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The Unsolicited Traveller
#WritcoStoryPrompt47
Aurora heard muffled voices around her. She struggled to open her eyes. Every time she almost pushed her eyelids open, they weighed too much and shut down again. It took a while for her to open them wide enough for the scene around to materialise.

She was clearly in a hospital, though not too tech savvy. It must be a small hospital.

In the row in front of her, she saw cot beds with steel handles at both ends and wheels at the bottom. They were mostly empty, except for two patients, probably both men, lying asleep on two cots on the right.

The wall behind the stretchers was painted dirty green half down, and a pale yellow above.

'That's a sad combination for a hospital.' was Aurora's first thought.

Her gaze drifted to a doctor and a nurse standing a few feet away from her bed. The doctor was tall, while the nurse was a few inches shorter than him. He had to slouch in order to hear her whisper.

'But where am I?' Aurora wondered.

"Uhh.." she struggled to form words, but her whimper was enough to draw the attention of the doctor and the nurse to herself.

They rushed to her wide eyed, as if looking at an unearthly object.

The doctor had a weird haircut and spectacles like Aurora's grandfather. Though he looked quite young.

'Who wears that hairstyle and glasses in the 21st century?' She muttered to herself.

"Ohh, I am glad you are finally awake. How are you feeling?" The doctor queried Aurora.

She tried to speak, but could only manage a few words.

"Fff...fine. Whh..ere am...I?

"Ohh you are in Grace hospital. You were brought here in an unconscious state seven months ago."

It was as if the doctor had slapped Aurora out of her trance.

"Sssee...ven months?" She struggled still, but this time purely out of shock. She tried to get up, but her body gave away. The doctor gently pushed her shoulder down gesturing her to not get up.

"Yes, miss. You didn't have any ID on you for recognition and the person who brought you here vanished as soon. Anyways, you have been in coma all this while since April."

"April?" Aurora tried to remember the last memory she had. It took her a few seconds to recall flashes of her trip to Dr Pereira and what happened in his lab. But that was in October. How did she arrive in this hospital in April?

She grimaced.

"What happened? Are you alright? Do you have pain?" The nurse enquired.

"The last memory I have is of October, after attending Biden's rally. I had gone to meet a friend downtown when....an accident occurred at his lab.."

"Biden? Do you mean Joe Biden? So you were in Delaware?"

"No, here in New York."

The doctor and the nurse gave each other a puzzled look and then turned their gaze to her. The doctor spoke first.

"Errr...miss, this is Seattle. Are you sure this is where you were? Because Joe Biden is the senate of Delaware."

The words confused Aurora. She frowned at the statement.

"No… Joe Biden had been elected a senate in 1973. About 50 years ago!"

The doctor and nurse went blank. The nurse spoke this time.

"Since we are in 1989, so 1973 was just 16 years ago, not 50."

It was Aurora's turn to go blank. Her mind went blank too.

'1989?' she stared at the nurse.

No thoughts appeared in her head for the next couple of seconds. Then she recalled something.

'What did Pereira do?!'

She looked at the doctor and nurse dressed up aptly as per the time she had travelled to. Thanks to Dr Pereira's flawed experiment of a time machine.

She had known Dr Pereira for over twenty years. He was a brilliant scientist, but like every human, he had flaws. Impatience and over confidence. A lethal combination for a scientist. He had suffered major setbacks in his life because of these two traits.

"Aurora, I am telling you this is going to work! This is it! This is my biggest invention so far!"

Smiling half-heartedly, Aurora had acquiesced. She had thought that the worse that could happen would be, instead of going back three years to 2017, she would stay where she was. That was, in 2020.

Away from her daughter.

Because she had very foolishly agreed to give her custody to her ex-husband when they parted ways.

And now he had taken her away and vanished forever, leaving no trace for Aurora to follow.

All she had wanted was to go back three years and fight to win the custody of her girl.

But instead of 2017, she had landed in 1989.

She needed a plan. She had been silent for way too long thus forcing the medical duo standing in front of her to grow concerned.

Finally, she thought of the safest thing to say as a patient.

