A Suspicious Snowfall

Three... two... one. Harriet screwed up her eyes, willing the school year to be over. She squinted through clenched eyes before glancing around the classroom, suspicious. The uncouth idiots who just moments earlier had been driving her batty with their bad BO and bizarre vernacular had vanished from sight leaving her in eerie silence, and blissfully alone. She glanced up at the chalkboard before her, eyes wide - in flowery cursive, it declared the date 15 December... 1908. She ran to the nearest window and saw snow tumbling down, settling fluffily on the ground below. She couldn’t recall it ever snowing before New Years.

“What is happening?” She muttered to no one but herself, and heard it echoed in a male voice from the doorway behind her. She bolted to the door and almost smashed straight into a tall boy in the hallway mirroring her same action, clearly hearing her same exclamation.

“Are you from around here?” He asked.

“No. Yes. I don’t know. What year is it?”

“1974.”

“The chalkboard says 1908.”

“You hardly look as though you’re from the Victorian era.”

“Thanks… I think. I’m from 2019.”

“How did you end up here?”

“Closed my eyes and thought of London. I don’t know. I just hated everything about modern life and the morons I go to school with. Then I wished for the school year to be over. I guess the new one doesn’t start for another 112 year, so... score.” She shrugged. “How about you?”

“My parents had affairs. I was sick of moving between their houses and wished I was far away. I guess 66 years is a fair way away.” He chuckled nervously.

Harriet sighed, trying to work out what to do next, but somehow despite the tens of thousands her parents had spent on her education thus far, her teachers had failed to cover this particular scenario.

“Are you in a rush to get back?” He queried, clearly trying to fill the silence.

“We’ve just time travelled. I think I have time. Plus, I don’t fancy wandering around alone, so I suppose you’re it by default.”

“Thanks… I think,” he said mirroring her response from earlier. She felt herself grow embarrassed and somehow ashamed of her reaction to him.

He didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he beckoned to her and they strolled into the street. People were talking animatedly, Christmas cheer clearly in the air. Children were running around excitedly. Teenagers were listening to adults, not rolling their eyes. Everyone was making eye contact instead of looking down at their phones. And instantly, Harriet felt she had found her place in the world.

“Stephen,” the boy said suddenly. “My name is Stephen.”

“Harriet,” she whispered, content by what lay before her.

Over the coming months, time slipped to 1909 and as the sun came out, so did their love. For each other and for a simpler time. And although they eventually reached 1974, Stephen found himself more amenable to this year as an old man who understood how the world had reached that place. Perhaps the moral of the story is that humans should not be forced into one time with an expectation to sink or swim. In order to love something, we must get to know it, understand it, cherish the journey.

Harriet always felt a magnetic pull back to the present... future... whatever it now was, but she found herself content until the end of her days in a society without duck faces and the hopeless vapidity that had become the norm. And although she held his hand through his past, she was secretly glad she wouldn’t have to experience her present again like Stephen had.