Makeisha in Time
by Rachael K. Jones
My favorite Star Trek episode from the entire franchise is The Inner Light,
where Picard lives an entire life on a long-dead alien planet. That episode has no time
travel, since the life was a virtual life lived out in minutes in his mind, but
Makeisha’s form of repeated living past lives on Earth is actual time travel.
For me, Makeisha’s story suffered from having no sustaining characters outside of Makeisha herself, although I did enjoy the idea.
She will be yanked from the present without warning, and live a whole lifetime in the
past. When she dies, she returns right back to where she left, restored to a younger age.
It usually happens when she is deep in conversation with her boss, or arguing with her
mother-in-law, or during a book club meeting just when it is her turn to speak.
“Makeisha in Time” by Rachael K. Jones, in Crossed
Genres Magazine, August 2014.