The Northern night sky slowly rotated above us inside the great astronomical dome of the Magellan Planetarium as the audience sat listening to the astronomer in residence as he talked about all things universal and our place in it.
The auditorium was packed for his monthly lecture and I had been lucky enough to get a seat to the rear, and I sat there listening intently as he turned to the particular themes and subject which had come to interest me the most.
The astronomer came to the front of the platform with his microphone. "We all know the three dimensions in which everything exists, but for me things get really interesting when we consider the fourth dimension and add that to the mix. And the fourth dimension is?" he asked the audience, who responded with various people shouting back at him.
"That's right. Time. Time is the fourth dimension. If you want to turn your brain to mush, there are other theories that suggest more dimensions beyond even these four but that discussion is for another day when we've all had a few too many!" he laughed.
"We can observe the first three by simply moving forward or back, left or right, and up and down. Time you can't see but we know it's there because we've created a system to measure it."
He took a swig from his bottle of water and continued on the same theme. "Through seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, millennia, epochs, periods, era, and eons, we know that time is passing for us. Just look at a watch or a clock. Now wouldn't it be the most amazing thing to be able to move in the fourth dimension in the same way we can move in the first three? This is where theory comes in. In physics, it is theoretically possible to be able to do that. The trick is to invent something that allows us to do it. A machine. A machine that can move in time."
I sat forward in my chair and listened intently.
"Now, if I asked you who you thought my heroes were, you'd probably say it would be some famous astronomer or physicist like a Copernicus, Kepler, Herschel, or Newton; someone like that. Though those men have influenced the course of my life and the career I've decided to pursue you'd be wrong. My hero is someone you may or may not have heard of. My hero is Doctor Who."
There was a light murmur of amusement from the audience and the astronomer laughed and gave a thumbs up.
"Aha, I see we have a few old school PBS fans in here tonight. People with good taste." He grabbed a stool and sat on it, "Yes, my hero is Doctor Who. Now for those of you who don't know who I'm talking about, Doctor Who is a British science-fiction tv show that first aired way back in 1963 and is still on the air here today in 1990.
That's nearly twenty-seven years it's been going. Amazing, huh? Doctor Who is an alien time traveler who comes from the planet Gallifrey. He looks just like us but he has two hearts and the ability to become someone else when his old body wears out, even though he remains, essentially, the Doctor. Now on that planet there are a special group of people called Time Lords who have the ability to travel anywhere in time and space using a machine called a TARDIS. Anyone know what that stands for?" he asked looking around.
A woman near the front put up her hand and answered.
"That's right," he nodded, "Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. A TARDIS is a special kind of time machine because it can not only move forward and back in time, it can also move in space as well. Unlike, say, the time machine in H.G Wells famous book which could also move back and forth in time but not in space. That machine would have to be physically moved from its fixed point. Which is what happened when the Morlocks discovered it and dragged it into the Great Sphinx.
But the interesting thing about Doctor Who is the way it handles the nature of time itself. Its premise is simple. That the past, present, and future are already there for the Doctor to visit and explore. Think of time being like a great big book with billions upon billions of pages with each page describing a moment in time and you can go there in the blink of an eye no matter where or when it is, past or future.
Think how far the human race has progressed since the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, tte great technological strides we've taken as a species. Now extrapolate that relatively short period of time a thousandfold into the far future. Imagine what the world will be like a hundred, two hundred, five hundred or even a thousand years from now.
Now consider that sometime in that future, someone or something could have invented a machine which a person or persons could sit in and go explore time and space. A future where science-fiction becomes science-reality.
But that raises another interesting question. If it is possible and has been theoretically done, then that means there could be people from the future traveling throughout time and space right now. For all I know, there may be a time traveler sitting in this auditorium listening to me right now, which is kind of scary because to them we've just crawled out of the swamp intellectually wise," he laughed.
I glanced around at the people sitting near me as they sat listening to the astronomer continue on his lecture. I eased back in my chair and looked up at the projected heavens above me. From magic comes wonder that leads to an understanding that gives life to reality. I closed my eyes and let my mind wander wherever it wanted to go.
It had been seven years since the last encounter.
Seven long years since I had seen her.
Back when I was eighteen.
Maybe I would never see her again.
That possibility was something I didn't even want to think about.
At least I still had the photo.
***
"Sweetie Pie!!"
The woman grabbed me in a bear hug as she tried to squeeze the pips out of me. I stood there on the doorstep as Mom got her Mother's suitcase and bags from the boot of the car.
"Hey, Gran," I winced as she grabbed my face and gave me a big juicy smacker on my right cheek, "How goes it?"
She held me at arm's length and looked me up and down. "My, how big you've grown!" she gasped, "I still can't believe you've just turned eighteen. Rugged and handsome too!"
