It worked, I’m here in the past.
It had to be the past, I was sure of it. The way that people were dressed I recognised from my studies for this very attempt at making the machine work with me as its subject. Somewhere in the early fifties, I guessed, but not in the place that I had anticipated.
“Excuse me love,” a harsh male voice announced; I moved aside automatically. I had been taking up the centre of the pavement and stepped sideways to be up against the shop front. He walked past me as did many others on this apparently quite busy day.
I thought for a moment, “What a strange thing to say.” but I was too immersed in the surprise of actually being here in ‘one-piece’ to consider it further. This was a busy place with lots of people walking past in both directions. I checked my watch to find that it was no longer there; an anomaly perhaps to consider later.
§
My friends, really more my colleagues over many years and I had spent the last twenty of them in dreaming of and devising a machine that just might make time travel a reality. We had all met during our PhD days at Uni. and had become good friends despite studying mostly unrelated subjects. Somehow the subject of time travel had been raised during one of annual get togethers, post Uni. I could not recall what the meal was that year or the wine but something kicked off the subject.
Good old John had said that he had studied the subject during some of his astro-physics work and wanted to continue along similar lines to expand what he thought might be a little more than dry theory.
Tracey, more of a feet-on-the-ground type as a mechanical engineer had ridiculed the idea as nonsense but none-the-less had offered her services to help construct whatever the rest of us came up with. All six of us had differing ideas and concepts but had decided for fun, if nothing else, to formulate and publish a joint research paper investigating the possibilities from our standpoint and of the practicalities of actually constructing something.
§
The mouse, number seven in our trial collection, did not turn into a dead mess, as those preceding it had tended to, but simply vanished from view never to return. We had a ‘working’ machine after so many years, about fifteen if I recall correctly, but exactly what had happened to the mouse was something of an unknown. It was no longer sat in the machine but as the power had been turned up and the correct frequencies achieved, it sort of faded out of view without the hint of a whimper.
A human volunteer was required but that had taken another twelve months or more until all the calculations had been checked yet again and one of us put ourselves forward; that was where I had come in and I guess I had been up for it.
The meal had been a good one, perhaps my last and the wine first class. Maybe it was the wine that had settled the issue; Dutch courage can be a terrible thing. While the calculations had indicated that with the various power levels and selection of frequencies the theory was definitely correct and after all the last mouse had been sent somewhere ‘successfully’ we guessed, it still came down in the final analysis as something of a suicide mission for the ‘volunteer’.
That was me, David. Divorced without children and both parents now passed on I had become the logical choice, if there could be such a thing. After all these years it was time to put my money where my mouth was, or was I putting my feet into my mouth, I wasn’t sure; the wine had seemed to help finalise the decision.
Was I overjoyed, crazy, or super confident in all our abilities, I didn’t know? But there I went into the machine sitting with a big grin on my face, full of bravado and false confidence. The switches were thrown and I sat patiently thinking that I might meet up with the mouse. I resisted a last ‘No’ or a ‘Goodbye’ and waited in trepidation as all around became a blur, no pain was felt and the view suddenly cleared.
I now found myself somewhere back in the 1950’s or thereabouts as the calculations had said I should be; well I guessed I was.
§
We had devised a joint strategy to prove that our dream had worked and that I was still alive. At the isolated farmhouse we had purchased jointly for the exercise (we were on good salaries in our chosen fields and had kept the financing secret, even from the spouses of those that were married) we had resolved to write a ‘goodbye’ letter outlining what we had achieved, referring to our joint technical publication but more specifically absolving the group from all responsibilities for my sudden disappearance (or death) with all our names appended, mine in particular.
If I no longer reported to my lab and no trace of me could be found but the machine came to be revealed then foul play would most certainly be the conclusion, hence the need for some sort of explanation and protection for those left behind.
On the key assumption that I had actually been transported back in time, somewhere near to the location of my ‘departure’, the isolated farmhouse on the Yorkshire moors, I was to write a note and leave it sealed somewhere nearby where the others might search and find it.
The old farmhouse had been abandoned some eighty years previously and was ideal to undertake the work we had planned. If I truly went back in time then I would leave the buried note at the entrance to the old barn. All my friends had to do was go to the old barn after I had disappeared, dig up the ground and find my note for the ‘future’, thus proving everything had worked and I was still alive.
One of the big areas of doubt and a risk I was prepared to accept, was that we were attempting to travel backwards through space-time, not merely time. If I was projected back through time, would I still be occupying the same location in space?
What would be the result if the assumed ‘exact’ number of years did not match with the movement of the Earth placing it in the same physical location about the sun as when I ‘left’; would I find myself missing the Earth altogether being deposited in the vacuum of space or just on the other side of the globe somewhere in the Arctic or jungles of Africa perhaps?
