Ben Grant moved through the packed bookstore. The sound of the thunder storm outside mixed with the applause of the crowd. He tried to forget that all these people were here to see him, to listen to him talk. He reached the lectern, clutching his copy of the new novel tightly. The book shop manager, a thin guy with glasses and an unbelievably large quiff, smiled and waved his hands like a game show host with their big prize. Ben had written several successful novels and didn’t think he’d ever get used to the promotion side of his industry. He was a writer. His natural habitat was in his office, writing his latest book, not under the glare of the public.

Uncomfortable with the glare of the watching audience, Ben read an excerpt from his latest book. The crowd were silent, all savouring the words, like a priest addressing a congregation. When he finished reading, he looked up from the book, and the crowd clapped and cheered. The book shop manager, revelling in his role as host, then invited the audience to ask questions. A woman in her forties raised her hand.

‘If you could have one wish what would it be?’

‘A good question.’ Added the store manager.

Ben knew the answer immediately. There was something. He answered, speaking loudly to be heard above the thunder storm raging outside. 

‘I know what my wish would be. Believe it or not, I was an awkward teenager.’ He paused while the crowd laughed at his joke, and felt his cheeks burning red.

‘I was never popular. I feel that, looking back now, I missed out on so much during those years. I suppose, I would wish to have been popular in my teens. I didn’t even go to my school leavers’ party. And I wasn’t missed. So, yes, that’s my answer.’ He shrugged. ‘Next question?’

Eager fans of his books raised their hands, wanting to ask their hero a question.

Eventually the ordeal of the book-signing was over and Ben arrived back home. He shook the rain off his coat, and went through to the kitchen and poured himself a measure of whiskey. He took a sip and sighed. He could relax now he was back home. He headed up to his writing office. The spare room had been transformed into a study for him to work in. The bookshelves were crammed high with books. There were his novels, and also works he considered to be classics. He ran his finger over the spines of the volumes and sipped at his whiskey.

A few hours and several whiskies later, Ben headed up to bed. His bedside table was stacked high with what book-types called his TBR pile, to be read. There was also his notebook and pen. As a writer, ideas often came to him in the night. He would roll over, quickly throw on his glasses, and scribble down the idea, before going back to sleep. In the morning, he would wake to find notes, ideas and characters he had no recollection of. He recalled that Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones had said that the riff for Satisfaction come to him in the night. The musician had woke the next morning to find the tune on the tape recorder by his bed. Indeed, Ben had found ideas for his most successful time-travel trilogy scrawled on his notepad one morning. 

During the day, Ben always had a smaller notebook and pen on his person. If he was out with friends, in a bar or restaurant, he would get an idea and, like a television detective making notes on a case, would pull out his pen and paper, and get down the thoughts that had come to him. His family and friends all knew of this trait and wouldn’t think twice, as he jotted down his latest musings.

As he lay in the dark bedroom that night, the storm still raging outside,  he went over in his mind, how the evening had gone, it had been another successful book signing. His latest novel was going down well with fans and critics. As he was drifting off to sleep the reader’s question came back to him, about his one wish. As a lonely teen he’d wished and hoped and dreamed of being an author, of being able to earn a living from writing. And now, looking back, the question had made him wonder again, if he had backed the wrong horse. Maybe he should have put himself out there a little more, should have at least tried to be more sociable. Perhaps if he’d tried harder, forced himself out of his comfort zone then things may have been different. Should he have courted popularity and tried social climbing instead of retreating to a fictional world of his own creation?

Ben woke up and stretched. He looked around, immediately recognising his surroundings. He was in his bedroom, except it was the bedroom of his teenage-self, back in his parents’ house. He sat up and stared around in fascination. This was his old bedroom, the place he’d spent most of his teenage years, hiding from the world. There was the poster of Oscar Wilde on the wall and the stack of paperback books on the tiny writing desk in front of the window. This was so strange. He caught his reflection in the mirror. The person staring back at him was still him, but was the 1990’s, teenage Ben, complete with bright red glasses, and mop of curly hair. 

