(This story is being written on a Timephone. I am stranded in the year 2040 and on the run from bad people. I hope to be able to tell as much of my story as I can before they catch me, which they certainly will sooner or later. It's just a matter of Time...)
☆1.
Time travel? Surely not! I wouldn't have thought it possible either. After all, I had studied physics to a high enough degree to have a decent understanding of Newtonian and also Einsteinian limitations and causality.
I had also seen Back to the Future, so I was aware of the inherent paradox involved in Time travel in either direction and the potential havoc it could cause regarding the Space Time continuum.
So you can imagine my surprise and disbelief
when I was rummaging through boxes in my parent's attic and I discovered a time machine there along with detailed instructions on how to operate it.
☆2.
I need to keep this short. I'm writing this post on an old telephone, which I have managed to convert to a Time phone (you will start to hear of these in about fifteen years from now) , my battery is low, I'm very tired and I am living in hiding - on the run.
I was telling you about how it started. How I discovered the Time Machine (for want of a better description - it was not at all what I thought a Time Machine would be) as I was going through boxes in my parent's attic.
There was a very dusty old box. A hat box tied with a very faded and motheaten ribbon which crumbled at my touch.
I blew away the thick layer of dust that had settled on the lid and it revealed the words, printed in gold - S.Nadler of London, Hatter.
I remembered grandpa had had a hat shop in Camden Town, but his name had been Harry. This must have been his father, Solomon, who started the business about a hundred years ago, in the 1920s or thereabouts.
Carefully I slid the lid off the box. For some reason my heart was pounding wildly, I couldn’t understand why. I don't believe in ghosts and I'm not easily spooked, but I had a deep sense of foreboding coupled with a rush of anticipation which seemed quite out of all proportion. It's hard to describe the feeling. Maybe some kind of premonition - because as I touched the box, a flood of images flashed across my mind - images, sounds, smells - something like a busy market, noisy with shouts and the clatter of wheels on cobblestones....
But I'm rambling and my battery is on 13 percent already - no chance to recharge until day light...
I opened the box. Now this is going to sound strange to you and you might find it hard to imagine. I couldn't understand what it was when I felt it. It was like a cold draft emanating out of the box. But the air was still. And it wasn't cold either, I noticed. Actually it was slightly warm and maybe it was seeping into the box. What it actually was, though I didn't yet know it was that inside the box there was less gravity. About half the strength of everywhere else on Earth that I'd ever been. So I had no idea what that should feel like and it was the last thing I would have expected to feel. Especially inside a hat box from a hundred years ago.
The inside of the box was dark and lined with red velvet. I could make out a round shape - maybe a ball. About the size of a bowling ball - and black. Blacker than anything I had ever seen. As if it was not only not reflecting any light whatsoever, it was also pulling light into itself, making it appear still darker. I peered very closely, thinking my eyes were playing tricks on me. It looked like a hole. A black hole in a velvet hat box. Of course, the idea that that was essentially what it was didn't cross my mind, even for a nano-second.
I reached into the box and put my hands on the object (somehow I knew it was an object, even though I could barely see it. A fine dust on its surface perhaps gave enough impression of shape) it was soft to the touch, like the smoothest of felt - and yet at the same time hard, like a heavy steel door - yet as I lifted it out of the box, I was amazed to discover that it weighed almost nothing at all. Also that it was in fact a semi sphere with a rim encircling the lower edge. It was a hat. A bowler hat.
I held it up to the lamp to admire it. It was a very fine hat. The finest hat I'd ever seen - not that I knew much about hats, and not that I could really actually 'see' it. I knew it was very special. Very special and exceptionally unusual and incredibly powerful. I don't know how I knew that, because really it was for all appearances an old bowler hat, albeit a very well made hat, from a time when people took pride in such things. Maybe it was the field of almost zero gravity that it had about it.
