The Jack Eldridge Story

The RetroFuturistic Man

By: Dennis Higgins

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Retrofuturism is the past's vision of the future. It's what the people of yesterday thought today would look like.

The Chicago Cultural Center building was once the main branch of the Chicago Public Library. During major renovations, eight mysterious books were found behind a wall on the lower level. Nobody took much interest in the old books until they ended up on the desk of Dorothy Burnett, the Center’s main historian. She discovered that the books were written in the 1930s by an unfamiliar author named Jack Eldridge who penned detailed, retrofuturistic visions of what life would be like in the future. Most interesting were his last two volumes which predicted life in the year 2000 and beyond. Dorothy was so entranced with the books, she wished Jack Eldridge would step out of time and walk through her door. As fate would have it, Jack ended up in the 21st century to witness the world as it had really become.

Jack Eldridge always believed his destiny was tied to the library building, and that his true love would be found there. Was the love of his life Beverly, the mousy librarian in 1939, or Dorothy, the beautiful 21st Century historian?