"Errr...I am sorry, my head has been spinning ever since I woke up. I guess, I need some rest."

The doctor nodded while the nurse stayed silent. They decided to continue her treatment.

And Aurora decided to play along for some more time.

Three weeks later, Aurora was discharged. She felt fine and she had some tasks to do.

She had utilised these three weeks to formulate a plan. She knew her ex-husband would be in his early teens right now so there was little she could do to manipulate him.

But, there was something she could do with Dr Pereira. If she could locate him.

After getting discharged, she picked up the clothes she had been brought in. A white top and amber coloured knee length skirt.

Her phone was missing.

'Not that it would have worked anyway in 1989.' She told herself.

She check her pockets. She had some money, but she couldn't afford to use the notes printed in 2016 and 2017 for transactions here in 1989. She was glad no one had spotted it.

'It will drive people beserk!'

She had to first figure out how to get some cash. She recalled that her grandparents were living in Seattle in the 1980's and they had created a bank account in her name.

But she needed the details.

She tried hard to recall which bank was it and her memory supported her.

'Citibank!'

She came out of the hospital building and looked around. She saw the main road and headed there to grab a taxi.

Fortunately, she didn't have to wait for long. She hailed one and asked the driver to take her to the nearest Citibank branch.

It took less than 10 minutes for her to reach the nearest branch. She smiled at how the city looked back in 1989. The driver told her this was the only branch in the city. Aurora heaved a sigh of relief. She needed all the luck by her side now that she had witnessed a disaster first hand already.

She asked the driver to wait while she fetched some money from the bank. And being 1989, the driver didn't wince at the idea.

'Benefits of being in the era without digital money, I guess!'

She went inside and headed to the Branch Manager's cabin.

She convinced him that she was Mathilda Filch, Aurora's mother. She wanted to withdraw some amount from the money saved by Mathilda's parents for their granddaughter. The Manager double checked the family details and agreed. The amount wasn't too big either.

She needed just $500 for surviving here before going back.

She came out and asked the driver if he would like to continue their journey to Princess Street. She knew Dr Pereira's house number in 2020, but wasn't sure if it would be of use in 1989.

The driver brought her to the desired street and she spotted 205 written on a building door.

"This would be it. How much is it?"

"Nine dollars twenty four cents, ma'am."

'Man, 1989 is cheap!' She thought.

She came out of the cab and walled to the door of the building.

'Let's see what I find here.' Was the only thought in her head.

A bald man in his forties opened the door. He was wearing a check patterned shirt and black trousers, which were pretty cheap from 1989 standards too. He had to be the servant or assistant.

"Yes, how may I help you?"

'Assistant it is.' Aurora confirmed mentally.

"Hi, I am Aurora Filch. I am here to meet Dr Pereira. Is he around?"

"Yes, he is. How did you know he would be here? He shifted just today morning and I am pretty sure he didn't tell anyone."

"Yeah well, let's just say I tried my luck and succeeded."

The assistant gave her a blank look, but opened the door wider to let her in. It was an old house and Aurora could smell books and papers everywhere. There was a tinge of chemicals being brewed somewhere.

The house was mostly dark and Aurora had to take every step carefully. She felt she might step on something if her pupils gave away.

"My name is Matthew. Peter calls me Matt. You may call me Matt too."

She hadn't heard Dr Pereira's first name in years now. It was good to be reminded.

"Nice to meet you, Matt."

He led her through a staircase to the second floor.

He unlocked a door and led her through an office that was empty of furniture, although she could still see square clean patches on the grimy linoleum, where the legs of a desk had once stood. On the wall was a curling calendar with April 1989 showing.

'Did time stop here when I was taken to the hospital?'

He led her past the old abandoned office into a room down the corridor. Aurora was amazed at how deep the house was. It surely didn't look so from the front.

Matthew halted in front of a wooden door with a Do not disturb sign hanging on it.

'How typical of Pereira. I bet he's inside.' Aurora thought to herself.

Three knocks from Matt received a response from Pereira, shouting at the top of his voice from inside.

"I told you not to disturb me for food, Matt."

"Peter, it is a guest who knew you would be here. She is here to meet you. Ms Aurora Filch."

