typed in, '5 years and 3 months back into the past.'

The same trippy rollercoaster later they landed on the balcony.

They popped out right in front of Mojo and Archie who were preparing for a mission.

'Oh dog!' Mojo jumped up and ran inside. 

Archie stepped behind and hissed as he tried to hide the gadget.

'Relax. We were looking forward to seeing you.' Mojo said.

'What the hell was that?' Archie turned to him. 

'Well now that we're from the future its our turn to sound like Professor X'

The other Mojo came back running with Mommy's emergency baseball bat.

'Relax, Rookie Mutt of the year. We are just you guys from the future. We are here on a mission.' Archie explained.

'Ruh-Roh, I'm sorry I scared you.' The other Mojo came ahead and started to lick Archie's face.

'Stop! Now you're scarring me!'

Mojo wagged his tail. 

'I need you two to go to the health ministry office while both of us leave one of these papers in the education ministry office.' Archie split the work. The boys from the past quickly ran to health ministry while these two ran to the latter and sneaked in, managing to leave the papers on the main table before rushing out.

They met each other again at the balcony where they said their goodbyes and jumped back into the portal.

They landed on the balcony with the laptop in front of them.

An ad popped up, 'Read an e-book for free.' It said again.

'Did this shit even work?' Archie asked.

In a minute a news flash popped up. The boys, with a lot of disappointment, opened the notification.

'Here's a *Grab all you can* offer just for you.

Come to the Book Plaza anytime between 10 AM to 11AM and how many ever books you can grab in one go, you can take them for free!

Exciting surprises and gifts for children under the age of 10 who pick over 10 books!"

The boys looked at each other with a content smile. 

'Mommy will make her dream come true now.' Mojo wagged his tail.

'Good job, Agent MJ.' Archie purred as he patted Mojo. 

An emotionally excited  Mojo hugged Archie who escaped from his embrace like a fox and went to sleep.

They woke up the next morning with someone knocking on the door. 

Mommy opened the door as Papa walked in.

'Hey, boys!' He rubbed Mojo's neck as he played with him.

'Hey. Babe.' He kissed Mommy's forehead. 'Could you do me a favour?' He held her.

'There's something in the backseat of my car. Could you go get it for me?'
He asked.

Mommy walked out, looking like she slept on a pile of hay the previous night.

'Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!' mommy screamed. 

'It's a baby!' She screamed as she ran inside the house with a basket.

'It's a baby!' she cried and she gently took a little furball out.

A little white kitten, looking a lot like Archie, with Blue-grey sharp eyes and a blunt pink noise, tried to meow. She sounded like a pencil being sharpened but I'm pretty sure she was meowing.

'I found her trying to fight off a bunch of stray cats that were trying to gang up on her. I took her home but my landlord wouldn't let me keep her. Could you keep her here until I move out of there?' He asked.

'Yes! Yes! It's a yes!' Mommy cried.

Papa giggled.

'What's her name?' She asked.

'Well I was confused between Mia and Peppa, so I named her Mia Pepperson.' He said.

'Awwww!' Mommy kissed her little face. 

'We can always have a Peppa too, someday.' She said.

'Did you say, we?' he asked with a hopeful smile.

She looked very stupid while doing what she called 'blushing'. If only she could look at herself.

Once things settled down the boys sat around little Mia, who played with the tiny green ball Archie lent to her, while Mommy and Papa sat around them and spoke about Mommy's new dream.