The Summer of '83
Michael Graeme
Published: 2009
Tag(s): "short story" "time travel" "speculative fiction" romantic romance love speculative paranormal
The Summer of '83
by
Michael Graeme
I haven't been to Wigan for ages, not since the '80's in fact and I can't say for sure we're really there now except it seems pretty much that way to me. If I'm correct, it's a Thursday, just after lunch, and we're standing in a huddle of people waiting to go inside the technical college on Parson's Walk, but there's been a fire alarm, and it's chaos. It's no hardship though because the sun is shining and every second I spend out here is a second less I'll have to spend in class.
Okay,… so, here we are; this is the interesting bit: there's a girl looking at me, smiling. Do you see her? That's Serena, and I've been in love with her for a long time. Her smile is heart-warming - also completely unexpected because until this moment I'd not been aware of her having taken much notice of me. Clearly though she is aware of me; dare I say she even seems to like me?
The crowd fades into the background and all I can see is her, except "see" isn't the right word here. Sure - I can see every freckle, every individual eyelash, but I can also feel the texture of her skin, her clothes, her hair,… and though she is twenty feet away and just one person in the midst of so many others, I'm aware even of the warm-womany scent of her.
Emboldened by that smile I take a step closer, but the smile fades as if she's read my thoughts and is wondering how to avoid the embarrassment of my making an unwelcome pass at her. See? She's gone now, swallowed by the crowd whose din fills my ears once more as the fire alarm is ended and we all make our way towards the doors.
Here we are then, shuffling along corridors, heading for my Material's Science session, which I warn you is going to be a couple of hours of grinding tedium, but you're lucky because from my perspective things are made all the more unbearable by the ache in my heart, and the knowledge it might be weeks before I ever come that close to Serena again.
I've done this a few times now, slipped back to this moment, and what I'd really like to do is slow things down, savour the best bits, the glow of that smile for instance, and then pull out of it before this crushing disappointment kicks in, and I'm once more sitting listening to old Dodman explaining about Mhor's Circle. I might have found a way of slipping back in time, but once I'm here, time ticks along at its normal pace and I'm unable to control how long we remain, though boredom usually kills it and sends you right back to whatever time you came from.
It's curious, these trips to what I suppose must be the early summer of 1983, and my final year of the old HNC course. It's curious, because although I am myself, as I believe I was back then, my heart heavy with the bitter sweetness of an unrequited love, there is also superimposed upon my memory the knowledge that for our entire lives, Serena and I will never say anything more than an awkward "hello", that we'll both marry other people, have kids, and live our lives in complete ignorance of one another.
Now, don't go thinking I regret the way things turned out for me, because I don't - well, not exactly. This moment may be charged with a deliciously poignant nostalgia, but I could just as easily have revisited any number of similar moments from around that period. Indeed a few months from now I'll meet a delightfully feisty girl who won't disappear every time I try to say hello. On the contrary: she'll take me to her bed at the first opportunity and keep me there - that is until we both wake up, a quarter of a century later, too middle aged and kid-tired for that sort of thing any more.
Nowadays she prefers watching TV, and grumbles at me when I forget to take the rubbish out. Well, that's middle age for you, and you either grow up, grow into it, accept its imperfections, its disappointments, and grow old grumbling at someone, or you ruin yourself on a mad fling with a girl half your age that you know won't last, and then you grow old alone and with only the walls to grumble at.
In the absence of any other alternatives, I know which of the two I prefer. But what if there was a third alternative? What if that mad fling were to take place in another time and place, dare I say even a different universe altogether? Then you could have your fun and it wouldn't matter would it? And what if it wasn't a mad fling or a bit of fun at all? What if it turned out to be the single most important thing you never did?
Dodman's lecture on Mhor's Circle seems to do the trick – don't misunderstand, this is fascinating stuff first time around – it's just the boredom of its frequent repetition I suppose, that has me resurfacing safe and sound in the shed at the bottom of my garden. The light's just melting into amber over the messy backs of all the red brick terraces of my street. I can see a multitude of chimney pots, a tangle of drainpipes and a mad assortment of larch-lap fencing in various degrees of disrepair - not exactly the most likely setting for an experiment into the nature of reality, but then I'm not sure there's much of a precedent for this sort of thing.
Faye thinks I'm potting up Bizzie Lizzies - at least in so far as I imagine she thinks about me at all these days, and to be safe I have potted a few, but mostly I've just been sitting here in this old armchair, among the dust and the cobwebs - well - daydreaming really. Except, as you've just seen, there's more to it than that. So, maybe you're wondering if it really is possible, to slip back in time, court girls, and maybe even have sex with all that sweet simplicity like you used to, and just, well,… be so damned young again!