I sat gazing at it, thinking 'I wonder if it fits me. I should try it on...' when I happened to glance back to the box - perhaps saved by some primal survival instinct... There in the bottom of the box was an envelope, brown with age. What was written on it immediately caught my attention - firstly because it was written in very large capital letters, in red ink - but especially because it was addressed to me.
It said :
!!!GIDEON!!!
!!!IMPORTANT!!!
WHAT EVER YOU DO
DON’T PUT THIS HAT ON
UNTIL YOU HAVE READ THIS.
Oh, I've just noticed my battery is about to die. I'd better send this quickly.
☆3.
I broke the seal on the envelope. It had a wax seal embossed with a very ornate geometric pattern of circles. Carefully I took out the folded letter. At the same time, something small and metallic slipped out and dropped onto the floor boards with a massive thud which made me jump and even shout out loud in shock and surprise at the sudden noise.
I looked down to see what massive object could have fallen with such force as to shake the floor. There, glinting in the dim light was a silver ring. Surely it couldn't have been that thing? I reached down to pick it up. It had almost no weight at all. Less than an ordinary silver ring. More like an aluminium ring pull from a coke can, though it was about the size of a fairly large signet ring. It was diamond hard and impossibly smooth , I could tell by the feel of it - and though at first glance I'd thought it was silver, I now saw that it reflected light in all the colours of the rainbow, much like a CD or hologram. But how could something so small and light fall with such an impact?
I dropped it again. BOOM!! CRASH!! As if I'd dropped a fridge or a piano. The floorboards shook and even splintered slightly. Ok. I'd better not do that again..
Very tentatively, I picked up this strange object again and took a closer look. On the round face of it there was a very intricate pattern, symmetrical and made of many circles. It was so intricate that the more I tried to make out its details the more unfocused my eyes became until I could barely look at it at all.
With shaking hands (you'll understand that by this point I was rather freaked out) I opened the letter and began to read...
Dear Gideon,
Firstly, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Morris Nadler. I am your grandfather Harry's grandfather - your great-great-grandfather. I am also a Time traveller. In fact, I come originally from a hundred years in your future. This is probably a bit too much for you to comprehend. I'll explain fully when we meet.
Here are the instructions for how to operate the Portal (it looks like a hat. No doubt you noticed it's not an ordinary hat.) It has many fantastical features because it is 5 dimensional, but again, I'll explain that when we meet. But first you need to get here. So all you need to do now is follow these instructions. Exactly. In this order.
- Take the ring and drop it into the hat.
- Take seven slow, deep breaths.
- Put the hat on your head.
You will experience a sudden sensation of falling upwards into the hat at great speed and acceleration. Don't be alarmed. It's perfectly safe. I've set the coordinates already and I'll be waiting for you when you arrive.
If by chance you arrive at a slightly different time or place (this can happen due to various reasons I'll explain later, though it's usually fairly accurate, so don't worry) come and find me at the address on this passport. 13 Casson Street. Whitechapel. I'd advise you to wear plain clothes made of natural materials. A button up shirt, if you have one, and shoes made of leather. You'll be coming to London in 1917 and you don't want to draw too much unwanted attention.
Bon voyage!
4☆
You would have thought that as soon as I discovered the Time Machine (or Interdimentional Portal (IP*) as it is more properly called) I would have dived right in.
As it happened, I was so shocked, shaken and confused by the discovery that, with a wildly beating heart and uncontrollably trembling hands, I threw the hat straight back into the box, slammed on the lid and put another heavy box on top of that, just to be on the safe side.
As for the ring, I picked it up with the air of someone picking up a scorpion and then sat staring at it - half expecting it to jump out of my hand and fly at my face, or suddenly turn into something else.. or god knows what... but it remained motionless, impossibly light and frictionless smooth, casting reflections of things that weren't there in ways my mind couldn’t comprehend. I stared into the pattern embedded in the metal (if it was metal, it was a kind I'd never seen, heard of or imagined) and fell into a kind of fascinated trance.
