Worzels World - Time warp inversions and relativity

 

I glimpsed him one morning in dim light, through a cobwebbed dusty window, my eyes still bleary from sleep. A dodgy looking bloke about 10 or 12 years my senior. As often happens, I caught his eye at the instant he caught mine. It made no sense. What was this scruffy old reprobate doing skulking about looking in at me?

I brushed cobwebs and dust from the glass. The stranger did the same from the other side, matching my every movement. I looked him straight in the eye and he looked straight back. Then with the slow dismay that dawns on those who find reality differs greatly from their expectations, I realised this was not a window but a mirror. Reeling away in shock I poured myself a strong coffee and lit a calming cigarette.

Had I slept for a decade and woken 10 years older? Or could it be that Einstein’s theory was more pervasive than even he could imagine and I had fallen through a vortex in the space time continuum? I began to sort though memories of my short life so far. Where was that fresh-faced lad that my mother had called son? What had happened to the indefatigable sportsman who could play 80 minutes and then party till four in the morning? There was no doubt about it, a few years were definitely missing. Where did they go?

It was an important question and knowing as I do that true enlightenment rests not in the answers we accept but in the questions we ask, I decided to investigate, but where should I start?

Where better to begin my research than by going to a party. A mate was celebrating his eldest sons imminent departure. As young men time immemorial have sought more promising pastures in promised lands afar, so he too was boldly striking out to explore his destiny beyond the safe confines of hearth and home. Actually he was enrolled in a course down south but it sounds better my way.

Upon arrival I made the mistake of following the music and found myself in a shed with strange savages, obviously engaged in some exotic primeval mating ritual. They appeared to be able to communicate with one another but it was in a language unfamiliar to me. I was immediately assailed by a robust young male specimen who made some form of greeting and thrust a beer into my hand. A shiver raced the length of my spine. This alien bore an uncanny resemblance to a child of my acquaintance. I had known the child for many years and had last seen him only a short while ago. At no stage during that time was he ever a couple of inches taller than me and in need of a shave. The room was populated with such as these. The music was not to my taste and the girls all looked like 12-year-olds. I wondered why their mothers had let them go out dressed that way.

I felt like a dinosaur forced out of the forest onto the plains. Some unseen force had been messing about with time and had cast me into a future not necessarily to my taste or my choosing. I was in a serious predicament and needed to think. Like any animal out of his environment I looked for the familiar.

I headed out the back away from the sensuous animal rhythms of the clan. Sure enough, true to the template of 21st’s and family do’s throughout New Zealand history, there, collected round the barbeque, were the blokes. I spied a number of my peers, but wait – there was something wrong. These were all old people. Where were my friends and acquaintances of times past?

I settled in ‘out the back’ more comfortable amongst those of my kind and made dinosaur small talk. I asked one or two if they knew where the time had gone but they only shook their heads. I became aware that my extinction was certain and not so very far away

I went to the city to see what I could learn. Everybody there seemed to be trying to appear younger than they were. It appeared that In a society in love with youthfulness it has become offensive to grow old.

The answer must lie elsewhere, so applying the scientific method I began to gather hard data. Like any good historian I turned to documentary records of the past. It was clear that from the date of my birth through to the present time my existence could be proved to have been more or less continuous. Certainly there were a few lost weekends here and there and some months during my 20’s cannot be easily accounted for, however there is no evidence of substantial or unusual time loss. I had not fallen through a vortex in the space time continuum, aliens had not abducted me, sleep had not often claimed me for much more than the recommended eight hours per day and certainly not for the decade or so that by all appearances was missing.

The answer was clear, as Einstein deduced: time is relative and both myself and my relatives had gotten older and time itself had warped. Somehow what had once passed for a month now lasted barely a fortnight and years had been compressed into only a few short months.

There are many things that only age can teach. Chief and most obvious amongst these is, what it’s like to be old. It takes a while to come to terms with the old guy in the mirror and to realise that although he knows so much more than he did when he was young and knew everything, he now knows he knows very little of all there is to know.

But if the process could be reversed or slowed would we? I for one wouldn’t be young for quids.

n prof_worzel@hotmail.com

It takes a while to come to terms with the old guy in the mirror and to realise that although he knows so much more than he did when he was young and knew everything, he now knows he knows very little of all there is to know.