Intertemporal - A story from SSATT
This one is for a time travel book I am working on
Authors notes.
The first draft of this story was less than 100 words, and was written for, and published by, postcardshorts. That platform is now long-dead, so I thought I’d revive the story. This is a much longer version. It feels reminiscent of Heinlein’s ‘By his bootstraps’ which amuses me, as I wrote this story some months ago and read that story last night. I am in a time travelling mood… It is also important to note that back in 2015, when I had the first echo of this story published, I was not aware of the word intertemporal being used in boring business language. I have only just discovered that today whilst looking for my old story online. Enjoy.
Intertemporal
A mysterious stranger appears in a hotel doorway
timing,” the woman said as she stumbled out of the revolving doors to the hotel. Lashes of rain beat down against the red covering above, and the street beyond the hotel was murky and vague. She stopped and stood dumbfounded, then smiled sadly, then looked around for something, as if trying to work out where she was.
“What?” the man asked. He was wearing a dark green suit and brown tie, clutching a black briefcase close to his body as he stepped in from the rain. The woman brushed down her bright red coat and smiled at the man.
“Oh I know. I told you already, but I guess you won’t get it yet. It’s a slow burner,” the woman said. She extended a hand to the man. They introduced each other and got talking. The woman turned back and entered the hotel again, this time through the secondary entrance, avoiding the revolving doors.
Once inside they spent some time getting to know each other. The woman in the red coat displayed a peculiar interest in the man in the green suit, coming across as unnaturally proactive in her discovery of his personality. She took him over to a small seating area opposite the hotel reception, curling up in a curved sofa behind some tall potted plants. The man sat down uneasily, still wondering why this stranger was so interested in him. The woman rested her chin on one hand and asked him piercing questions about his life and his passions. The man quickly discovered through this strange interrogation that they had some similarities, but that their personalities for the most part were opposed to one another. This didn’t seem to matter, or it mattered in a positive way, because shortly after this rushed introduction the woman in the red coat was leading the man to the hotel bar and ordering them both cocktails.
She waited until the man in the green suit was suitably relaxed to bring up the real reason she had begun talking to him.
“I’m a time traveller,” she said. “I have lived this night before, though I don’t know how many times. We fall in love and spend a week together.”
The man laughed this off nervously. But already he knew she was not lying, and this unsettled him. He was not the type to be interested in anybody, but something about her caught his attention the second she emerged from those golden revolving doors, as if he was meant to collide with her. He didn’t admit this, but privately he already believed her, no matter how strange her claim was.
“You don’t love me yet. But you will do, and I love you,” the woman said. The man leaned back in his chair and sipped some more of his cocktail, trying not to wince at the strength of it. The woman laughed.
“I love that little thing you do, when you scrunch up your nose,” she said.
“Do you? I always thought it was embarrassing.”
“Not at all,” she said. “Never gets old.”
“And neither do you,” the man said, cutting through the woman’s story. Of course he didn’t want to believe she was a time traveller. It was a ridiculous idea, something reserved for playful science fiction stories, not pick-up lines. She might have come across as convincing, but this was likely because she was attractive and he was gullible. He could admit this much about himself privately, but not out loud.
“If you have really gone back in time to relive this night, then why aren’t there two of you?” the man asked. The woman turned to him soberly and nodded, saying, “A fair question. The truth is that I don’t know. What I do know is that the waiter is about to bring us the wrong drinks, and that you were going to ask me about my brooch next, to make small talk.”
The woman was right. The man had been eyeing an unusual star-shaped brooch on her coat. The woman removed it and placed it on the table, pushing it over to him. It was a ten-pointed star composed of two overlaying five-sided stars, the effect obtained by the clever use of eleven carved pieces of what looked like black garnet – the first five being simple triangles, the second five being kite shapes that fit between these, and the eleventh jewel being a central pentagon. These two black stars were framed by an intricate golden frame that grew fatter close to the centre of the stars, as if to support their weight. It was an intricate and unusual piece, surprisingly large for a brooch.
“Your drinks,” the waiter said.
“They’re the wrong ones,” the woman replied immediately. She paused as the waiter hesitated. He had yet to bring them down from the tray, but he took one look at them and realised his mistake.
“Quite right, sorry about that,” the waiter said.
“It’s okay,” the woman smiled. The waiter went away and she continued her conversation.
“I was wearing it when I showed up here, so I can leave the thing anywhere and it will find its way back to me,” she explained. She took the brooch back and reaffixed it to her coat lapel, adjusting it so it was in the precise position it came from.
“The same goes for this,” she said, showing the man a ring on one finger. “I can’t lose this, even if I try to.”
This short story will be concluded in my new Kickstarter project
SEVEN STORIES ABOUT TIME TRAVEL, which you can find her
