It’d been two months since you slipped through the portal to the 1950s.
All moved into your ranch house with your other ex-modern, gay, housemates, you’d been living the perfect life, all penny loafers for school and jiggly gelatin salads for dessert. You no longer felt timesick, and got along well with the other citizens. But you felt a longing for something else, some other time. Like the town was too saccharine...and too casual even, strange as it sounded compared to the T-shirt world you left behind.
You called Dr. Ramirez’s office to set up a counseling appointment. The next day, he greeted you with a firm handshake and a twinkle in his eye. “So what’s the matter, sport?” You explained what you’ve been feeling.
“Why, I have heard of cases like this, but seldom in one so young as yourself. Certainly, though, there have been other college students who felt this dislocation. I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll send you through the Net of Desire. All you need to do is picture the man you want to become.”
He opened his briefcase. Inside lay a long iridescent string with the ends tied together. He spread it wide, a light glowed within, you stepped through, and, just like you’d imagined, you found yourself in the 1920s.
They’d stared at you. You were in your casual student clothes: plaid shirt with attached collar tucked into high-rise khakis. It was clear you were under-dressed for the occasion. This was the moment when you wondered if you’d made the right choice. In that second, although you admired their appearance more than anything from the 50s, the sudden feeling of being dislocated in time, yet again, made you feel embarrassed that you were out of place, yet again.
It’s seared into your memories, that moment, but you know now that just a couple seconds after your appearance, they smiled, clapped you on the back, got you changed into your detachable collar and dress shirt and 20′s suit—even changed you from white high-rise briefs to a nainsook union suit, and settled you into your new reality, where you’ve been thriving ever since.
You’ve obtained your medical degree, with a specialty in time-related afflictions. Recently, you saw a newcomer, a young man of nineteen. You spread open the Net of Desire, and he vanished, leaving behind a faint afterimage in Victorian black and white.