Thinking about all of the dystopian speculative fiction that I’ve been binging on in recent years, I am reminded of the great Ray Bradbury’s imagining of a more positive future for humanity. The 1984 short story The Toynbee Convector tells the tale of the world’s first time traveler, who returned with fabulous stories of a future so wonderful that it inspired humanity to build it. But an investigative reporter uncovers the shocking truth 100 years later: the traveler had fabricated the entire journey to divert the bleak path he saw mankind on. Yet the sheer power of that fabricated vision—a world flourishing in harmony with nature—was enough to make it real.

The narrative follows a reporter named Roger Shumway who has been given the opportunity to interview 130 year old Craig Bennett Stiles, a time traveler who had visited the distant future and returned full of hope.

A century has passed since his trip and the interview will almost certainly be his last chance to tell the world more about what his journey was like and why he was so excited about what he saw in humanity’s future.

You can read it here at short story  on this Google doc. or watch the dramatization from The Ray Bradbury Theater television series below.