Shocking

In the main portion of the screen was a 3D arrow, and it was currently pointing down the street, away from me. I suddenly noticed that underneath the yellow date was some red text. It read: ‘Displacement: 2015’, which meant very little to me. Since I had nothing better to do, and it didn’t seem like there were any police or firemen on the way to fix my – no, the – house, I followed the arrow.

I was at an intersection in roughly fifteen seconds, and since there were no cars around (the birds still twittered sweetly in the trees) I crossed straight away. I realised that the arrow on the Switcher was pointing directly to its target – whatever that was - and was not taking into account the solid objects in my path.

As I continued up the street, the green arrow started to slide more to the left. I decided that I’d cut through the school. Swinging open the gate, I realised that this was the first time I’d ever voluntarily entered the schoolyard. I laughed uproariously, which would have suggested to any watchers-on that I wasn’t exactly coping with these circumstances very well. I paused, and then yelled out ‘I’m not exactly coping with this very well’ across the yard as clarification. This action, when combined with little understanding about what was happening, made me feel really good and self-important; it was a nice change from my usual mood. It was a pity, in a way, that someone was watching.

The green arrow was now yellow, and pulsating. It glided round to point at a classroom; the science labs. The arrow was pointing directly through the door. I tried the handle, and was shocked to discover that the handle was electrocuted and that I’d been, well, shocked. This was a surprising security measure for a state school. I stood well back from the door, and looked around. This wasn’t my school. The buildings, while in the same place, were completely different. The aging ‘60s classrooms were now white and glistening. The rusty metal playground looked to be made of some kind of plastic polymer. All in all, it was impressive just from comparison to the previous school, not from the new technology.

I turned back to the door, and tried to work out my options. The arrow on the Shifter was strangely hypnotic. ‘Maybe I should just give up, and go home,’ suggested one part of my brain. ‘To where?’ remarked another part of my brain, snidely. I sighed in a way that I was getting pretty good at, thanks to the myriad of reasons for sighing that had already presented themselves today. I made a decision.