innovate-issue-005

The town of course was not as I knew it. In fact, although I had only lived there for a few weeks, I feltthat I had known both it as it was now, and as it had been in the past quite well. The old cinema was aWaterstones. An old bank was a pub. The old post office was a furniture store. One of the old pubswas now a clothes shop. All of this had been quite evident in the brickwork, the floorwork, thearchitecture. But none of this matched what I now found as I wandered the streets in growingconsternationWhere a thriving, or at least surviving, cinema ought to be was a liquor store. I would have said "offlicense" but the words on the black wooden board above the door quite clearly called it a "liquorstore". Where the Post Office really ought to have been in all its grandeur was an automobileshowroom, all brick and glass, displaying the newest in Phoenix Motors and Endymion Automobiles,for all that my memory had no inkling of either my father or grandfather mentioning such makes.Where the bank was supposed to be was the Post Office, but not the same building by any standard.This one was huge, F III R carved into every cornerstone, a queue of people even on a Saturdaywaiting outside to get in.Only the old pub was where it was supposed to be, The Nag's Head in the centre of town, lookingancient and downtrodden, a few disreputable characters standing around outside. I had often, in theweeks I had been at university, fantasised about what the disappeared pub must have been like, butnow passing in front of it I had no wish to enter, even if I had had money older than the 1980sBut the layout of the town was more or less as I knew it. Apart from the one-way loop that had beenintroduced in the 1970s and was absent here, this was the same town that I knew, but it was all sodifferent. I began to hunt for similarities, looking not for the disappeared buildings, but thoseestablishments which I knew had always been there. I found The Lion Hotel, old grandeur fading evenat this period, in mine it had been a dive, a rough pub underneath what was at best second staraccommodation. It didn't look much better here.But of the other pubs I found little sign, the war memorial that stated it had been built in 1919 wasmissing completely, and even the medieval church was gone, replaced by some Gothic constructionsomewhat in the style of the university..."Oh shit..." I said, and sat down on the benchReality warped itself around me one more time, and I realised where I was, or rather how I was. Suchdescriptive terms did not give easily to translation, but the best one could muster was a how, ratherthan a where, or a when."This is a fucking alternate reality!" I yelledThankfully nobody noticed, or if they did nobody did anything.I rose quickly and crossed to a newsagent I had seen earlier, but barely noticed. Inside, by the door wasa pile of newspapers. I picked one up "The Britannic" it was called, the front page full of news of thefighting in Algiers, the date at the top... May 20th 2000....."I'm in the fucking present..." I said"Mind your language son", the man was hard but smartly dressed, holding a little girl who seemed tobe all curls, by the hand"Sorry" I muttered"Make sure you remember in future" he said, still staring at me, or perhaps at my clothes"Sorry", I said again, "I will""Very well" he nodded and was off, the little girl turning round to stare at me as they went until heyanked her round."2000 AD" I muttered dropping the newspaper and walking back onto the streetIt made sense of so much, except for the fundamental reality of how I came to be where I was, and