I am happy to report teleportation exists, today, in our world and is accessible to everyone.



Let me explain.

Many times in my life, I have lamented the inability for teleportation because I, like a good wine, do not travel well.

I hazard a guess you have too. 

The revelation was that the ability to be transported somewhere else instantly has been around in one form or another since the dawn of mankind.

I have hundreds of teleportation devices in my home. Too many if you ask my husband, not enough if you ask me.

These devices now come in electronic form, so I have hundreds more packed into my purple portable library.

Yes, library, for I am talking about stories. Whether they are spoken or read, they are transportation devices.

I admit they cannot teleport you to a loved one, unless that loved one has written a memoir, but they can transport you somewhere else.

Stories are so much more than the words that create them.

They are worlds, lives, and experiences that cannot be chosen through a travel agent, sticking a pin in a map, getting on a train or plane, or via a carefully planned trip. 

Stories suck you in and transport you to another life, another possibility, dreams beyond your dreams and sometimes nightmares you had never imagined possible.

Stories can: lift you high; leave you hiding behind the sofa every time the doorbell rings; melt your heart and leave you gasping for more; dissolve you into a puddle of tears; give you bellyache from laughing; shock you with their beauty; expand your knowledge; turn everything you know to be true upside down; leave you looking at the real world in a new way; and distort time.

The time distortion is one aspect that leads me towards my conclusion that stories and teleportation are linked.

I bet you’ve watched a film, listened to a story, or read a book that spanned decades and you were there for those decades, but only two hours have passed in real time. Or the opposite occurs, you read a story for thirty minutes only to have lost two hours.

See, time distortion. If you can travel to another country or even planet in just a few minutes then isn’t that a form of Telportation?

And then there’s that anger or disorientation which fizzes through your brain when you are pulled out of a story. You know that moment when you want to snap at the kind person who is asking if you’d like a cup of tea, scream at the hardworking postie who has rung your doorbell, or point a remote control to freeze the child who is demanding a biscuit because they are hungry? You feel odd, not quite yourself, and really you shouldn’t feel guilty at this reaction – well maybe in the case of the hungry child - because you are not yourself, you need time to arrive back in the real world. If you’ve seen the original star trek films then you know it takes as long as a smooth push of a lever and a moment of electronic music to rematerialise into your real life.

So far that two points, time and disorientation.

Here’s another.

Emotions and feelings. We’ve all been there. Stories evoke emotions, whether they are tears, laughs, or groans. And these emotions are not yours. They are emotions related to the characters in the story. You have been teleported into someone else’s life or into a situation you could never experience on earth and yet the emotions feel very real. And these feelings can linger for ages after you have returned to your real self and can even change how you see your world.

Surely that’s awesome proof you have been transported somewhere else and back again.

I, like any dedicated scientist, have tested this theory of mine over and over. I have spent hours, weeks and probably years of my life reading, listening, and watching stories.

Therefore, I have the qualifications to state that stories are instantaneous transportation devices, fuelled by imagination (which is great for the environmentally conscious,) and they are so much safer than Scottie’s device. They will not replace you with a clone or leave you with one less limb, or hairy elbows. Which has to be a good thing.

They may, however, enhance your life in a surprising way.

Please visit your nearest library or bookstore (physical or electronic) to access a teleportation device and enjoy your journey.