So here’s the first output on the Friday Flash from this week. A little revision and it might be a bit more historically accurate in terms of the dialects and details. Certainly there’s a big difference between post-Cromwell styles and dialects and Industrial revolution era dress and speech.
I left the theatre district when I’d picked enough coin for the day and the sun was setting for home, but never made it. The gent chasing me had fallen far behind, I’d ducked between the public house and a stable, place I knew well I could use to slip my hunter, came out into a safe and quiet street and it went all fast and blurred. I found myself here, still moving fast, but now in a rainy mist, and the street was bricked. I tried to stop, but slipped, fell landed flat on my back.
At first I wondered where the hell I’d gotten off to. I didn’t recognize the street, but then, when you’re running like that, sometimes you mistake a street for another, and who knows where you end up. Still, this didn’t look like anything I’d ever come across. I picked myself up and straightened my doublet.
“Oh no, no, no. This isn’t right.”
“I beg thy pardon, what street is this?”
“Maybe if I reverse the flow of…,”
“I say, what street is this?”
“No, no, that isn’t it, the reaction would be imbalanced.”
“Beg your pardon, master, but what street is this?”
“Tonbridge Street. Shh.”
Then he went back to what he was doing. I didn’t recognize his dress. He wore a long overcoat, and a hat of a fashion and construction I’d never seen before.
“Not any Tonbridge Street I’ve ever seen before.”
“That may be, but it is Tonbridge, I assure you. Now please, be quiet.”
“You did this.”
“Well I thought that much was obvious. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m trying to figure out what went wrong.”
Still, he muttered about, and every time he moved, yellow smoke puffed out from under that long coat.
“To invert the field, I’d have to-,” he said, but then he turned away, and I began to see the outline of something under that coat of his.
“What went wrong? Pray sir, please tell me what went wrong.”
“I believe the time field I created worked the wrong way.”
“For a commoner, sir, what do you mean?”
“Instead of sending me back in time, it pulled something from back in time to me. It worked backwards.”
“Something? You mean me? It pulled me?”
“Who is King?”
“Charles the second.”
“Then yes, you.”
“What do you mean, ‘back in time’?”
“From where you were, you’re now, uh, roughly two hundred fifteen years in the future.”
“Well, how do you send me back.”
“Back? I don’t know. This didn’t exactly work as I had planned. Maybe after some experimentation, I can do it, I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
“Yes, well, good day.”
“Wait, sir. Um, what do I do?”
“Do? It’s a wonderful world. Explore it. You can make something of yourself now. Just stay away from the fog. Not good for you.”
Times like this, survival instincts kick in. I was about to ply my trade, if you will, man just starting off’s got to have something to start off with, when he reached into his pocket, handed me two coins.
“Here you go. For your trouble. Doesn’t go as far as it once did, now. On with you, then, and mind you, don’t stay out in the fog. No good for you.”
“Ey, where’s that leave me?”
He turned around again, “That leaves you, er, now, I guess.” And he kept on walking, little puffs of yellow smoke coming from under that coat of his.
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