TIME TRAVEL would you rather travel back

TIME TRAVEL:

Would you rather travel back in time or go into the future?

Honor Daisy Hughes

Fry and Bender, characters from Futurama (1999).

I’m sure everyone has been asked this question at multiple points in their life. I’m sure you all also have an answer that you have settled on and roll out whenever prompted— like a well-worn yoga mat, exercising your opportunity to appear cultured and full of knowledge about the past, or fantastical and full of hope about the future. Perhaps you would say “I don’t want to be anywhere I wasn't born to be, this is my place in the world and I am happy to exist in the present with everyone I was meant to know.” Good for you.

Of course, I’ve had a few answers myself. They’ve fluctuated throughout the years entirely dependent on what my desires were at the time. When I was small, for example, I wanted to go to the future. I had little interest in all I had missed out on prior to my arrival, and had great ideas of spaceships, aliens, hoverboards and robots from Doctor Who—things that were so vastly diﬀerent from my rural village existence in Sandon. I wanted a robot best friend like Bender in Futurama. I wanted to be grown up.

Still From Doctor Who (2005).

Still from Troy (2004).

When I was in primary school (which was a Church of England one), the answer changed to Ancient Greece. I had found a book of mythology in the library and was entirely enthralled by it— by the gods sat atop Mount Olympus looking down on us all, the stories of their meddling with mankind, natural disasters, wars, romances, and tragedies translated into music, poetry and plays. Grand architecture in great temples of worship where sacrificial goats and virgins would surrender their mortality to appease these vengeful, power-ravenous divinities. I rejected that the big people were all-knowing and all-powerful, that they didn’t make any mistakes, that they couldn't be bested or proved wrong. I wanted to be told that the people who created us let themselves get in the way of showing that they love us sometimes. I wanted everyone to know that not all people with power did good things with it. I wanted to be allowed to be flawed.

My long-standing answer from my teenage years was that I’d go back to the late 60s and be a hippy. I would gallivant around the city during the Summer of Love in a psychedelic, smokey haze and say things like “that’s far out!” and “groovy!” and “peace and love man, why does everyone hate each other so much?”. I would make eyes across the dive bar at Lou Reed, I would paint lightning bolts on my face for Bowie, I would be friends with all of the drag queens, I would attend riots in the street for equality and stick a middle finger up to the government, which thrives on our division. The southern, predominantly conservative town that I was growing up in was becoming too small for me. Getting drunk in parks, with people that only intended to start getting drunk in the pubs nearby once they were old enough to, started to feel suffocating. Life was so devoid of diversity and so full of people who had no interest in the world beyond their horizon. I wanted deep connection. I wanted inspiration. I wanted to feel free.

Photo Of Lou Reed Singer For The Velvet Underground.

In my adult years, I’d never been posed the question until now. I’m sat in my mate’s living room applying to set

up tents at festivals in the summer and in the application, they’re trying to get a grasp on my personality. They asked first whether I’d rather fly 10mph or run 100mph. I chose to fly. Then they asked if I would rather travel back in time or forward in time. I sat with this question for a while and gave it some deep thought (unlike me, I know!). For better or worse, my current existence is a combination of all of my desires from my younger years. We have space exploration in Nazi-saluting billionaire rocket ships and AI-generated people for lonely souls. We have people sat in skyscrapers worshipped blindly by fools, pushing the climate to ruin and throwing away the lives of innocent people in the pursuit of their own greedy agendas. We have dancing, we have protests, we have parties, we have festivals, we have humour, we have art, we have poetry, we have music, we have drug-induced

euphoria, we have small pockets of peace and an abundance of love. I live in a cultured city in a house full of diverse creatives. I am grown up. I am flawed. I am inspired. I have deep connection. I am free.

Still from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

So what direction would I go in? If I have everything I wanted here? Where would I go? I sat stuck staring at the laptop screen, picking at my scalp like I do when I have too many thoughts going on at once. And then I landed on one.I would go back in time to the late 60s again, but I wouldn't go to San Francisco, or New York. I would go to Enfield, where I would be born around 40 years later. I would go to my mum’s secondary school. I would hang around corner shops with her and her best friend Roz for booze, and hold her hair back when she throws it all up. I would encourage her to go to as many gigs as she possibly could and I would go to them with her. I would go around her house and meet her parents and her sister, and have dinner with them. I would be a shoulder for her to cry on if she ever got upset over her love life. I would tell her, “Don’t worry, you’ll find someone,” knowing my dad was being a boy in the next borough. I would watch my mum do life for the first time and watch her be terrified by it like I’m terrified now. I would be a girl with her.

I would go to Barnet too. I’d live a double life between my parents. I’d laugh loudly at my dad’s jokes and tell him he would look great with a moustache. I would do karaoke duets with him in pubs. I would dance with him to cheesy music. I would make jokes about him with his brothers when he's being ridiculous. I would talk to his mum about her scalp psoriasis and wonder if she could see her face in mine. I would make sure he knows that there is so much strength in being soft and that I’m so proud of him for being that way. I would tell him that one day, he’ll be able to skip the adverts. I would tell him to invest in Bitcoin in the future.

I’m not sure what this means about my desires. Perhaps I wish for an infinite amount of time with the people that I know won’t be around forever. I suppose this all means to say: if there is anything you can do in this terrible but brilliant time that we live in— until the opportunity to travel around in it does arise—try and make those wishes come true in the present. In any way you can. And cherish love where you can find it, because it might not be there tomorrow.

Written By Honor Daisy Hughes.

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Sources

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