Time Portal

   The time portal originally presented itself to me in a dream.  It was a place I knew - in a pair of old buildings built separately with adjoining staircases with connecting windows between them.  The windows were originally looking out on the outside world of the first building from its single stairwell, but became windows providing an air passage between the two buildings (which are now one building composed of the original two buildings joined).  The joined pair of buildings carry many mysteries - and are a unique design not replicated anywhere that I'm aware of.  The windows are left open and are large enough to pass through, although are generally just used to catch glimpses of people going up and down the neighboring stairs.

  So that's the setting.  In the dream, I discovered that one of them occasionally works as a time portal.  Initially this was a purely exciting discovery, but soon became a fearsome thing....  Where do you go?  As a view on a computer screen I'd have no hesitation at all - I'd go forward, back, here, there, it would be endlessly interesting/educational, but to actually go?  Going forward is a terrifying thing, because you have no idea of the dangers of the future that need to be avoided, so going back is the only sensible thing to do.  But back to when?  Going back is great but what if you can't return to your correct time?

  And so the testing begins.  You start by going back a few days and it's kind of weird, because you know there's another version of you back there that - in early testing at least - you don't want to encounter.  Nevertheless, like anything, as you do it, you get used to it and you widen the gap a little and go back a week, two weeks, three weeks... and you begin to encounter problems since you end up running into people you know who recently saw the three-weeks-ago version of you and notice different clothes and slightly different hair, etc.  And so your twin brother is born and that answers some short-term awkward questions, but greatly complicates your life.

  The first malfunction of the time portal is terrifying.  The other side is supposed to be CT (Correct Time) but you land in another time - further back in the past but you don't know when.  That is quite a frightening experience - kind of like how you might feel if you boarded a plane for your home country and when you got off, it was another country, but you weren't sure which country it was.  Much worse actually, since in the case of landing in the wrong country, that sort of mix-up would generally be fairly easy to remedy.  When you're aiming for one year and land in another decades off the mark though, the terrifying possibility of being lost in time presents itself and then the novelty and fun of time travel vanishes and you just want to get home.

  So you travel less, but then start to worry about the future.  Dangerous as it must be, isn't there a responsibility to look at the future, see things that have gone wrong, and return to CT and try to help steer the ship away from bad destinations?

  Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon - www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/ - youtube.com/lylehsaxon - lylehsaxon.blogspot.jp/ - lookback1997.blogspot.jp/