They heard the footsteps getting closer to the door and Peter, thirty years younger, appeared at the doorway.

Before Peter could ask who she was, Aurora blurted out

"Hi, Dr Pereira. I am Aurora Filch. You sent me here....from 2020."

Shock gripped Peter, while Matt was just confused.

Aurora let herself in the room, which was Peter's lab, and shut the door. She heard Matt’s footsteps going away.

She turned to Peter and grabbed his collar with both her hands and shook him fervently.

"You idiot! I asked you to send me three YEARS back, not three DECADES!"

She blurted in his face. He struggled to loosen her grip on his lab coat.

“What?! So you mean I succeed in creating a time machine?!”

“No. You fail at it. Miserably!”

“But you said you came here from 2020!”

“Yes, when I wanted to go to 2017.”

“Well, I am sure there must have been a glitch!”

“Agreed. And I want you to correct that. Right now, so I can go back to 2020.”

“Miss Filch. May I remind you that we are in 1989. I am working on the theory of a time machine right now. How can I fix the glitch in the machine without creating it? I don’t even know what I end up creating and what causes the glitch.”

“I can share the concept with you. I was there when you were building it and you explained everything to me in excruciating details. I can also tell you exactly what all happened when you tried to send me to 2017 and ended up sending me here instead.”

“Yeah, well….that could work.”

They spent hours together discussing everything Aurora knew about Peter’s experiment. Matt came as a blessing every time she needed food or refreshments. Not that Peter cared about anything else other than his project.

30 hours later, they had the idea ready and had found the glitch.

“So how long will it take you to build the machine?” Aurora wanted to be sure.

“Errr…six months at least.”

“Great, you have two.”

“What?” but the look Aurora gave Peter was enough to convince him. It seemed to be a matter of life and death. She needed to go back soon for her daughter and her work.

Two and a half months later, Peter had built the machine, much to the surprise of both. He was kind enough to let Aurora stay in his mansion of a house. He had begged for 15 more days once two months were over as the timeline was too short for work to be completed.

It was different from the machine that Aurora had used to travel to 1989. The metal that formed the archway wasn’t as polished. Wires protruded from every corner and she could see the inside of the machine as it wasn’t covered too well.

“Isn’t it supposed to be covered?” Aurora asked Peter, pointing to the three-feet wide walls on either side of the archway. She was standing on the two feet-by-two feet wide glass platform at the bottom, in the middle of the archway.

“This is the best I could do in the short timeframe.”

Aurora rolled her eyes at him and suddenly stopped when something struck her.

“Wait, are you sure this is going to work? I don’t want to go back three more decades.”

It was Peter’s turn to roll his eyes at her. Aurora had her answer.

'So he is as annoying in 1989 as he is 2020.' she made a mental note.

“Please stand straight and hold the metal bars sticking on either side of you. Aurora spotted two metal bars sticking out and did as asked. Peter turned on the machine. There was a blinding light and a screeching sound. Aurora shut her eyes and wished she could shut her ears too.

The light only grew brighter and brighter until everything went silent. Aurora opened one eyelid, but the light was too bright so she shut it.

Gradually, she opened both her eyes and looked around.

There was tall grass everywhere. She was standing in the middle of a field that ran acres. She tried spotting someone, but could see no living soul around.

There was a make-shift road approximately a hundred metres from her. Aurora decided to go towards it. While she approached the road, she saw a horse-cart more than 600 metres away, coming towards her.

She didn’t have a very good feeling about it, but decided to wait till the cart came closer.

She waved her hand when the cart was less than a hundred metres away. The cart slowly came to a halt. The cart puller wore a dirty white shirt, brown trousers and a hat. He gawked at Aurora, moving his eyes slowly from her pink top to her white knee length skirt.

Aurora mustered the courage to jump straight to the question that had been on her mind.

“Sir, can you please tell me where we are…..and... what year it is?”

The man looked at her uncertain. Then responded.

“Why? This is Seattle…”

Aurora heaved a sigh of relief, while the man continued.

“…and the year is 1689.”




© Ishita Nigam Garg