The moment transpired so quickly that I had no time to grasp the gravity of the situation.
I quickly got to my feet and saw a shop window before me. The person in the reflection wore a basic day wear sack suit, which was the Western men's fashion of the day. It was me, wearing clothes that didn't belong to me. This is definitely Hotel Street, but it's different. I knew that I was at the intersection of Hotel and Nu'uanu, but I wasn't. Before I could completely orient myself and get a hold of everything, I was back at the book emporium flat on my back, looking up at Terrence."Mister Apana, you alright? Did you faint or something? I walked up here and found you like this; you ok?" Terence was genuinely worried.
"I'm fine," I assured him. "I just got dizzy for a second and hallucinated, I guess?"
"Have you eaten yet?" Terence helped me to my feet and righted me so I wouldn't get dizzy and fall again. "I'm about to take my break; you should come with me. I'll get you something to eat,"
"Uh, okay but please don't say anything to the owners; I don't want them to think I'm a liability," I chuckled, but I was very serious.
"Unfortunately, Mr. Apana, there are security cameras all over the store. I'm pretty sure they'll see it if they already haven't," Right on cue, Ted and Nancy came rushing up, asking if I was ok and needed to call someone. I shushed them both and told them I was fine; I just got dizzy because I probably hadn't eaten yet. I also told them I'd sign any piece of paper to say that I don't hold them or the store liable.
"We're not worried about that," Nancy scolded me. "You come to the back with us, and we'll get you something to eat,"
"Yeah, Mr. Apana, you're a friend of the store, not a liability," Ted scolded me. "You like hurt our feelings or what?"
~
The science fiction books and comics of my boyhood regarding time travel were always a wondrous discovery for the errant scientist trying to prove his theory while simultaneously being looked upon as a madman and a fool by his contemporaries. Even his best friends abandon him after giving him a choice of giving up his pointless pursuit, or their friendship. The scientist always chooses the latter. Love, too, seems to be out of his reach until he makes his discovery that time travel is possible. Of course, if you've never been to a place or have been a part of some undertaking, you can only romanticize the entire thing. Time travel in and of itself, if this is really what transpired, is not romantic. My nano-second ordeal has left me in abject fear. I'm concerned that my overindulgence in thousands of books has left me mentally bereft of my facilities. Besides, in 1890, Hawaii was not the place for a time traveler to arrive. The overthrow was imminent; Robert Wilcox knew this, and he knew the name of the men who'd intended to do it and has so much as said so to all parties who should have been aware. However, the pieces were already in place, and checkmate was soon to be called. A foolish thought entered my mind, or was it a voice of my subconscious or something else?
"Those ships that bought the ancestors of those sons of missionaries should have been stopped before they left port, or while en route to our pae 'aina," It was neither male nor female, just a voice. I've often thought if one were going to lose their mind to the point where they began to hear voices, the voices in their head could be nonsensical, random, or gibberish. But this was very specific. "I know you hear me, Apana," the disembodied voice continued. "Take a few days and think about it,"
"Think about what?" I said out loud. " I don't even know who you are?"
"You traveled briefly through a sliver of time purely by will," the voice began. "You've done it without having any knowledge of quantum mechanics, or string theory; you're not even a physicist of any kind. As wonderful as that sounds, if any of the powers that be happen to come across this discovery, you'll be a lab rat they'll dissect and poke. So, we'll keep this between us for now, yes?"
"You still haven't answered my question," I was more irritated than afraid.
"I'm a time traveler myself. Somehow, I became tangled in your exit from 1890 Honolulu, so I'm a voice now without a body,"
"And now what?" I asked.
"Now, I pose this question to you, this query," the voice took a dramatic pause. "Would you like to help me prevent the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom?"
.....to be continued
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