By Janice McCaffrey
I’ve been captivated with the idea of time travel as far back as I can remember. According to Wikipedia, stories of time travel date back as early as 3rd century Greece. In our day the idea was popularized by H. G. Wells’ novel Time Machine. Since then there have been many versions using a multitude of techniques to transport characters between places and times.
Following Wells’ lead Bill and Ted used a phone booth to travel through their excellent adventure. Marty used a De Lorean sports car with its flux capacitor driven engine to get Back to the Future. The TV show Quantum Leap used a quantum accelerator that emitted blue lights and smoke. It shuffled a scientist to and from places and times where he could prevent incidents that would have catastrophic repercussions on the future.
Some authors use objects or talismans to transport their characters. Somewhere in Time tells the story of a young reporter who is to interview an eighty-plus year old actress in an historic hotel. While awaiting her arrival, he sees her photograph from sixty-years earlier and falls in love with her. He longs to go back in time. Then with an old coin in his hand and in the room she stayed in on her first visit, he falls asleep. When he wakes it’s the day, sixty-years earlier, the young actress arrived at the hotel. And the romance begins!
Other fictional characters have used portals found in a wardrobe, mirrors, bridges, water, walls, children’s bedroom closets, and video games. Think Chronicles of Narnia, Monsters, Inc., and The Matrix.
Vortices (plural for Vortex) are areas known to either draw energy out or pull energy into the earth. Sedona Arizona is famous for the strong vortices in the surrounding area. Resorts advertise the health benefits of the energy exchanges that take place there. And I’ll bet folks with strong imaginations attempt journeys to the past or future. I know I would.
How does one find a vortex? You could visit one of the many roadside Houses of Mystery. Or, websites explain that a person can use their inner-sensitivities to feel the energy pulsing through their bodies. However, there is scientific equipment that can help. It seems that a strong radio-active field is at the center of a vortex. The military has electromagnetic field meters to locate vortex energy. Then a Geiger counter’s response gives a weak or strong reading. So using an EMF with a Geiger counter a person can locate the precise center of a vortex; and just maybe a portal to another place and time.
Characters travel willingly or accidently finding themselves in an unfamiliar place and/or time. Depending on the plot, some characters could experience both. And that leads to the question of how to return a person or animal to their original location and date. Again it’s up to the writer; talismans, machines, portals, vortices, anything a person can think up.
Are there any rules for time travel? Can or should a traveler change events in the past to affect the future? Can a person travel at will or do they need an exact place or time to aim for? Can the passenger of a time machine control where and when they arrive at a destination – in either direction? Can a person land in parallel universes of the same time period? Can a time traveler choose to stay in the past or future or is their return mandatory? Can a person feel physical and/or emotional reactions as they pass through centuries? The protagonist in Elan Mastai’s All Our Wrong Todays (2015) has these decisions to consider.
Based on scientific facts and past experiments, traveling through time is not possible. But based on creative authors it can be done with or without rules and through whichever method they choose. The unknown adventure of time travel is a wonderful gift to writers. We can create situations, methods, choices, and consequences for our characters without parameters.
I still haven’t figured out how Marty got back to the future, but I am having a fun adventure creating time travel experiences for my characters.
Montana Women Writers 