These were the risks I had accepted but making a bold assumption that all would be well, came prepared for what I might encounter. I had dressed in old style clothing, carried a wallet stuffed with old currency, some writing paper and a plastic wallet (what if this kind of plastic had not been invented yet?).
The day of ‘judgement’ had arrived; dressed in my old clothes, with my money (some £5,000 in old notes), a plastic wallet to seal my intended note in and writing materials I had stepped into the device.
§
“By eck, fancy a bit of that,” came shouted in my direction, or so it seemed, from the building site across the road. I was in a stream of pedestrians walking past the site including several rather upset ladies, so I guessed the shout had been in their direction, hardly mine.
It looked like the construction works were taking place on one of the remaining old bombed-out sites from the world war that were finally being subject to new development. The cat calling from the site was in English but with a bit of a Yorkshire accent so I guessed I was in the right country and at about the right time period. It bothered me though that the location was nowhere near the farmhouse I had just left but possibly in what I assumed was the nearby town.
I felt fine, perhaps a little light headed, was walking quite freely with other people but how come they did not notice my sudden appearance among them. I kept walking as easily as all the rest on the assumption that something odd may have happened that our calculations and reasoning had not taken account of.
I resolved to consider the issue at a later time when I could bring this walk to a sensible stop and find somewhere to sit quietly. I mentally checked myself over sensing that I had two good legs to walk on, my arms were where they should be with one swinging nicely, my head, despite being a little out of sorts was where it should be and without running my fingers over my face, all seemed well.
Then something hit me squarely between the eyes of my thoughts, so to speak. My other arm, the one not swinging freely, was holding a woman’s handbag the strap of which was delicately perched on my shoulder. I repeated a mental check to realise with some surprise that I was wearing a skirt which was swinging freely with each step I took and worse, there were ‘bulges’ at chest height where there shouldn’t be. I dreaded to think of the possibility.
I had to keep focussed, keep my dizzy head calm, and definitely find that place to sit down, to not look out of place in this crowd, to not make a scene or worse actually fall over in the street. How would I tell a called ambulance what my name was, what would I say; I dreaded to think of the possibility.
Even walking and not sitting quietly to consider my possibilities, mad thoughts raced through my mind which I found I had to consider in some way.
Had I really been transported back in time? The answer had to be yes, definitely a yes.
Was I transported into the wrong place? Quite possibly but it was likely that I was more or less in the correct general area.
Had I been transported into an earlier incarnation of myself?
This would tie in with my beliefs in reincarnation; really I was trying to convince myself BUT.
I was no longer a ‘HE’ wearing the old clothes I had selected for myself (with the money, etc.) but it seemed I was a ‘SHE’ dressed in woman’s clothing and as I continued to check, definitely a woman in a woman’s body. How or why was something I could not even start to analyze?
I found myself shaking but what could I do; stop and ask someone, a stranger, who I was, what year was this, where was I, why was I a woman and dressed like this; ridiculous questions to ask of strangers and a little more than frightening?
I came level with a newsagent and immediately stepped inside to both get off the street where I felt I was close to creating a public scene. Not being able to reconcile my discoveries I determined to obtain a newspaper that may offer at least some of the answers I needed. I picked up a copy of a national daily and found myself automatically reaching into my handbag for my purse and taking out a half crown to give in payment. I had no real idea of how much it should cost so put what I thought was a large value coin down on the counter.
“You got nuthing less, luv?” I was asked.
“Er, no I don’t think so,” I replied, fumbling in my purse pretending to look for a smaller coin.
“Alright luv, ere you’re taking all my change,” he offered, placing a handful of coins in my hand which with a quick look appeared to be about two shillings and something in the old coinage. I had looked this up before venturing on this adventure but was not computing events too well.
“It’s all there, luv, no need to check, I’m not fiddling,” he stated rather bluntly as I pondered at what I was looking at.
“My apologies, I’m not having a good day today,” I replied putting the coins straight into my purse, and then my bag which I closed and turned on my heels.
“Oi, luv,” he continued to shout at me. “Don’t you want yer paper then?”
I turned back to pick up the paper still laid on the counter and with a sort of forced smile managed a brief, “Thank you.” This was not my voice, I was sure of that.
As I left the shop I could hear him still grumbling, loud enough for me to hear, “Funny sort, that one; all la de dah and no sense between the ears. ‘Having a bad day’; what sort of thing is that to say?”
I had a good idea what part of the country I was in but not much else. Where was that seat I needed to quietly contemplate what sort of hell I had put myself into?
“There she is,” the first voice from the site which extended further along the road to opposite where I was stood.
“Oi luv, can I give yer somat?” a second voice chimed in to much amusement from the other idlers.
These shouts were clearly directed at me as there was no-one else on the pavement. I tried my best to ignore them and walk quickly away towards what I thought was the centre of town. I was a respectable thirty year old lady not some flibbertigibbet in a short skirt and heels. I knew I was to meet my husband shortly and that steadied my mind a little.
