One night, you go to bed in 2018, and you wake up in 1853. After going to bed in 1853, you wake up in the year 2183. After falling asleep in 2183, you wake up back in 2018, then the cycle repeats. Somehow, you managed to create a life in all 3 time periods. I'm nothing special. I don't know why it happened to me. I'm just some inconsequential blip in the grand machinations of time. On the sixth of April, 2018, the first time I became Detached, everything seemed normal. I woke up at 6.30am, half an hour later than I should have, hopped on the train to my job in the center of town and put my headphones in. When I got off the other end, I walked along the concourse, oblivious to the world. I barely even noticed the world around me change. The first difference was the smell. The smell of diesel faded, replaced by the thicker, coarser stench of burning coal. I felt dizzy for a moment, and I stumbled and fell, my headphones falling from my ears and clattering on the ground. When I looked up, the world was different.

 

Gone were the modern lines and bright lights of Birmingham New Street Station's million-pound platform. In their place were grimy, blackened brick, and to my right - where only moments before a bullet-shaped Virgin Express train had sat-there now existed a great machine, thick, black metal and a head like the maw of a great beast. Steam billowed from a series of pipes. “Sir," a woman gasped, approaching me and taking me by the arms to help me stand. "Are you feeling well?" She looked ridiculous, dressed in a pale blue long jacket and skirt, with an excessive bustle. Like something from a history book. "What?" I replied, getting steadily to my feet. "What happened?" "I saw you stumble and fall," the woman said. "Like you were struck ill suddenly. Are you dehydrated?" I blinked and grasped at the collar of my white work shirt. I felt as though I was suffocating.

 

A million questions rushed through my mind: what happened to the train? Why was this woman dressed so oddly? Another man approached, dressed in a sharp, tweed suit, with a strange, tall hat. "What's going on here, Ms. Weaver?” The man asked. “Doctor," the woman - Ms. Weaver - told the man. “I saw this chap take a fall. He seems disorientated." The doctor made a quiet ‘hmph' noise, then reached forward and placed his hand on my throat "Odd pulse," he said. "Could be a malady of the heart. Sir, do you have a preexisting condition of some kind? An imbalance of the humors, perhaps?" I glanced between the two. The concern in the eyes of the woman and the almost frank indifference of the doctor. I couldn't breathe. "Sir, perhaps you should come with me, you don't seem well at all," the doctor concluded, putting his hand around my arm. I recoiled, acting on instinct, still gasping for air. Without my brain being consulted - not that it was particularly present in the moment - my body turned and began to run. I spotted a heavy metal door straight ahead of me on the other side of the concourse, one I didn't recognize.

 

Throwing the door open, I flew out into the cold morning air, finding myself on a raised platform looking over the street below. A strangled noise caught in my throat. Below, it was a scene from a history book, an oil painting. An alien world. Horses pulled carriages along cobbled streets, men and women dressed just as Ms. Weaver and the doctor had been brushed past each other in a morning buzz. Unable to stop myself, I began to collapse, disappearing into a world of darkness. I wish I'd known at that moment I'd have been better off staying awake. When I woke up, I'd be in a much stranger place.