I don't know how long I sat there staring at it, or how long I would have gone on staring into it (perhaps forever) if I hadn't been suddenly brought back to reality by the telephone ringing downstairs. Without thinking, I slipped the ring onto my finger (amazingly it fit perfectly, as if it somehow modified itself to perfectly fit - and being frictionless and weightless, I couldn’t even feel it there after a couple of seconds) and ran downstairs to answer the phone.
[Note: something only Time travellers know - Every computer connected to the internet has an IP address - most people think that stands for
Internet Protocol, but it actually stands for Interdimentional Portal, because that is actually what it is. The people who brought us the internet came from the future*, mainly to enable communication across Time. That’s how I'm managing to relay this story to you from the year 2040 on a Timephone which I've made from parts I stole. Of course, it's absolutely forbidden, for obvious reasons - mainly the havoc it would cause in the so-called Space Time continuum - but at this stage I'm beyond caring. I've got nothing left to lose. My own fate is fairly sealed and Time has a way of flowing that whatever I do or don't do will ultimately make no difference.
**There are more Time travellers about than you would probably expect, the most famous obviously being Keanu Reeves, but there are many others - some famous, but most anonymous, like me. You can read all about them on the internet and see plenty of photographic evidence, about half of which is true.]
...I ran downstairs to get the phone. It was Kim, my girlfriend checking to see if I was coming soon. She'd made dinner, something special, and was expecting me. It was quite a big deal as she'd just moved in to live with me at my flat in Muswell Hill the day before. It was a big step for both of us - exciting, but also strange and daunting, even though she'd practically been living there for the last few months anyway - she'd always had her place to go back to. Now my place was 'our' place, we'd brought all her stuff from the shared house she'd been renting a tiny room in... I'd borrowed my mate's van to bring it all across from Holloway... it was amazing how much stuff she had... I'd left her to get on with finding places for everything. She was good at that. I knew I'd get home to find the flat transformed, with her touches of colour everywhere, her beads and cloths, crystals and candles, her paintings, paints and brushes, her books, her music. I was happy. I was more than happy... I was.. I don't know... I was in love with her and felt so lucky to be going home to her...
...what was I going to do? Jump into a wormhole and travel to London of a hundred years ago? I told her I'd be there in twenty minutes.
In the event, it took me three months before I actually started my journey - the journey that began with me travelling back to 1917 to meet my great great grandfather and ended with me being stranded - and hunted down - in the year 2040...
... ok. I'm going to have to stop for now. They've detected my signal. This is quite bad. I've got to run. I'll continue with the story soon, I hope.
5☆
It was a really stupid argument about a toilet seat that caused me to begin my Time travelling adventures. It might sound funny to you, but it got way out of hand.
I tell you, if I could turn back the clock and live that day again... well, I'd do things differently. I'd say things differently, or not say them at all. Some things really are better left unsaid. But at the time, it was the final straw. Now it's too late. I'm stranded in the year 2040 and I'll probably never get the chance to put things right. It's all water under the bridge*, so the saying goes.
[* Not a lot of people know this, but the saying 'water under the bridge' as used to describe unalterable past events, was actually coined by a time travelling friend of Isaac Newton to perfectly describe the movement of Time through the fifth dimension. It's meaning is both physical and metaphysical. Time is like a river. Very much like a river. And also like the sea. And also tiny little streams. And drops of water falling from an icicle melting. And like the water spinning down a plug hole of a bathtub. And like the tides of the ocean. It's effected by gravity. It generally flows in one direction, but within that one direction it spirals in every direction. It flows around obstacles (such as rocks, or events) and there are bridges. Most people don't know about the bridges. Time travellers know about them. That's how we get across.]
Kim had moved in with me three months earlier. It's strange because she'd practically been living with me already, but once she moved in 'officially' and moved all her stuff in, something changed. I wouldn't say it was because of all her stuff, but somehow that had something to do with it.