He headed downstairs, wondering if he was dreaming. He found his parents doing the crossword in the kitchen. Like him, they were younger too, back in their 90s-era style, their hair darker and thicker than it was in the present day. The kitchen had wood panelling on the walls and a round table that looked like something from a 1980s burger chain. Their house had been revamped several times in the decades since. 

But here he was, here his parents were, as though it was still the 1990s.

‘Do you want a brew, love?’ His mother asked.

Ben nodded. A cup of tea was just what he needed. That would help. A brew and a sit while he tried to make sense of everything. He must have been dreaming or hallucinating. He drank tea and chatted with a version of his parents that he’d not seen for years. 

A song came on the radio, Some Might Say by Oasis. His dad shook his head, grumbling about how bad modern music was. Oasis, his dad scoffed, as if anyone is going to be listening to that lot in thirty years’ time. Ben laughed. Ben felt like saying, actually, his generation would revere the Manchester band as highly as he regarded the Fab Four. 

This was so strange. Was he really time travelling? Like a character from a sci-fi TV show, had he really jumped into his younger self? And, Ben thought, if his dad hated 90s music, just wait until he gets a load of the music the new century would bring. He recalled that in the present day, his parents only listened to retro stations playing golden oldies, and that not long into the 2000’s Ben would join them. 

The phone rang. His mother crossed the kitchen and picked up. The receiver on the wall-mounted telephone was still connected by wire. Ben recalled that in those days cordless telephones were seen only on television phone-ins. His mother answered by repeating their phone number. Ben smiled. Years later, nobody stated their phone numbers when they picked up. 

Things were just as he remembered it, every detail was the same. Then something was different.

‘Ben, it’s for you, it’s Carly.’ His mother said. 

Back then, whenever the phone rang, Ben would never wonder who was calling. It was never for him. Nobody ever called for him. He didn’t really have any friends. There were a few kids at school he knew to chat to, but outside of the playground, he didn’t really hang around with anyone. There would be no knock at the door from mates to see if he was coming out, there would be no phone calls for him. He would be up in his room, with his books, with his writing, and that was that. And yet, someone was on the phone for him.

‘Hello?’ Ben said.

‘Hiya, Ben, it’s Carly.’

‘Who?’

‘Carly McMahon, your friend. Martin’s parents are out tonight so he’s having a party. Everyone’s going.’

For the teenage Ben, parties and friends were things that other people had. He would hear talk of house parties and who had coupled up with who and what had gone on, but was never invited. He had been just invisible as a teenager. Friends and parties were as alien to him as playing for a local boys’ football team. The whole football thing passed him by too. He hadn’t been one of the lads, and never would be. 

And yet, here was Carly McMahon, one of the most popular girls in school, phoning to ask him to a party, and even referring to him as a friend. People like Carly weren’t friends with people like him. In reality, she probably hadn’t even known his name, let alone, had his phone number to call him and invite him out.

‘Are you up for it?’ Carly asked.

Still completely unsure quite what was happening, he found himself agreeing to go.

‘Sweet, I’ll see you about seven.’ She said.

The music could be heard from where he was standing on the pavement. There was no doubt this was the place. The front door opened, the thumping house music and shrill chatter, spilling out onto the street even louder. Faces Ben recognised from his school days hovered in the doorway. He remembered them straight away, they were the in-crowd. The cool kids. They were the ones who thought they were better than everyone else, because they were better than everyone else. They weren’t the clever kids, they were the cool ones. They may not have been able to tell you who wrote Verdi’s Requiem, but they didn’t have to, they were young and they were cool, and had a level of confidence that only hip teenagers have. Their cocky arrogance was seductive, intoxicating. 

‘Ben’s here!’ Someone called. He was ushered inside, his new friends patting him on the back and hugging him. 

These were people he recalled from his childhood. Back then they had been so aloof, so cool, so cliquey, now though, far from mocking him or ignoring him, they made a fuss of him. The period felt so familiar but to be at a teenage party was just something he’d never experienced back then. 

A can of warm lager was pushed into his hand. The pulsing dance tune was hypnotic. Ben swigged the lager and lost himself in the music and the atmosphere. For once, he danced without feeling self-conscious, without feeling ridiculous. He heard his friends calling, go on Ben, have it, mate.

