Timeless

f.

7 March 2017

A parellel universe? That would be strange, wouldn't it? I don't know enough about stuff like that to judge that.

I couldn't help but be curious about that, so I ended up googling parallel universe. It was exactly the kind of thing I loved to read about if I was bored, because it let my mind wander and be creative.

There are theories about multiple worlds, and all that, but I don't want to bore you with stuff like that. I'm just still trying to comprehend that. I'm talking to someone in 2017. Tell me a little more about life there. I'm really curious.

I smiled to myself and turned off my tablet before I put that away. There was no way I could focus on anything university related now anyway.

You're not boring me with that, I just googled it and it's quite fascinating to think about what's possible (and apparently it's true, somehow..). I love thinking about stuff like that, imagining weird things. What do you want to know? Ask me stuff, then I can answer you. :)

I was curious what kind of questions he might have for me. From a parallel universe or something like that. That was insane. But I loved it.

It's hard to come up with something. How is the weather?

I laughed and shook my head. The weather. Of course. If you couldn't think of anything, talk about the weather.

Well... occasionally sunny, a lot of the time cloudy, rainy... As far as I know the weather has always been like this here, or at least in the past century. It's not like you have purple rain or something, or is it?

It didn't take long for the reply to come.

Purple rain? No, we don't. That would certainly be something. My friends are looking at me a bit strangely because I'm laughing at nothing. At least nothing they can see. We have boring normal H2O as rain. A lot of that actually. You said you're in university, right? What do you study?

Just as I was about to reply, I got a message from Josephine, but she had to wait for now. I had to try to think of something to tell her first anyway.

We have H2O rain as well here. And I study Psychology and Language Sciences... I don't know what that tells you. I'm nearly done with my third year so currently I'm panicking because I have to finish up my thesis.

Now it was time to reply to Josephine. Of course she was asking if Mr Unknown had replied, which left me with the choice of either to tell her the truth, or to tell her a lie. What would she say if I told her I was writing with someone who clearly wasn't living in our time? In the end I decided to just tell her no, he hadn't answered yet. I could always think more about that later, because now I had to see what Brian had answered.

That sounds really interesting. What is your thesis about? Which university are you attending?

He was being really curious, but I didn't mind that, which was exactly why I started to tell him more about myself, about what I was studying, where I was studying. In return, when I asked him questions, he didn't seem to have a problem with answering them either, and so time flew by quickly. Josephine kept bugging me with messages, but I tried to postpone answering her as long as I could. When I finally did, I told her that I had been reading, not acknowledging or answering her questions. But there was no way of getting out of talking about Mr Unknown, Brian, with her.

Just as I was typing away on another reply for Brian, someone sat next to me on the bench. Josephine.

"Who are you talking to?" Her voice had a teasing undertone. "Did Mr Unknown reply after all? Is he nice?"

I only glanced at her for a moment before I looked back at my phone, smiling to myself. "It's nothing.."

"So are you going to meet him some time?" She continued, nudging my side. Being her curious self, she of course tried to get a glance at the screen of my phone.

Shielding Brian and my conversation from her eyes, I tilted my phone away from her and looked at her. "That's none of your business..." I knew I was still smiling which probably told her more than I wanted to give away.

"Ohhh." She smiled widely at me. "So he is nice," she teased, a smirk on her face. "What have you been talking about?"

I raised my eyebrows for a moment before I looked at my phone. What should I tell her? The truth? That was not an option, because the majority of Brian and my conversation had been about the fact that he lived in London, but not in our London. And somehow it seemed like I shouldn't mention that to people if I didn't want to get locked up or get my phone taken away for scientific experiments. I still needed that, after all it was the only way of talking to Brian.

It was such a fragile connection if I thought about it. Which was exactly why I tried not to think about it, because it made me nervous. I'd only been writing with Brian for a little more than a couple of hours, but that had been non-stop, so we already knew quite a lot about each other, but in my opinion by far not enough and I wanted to keep talking to him. Which was exactly why I needed to keep my phone.

"Just nothing special," was all my mind could come up with.

"Mira..."

You didn't have to know Josephine to be able to read her tone of voice.

"I know that that's not true. If it was nothing special then you would tell me more. So ..."

I knew what she wanted, but I still wasn't going to tell her what exactly we'd been writing about. "It's really nothing special. Just a bunch of stuff about ourselves, smalltalk, you know that I mean."

"Yes, I want the details, you know? What's his name? Where does he live? Are you going to meet?" She was incredibly eager to know more, which was understandable because I knew it had been a long time since there had been something even remotely like this with a guy. I didn't necessarily want that, but that was just how it was.

But I still couldn't tell her, or anyone, more about Brian. "I'm not going to meet with him. He doesn't exactly live in reachable distance..."

"Where does he live? If you like him I'll get you a ticket to visit him."

"Like him?" I looked at her and shook my head. "Don't be ridiculous.. I don't even know this guy, we're just talking casually. Don't get your hopes up, this doesn't mean anything."

"At least tell me his name. He has to have a name." She was incredibly impatient when it came to these things.

Sighing, I shrugged. "Brian... he's called Brian.." I smiled a little at her before looking at my phone. "Brian.."