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LJ Idol 7.3: It's a trap!
Nov. 19th, 2010 10:43 amTime travel is not all it's cracked up to be, at least not for amateurs.
For one thing, the process apparently conveys only what's "inside" your skin, in your body, so if you put a coin in your mouth and hold another coin in your hand, the one in your hand won't make it. At least that's my theory, based on the fact I arrived with all my dental work intact.
I'm also thinking that it's impossible to properly pronounce the words for time travel unless your mouth is completely free of obstruction, so the whole coin-in-the-mouth idea is probably moot. What is not moot are my chances—zero—of getting back to my time, since I was holding the book with the words to go back in my left hand when the lights went out and I started traveling back through time.
I regained consciousness in an alley in a sleepy village that looked relatively recent and European. I was naked—clothes, like books, don't survive time travel—and the first group of villagers who saw me didn't seem too happy, as they started yelling and gesticulating as they ran toward me. In fact, the tone of their voices—vaguely French-sounding—seemed downright hostile, and when one of them stopped to grab a pitchfork before renewing his headlong rush in my direction, I got the hint and quickly looked around for refuge. I managed to make it through the door of the village church before the pick-up vigilance committee could skewer me.
The village priest was a kind, patient fellow who saw to the wounds on my bare feet, clothed me, fed me, and accepted my story—expressed in halting high-school French—of being a foreigner set upon by criminals who had stolen every stitch of my clothing before dumping me, unconscious, where I had awakened. He told me I had been left in the village of Villefranche-sur-Hôc, and that I was welcome to stay at the church until I regained my feet. For about a week, I slept in an outbuilding on the church grounds, did odd jobs, and took stock of my situation.
And my situation was grim. I was a child of the late 20th century, adequately schooled for my time but with no skills useful in the now. I could use a keyboard, but not even typewriters had been invented yet (forget computers). I could fly a small airplane, but I couldn't build one. I could drive a car, but knew nothing of horses or carts. I was literate, but my foreign language skills were poor, and nobody in town wanted to learn English, at least not from someone who was dressed like a charity case, which is what I was.
Now was 1867 and knowing that Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated two years before while attending a performance of "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theater in Washington D.C. did nothing to help me put bread on the table. Moreover, the arcane knowledge I had accumulated in my pre-time-travel youth—such as a 2008 catalog value of $14,000 for a mint specimen of a pink three-cent U.S. postage stamp printed in 1861 and depicting George Washington—was of no use at all.
The only work I was apparently fit for was physical labor, and it was all I could do to keep body and soul together with my pay, which wasn't much considering my lack of skill and knowledge in just about every practical area. There were times I seriously considered stepping off the town's bridge into the rushing water below.
Then one afternoon, after a day spent digging post holes since shortly after sunup, I was walking back to my mattress in the loft above the town's stable when I happened to glance through the window of the café and saw two well-dressed young men eating, drinking, and playing chess. The owner wouldn't let a dirty, seedy-looking character like me inside, so I stood on the street and watched the men play.
They were playing for money, and although I was no master, my 20th century experience playing chess against the hustlers in Greenwich Village told me I could handily beat both of the fellows on the other side of the glass. And if they were playing for money, well—an idea started to form dimly in my mind.
As the pair climbed into their carriage to resume their journey, I caught enough of their conversation to understand they were headed to Paris, where a great tournament was to be played at the Café de la Régence.
The light came completely on inside my head and the despair that I had felt since awakening in this 19th century world suddenly vanished.
Two months later, after having sacrificed the three gold caps on my molars for a new suit of clothes and passage to Paris, I walked into the Café de la Régence, and sat down to play a few, uh, friendly games for moderate stakes. A few hours later, I walked out with enough cash to get by comfortably for at least a month.
In the years since that day, I haven't forgotten my future self. I've put together quite a collection of classic French postage stamps, which I've bought at face value in between visits to the Café. Conservatively speaking, the collection will be worth about six million dollars by the time I buy the miserable book of incantations that brought me here. Maybe, if my future self comes into possession of this collection, I won't ever run across that book!