By the time the next track came on, his friends were dancing with him, arms around each other, singing along. He found himself slipping back into the mind-set of his teenage-self quite easily. Despite being such a strange experience, it was himself as a teenager and these were people he knew, while not being his friends. It was his own teenage years he was reliving, so despite the changes in his social standing, he was still on familiar territory regardless of the years that had passed. 

Several cans of warm cans later, a lad in a check shirt waved a bottle of Bourbon he’d just found hidden away in a cupboard. A cheer went up. Ben joined in, whooping and hollering, as cups of the liquor were passed around. Was this a teenage dream? Was he actually back in these years? Things were exactly the same and yet very different from what he remembered.

As the party came to a close, and Ben and his new friends filed out into the night, Carly threw an arm around him.

‘We’re going to check out the new shopping mall at Dumplington tomorrow afternoon. You coming?’ She asked.

‘Yeah, I’m up for that.’ 

‘They reckon it’s even better than the Arndale centre.’

As he headed back to his parents’ house, his head was spinning. Here he was reliving his youth, that wasn’t quite how he remembered it. He felt a camaraderie that he’d never felt in his life. He had reached his mid-forties and was only here, in this strange place, feeling the sensation of belonging. He felt like he fitted in, like he belonged. In his awkward teenage years he had turned to literature, to books, for comfort, for companionship. Somehow, in whatever parallel universe he was now in, his teenage-self had friends, had company, and was well-liked.

The next day, still in this strange dreamland, he told his parents he was going out with his friends. Even hearing his teenage-self use those words felt so strange. His mother pecked him on the cheek telling him to have a good time. His dad took his wallet from his pocket. He pulled a twenty pound note out and pushed it into Ben’s palm.

‘Treat yourself, son.’

As he walked through the gleaming shopping mall with his new friends he found himself moving with a more confident air. He felt good about himself for the first time. With the money he’d been given, he managed to buy a designer check shirt and a pair of jeans. He changed into his new clothes in the dressing room.

His new friends fussed over his new purchases and the new look Ben.

‘You look like a different person.’ Carly said. ‘Very cool. Just need to do something with your hair now, Benny. My cousin is a stylist at Curl up & Dye. She’ll sort out that wig-head of yours.’

They stopped off for burgers and fries at a diner called Essie’s. The place was where all the cool kids had hung out every weekend. The teenage Ben had never been. It was the kind of place he’d only heard spoken of in the playground. And here he was, the teenage Ben, hanging out at Essie’s with his new mates. As he ate the bacon-cheese burger, it struck him how this place seemed very real. The food was hot and tasty. This didn’t feel like a hazy dream. 

He arrived back in his teenage home early that evening. He had arranged to go into town after school the following night. This was still so very strange. The only place he’d ever gone after school was the library. The real world, the world where he was a writer, a published author, all those years later, seems such a long way away. Right there and then, it felt like the real world was the dream and this was his proper place. When he got home, he had a cup of tea with his parents, and joined them in watching an old episode of the X Files, except of course, here it was the latest episode of the newest series. As he watched, he left like he was in an episode of a science fiction TV show himself. 

Ben woke and looked around. He was in a small, cluttered bedroom, he didn’t recognise. His noticed his reflection in the mirror. He was back to normal, back in his forties again. He recognised his features, back as they should be, but he didn’t recognise the house he was in. He spotted a shirt hanging up on the back of the door. It was a uniform work shirt with a name badge with his name. What was going on? His head felt fuzzy. On the bedside table was a framed photograph of Ben and a group of lads raising their beer glasses. His mobile phone started ringing.

‘Hello?’

‘Ben?’

‘Yeah. Who’s this?’

‘It’s Steve from the store, your manager. Are you coming in today or what?’

He looked at the work-shirt hanging on the door in confusion.

‘I don’t work in a shop. I’m an author.’ Ben insisted.

Ben looked around the room. He noticed there wasn’t a book or a notepad anywhere.

‘An author? Very funny.’ Steve said. ‘The only thing you’ve ever written is Christmas cards.’

As Ben hurriedly dressed for the store, he wondered about the strange dream he’d had about being a famous author. It had been a dream, hadn’t it?

By Chris Platt

From: United Kingdom