Everyone on the alphabet rug. It's story time here at the Vortex.
Envision a genius named Fabritzio. I'd give you my image, but he's SO not wearing a Members Only jacket. He's a physicist specializing in quantum entanglement and has discovered time travel (and you thought suspension of disbelief of the hot Italian scientist was difficult). In the present day, he has a wife, two daughters and a Boston Terrier.
On a muggy August day, he steps into his time machine, returns to his 1980 Ivy League life and re-discovers his first love. After many failed attempts to return to the present day, his carnal nature takes over. Is it infidelity?
This time, poor Fabritzio stumbles upon his future wife in a coffee shop in New York. It's 1985, the year they first dated. After a whirlwind day of strolling violinists and mind-numbing conversation, Fabritzio remembers the exact moment he fell in love with her and they consummate their relationship while she's still seeing his twenty-two year old self. Did Fabritzio cheat on himself?
A result of kicking his own ass, Fabritzio plummets back into 1920's Iowa. In a cornfield, he's rescued by a beautiful young woman and grows to accept he'll never return to his future life. He pledges his undying love for her only to find out she's his grandmother. Is it incestuous if he hasn't yet existed?
What if Fabritzio had taken his wife with him? In 1982 Alps, while each were backpacking through the countryside with their previous spouses, they steal away to a secluded cottage. Is it adultery?
Thus, the complex beauty of time travel. Where other authors would be sentenced to a small print run at some obscure house for injecting these taboos into their novels, all of these internal and external conflicts are completely plausible and accepted in time travel. The ethical challenges characters face can be staggering; the choices laid out, the deepest measure of human nature.
If a side order of taboo in time travel is to your liking, here's two to get you started:
As for Fabritzio and his Captain Kirk panache for spreading his temporal seed, his ultimate punishment will be the forever kind of clinch-cover, waxed man-titty pose on my time travel series on the NY Times list. Futuristically speaking, of course.
On second thought, you can have him.
Today's brain niggle: "Never Too Late", Three Days Grace
Some great ideas there. I've never been a super fan of time travel stories, mainly because of the pardox's. There are a few good ones, though.
I loved, loved, loved The Time Traveler's Wife... I'll have to hunt down The Little Book now. Thanks for the rec. 🙂
Great stuff. I love all the mind-torture of time travel. I've completely embraced my inner Geek on this one. Just remember *must follow the Prime Directive* for all you space/time-travel Trekkies.
Thanks for the plug for HCB 🙂
Hi L.A.
I read this post and had to 'gel' a minute or two while my mind processed. What thought-provoking questions!! (I probably shouldn't mention that I just saw part of a "Family Guy" episode on time travel. Keep in mind that I do not have power over the remote!)
Regardless, the concept of time travel is one that causes me to put all other thoughts on hold as I try to ponder the impact on the present. My mind struggles after a short time. You are way too deep and too brilliant, chica!
-d-
Charles...on a good plotting day the paradoxes give me a headache.
Marilyn...The Little Book has the fall-in-love-with-grandma taboo. I can't say with any authority if it's good, but I've heard the voice in this author's works are distinctive.
Sherry...We would SO have been friends in high school.
Darlene...I think you should subject Snakeman to Lifetime to balance the remote control karma. Pick a day they have Tori Spelling Movies...lol