If you liked this post, you can leave a comment and/or a kudos!
Click the Thumbs Up! button below to leave the author a kudos:
And please, remember to comment, too! Thanks.
This story is 0 words long.
If you liked this post, you can leave a comment and/or a kudos!
Click the Thumbs Up! button below to leave the author a kudos:
And please, remember to comment, too! Thanks.
Comments
Seems more like ...
Seems that Colin has endured a complete dimensional shift. Loved the description of the transition, or more correctly, the consequences thereof.
I suppose if it is to be a dimensional shift it would be interesting to see what sort of dimension Colin has arrived in. Will it be an 'all female one' I wonder with some exotic reproductive variations of the old theme.
Cant wait for the uncertainty principle to unfold the social physics of this seemingly different dimension/universe.
Thanks,
Bevs.
There'll Be A Downside
Thanks Bev
I don't know if you noticed and were too polite to say so, but this chapter borrowed heavily from my earlier stuff. I assume it's okay if the writer I'm plagiarising is me.
Lisa is about to find herself in a world that resembles our own, yet took a turn for the better sometime between the battle of Waterloo and the outbreak of World War One.
I say a turn for the better, though Lisa might not agree. The Great Powers might all have been at peace for the last century and a bit, but trust me there'll be a downside.
very neat beginning
I hope Lisa can handle this reality she finds herself in ....
She'll Cope
She can laugh at anything.
an underrated skill to have
wish I was better at that.
I do hope
there is more of this in the works. Alternate fiction is always fun trying to figure out where the split happened. :)
Hugs
Grover
Will episode 2 be ...
... Annalisa awakening in Colin's body? I hope so; I hope we get both points of view.
BE a lady!
It's All About Shadows
Sorry to disappoint you, but that's not the way it works. Here's what's really going on.
A technician leaves his console and steps into the middle of the laboratory. To the amazement of everyone around him, he pulls a revolver from his pocket and holds it to his head.
"Yes, it's loaded," he says. "And when I squeeze the trigger you'll almost certainly see me die."
"Why are you doing this?" gasps one of his colleagues.
"Don't worry about me," laughs the technician. "I'll be fine."
"But..."
"It's all about shadows."
The technician pulls the trigger, and everyone in the laboratory reacts with horror as he blows his brains out.
He returns to his console, a slow smile creeping across his face.
No matter how many times he told them, they'd never realise that it was all about shadows.
I wonder if
Mr John Pennington and Annalisa May Pennington met/switched in the Twilight Zone, or if the Medallion of Zulu, or the SRU Wizard caused this?
May Your Light Forever Shine
You might just consider?
...that the author crafted an entirely original story, but maybe that's just me.
Love, Andrea Lena
Another reality.
That's interesting and you made it clear such was the case by describing the stamp. It would appear that Mrs. Pennington is going to need to learn a lot of new to her history as well as needing to adjust to being a woman, a married woman at that.
I'll look forward to more of this one.
Maggie
Culture Shock On The Way
Thanks Maggie.
She's in for a bit of a shock. This universe is one where the First World War never happened. As a result, the status of women didn't improve anything like as dramatically as it did here. Not that she'll be wearing bustles and crinolines. Some progress has been made.
All the myriad ways
I enjoy alternate histories too, and look forward to what you make of this one. The style is interesting, with comments interspersed in what appears to be Lisa's diary. Who is making those comments? That is one of the more interesting questions to me, since it appears to be a native of "our" world making them, while the diary appears to be published in "theirs." Of course, that means it may be more than an AB question. Looking forward to seeing where it goes.
I also find myself wondering about the year. It appears to be written in something resembling modern times, at most 10-15 years back. But the writing style sounds much older than that. It wouldn't have been out of place in a Conan Doyle-like story, basically. I hope to hear an explanation for that too.
I'll be following this one, anyway,
Titania
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
Sorry For Any Confusion
Thank you Titania.
The entire work (except where specified by the heading EDITOR'S NOTE) is by Lisa, written some weeks after her 'arrival' in this alternate universe. That was in June 2010. She hasn't travelled in time - though she'll sometimes feel as if she has! - but crossed from one reality to another. I don't know how, it just happens. I'd have had Colin stumble through a wardrobe, but I believe that idea's already been used.
As for the style, Lisa is still going through the adjustment phase when she begins setting down her thoughts. She inserts those asides partly as a way of anchoring herself to her old life. She doesn't want to forget Colin, though she realises she can never be him again. Her memories of our world remain fresh, but she fears that they'll soon fade.
There's also the fact, which I attempted to hint at, that this world is nowhere near as 'modern' as our own. That goes not just for technological advances and social attitudes, but language as well. And as Colin wasn't an experienced writer, it's not surprising that one of the consequences of Lisa's efforts to adapt is that her prose sometimes suffers from an identity crisis.
