Carolyn Galbraith

April 21st
. . . I think I mentioned to you that I had some new neighbours take possession of the property on the hill beyond my boundary, a couple who were once quite well-known philosophers. It has taken me some time to meet them; I was too shy to make the introductions myself, but last weekend when I was walking, I saw that they had stopped to admire the flowers in the garden of my friend. She was also there, talking to them about roses; so, I stopped, and was introduced.

They do not seem to be ordinary people. Firstly, they have altogether retired from their academic careers, even though they are still middle-aged (they told me themselves that they were done with university life). And then, they seem to be very happy. They have bought a place up here because it is beautiful, not because of the property values; they walk each day and look carefully at everything they pass. I have heard them laugh. They do not talk a great deal but when they do, it is the case of some couples you may have known; she finishes his sentences, he knows what she is about to say before she says it.

May 4th
I took the liberty of inviting my neighbours—the couple that I mentioned earlier, who live on the hill—to a small dinner party last Saturday evening. I also invited my friend who grows roses, and the elderly man who rents the cottage beside the main road. It was a quiet, friendly affair. It is easy to have such parties in winter, because the fire is the main conversationalist. Our discussion turned from the usual commonplaces to something deeper. Perhaps it was because the couple are philosophers, but we moved from things to ideas. At first it was roses, the trees, the weather, and then we began to talk about time, memory, dimension. Length, and breadth, and height can be altered by us; and, also, the time that something exists for, over that, too, we have power. But only a little power. We talked further on this until we came to Mr. Wells and time-travel, and then, somehow, we moved from the mathematics of it all to something more dangerous. Often, you and I have had arguments over idealists and their power; sometimes I have disagreed. Now I am not so certain. I do recall lectures in my university years where the physicists have postulated time-travel, showing in diagrams and mathematical formulae why, if a train was travelling at the speed of light, we should be able to walk down it the opposite way, and walk back into the past. I never believed it. Nor, dare I say, did they. These philosophers used no pictures or figures. They simply spoke about possibility. It is more frightening. It is easier to believe.

June 27th
You showed an unusual interest in the dinner party that I held a few weeks back. Why is that? Do the philosophers sound so exciting? You would not remark on them if you passed them by. He has thinning hair, although it is not yet grey; it is a sandy colour which will perhaps fade to white. She colours hers, I believe, and she wears clothes suitable for the country—sturdy shoes, blue shirts and unpatterned trousers. They have no children. My friend told me that they had once had a little girl, but she had died of some form of cancer many years ago, when she was only a few years old. It is a long time ago now; they are philosophers, so they have perhaps learned to be happy. No, they have not grown tired of their quiet existence here. My friend says they have no plans to return to the city nor to their university. And they have invited me to their house one evening next week, in order to return my hospitality.

July 5th
. . . I had hoped our previous discussion would not be raised again, but Mr. Wells was spoken about in front of another fire, which led to more talk about time. They find it amusing. He alone, nor she, would think of the ideas which seem to come to them together in conversation: she leads, he follows with another thought, she builds upon it. You would think it an ideal partnership. Apparently, they published many papers this way in their time at the university. Now they are not working on anything new, they have time to discuss other things. Mr. Wells thought that memory was a form of travelling in time, a very weak form, just as hopping is a weak form of the upward movement. They postulated that perhaps a stronger memory, a stronger thought-process, a stronger mind, could facilitate a more complete travel experience. We laughed. My friend suggested we were not meant to fly, simply to jump. That was dismissed.

It is growing colder now; there are not so many flowers out to look at, and the winds are growing sharper. My walks are curtailed; so, I surmise, are theirs.

July 16th
My neighbours are not leaving. Instead, they informed me, with much jollity, that they had experimented with Mr. Wells’ idea, and had managed to strengthen their thoughts and memories enough to—so they say—travel backwards in time.

It was only an hour. But they distinctly saw me twice in one day walk to the end of the road in order to greet the postman. I confirmed I had only done so once; they were jubilant. I asked them more specifically how they had engineered their experience, but they were reticent to share the details. As to whether I am simply the butt of an elaborate joke, I have no idea. They seem more amused by their experiment than excited.

July 21st
Yes, their experiments have, apparently, continued. They have managed to travel beyond the hour, to at least a week. They say that they were able to attend the dinner party on the sixteenth and observe more closely our sceptical reactions when we were presented with their discovery. When I asked, logically enough, why we had not noticed their presence, they admitted that while travelling in time may be possible, altering it is not. They are unable to be seen; they are unable to touch or move items; they are unable to be part of it.

I asked them if they would bother to continue their experiments, in that case. They assured me of their plans to do so.

August 10th
You have asked me for news about my neighbours. Until yesterday, there was nothing to report. It has been raining steadily, blustery with a changeable wind, making walking with an umbrella unmanageable. I have not been out, and I have not seen them out. But the rain stopped yesterday, and the sun appeared for a short while in the morning. I recommenced my usual walk.

