This time, I knew what had happened right away. It was the middle of the night three nights ago. I was sitting on my back patio, looking up into the night sky, the slightest glow coming from the east, and suddenly realized I hadn’t been doing this a few seconds ago. I was in a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt and was cold. Not bone-chilling cold, but a little uncomfortable. I quickly snapped out of my reverie and reached for the memory of what I’d been doing before I found myself displaced here, somewhere in a time distinct from where I’d just been.
Walking.
That’s where I’d been. I had been walking through the hills around our house, through our neighborhood and the one next to it. My thoughts had been drifting, mostly centered though on my traveling and wondering if it was possible to control it – to direct it. I live in an area that the recent wildfires had touched, and could still see the blackened areas, bare patches and other signs of the trouble that had blown through here. It was unseasonably warm, and I was thinking about how nice it is on our patio at night.
Then I was there, quickly snapping out of the fog of my thoughts and I knew I was in the past. Amazingly, I felt like I knew where in the past I was, too. It seemed maybe a month or two, making it sometime in January. It was that quiet time just before the sun came up, and the house was dark behind me. I stood up, realizing I was wearing the same clothes I’d had on before I shifted here, and started walking quietly around the side of the house. As always, I was startled as the security light above the trash cans came on, but only paused for a second. I eased open the gate to the front of the house and walked through. On the driveway was a big bump that had to be the Sunday paper. Looking down both sides of the street, I walked over to the bump and picked it up. Sunday, January 13. Only after returning, did I realize that I had traveled back to 5 days before the last time I’d bodily chrono-located as I had decided to call it.
“Hi Rich!” came the voice behind me.
I ducked, tremendously startled, and spinning around was blinded by a silent explosion of light that made me shut my eyes.
It was the sun. I was back in my neighborhood, exactly where I remember being before finding myself sitting on the back patio of my house just before the sun rose on January 13. Except I still held the newspaper that I’d just picked up, apparently on January 13, 2008.
How long had I been gone? Maybe no time at all, I thought, as I started walking again. I’d been away for what, 3 or 4 minutes? Then the voice behind me, my heart leaping in fright and wham! I’m back to the present, snapping back like an overextended rubber band.
Suddenly, this post made sense.
Got it.
After thinking about it for awhile, it dawned on me that this bit of travel was exciting because it had, in a way, been voluntary. I didn’t exactly control it, but certain processes in my own body had obviously triggered the episode. I was walking, thinking about being able to control traveling and I traveled. Then, a voice (obviously my neighbor Jeff) startles me and I chronolocate again. If I can carefully pick apart the processes involved, maybe I can actually go when I want to go, or at least stop it when I don’t.
Something to think more (a lot more) about.