I stood there letting her get over her sugar rush as Mom came up the driveway rolling her eyes to the blue sky heavens. "Mom.."
Her mother looked over her shoulder and waved a hand dismissively. "Oh shush, you," she said, "It's been nearly three years since you moved away and you're always too busy to come pay a visit. Not even to see Grandpa."
"Grandpa is six feet under," muttered Mom as she pushed between us and hauled the luggage into the kitchen.
Grandma snorted. "That's no excuse, Helen, no excuse at all!"
Sticking out her chin, she marched past me with a loud "Humph!"
This was definitely going to be one of those weeks.
***
For the first couple of days of her vacation, Gran and Mom did the Mother-Daughter thing where they caught up on all the gossip and how each of their lives was going.
I sort of let them get on with it. Only really being around for dinner and late evening chats before we all headed off to bed. Gran was the sort of woman you could tell a secret one minute and by the next, it would be on the front page of the local newspaper or TV news. Since the passing of Grandpa four years ago, she had grabbed life by the short and curlies and was definitely making the most of her new-found freedom. Anyway, it had been pretty much an open secret that whatever spark had been between Gran and Gramps had long since gone out years before he died.
Still, Mom was making the most of her time off from work and taking Gran for shopping trips and longer drives so she could see the local landmarks and do a bit of sightseeing.
It was on the third evening of her trip when I came home late from college and found the pair of them in the sitting room with a whole bunch of old photo albums open on the coffee table.
"Where are these from?" I asked as I dropped my bag at the side of the sofa and flopped down in the chair next to it.
Gran looked up at me. "Oh, these are mine. They're the old stuff I found in a box in the attic after your Grandpa passed on. You know what he was like. He never went anywhere without his camera. Some of these I haven't seen in ages and I thought I'd bring them with me to show you them."
"Sure," I smiled, "I'd love to."
So for the next hour or so I sat there listening to them reminisce about the good old days and tell their stories to go with each photo in the album. Most of the photos were stuck down but there were also some in their original packets along with the negatives.
I had gone to the fridge and grabbed myself a beer and came back to find Mom going through a bunch of pictures. She laughed suddenly and held up a faded color photo of a little boy splashing around in the shallow end of a paddling pool.
Mom read the inscription on the back. "Harry. Back yard. Aged 5"
Aged five, huh. I was such a serious looking little thing back then as I took it from her and looked at it. I couldn't remember that happening at all as I handed it back and she put it on the pile.
"I hear you're starting a new job next week," Gran said suddenly.
I nodded. "Yeah. Looking forward to it."
"George always said it was a good thing to get a trade as soon as possible," she said, nudging Mom, "Enough of the school stuff. Get out there in the real world and do something you like doing."
"Well," I smiled at her, "I guess that's what I'm about to do. It's with the County electricity grid working as a grunt to start with. Qualify in about six months and hopefully get kept on so I can work my way up from there to be a linesman."
"Isn't that a dangerous job and all?" she asked with a frown as she reached for another packet of old photos.
I shrugged. "It's only dangerous if you're stupid, Gran."
Mom laughed. "Harry has more common sense than the whole family put together."
Which was true enough. I never was one to push the boat out.
Gran suddenly looked up. "Ohhh," she exclaimed as she looked at the photo she had just taken out from the envelope, "I remember this one. It's when Grandpa and I took Harry to the seaside for the day. He must have been about six when it was taken. Do you remember, Harry?" she asked as she handed me it, "There was that strange girl who said hello."
It was like everything happened in slow motion as I turned the photo over and my heart jumped into my throat when I saw what it was and who was on it.
My mouth dropped open in surprise as I stared at the girl who was kneeling beside a six-year-old me and looking directly into the camera with those deep blue eyes.
Holy shit.
It was her.
The girl.
I looked up to find Gran and Mom looking at me curiously.
"Are you alright, hon?" asked Mom, "You look like you've seen a ghost."
There was no doubt now. There in my shaking hand was proof she was real.
"Gran," I muttered, "Do you have the negative for this one?"
Gran emptied the envelope on the coffee table in front of us and rummaged around looking for the matching strip of negatives.
"Here we go," she said as she pointed to the third image on the length of film she was holding.
I took it from her and held it up to the light. I could see three white silhouettes standing there together on the beach. Me, Grandma, and the girl. "Is it okay if I go into town tomorrow and get a copy of this?" I asked her.
"Sure, sweetie," she replied, "Do whatever you want with it."
My gaze returned to the six by four photo in my hand and I felt the most incredible sense of euphoria mixed with shock wash over me.
The girl was looking at me from my distant past. It must have been about twelve years ago when it had been taken. And she looked exactly the same as when I last saw her less than a week ago when I had chased her into that alley and she disappeared.