Well, it's possible all right, to go back and experience your past again. I'll show you how if you like, but I'm warning you, you can only amuse yourself so much with that kind of thing before you start to wonder how you might go about making some changes while you're there. I see you hesitate? You're worried about going back and, by changing something insignificant, ruining your present, or maybe even blotting it out altogether? Well, that's day one on the time traveller's course, and if you don't mind my saying so, I think that theory's a bit dated now. No, I'm thinking if you change something in your past, you don't change your present at all - you simply create another version of it. Setting aside all the philosophical musings for a while, there really seems no harm in it, provided you can always get back to where you started from of course, and as we've just seen, all that takes is moment or two of boredom.
It turns out the business of time-travel is actually a lot easier than the naysayers would have us believe - provided you're only interested in going backwards of course. Sure, it turns out the most effective time machine's not a machine at all - it's simply the mind - whatever that is - helped along by nothing more complicated than some herbal tea, and the right phase of the moon.
The phase of the moon?
Perhaps I should explain. At certain times, your mind is less securely fastened down inside your brain. This has something to do with the earth's magnetic field, which forms a sheath around the planet we call the magnetosphere. The magnetosphere gets a regular kick from the Sun's magnetic field, which generally keeps the magnetosphere lively, which in turn stimulates our brains through the pineal gland, which is basically a magnetic sensor wrapped in nerve fibres.
With me so far?
Much of the pineal gland's function is a mystery, but one of the things it does is keep our sense of self too busy to think of leaking outside of our brains to somewhere more interesting. Once a month though, just before Full Moon, the earth's magnetic field hushes down a little and then, if your mind's calm enough it can slip into a state of dissociation where any memories that happen by are rendered in ultra-realistic detail.
So, maybe now you're thinking this isn't really time-travel after all - more simply a kind of hallucination? Dare I even say Lunacy? You might have a point, but think about
it: if you can trigger a memory, like we just did, then amplify it to such an extent you experience everything, exactly as it was: sights, sounds, touch, smell, and the feel of it all, a feel so overwhelming it entirely blocks out the sense of your present self - well, what difference is there between that and reality, other than the passage of a few decades?
Okay, it's cold sitting in the shed. Come into the house. Let's try the lounge. Yes,… just as I thought: that's Faye, reclining on the sofa, dropping bits of chocolate into her mouth while she gawps rather unattractively at the TV. I'm sure you'll agree she's not a bad looking woman, and there was once a time when she was very sweet indeed, only now I get the impression she isn't really much of anything other than this dull automaton with all the life squeezed out of her. To be fair, she probably feels the same way about me.
Now, Faye and I will never split up - I mean we might have outgrown the idealistic stage when we both believed we had the power to make each other deliriously happy. Okay, we may be past all that but we're far too polite and conventional to do anything so drastic as making each other deliberately unhappy - for example by having the bad manners to take off with someone else. We're companionable enough, most of the time, but anyone can see there's something,… well,… missing.
There's no sense in disturbing her just now, so lets sneak back into the kitchen and check on the herb tea situation. Did I mention the herb tea? Look - I keep it all here in this cupboard where its cool. I get it from the hedgerows, dry it out slowly over the summer, then crush it in the usual way. I'm sure I don't need to tell you there's plenty of stuff growing in those hedgerows that will kill you, and make a pretty long and nasty job of it too, so you need to know what you're doing. What's that? You're already familiar with this kind of thing? Well that's fine - I suppose you must be or we wouldn't have met outside the college the way we did – or when we did for that matter.
But, tell me, do you also know about the ecliptic? No? Then allow me to explain because a knowledge of the ecliptic might be just the thing you're looking for to enhance your experience. You see, there's something else about the moon you need to know. Over the course of a month it goes from rising south of east, to rising north of east, and then back again. When it's half way, that is when it's rising due east, it's said to be over the ecliptic. When the moon's at this point, more often than not, the earth's magnetic field is once more a little quieter - like a with a full moon. So, if you want to skip back in time, you're better doing it either with a full moon, or with a moon over the ecliptic. Got it? If you check your almanac you'll see this gives you three or four chances a month. Okay? With me so far? Ah,… I see I've sparked your interest now. You're intelligent and already making the connections: you're wondering will happen when the moon's full and over the ecliptic at the same time?
Well, a full moon on the ecliptic only happens about twice a year, and I agree with you, that might be just the time to slip back in time if you wanted to do something other than simply experience your past, and instead see about making some changes while you were there. That's what I plan on doing next time. Next time, I'm going to try a little harder with Serena, instead of being so damned passive about it. After all, you don't create a fresh future for yourself by being timid in your past, do you?
So, we've skipped ahead a little now, consulted our almanac and there's a full moon on the ecliptic this evening. I've checked the earth's geomagnetic signature on the Internet and sure enough, its been plummeting for days - so now's our chance. I've tickled round the garden with a hoe, tidied up the borders and mown the grass, which ought to keep Faye off our backs for a while. If you think you're ready, come down to the shed and I'll boil us up an infusion of hedgerow clippings. Take a seat, make yourself comfortable - go on - settle back.
Here we go.
There,… see how easy it is? We've slipped back to '83 without much trouble. The only problem is we've missed the best bit and we're already half way through Dodman's lecture. Mhor's Circle is up on the blackboard, which means Serena's long gone. That's a bit of a drag, but maybe you're right and trying to cop off with a dream-girl from my past is like trying to run before I can walk. So, maybe I should start with something simple like,… I don't know,… how about if I just,… . stood up?
