TTP is back with a new and complex wheeze to publish a novel in 2015!
Greetings, Time Traveller! we welcome and congratulate you!
Hello, cheers!
How have you been?
I’m very busy actually, I’m writing a novel.
Oh, really? About time travelling?
Well, for me, everything in life is about time travelling. But no, the novel isn’t directly about that.
So what’s it about?
It’s complex.
Is it about a specific time in history you’ve had the time explore? Or does it prophetically tell of things to come, so that in a few years people will quote it on twitter all the time?
Well, almost. It’s uhm… well you know about the terrible breakup with Clair my male aspect had gone through, don’t you?
Of course. it’s been six months since, but with Clair, 2019-Clair, always around, I’m assuming it’s really hard to get over.
Exactly. It’s excruciating. So I’ve come up with a plan. I’m working on a novel that’ll be published in 2015, that’s just about when Clair started working in the bookshop. She once told me that when she started working there, she’d read every new published book, she’d read four books a week! So I’m certain she’d read mine as well.
Will your name be on it?
No, no. It’s going to be an alias, but one that would make her subconsciously think about me. about my male aspect, to be more exact. So basically, this novel – which she will have read in 2015 – is going to very subtly, and quite subliminally, make her be more understanding towards the 2022 mishap.
Uhm… how?
I told you, it’s complex. Very counter-intuitive. The novel tells the story of identical twin brothers, who aren’t aware of each other’s existence because, uh, I haven’t come up with that just yet, but they were separated at birth. Now, one of them, the protagonist, Marvin, is dating the girl of his dreams, Keira, who works in a pet shop. And then, well, have a go at it, why won’t you.
Hmm one day she meets his twin, thinking he’s Marvin, and he’s totally indifferent to her…
Alright, yes, that was the easy, predictable part. But! Now it gets good, right? She tells Marvin off later that day, and he says: what are you talking about, Keira? I was at work, in the restaurant! and then it gets weird. Because Marvin starts to question himself, cos Keira was so convinced it was him that she saw, he starts to wonder maybe he’s living this other life he isn’t aware of, like in a dissociative episode. That’s a condition. Real and unreal get slowly mixed up for him. And then Kiera meets his twin a few more times. at first, he’s really shitty and obnoxious, but then he becomes charming, and there will be situations such as, you know, she’d thank Marvin for saving a puppy, something he didn’t actually do, but then, cos it’s just too weird for him, he convinces himself he really did save a puppy. Do you get it?
I think so.
Isn’t it just brilliant? It’s a whole psychological drama of a person going through all these unlikely scenarios inside his mind, when the unlikeliness really isn’t inside his mind. It’s outside, as in objective, as in part of the actual world. A twin brother. A Time Traveller. Boom.
I can’t decide whether it’s too stupid or just genius.
Right?! Exactly! It’s dumb enough to get published, and smart enough to be remembered. And then, seven years after she’d read the novel, Clair will meet 2022-male-me in the street, and he will be all aloof and different, cos he’s not the 2019-male-me she’s used to, and suddenly she’d remember the novel.
Okay, and then?
And then – I mean after that novel is published, in 2015, my present time male aspect will go to 2022, a day after the break up, and then, uh, we’ll see, I guess.
Right, but a novel takes a while to get published, so let’s say it’ll come out in 2015 at around 2020, that’s about a year and a half after the break up, and a year and a half before 2022, when 2022-you will actually be present you. Isn’t that a tight schedule?
What? You’ve lost the plot and the timeline. It’ll get published in 2015. I’ll start working with the publishers in 2014, even earlier. I gave myself a two months deadline from today.
But still. With you going to 2014, present time here still continues. It’ll be at least year from today, no matter in what year you start working with the publisher.
Oh shit.
That’s basic time travelling logistics. What’s happening to you?
I don’t know. It’s like I haven’t been myself lately.
I guess I’ve just really sunk into writing this novel. It’s… I don’t know. The worlds we create for ourselves, that have nothing to do with reality, isn’t that fascinating?
What? You can travel through time!
But can I really?
What?!
Maybe it’s just a dissociative episode! Maybe I’m just hallucinating in my bed. Maybe I’m just a character in somebody’s dream –
Are you questioning the nature of your reality?
A little, I think.
You’re a Time Traveller. You saved the world. You’ve seen The Smiths live in the 80’s. you soiled Lisa’s dress and undid it, twice! You spooked past-you in the cemetery!
Hah! That was brilliant, wasn’t it?
Maybe this confusion is a side effect of time travelling.
Yes, absolutely! It must be!
It must be.
Remember Poor Roger though? I think that’s why I’m so into exploring the dark side of our minds lately. I went to visit him last week, in 2002, what a weird year. And he’s got this picture in his room in the institute, right, with three or four trees and a river and some bushes, a pastoral picture. And he took it off the wall and put it on his knees and told me to come closer and look inside the bushes. He kept saying: can you see me? can you see me? he’s convinced he’s painted there, in the bushes, he can see it. So I asked him, so how come you’re here? And he said he’s not really here, he’s there, the real him is there, and the person in the institute is just his shadow. Isn’t that chilling?
What’s he doing in the bushes?
I asked him, he said he’s listening to the Smiths on his earphones.
Poor Roger.
And then I asked him what song he’s listening to, and he said ‘Answer’.
What? No he didn’t. you made that whole thing up.
That’s what he said.
No he didn’t.
Swear it. I turned pale when he said it. Really had the chills. I said: what did you say?! I was trembling, really. And he said ‘you answer’, as in, he asked me to guess the song.
Oh.
Hah! Yeah! But that was a creepy moment.
I see Poor Roger is quite an inspiration for your psychological drama kind of writing.
Yeah, maybe he is, you know? Maybe I should be a writer.
A time travelling writer.
Yes!
You can write a Nobel Prize winning book if you want.
Do you really think so?
Yeah, just go back in time and write Joyce’s Ulysses before he does!
Oh, very funny.
He didn’t win a Noble Prize by the way, which is an injustice. You should fix that too.
I’ll see what I can do. I’ve got to go back to my novel now though. I don’t care when, Clair should read it. And not just her. It’s really good, I want people to read it. I think I will dedicate it to Roger. Seems fair.
Well we wish you the best of luck with that.
Cheers! At the meantime, be safe and cherish your present time.
You too. We thank you and congratulate you.
The Sewers 