“I’m thirty something; how do I know that? Meet my husband?” my thoughts screamed at me.
The implications of that ran through my mind; this was now a terrifying prospect, but the thoughts kept coming as naturally as if it were me thinking them. But it was me thinking them, I was the ME inside this body; these thoughts were my thoughts or were they the lady’s thoughts that I was somehow tapping into through some external process.
“Where are those seats? Oh God I need them now.”
§
I sat down on a park bench in the serenity of the little grassed park in the centre of town. This was the place to come to where the hustle and bustle of commerce was outside and a welcome calm was inside, unless there was a band playing in the lovely old circular stand in the centre. That usually happened at weekends to the delight of the shoppers who would congregate here to rest their weary legs.
Where was I getting this information from? Such strange thoughts again and still they came.
I glanced at the paper to see the date was not in the early fifties but into the later sixties. The calculations could not be wrong, they had been checked many times, the machine had been properly calibrated and the settings checked.
I was in a period of time when I would be alive, a young boy at school. What would I do if I came across myself; a quandary of the worst, possibly fatal type. If this was indeed the town of my birth, not far from the old farm shed, then a major cock-up had occurred and it might prove fatal.
I put the paper down and tried to let my mind stop its mad thinking, relax and wander somewhere else.
“I will be meeting my husband David here before taking a local omnibus to our son’s school where we will meet the headmaster,” entered my thoughts and came to mind.
What on earth was I thinking about?
“The appointment had been made by a letter from the headmaster, a Mr. MacMurray, who wished to have a serious discussion about our son, also called David, and his future education.”
This was getting worse; my thoughts were not my own but seemed to be forcing themselves into my sense of reality.
“David had shown exceptional ability in Science and Maths in his first year at this technical school and I am impressed beyond words,” he had written and it surely had something to do with this.
More other strange thoughts came into the back of my mind including one which considered that the person sat here was somehow ME and SHE mixed together.
“I know what David is to become in some years hence when he finally leaves his long period of education.” How could I or SHE possibly know this; what process was at work here?
I realised that I knew this somehow on a very intimate level, a very personal level, but then the thought and the accompanying sensation drifted away.
Then as I relaxed into the calm that this little green area provided, further thoughts involuntarily poured into my mind and again in a mixture of ME and SHE.
“I’m sat here with the bodily sensations of a woman in women’s clothing and with total comfort and relaxation. My girdle is a little tight, as it always is, and the stocking hold-ups dig in a little, but little discomfort to keep a trim look.”
“I am a SHE and unless I have been transported into the body of a cross dressing pervert, I am experiencing the sensations of a genuine woman but with the thoughts of ME running through this mind of a SHE.”
“I am seriously confused and making myself feel rather ill. I must stop thinking like this.”
I resolved to accept that I was a woman whatever those other thoughts that keep penetrating my mind might try to say and I was very happy with my life.
Stay calm and it will all turn out right as soon as David senior turns up. That had to be SHE thinking but I wanted to retain ME in my thoughts.
I then got another of those sudden strange experiences when in an instant the mind of SHE suddenly became that of ME.
I was acutely aware of being embarrassed sat here dressed as a woman and worse realising that my bodily sensations were those of a woman felling the tightness of her girdle, the support of her bra and the cool air wafting round her barely covered legs. I went crimson as my face burnt with the flush of hot blood. The newspaper was picked up, opened and positioned straight up in front of my face to hide me from the view of the entire park’s occupants which I could swear were now staring in disgust at me.
I looked intently at the newspaper which I would not have normally opened nor read in public but SHE knew that she must to conceal the embarrassed ME.
I read that it was a Friday in June 1967. That did not agree with the set up of the machine and pretty much with the calculations that we had all done; there was a glitch somewhere but that would have to be the concern of my conspirators in this venture. This was ME thinking but how strange.
Then some more of the strange thoughts came back to hit me squarely.
“I will never see my friends again.”
“There was no way back.”
“The possibilities of leaving a message for them in the future were disappearing fast. They would assume that I had died somewhere, somehow and possibly would abandon the greatest experiment ever carried out in our lifetimes.”
“But this is not their lifetimes, it is mine right now and I’m lost.”
“Where is the old barn and how would I did into the earth to conceal a message as a woman in a woman’s clothing?”
These thoughts were feeling stranger with each one that popped into my head and I didn’t want to hear any more; they were making ME, or was it SHE, feel ill. That last one frightened me; the ‘lost’ one.
I was more and more becoming SHE which felt more and more normal, without the embarrassment of thinking I was a HE in a SHE’s clothing. The strange thoughts were subsiding and I no longer wished to have to contemplate them or their meanings.
