Transtime #PARANORMAL #HISTORICAL #TIMETRAVEL
Transtime: Are some people really born in the wrong era or does time-travel only swap one set of problems for another? Esme will soon find out!
Transtime: Paranormal, Historical
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BLURB: Transitime
Today it is widely accepted that some people feel they are born in the wrong body, we call them transgender. Can we accept that some people feel that they are born in the wrong era? Can we accept that they are transtime? Twenty-nine-year-old Esme has always felt a pull towards the late eighteenth century and feels isolated in 2015. Meanwhile Zilpha Clarke, a spinster in Swanford, is frustrated with her lot in 1790. Would they really be happier in each other’s eras or would travelling through time only exchange one set of problems for another?
EXCERPT: Transitime
Chapter Three
I waited impatiently for my next session with Jasmine. The week passed slowly. I did little regarding my music. I arranged to sing at the opening of a jazz club in Liverpool but that would not be until after Christmas. I emailed Antonio and tried not to sound too needy. He emailed back, telling me about his holiday in the Maldives. I visited Izzy, Kev and their two little boys and we went for a walk in a park.
As usual, I worked all day on Tuesday and Wednesday as well as on Thursday morning at Inkpot. I endured Olivia’s moaning and Brian’s self-important, droning speeches at our weekly team meetings. I wondered why Olivia had not resigned as she kept threatening to, if she was so unhappy, and I asked myself how such an idiotic man had been appointed as team leader. My actual job was mundane and the best thing about it was Inkpot’s flexible approach to time off when I had singing jobs. Providing I worked twenty hours a week, I could come and go when I liked.
Eagerly, I went to Jasmine’s office and she greeted me. There was no sign of anybody else.
“Hello Esme, how are you? I was worried you might not come back after last week. It must have been a lot to take in.”
“I’m not saying I definitely should travel through time,” I chose my words carefully. “However, if the root cause of my problems is that I was born in the wrong era, then maybe I should go to where I really belong.”
“What I propose we do is meet with Gabriel and Zilpha Clarke. Zilpha was born in Swanford, where I understand your mother comes from, in 1765. She might be happier if she were born in 1990, she is twenty-five. She is a villager and the unmarried daughter of a farm labourer.
“I think she would be happier in 2015 as today there are more opportunities for women and the working class. We are also more tolerant of LGBT people and she is bisexual, a fact she keeps hidden, plus being single is more acceptable.”
“How will she get here? Will we go to 1790 and to Gloucestershire?”
“No, I will freeze time and bring them both here. After you have met and we have had a chat, they will go, I will unfreeze time and we will have our session as usual.”
“Okay.” By now, I had given up being shocked.
Jasmine reached for what I now knew was not her phone and Gabriel emerged with a young woman.
The woman looked nervous. She was pretty, surprisingly tall, fine-boned and feline-featured with fair skin and eyes that were a deep purple-grey colour, like the sky before a storm. She had a mole on one cheek and she carried a straw bonnet in one hand by its dingy pink ribbon. Under a dark blue coat, cut in a style I had never seen before in real life, she wore a dull pink dress, which flared out at the waist and reached the ground. A pale scarf was tucked into the neck of the dress.
Her clothes were worn, dusty and slightly faded. However, they were neat and made out of very sturdy coarse fabric. Upon seeing me, she stared and stared.
I wondered if she had never seen a person who was not white before. I then recalled she had already met Jasmine. Maybe my outfit was the issue. I was wearing trousers and a jumper in materials that would not be invented until long after her death or maybe it was my hair and make-up? Her face was shiny, her eyelashes and eyebrows were faint and her fine, ash blonde hair was pinned up in a knot at the back of her head. I wore my hair in a ponytail and seven different cosmetics on my face.
Jasmine performed the introductions. Zilpha curtseyed as I awkwardly smiled and offered my hand. She rose and took it. Body odour and something either herbal or floral hit my nostrils. Her hand was solid. She was as real as me yet born over two hundred years ago.
We all sat down and Jasmine continued speaking.
“We have brought you together because we believe you are a possible match. Esme knows a lot about the eighteenth century and Gabriel has taught Zilpha an equal amount about the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. He has not told her anything about the years from 1791 to 1900. Esme, you may not tell Zilpha anything about these years. Likewise, neither of you will be told what will happen after 2015. This is because it would be unethical for anyone to know the future before deciding if they wish to transition. The future must always be unknown.
“If either or both of you transition, you will simply be born into another body in another age. You will have no memory of your previous life and all that is guaranteed is that you will be born alive somewhere in Britain.
“If one of you wishes to transition and not the other, don’t worry. We can look into other possible matches for the person who wishes to time-travel and the person who wishes to remain where they are will carry on with their old life. However, they must never speak of this experience.
“You will each be presented with four different scenarios to give you a taste of life in your new era. These scenarios are situations that actually happened to real people either between 1775 and 1800 or between 1990 and 2015. You will act as these people and have no awareness of your real life or past experiences. This is to give you an authentic experience of your chosen era. You just need to take a medicine, which we will give you, before going to bed, then, you will experience something near to a dream but at the same time very different. Afterwards, we will meet and discuss. I will continue to meet with Esme and Gabriel will continue to meet with Zilpha alone. We advise that you both meet by yourselves to talk over your experiences, we will give you the tools to do so.
“In the meantime, we insist you try to make the best of your current lives. As I have said before, sometimes the problems you face are not related to your era. See if you can improve your present situations. After the meetings and scenarios, we will discuss how to proceed. Preparing to time-travel is a lengthy process and, as I said before, an irreversible one.”
Website URL: https://www.ruthdanes.com/
Blog URL:https://www.ruthdanes.com/blog/
Twitter handle: @DanesRuth
LINKS
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07S7TM5QW
Apple: https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/book/transtime/id1465683169?mt=11&app=itunes
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/transtime
Google: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Ruth_Danes_Transtime?id=oEWaDwAAQBAJ
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