Rich
I've always feared ...
... that sipping single malt is simply too wonderful for it to be an entirely harmless pastime. Seems I was right. At least one good thing about this parallel England is that it appears still to be using steam locomotives to haul everyday trains.
TTL strikes again and provides me with delightful distraction.
Robi
Your delight is mine,
Your delight is mine, Robi.
I'll let you into a secret. Hinton Membris is based on Woodford Halse, on the former Great Central line between Brackley and Rugby. I've never been there, but as I've created a parallel universe who's to know? Apart from anyone who reads this post, that is.
As for the consequences of trying to cure a cold with Islay's finest export, the first time was when I was in Dumfries watching Berwick Rangers away at Queen of the South - I used to be quite a fan of the 'Dream Team' - and ended up with me missing the last train home from Newcastle to Hartlepool. I managed to get as far as Durham, which still left me with an 18 mile walk. Well, it might have been 18 if I could have avoided lurching from side to side.
On the second occasion I was in Middlesbrough, nothing more on my mind than picking up a couple of CDs from HMV. I came away from there having paid nearly a grand for my first computer. An expensive tipple, but at least I could play golf.
A Few Deductions...
Interesting start.
My first thought after Lisa saw the envelope was that she might be a widow: IIRC, she'd still be entitled to the "Mrs J. Pennington" designation in that case.
But the editor, Mr Furness, is clearly operating from within Lisa's world and not ours, and he credits Mr John Pennington with providing the MS. So clearly John is still alive.
That doesn't prove he was still living with her: the couple might have been legally separated. (Which might explain the lack of a wedding ring.) Lisa hasn't seen any sign of his presence so far, and had concluded from the state of the room that she was living alone. Then again, she hasn't opened either of the two wardrobes yet.
In any case, Lisa has apparently left the MS somewhere that John subsequently discovered it, and we're told her own "whereabouts are unknown."
It's possible -- since we don't know anything, really, as to how this world functions -- that Lisa and John are the same person, either through subterfuge or shape-shifting. If so, the two personas apparently have different handwriting.
Assuming that's not the case -- so far, Occam's Razor suggests that a more pedestrian explanation would be preferred -- it's tempting to guess that Lisa's no longer there in 2012 because she made it back to Colin's world. That doesn't explain where Lisa's body is, though, since it was there before Colin arrived and presumably would stay there if he left.
Obviously Colin's/Lisa's need to explain things from our present-day world in her MS makes sense. Sherlock Holmes, on the other hand, made such an impact that the lack of recognition would seem to be important. Granted, most characters from the magazines and books of the 1890s aren't well remembered today. (Colonel Clay, anyone?) But it's hard for me to imagine Holmes going that way, unless there was some interference with Conan Doyle writing the stories in the first place. (If he'd never met Dr Bell, for example.) And that means a break between worldlines at least 110-120 years ago.
An alternative is that John and Lisa's world prefers superstition to science to the point where observation and scientific logic in general are frowned upon, so the Holmes character never resonated with the public. It's easy to speculate that things like farm technology didn't advance in this worldline because wartime innovation never occurred. But for toilets to remain at the early 20th century tech level suggests something more fundamental may be involved here.
Given Colin's humanistic worldview, any sign of elaborate crosses or horseshoes on doors or voodoo dolls probably would have attracted Lisa's attention even on the way to the front porch. So there's probably nothing of the sort here. The lack of furnishings in general, though, and the unsettled state of the bedroom may mean that such things just haven't been unpacked yet. (Or John and Lisa may be nonbelievers themselves, even if the world objects to that sort of thing. Or, if they've broken up, a difference in beliefs may be the reason.)
I suspect I'm way too far out on a limb by now. (Probably should have skipped at least the last two paragraphs.) Anyway, a good start and I'm looking forward to see where it goes.
Eric
(James flippin' Joyce? Way too coherent.)
A Woman's Place
Thanks Eric. I'm flattered that you took the trouble to write such a detailed and insightful analysis.
I'm trying to keep this series as simple and straightforward as I can. The 'parallel worlds' idea was merely a plot device to get a man's mind into a woman's body. Having Lisa apparently disappear from the face of the earth I added as a bit of a tease, to keep the reader wondering. Without wanting to give too much away, it turns out she isn't the only person who's gone missing.
You can assume that Lisa left her husband, and that when he eventually finds her I'll treat him sympathetically. Lisa is no battered wife, just a free spirit who felt caged. As these vignettes will show, her decision to strike out on her own showed tremendous courage. This is a world steeped in conformity and convention. It's safe, peaceful, prosperous and stable - but there's a downside, one which Colin is already aware of when she makes her first trip to the grocery store.
This is a world where a woman's place is in the home.