“How strange, that I could consider a man in a woman’s clothing and how very odd; this kind of thing had never entered my mind before and I don’t want it to ever again.”
“What kind of person could behave like this? A man wearing these, my clothes? Outrageous. Stop these thoughts now.”
“Such strange behaviour isn’t worth thinking about.”
“Stop these odd thoughts now lady.”
Telling myself to consider normal things, put these oddities out of mind forever with a commitment to stop hearing two voices in my head seemed to steady my physical wellbeing and that was good, sort of; I was making progress.
“Hello dear,” David senior called to me as he strode up and sat beside me.
I pulled the newspaper down away and out of my face.
“I’ve never known you to read a paper in public, my love. Is this something new?” he asked. “And that one in particular! I wouldn’t wrap the fire ashes in that one, it’s the gutter press.”
“Sorry dear. It was on the bench when I sat down,” I lied; something else very new to me. “Can you put in the rubbish bin next to you?” I asked of him.
He took the offending rag, crumpled it with a sort of disdain and disgust at having to handle such a thing and stuffed it into the wire mesh bin.
“Has something upset you dear, you look terribly flushed? Was it something in the newspaper; would you like me to write a stiff letter to the editor?”
“No, no,” I replied. “It was those awful chaps on the building site back there. They whistled and shouted to me as I walked past. I’m still a little upset by the experience; it will soon pass now that you’re here,” I lied even more swiftly again.
“Would you like me to go and give them a piece of my mind or perhaps call the local policeman to assist?” he queried further.
“No, no, please leave it there, besides we have a bus to catch in a few minutes,” I replied, feeling more relaxed yet uncertain as to why I had been a little flushed.
“My friends will never see me again,” entered my thoughts again and once more in a masculine voice.
That shook me up a little but I tried not to show it.
“Are you alright dear, you have gone a little pale now?” David asked.
“It might be just a lady thing,” I replied with yet another lie; he dropped the questioning.
“I managed to phone the headmaster this morning, dear,” David continued, “using the office phone; George was quite understanding about it.”
“Oh really,” I answered in surprise. “What did he have to say?
“Well you remember how David’s junior school advised us that we had a little brain box in him. Well. Mr. MacMurray has just confirmed it. He is talking about David moving on to a school of excellence where they can teach him much more than his current school. Apparently after only the best part of his first year he is way ahead of the rest of his class and has started reading the advanced science books in the school library at lunch time and in the science club after school.”
I again realised what young David would become in the future, the thought seemed so real in my head; a Scientist. I could almost see him in my mind’s eye.
“My friends will never see me again,” shot into my thoughts yet again and now in a pleading masculine voice.
“Your friends will never see you again?” David queried. “What on earth do you mean?”
I had mouthed the words and somewhat verbally, as they came to mind without realising that I had done so.
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “I think it may be something that I may have heard somewhere today and picked it up without realising. It’s rather strange,” I replied honestly now.
“My great friends are my Mum and Dad and indeed yours David,” I ventured trying to clear the odd thought from my mind. “They’re in good health with many years to live and I think we are due to have get-together in a week or two’s time. Why should I consider never seeing them again?”
“The girls in my Typing Pool I consider to be my friends, while they are working diligently of course. They are all in good health so why should I not see any of them again?” I queried myself.
“It’s an odd thought that has repeatedly occurred, a couple of times now, I’m sure that it will disappear of its own volition with time,” I seemed confident in saying that somehow.
The thoughts and voice of HE were fading fast while SHE was becoming permanently dominant.
There were still persistent flash backs that concerned themselves with travelling through time to here. There was also a momentary one that realised with a sense of a desperate finality that I could not possibly come back to a period when I was already alive albeit, as a young school boy.
My ‘essence’ must have transitioned into the nearest living person related to the young boy, myself, which had to be my mother. With a terror it sunk home that I was sat here in my mother’s body with any sense of ‘me’ about to be absorbed forever. Not only was I never to return to whence I came, never to leave a message for my colleagues left behind but to never exist again as me.
But the young me at school, the ‘wizz’ at science, would eventually as an adult scientist and with experienced and equally as brilliant colleagues, develop a working time machine to only disappear for ever to return to here in a continuous loop while everything else moved forward.
That was the last, final and rational thought, heavily overlaid with a sense of screaming madness to cross my mind and be subsumed into so many others now concerned solely of catching a bus to David’s school to meet his headmaster.
I was wondering what I should prepare for this evenings dinner, which would have to be late now, when other words came to immediacy, swamping any further mental ramblings.
“Come on dear, the bus will leave in another five minutes or so,” David requested.
I got to my feet and arm in arm we gently strolled to the bus shelter a few yards away outside of the municipal buildings.
I knew instinctively somehow and with a firm conviction that this was to be a turning point in the life of our son David. I could almost see him in his white coat as some sort of future top scientist; the imagery in my mind was most distinct.
§
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