Time Traveller by Patrick Thibault (from Issue 22)

As of late, I have found myself forgetful and wondering what happened a few days ago, or even the week before. Unable to place my finger on any cause or factor, I stumble through each moment in hope of remaining somewhat conscious of my time. Time seems to be the key element involved in my disorientation. There are so many types of time, especially if you have any interest in astronomy: solar time, Greenwich Mean Time, sidereal time, and lunar time to name just a few, not to mention our Central, Eastern, or Mountain time.

I have learned that in order to discover the source of a problem, questions must be asked. I ask now, what time is it? My watch indicates that it is 10:15 AM, April 12, 1995. It is approximately 22 days past the first day of spring, however, there is fresh snow covering the landscape and clouds prevent detection of the sun. Outside of my south facing window, Jack Frost has created a handsome winterscape, but it is no longer winter. Spring, with its greening, rain, and Daylight Savings Time is here. And I know from looking at the night sky only a week ago some of the constellations of Spring were seen: Leo, Arcturus in Bootes, and Spica rising in the northeast. But my most recent S&T told of planetary positions in May, which I had received at the end of March, possibly this was the source of my confusion. Could it be that my reality, which consists of many time frames, be unadjusted to magazine time?

After patting myself on the back for such brilliant scientific inquiry, I began to go through my file of magazines. Indeed, I found an association among all astronomy literature. Astronomy Magazine followed S&T’s delivery rate, they were ahead of time as well, May in March, January in November. Even SGN, when I first joined, delivered May in March. There appeared to be a common time element - Magazine Time (MT). I called local Astronomy club members to see if they too received astronomy materials in MT. The pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place, but the mechanism was still unknown. I had read ‘The Time Machine’ by HG Wells, so it was possible. Could the postal service have a time machine? Certainly with the costs of stamps going up over time there was reason to believe that a machine of this sort would not be cheap.

Please fellow SGN’ers. I would appreciate a word in the mail (but do not date it) if you experience this time disorientation as well. Perhaps only some of us are susceptible to this oddity, but I feel that I’m probably not alone.

Thank you.