So all I have to figure out now is this: How do I send something to myself a century hence?
For one thing, the process apparently conveys only what's "inside" your skin, in your body, so if you put a coin in your mouth and hold another coin in your hand, the one in your hand won't make it. At least that's my theory, based on the fact I arrived with all my dental work intact.
I'm also thinking that it's impossible to properly pronounce the words for time travel unless your mouth is completely free of obstruction, so the whole coin-in-the-mouth idea is probably moot. What is not moot are my chances—zero—of getting back to my time, since I was holding the book with the words to go back in my left hand when the lights went out and I started traveling back through time.
I regained consciousness in an alley in a sleepy village that looked relatively recent and European. I was naked—clothes, like books, don't survive time travel—and the first group of villagers who saw me didn't seem too happy, as they started yelling and gesticulating as they ran toward me. In fact, the tone of their voices—vaguely French-sounding—seemed downright hostile, and when one of them stopped to grab a pitchfork before renewing his headlong rush in my direction, I got the hint and quickly looked around for refuge. I managed to make it through the door of the village church before the pick-up vigilance committee could skewer me.
The village priest was a kind, patient fellow who saw to the wounds on my bare feet, clothed me, fed me, and accepted my story—expressed in halting high-school French—of being a foreigner set upon by criminals who had stolen every stitch of my clothing before dumping me, unconscious, where I had awakened. He told me I had been left in the village of Villefranche-sur-Hôc, and that I was welcome to stay at the church until I regained my feet. For about a week, I slept in an outbuilding on the church grounds, did odd jobs, and took stock of my situation.
And my situation was grim. I was a child of the late 20th century, adequately schooled for my time but with no skills useful in the now. I could use a keyboard, but not even typewriters had been invented yet (forget computers). I could fly a small airplane, but I couldn't build one. I could drive a car, but knew nothing of horses or carts. I was literate, but my foreign language skills were poor, and nobody in town wanted to learn English, at least not from someone who was dressed like a charity case, which is what I was.
Now was 1867 and knowing that Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated two years before while attending a performance of "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theater in Washington D.C. did nothing to help me put bread on the table. Moreover, the arcane knowledge I had accumulated in my pre-time-travel youth—such as a 2008 catalog value of $14,000 for a mint specimen of a pink three-cent U.S. postage stamp printed in 1861 and depicting George Washington—was of no use at all.
The only work I was apparently fit for was physical labor, and it was all I could do to keep body and soul together with my pay, which wasn't much considering my lack of skill and knowledge in just about every practical area. There were times I seriously considered stepping off the town's bridge into the rushing water below.
Then one afternoon, after a day spent digging post holes since shortly after sunup, I was walking back to my mattress in the loft above the town's stable when I happened to glance through the window of the café and saw two well-dressed young men eating, drinking, and playing chess. The owner wouldn't let a dirty, seedy-looking character like me inside, so I stood on the street and watched the men play.
They were playing for money, and although I was no master, my 20th century experience playing chess against the hustlers in Greenwich Village told me I could handily beat both of the fellows on the other side of the glass. And if they were playing for money, well—an idea started to form dimly in my mind.
As the pair climbed into their carriage to resume their journey, I caught enough of their conversation to understand they were headed to Paris, where a great tournament was to be played at the Café de la Régence.
The light came completely on inside my head and the despair that I had felt since awakening in this 19th century world suddenly vanished.
Two months later, after having sacrificed the three gold caps on my molars for a new suit of clothes and passage to Paris, I walked into the Café de la Régence, and sat down to play a few, uh, friendly games for moderate stakes. A few hours later, I walked out with enough cash to get by comfortably for at least a month.
In the years since that day, I haven't forgotten my future self. I've put together quite a collection of classic French postage stamps, which I've bought at face value in between visits to the Café. Conservatively speaking, the collection will be worth about six million dollars by the time I buy the miserable book of incantations that brought me here. Maybe, if my future self comes into possession of this collection, I won't ever run across that book!
So all I have to figure out now is this: How do I send something to myself a century hence?