Okay! That seemed to work. Here we are, standing up in the middle of Dodman's lecture on Mhor's Circle. Weird! It seems we've just created another future because Dodman, interrupted mid-sentence, is now peering at us over his spectacles in a way he never did in our original past, at least not at this place and time.
"Yes?" he asks.
He's a pleasant chap, old Dodman, and we've no need to fear his wrath, but all the same it's an embarrassing situation and I've no idea what to do next. To be honest I didn't expect things to be as easy as this.
"Erm,… "
"Is everything all right, young man?"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Dodman. I think,… perhaps,.. I need to excuse myself."
I could just have sat down again and maybe time would have flowed back into its normal course, but, really, this is too interesting a thing to let it go just yet. So, we're outside the room now, breathing hard, sweating like we're sick and shoving our college notes back into our bag. What now you ask? Well follow me and I'll show you.
I'm of an age when I can look back fondly on the 80's and even though it doesn't seem that long ago to me, the fashions, the styles, the cars,… when I see these things in movies or pictures from that period, they conjure up a feeling of such nostalgia it's like I'm sure I misplaced something back here that was really important to me. I'm also sure I know what, or rather who it is:
We're talking about Serena, of course!
The girls were into big fluffy hair and shoulder pads in those days. I remember it as a very glamorous, sexy and confident time. As for my car - I drove an RS 2000, painted a gloriously unsubtle shade of yellow. It had alloy wheels, fat tyres and a Cosworth engine. If I'm right I've left it parked around Avondale Road, where it's all quiet and residential , and where the parking's free. For now though, I've just remembered a coffee shop in the old Market Hall which is nearer, so we'll check that out first.
Okay. Here we are. I know it's not much of a place but the coffee's really good, and is very straight forward to order - just coffee - none of the endless choice that's supposed to be the mark of a sophisticated free-market society. It's pretty busy - market day you see, but if you follow me quickly there's a table just over there. We can hunker down, sip our coffee and try to work out what to do next.
Excuse me,… coming through!… . Wow, did you see that girl? She looked like a movie star! I used to sneer at all this glam stuff - plastic people I used to call them - but now I really miss it! By the way, if you don't mind my saying so you seem to know your way around here pretty well.
Anyway, where were we?
Oh,… hold on. Something really strange has just happened. Serena's just walked in. She's over there, ordering coffee from the counter - baggy striped sweater and jeans, big satchel. Isn't she gorgeous? Do you see the provocative tilt of her hips? Oh,… now she's looking for somewhere to sit. Ever heard of a synchronicity? Well you're in one. We shouldn't get too excited though because, considering the way she last looked at me, I'll be lucky to get a smile out of her this time. Still,… she can't find a seat, and we've got this whole table to ourselves.
I wonder,… Okay, she's looked our way now and I'm sure she's recognised me. I can read her mind: she's thinking she can either beg a corner of that table with those old dears by the window, or she can come and sit with me. If she's kind hearted, she'll know I'll be hurt if she chooses the old dears, but I don't want her to be uncomfortable either. And I don't want her to feel sorry for me. I just want her to want me.
Right, she's coming over! You'd better slip off into the background, while I deal with it. No,.. don't go too far; I don't mind you listening in and, anyway, I may need your help if I get into trouble.
"Hi," she's saying. "Do you mind
if I join you?"
"Of course not."
I can feel myself tingling now, like she's emitting a force field and it's exciting every particle of me. Once again there's that startling awareness of every detail of her, and she looks so cute and cuddly in her sweater. Surely, no matter how long I live, I will never desire anyone as completely as I desire Serena at this moment. No,… I'm not talking about sex here; it's more that I can't remember a time when I've ever wanted just to be,… with anyone so much as this. But I'm confused because, of course, this moment never happened. If this truly is, or was, my past, then it's following a different track now.
And that's progress.
Isn't it?
Serena's nervous. She can read my thoughts, she sees the desire in my eyes, and she doesn't want any embarrassment. She just wants to sit and drink her coffee without some hormone-inebriated youth making a pass at her.
"It's okay," I tell her. "You've nothing to worry about."
Now it's her turn to be confused. "Oh?"
"I'm not really here, you see?"
She smiles. She has a lively sense of humour and thinks perhaps I'm joking with her - thinks perhaps she's misjudged me, been too hasty in setting a distance between us. "Really?" She enquires. She has the most beautiful dimples, and those lips? Do you see those lips - how wide her smile, how white her teeth?
"It's true," I'm telling her. "I'm actually sitting in my shed some time maybe twenty five years from now, thinking back on this moment."
She takes a sip of her coffee and I can see her running this one through her mind, her eyes making little oscillations while she weighs me up. She could easily think I'm a wierdo and recoil, but instead she tiptoes politely into my joke, and now she's asking me: "So, what's it like then: twenty five years from now?"
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