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mind around everything.

  “Your clothes are very peculiar.” He stated, “I’m pretty sure I saw this suit in a museum once.”

  “I’m from the year 2019.” I uttered almost inaudible, but I’m sure he heard me.

  The problem with time travel is that you don’t have any proof to back your claims that you’re either from the past or the future – except for the suit I was wearing. How do I even begin to explain what I experienced?

  “2019?” he asked.

  I should probably keep quiet or else they’ll lock me up and throw away the key. I saw a woman walk over to the little girl and pick her up before walking over to us and I couldn’t help but feel that I’ve seen her somewhere before.

  “Is everything alright?” She asked.

  The man looked back over his shoulder and then stood up as his wife got closer. The expression on her face changed as soon as she saw my suit and then she put her daughter down.

  “It happened to you too, didn’t it?” She asked.

  “Huh?”

  I wasn’t quite sure what she was talking about, but it was evident that her husband knew. He took their daughter over to the swings in order for his wife to talk to me alone.

  “You saw it as well?” She asked, “The universe and galaxies that could fit in the palm of your hand?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I’ve seen it too.” She said, “How did you get there?”

  I was a bit dazed and confused that she seemed to know what happened to me. How could she have known? Was she behind it?

  “I’m Amelia Tatum.” She said, “And I’ve seen it too. It brought me here from my time.”

  “Your time?”

  “1937.” She said, “I used to go by the name Amelia Earhart.”

  Wait, what? The pilot who vanished into thin air? How the hell did she end up here? Probably the same way I did, but what brought us here?

  “I know you have a million questions.” She said, “Believe me, I had my own burning questions when I got here ten years ago. I’m not sure how it works, but time moved differently in the darkness that brought me here.”

  She could say that again.

  “There’s no way back.” She said, “Believe me, I’ve tried to find a way back, but despite what science fiction movies would like you to believe, time moves only in one direction. You can’t go back in time. You’re home is here now. The sooner you accept it, the sooner you can start a life here.”

  Was she for real? My brain felt like it was about to explode from all the information that was forced into it in the last hour. How do you move on? How do you start a new life on a new planet in a new millennium?

  “You can come and stay with us for a while.” She said, “Our apartment has a magnificent view of the cosmic rings of Nebula.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about, but she seemed convinced that it was something breath-taking to behold. I probably had no other choice but to stay with them for the time being.

  I nodded and she smiled with glee about me experiencing their world for the first time and I’ll admit that I was curious to see what the future looked like and hardly even missed the time I came from. The only thing I truly missed was my mom… I never got a chance to say goodbye and never will.

  Amelia held out her hand and gave me a warm smile as she gestured with a nudge of her head for me to come with her. I sat on the bench for a moment longer and then accepted her invite into their world. Would it be as I imagined it? Or would it be far greater than any person could ever imagine? What secrets could their world hold? Could it be more mysterious than the journey I had to take to get there? Only time would tell.

  Space – our home – is full of strange and peculiar things and nothing is more peculiar and strange than a black hole.

  The end

  About this story

  I watched a documentary presented by Stephen Hawkins about space exploration and how black holes could be used for time travel – not really the fact that a black hole was a gateway to another dimension, but rather the gravitational pull of the black hole that could cause time to slow down. The bigger the object, the slower time moves in comparison to the space around it, and could be explained with a tennis ball and a bowling ball being dropped into the sand. The bowling ball would leave a deeper crater due to it’s size – almost the same thing happens to time when it comes to the gravitational pull of objects.

  Anyway, not to confuse or bore you with details, I further read an article by Samir Mathar, an astrophysicist who theorised that our galaxy might be inside a supermassive black hole and we might not even know it – our solar system might be circling down towards the centre of the black hole without ever reaching the bottom because of the sheer magnitude of the black hole.

  I thought it was an interesting idea and also what if a black hole could in fact be used to travel through space or even time… what would one see or end up? I think if given the chance to explore another universe, I’d definitely take it.

  COMING 29 FEBRUARY 2016:

  Age of Men

  When the entire continent of Australia disappears without a trace, Jack White, a professor of unexplained phenomena and folk lore, is approached by the government to assist in cracking the case that has the world baffled.

  When another country vanishes into thin air leaving behind nothing but ocean water, it becomes a race against time to figure out what’s happening and how to stop it.

  Now available for preorder from various online bookstores.

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