I'm quite an organised person. I don't have a lot of stuff and what I've got, I keep in its place so I always know where everything is. She's exactly the opposite. She had so much stuff - mostly loads of little things - bits of jewellery, crystals, candles, beads, books, bags, clothes - so many clothes! And CD's. So many CD's. I mean, who even listened to those any more? Even in those days. To be fair, she had good taste in clothes and in music, but still... Things were just getting lost all the time. We seemed to spend most of our time just looking for stuff that she'd put somewhere and instantly forgotten where it was.
I really loved her, don't get me wrong, but living together was proving more challenging than either of us had expected. I suppose it was a matter of space and time. We were both used to having our own space and our own time to ourselves, to do our own thing. We both worked from home, which caused a certain tension. I was designing websites - mostly corporate stuff, freelance from an agency. Not the most inspiring stuff, but there was a certain creative element to it and the pay was ok. She made visionary paintings and sold them in Camden Market and over the internet and got a modest income from that. Well, I'm not going to go into every detail because it's not relevant to this story.. she'd spilled the jar of paintbrush water over my computer's auxiliary hard drive while she was dancing around the room to mantra music (that was part of her creative process) while I was trying to do my work (hunched over a computer keyboard with my face screwed up, smoking a joint - that was my creative process)... I'd made out like it didn't really matter, but actually I was really quite pissed, and missed the days of my tidy little office corner in my minimalist, spacious flat.
Later that evening, she'd made some comment - maybe even a sort of joke - about me always leaving the toilet seat up - and it just blew up into a massive fight. Our first ever proper fight. I don't know how it happened really. It was like we both became different people.
It ended with me saying some very harsh words, cursing the day we'd met, storming out of my flat, which suddenly felt like no home at all, slamming the door behind me - causing the Victorian stained glass window pane in it to shatter. I didn't even look around.
I headed for the woods, as I always do in times of trouble and woe - taking some comfort from the majestic ancient oak and beech trees, silent and still, branches bare in the cold winter night - looking down on me from their great height, with the wisdom of centuries.
I walked and walked, paying no particular thought or attention to where I was going. Through Highgate Woods, over Hampstead Heath, I somehow found myway to Dollis Brook and followed it all the way to Totteridge, the place where I had grown up. I walked the familiar suburban streets until I reached the house where I grew up. My parents still lived there but they were away on some trip. I let myself in with the spare key. The house was dark and silent. Exhausted, I flopped down onto the big sofa in the lounge. I suppose I must have cried, alone and full of self pity, wishing I could turn back Time.
And then suddenly, as if remembering a dream I'd forgotten I'd even had, until something reminded me of it - I remembered that I could. I could turn back Time.
I looked at my hand. I was still wearing the ring. My great great grandfather's ring. I don't know how I'd forgotten about it. In a kind of trance - unthinking now, my feet carried me upstairs and upstairs again to the dusty attic room at the top of the house. My hands lifted the heavy box of old Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel and such LP's from the 60's from on top of the black box from a hundred years ago, bearing the name S.Nadler of London. Hatter.
I must have been mad.
When I think about it now - and I've thought about it every day since that fateful night - if I'd only know then what I know now...
If I'd known that once you cross that bridge, you can never return. I would have gone straight to the phone and called up Kim, and told her I was sorry, and told her not to worry, and told her that I loved her - because I really did...
If I'd known that she was pregnant, maybe I would have acted different and not gone and disappeared into another dimension...
But instead I opened the box and took out the black bowler hat, which was not a hat at all, but an Interdimentional Portal - and I took off the ring, which was not a ring at all, but a key to the portal - and I dropped the key into the portal, as my great great grandfather had instructed...
And it fell, far far out of sight, into the perfect darkness
And then, again like remembering something long forgotten, I remembered to breath, so I breathed seven deep breaths and as I counted them..
Time seemed to
slow down ...
and all the
layers of
reality seemed to
peel away,
until ......
finally.....
Time
came to a complete
standstill
and
I
completely
ceased
to
exist...
With perfect calm, I raised the hat above my head and then with a sudden gut-wrenching rush , before I had a moment to stop and reconsider this madness, I fell upwards into the black hole...
....and the world disappeared....