There is a curve to the road which affords a view of the valley. It is a rather attractive sight. While I lingered there, I heard the most dreadful sound. Turning, I saw that my neighbours had also left their house for a walk in the sunlight. They had not, however, come very far. She was bent over; not hurt, as I first surmised, but weeping. I made my way quickly in order to offer my assistance, but her husband assured me it was not necessary. At first cajoling, and then commanding, he helped her along, and finally brought her back into the house.

When I reported the matter to my friend with the roses, she suggested that it had been, perhaps, an anniversary of sorts—perhaps the anniversary of their daughter’s death. If that was the case, then their sense of loss has not faded in time; they are still as raw as the day it occurred. It may be constantly fresh in their minds.

August 29th
We have not seen much of our neighbours of late. Concerned after the last sight I had seen, I plucked up enough courage to visit them. They seem greatly changed. Her hair is quite grey; he has lost more of his. She attempted to make me a cup of tea, but he had to take over, sitting her down gently and patting her hands. Their cheerfulness has vanished.

She attempted to make some conversation, but it was impossible—she was extremely agitated and could not finish a single sentence. Finally, she excused herself and left. He looked after her and even got up as though to prevent her, but then slumped back in his seat. Where has she gone, I asked with unusual boldness. She’s visiting our daughter, he told me.

I frowned in confusion. Yes, she is dead, he said to me, pre-empting my question. Now she is dead. Twenty years ago, she was alive. I wish to God we had never begun this. She visits her every day. She visits her constantly. She can’t keep away.

Do you mean—Yes, he interrupted me once again. We had thought it a joke. It is no joke. We can travel backwards in time now. Our minds are strong enough to do it whenever we want. We can go back a hundred years if we like. I’ve been to the Somme. I’ve been to worse places. That’s where she is now: at the worst place of all. My wife keeps returning to the moment that our daughter was in her greatest pain. Our only consolation at that time was that it would end. Our only consolation in the last twenty years has been that our daughter was no longer suffering. That isn’t true. She always suffers. She always will suffer.

Has she visited earlier, I asked. Perhaps if she saw her when she was happy—You think we haven’t thought of that? When we see her as a little girl, when we see ourselves, young, happy, all we can think is of the pain heading towards them, us. It has tainted everything. There is no other place for my wife now. I drag her away when I can, but she weeps here as much as she weeps there. This is a horror. We cannot let anyone else know about it.

He begged me not to let anyone else know about their experiments and their results. I promised him, while not mentioning my acquaintanceship with you, that his findings would remain a secret. I do not know if any of it is true, but I know that he is a broken man, and his wife is destroyed. 

November 11th
. . . I thought the house had been shut up, but they are still there. When I was walking, he caught me at the gate and asked me to see him later that afternoon. I agreed, rather frightened, but he seemed rational enough. His wife was nowhere to be seen. When I asked him how she was, he simply shrugged.

I returned in the early afternoon and sat with him in the kitchen, sharing tea. The house seems very much rundown. He said they had little energy to do anything with it. He laughed a little bitterly and said that none of it mattered compared with his work. I asked what he was working on. He told me that he had realised something with all this time-travel. Everything is permanent, he said. We cannot wait to solve the problems of pain and misery, because every single moment of pain lasts forever. Conversely, every moment of pleasure and happiness also lasts forever. His work, so he said, was to try to prevent in the higher levels of government, any sort of “end justifies the means” philosophy. He was attempting to stop world conflict, and promote peace, comfort, and international harmony. He assured me that as a well-known philosopher he had some influence.

I congratulated him on his work, and he became slightly agitated. It wasn’t enough, he told me. He was going to leave and make something happen. He was going to Africa the next day, and then it was India, or perhaps Mongolia, or perhaps it was France. No one seemed to understand how urgent it was. He could not explain to them how urgent it was because he didn’t want anyone else to suffer as he was suffering, as his wife was suffering. The knowledge was more than anyone could bear.

I took my leave and wished him all the best. Did I mention that I received an offer on my place from an estate agent, not long ago? I am contemplating the move. The winds can be bitter here in winter.

December 31st
You have said that you wish to meet these friends of mine. It will be easy to find her; she is always at the side of her daughter in her worst and most painful moment, not because she believes that her presence there can ever be felt by the girl, but because she cannot go anywhere else without thinking of it; it is the only time that now exists for her.

And he? He is difficult to find. Now I hear he is in one country; then, another. He moves from place to place. You might find him in the highest places of power, or in the smallest village. He never ceases, he never sleeps, he never stops trying to prevent pain and facilitate goodness. He alone knows how permanent such acts are.

Do you still wish to meet them? Do I still want to send you this note? I think I would rather forget it. He has done everything he can to stop the knowledge of the possibility of time-travel from reaching the rest of the world. You see, it has sent them both mad. You see, it is possible it could send us all mad.

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Carolyn’s preoccupation with time travel began when working in aid & development in her 20s. She would live an entire lifetime in one place, just to return home and discover no time had passed at all. Since then, Carolyn has published stories of a fantastical nature while running a country post office haunted by 1950s architecture. You can find out more at her website!

More bone-chilling stories await you… Return to Issue 4!