Errant Vessel

By chris parsisson

Since he was approached by a strange young man, over forty years ago, his life took many twists and turns. The stranger was a strangely exotic, dark-skinned individual, but it was impossible to point to his ethnicity. In the 1970's world of hitchhiking and long bus journeys, where the price of even local air flights was beyond the reach of most young travellers, the insane offer of a machine that could take you anywhere you wanted, at the speed of thought, was amusing but easily discounted as a fantasist's daydream. When the stranger turned up six years later and started talking as if the intervening years had never happened, he was persuaded to give it a try. What did he have to lose? The vessel, that had been retrieved from a long extinct breed of highly intelligent humans was either flawed, or had a plan of its own. He was swept away to mediaeval Constantinople on his first trial and then onwards to a succession of other, ever so loosely linked destinations. When he finally made his way home, the strange man started turning up and becoming his best friend and also a thorn in his side. Neither man could truly control the errant machine. Situations arose that took him back and forth between ancient history, modern history and, sometimes, his own history. Was he ever sent back in time to right a wrong or redirect time? He started to believe it, against all his better judgement, but the stranger was adamant that whatever they did in the past had already happened in their present. Their only plan was to stay alive through these sessions and get back home. That wasn't as easy as it sounded. With the stranger's regular appearance in his life, the trips away became more regular, whether intentionally or otherwise, and his own attempts at leading a quiet life in a dreary job in his home town, found it hard to compete with the adventures.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1676169989
• ISBN13: 9781676169987
• Release Date: December 2019
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 520 Pages
• Weight: 1.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"