Most of us live in a state of thoughtless acceptance. We walk through the territory of this life where there are few questions because we have been indoctrinated about many things in our youth, so that we have been programmed with the prejudices and belief systems of our parents and the people before them, so that we rarely know existence see it as it really is. , but every now and then something can open our minds and indicate that what we think we know about the universe is nonsense.
One of the most shocking things that can shake someone up and out of their conditioning is the timeslip, because it makes a mockery of everything our elders have taught us about time.
We believe that time has an arrow that travels from the past to the future and that it moves steadily and that nothing can speed it up or slow it down.
The great Isaac Newton fell for that belief, but Einstein and other scientists subsequently proved, first mathematically and then through experiment, that time could be stretched like an elastic band through a process known as time dilation, and now even the ‘ flow of time’. ‘ is viewed with suspicion by quantum physicists working on time-reversal symmetry – because it seems as if time can go either forward or backward.
The timeslip is a phenomenon through which a person can find themselves in the past or in the future; Of course, we’re all sliding into the future at the rate of one second per second, but in the time shifts I’m talking about, people can find themselves hours or centuries into the future – or into the past.
In late March 2020, when the country was on lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, a homeless 45-year-old man named Gavin was looking for a place to sleep for the night.
He had been sleeping rough for the past three years, starting with ‘sofa surfing’ at friends’ houses until their patience ran out due to a drinking problem.
There was talk of plans to get homeless people off the streets and into ‘Covid-safe’ emergency housing, but no one had contacted Gavin yet.
He walked along a deserted Oxton Road, Wirral, UK, towards Grange Road, where an old school friend called George may have lived in a flat above a shop.
If George were still there, he wouldn’t send him away, would he? Gavin bowed his head to the icy, howling wind, with his scarf wrapped around his neck, his old tweed jacket buttoned up and his cold fist clenched around the strap of a school bag containing a five pound note, a small radio with a dead battery , someone has lost reading glasses, underwear, socks and a copy of the novella Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
Before Gavin reached Grange Road, something extraordinary happened.
There was an explosion of noise – people’s voices, horses bellowing as they pulled rolling carts, and now the sun was shining brightly.
Gavin felt as if he had been transported to Spain, yet the surroundings seemed vaguely familiar.
McDonalds was gone and in its place was a huge cafe. He was still in the Charing Cross area, but this was clearly in the past and it seemed like it was summer. Gavin thought he should go to the pub where McDonalds had been less than a minute ago, but a police officer stepped into his path and said, “Where are you from?” and he looked Gavin up and down and his steely pale blue eyes, which seemed fluorescent under the shadow of his pointed helmet, focused on Gavin’s bag.
“Look, Officer, you’re not going to believe this, but I’m from the year two thousand and twenty,” Gavin said, and now he went from optimism about feeling the summer heat on his face to the terrible realization that he was back in a different world. era, possibly Victorian.
The police officer narrowed those prominent blue eyes and said, “That’s a very tall tale you’re making up. I think you better start talking or we’ll get to work on you! Name and company, sharp.’
‘My name is Gavin [and he gave his surname and his former address when he lived on Claremount Road, Wallasey three years ago]. And I don’t have a business these days, I’m homeless. I used to be a computer programmer.’
Gavin said the last sentence meekly because he knew this police officer would have no idea what that job was. He just knew that now he would be arrested and interrogated.
The buyer pushed his helmet back slightly and scratched his forehead. ‘Well, I dare say that in all my years I have never come across such a far-fetched load of poppies! Are you completely sane, sir, or have you lost your mind?’
“I know it sounds crazy, but I’m telling the truth,” Gavin said, his mouth going dry. There was a shout from behind the police officer and he turned to look at two men fighting outside the pub Gavin was going to: the Grange Hotel.
The police officer turned back to Gavin and said, “You have to stay here while I deal with them!” Have it?’ and he pointed to the little traffic island and then ran towards the fighting drunks.
Gavin stood transfixed for a moment, then took a chance and fled down Grange Road. He almost collided with a bicycle and a trailer – a bizarre situation that saw a man in a straw boat pedaling a bicycle to which a two-wheeled rickshaw-like vehicle was tied, inside which sat a woman wearing a huge hat decorated with artificial flowers. .
Gavin kept running, trying to put as much distance between himself and the police officers as possible; the idea that he would be stranded in a grim cell at a police station in this bygone era terrified him.
Gavin ended up on Conway Street, where a rough-looking young man and an employee named Tommy approached him and the former asked what was in the bag. “Nothing of any value, just clothes,” Gavin said, knowing what would happen next.
“Giz it here,” Tommy said, taking Gavin’s bag and saying to his friend, “Shall we take his jacket, Johnny?”
A man came out of a nearby pawn shop and said to the two thugs, “Give that back to this man or I’ll inform that police officer down there!”
‘Johnny’ threw the bag at Gavin’s feet and he and Tommy snuck into an alley.
“Are you alright, sir?” the man asked, explaining that he was one of the owners of the nearby pawn shop and advising Gavin to go talk to the police officer in the distance. ‘The big guy who wanted your bag was John Rimmer. He is known to the police.’
“Thank you very much,” said a grateful Gavin, who had no intention of approaching a police officer because of the bizarre situation. He asked a question that must have seemed very strange to the pawnbroker: “I know this may sound strange, but what year are we in now?”
“Eh?” asked the surprised Good Samaritan.
“I got hit in the head and I can’t remember what year it is,” said a quick-thinking Gavin.
“It’s 1909,” the man replied, and advised Gavin to see a doctor.
The shock of learning it was 1909 made Gavin feel dizzy, and in an instant he found himself back in 2020.
Not long after, he came down with Covid and had a disturbing thought: could he have passed that damned virus on to that police officer, or to those thugs in 1909?
Author: Tom Slemen, a Liverpool writer best known as the author of the best-selling Haunted Liverpool book series, which documents paranormal incidents and unsolved or unusual crimes. Check his books Amazon here.
