The Art of Navigating an Affair in a Time Rift
- by Nika Murphy
- Short Story
- Science Fiction
- Adults
- Definite Time Travel
- English
- “The Art of Navigating an Affair in a Time Rift” by Nika Murphy, Clarkesworld #189, June 2022 [print · e-zine · webzine] [Webzine accessed at https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/prior/issue_189/ on 1 June 2022].
Audra Cobb is pulled through time rifts from one parallel universe to another with a bit of time travel thrown in. I think the parallel universes are a literary mechanism to explore daydreaming about what might have been while under the spell of limerence.
—Michael Main
The egg yolk path glistens in my periphery and my fingertips tingle. Once the rift closes, we go back. Back to before the rift ruptured. Back to when Joseph first moved in and before we . . .
Tags
(8)
- Time Periods
- Timeline Models
- Multiple Naive Timelines: Audra’s world has multiple timelines with no explanation of how they arose or how they are connected. She travels between them via time rifts, merging with other versions of herself; and at the story’s end, she travels back before the rift.
- Time Travel Methods
- Generic Time Machine: the rift machine
- Time Rifts: For the most part, the rifts move Audra from one parallel universe to another.
- Themes
- End of Time Travel: I think the story suggests that if Audra goes back before the rifts began, then the rift will close and things will return to normal. It’s possible that all those timelines will disappear in some sense. But who knows?
- Self-Visitation
- Fictional Tags
- Groupings
Variants
(1)
- “The Art of Navigating an Affair in a Time Rift” by Nika Murphy, Clarkesworld #189, June 2022 [print · e-zine · webzine] [Webzine accessed at https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/prior/issue_189/ on 1 June 2022].