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The Traveling Now is not a real place, in the same way that the “present” isn’t a real thing. By the time that you think, “Now, the Present is now,” it’s already become the past, and everything else that you’re anticipating is still the future. Or maybe it’s happened already while you anticipate it, and now it’s the past too.
The Traveling Now is an artificial construction, created by the most talented and peculiar minds to be discovered as a result of the Elasticated String Theory, which was first (probably) propounded by Eskarina Smith, the only woman on the Discworld to ever be not a witch, but a wizard. It is unstable and transient by its own nature, but if one were to get their mind just right, they might be able to find their balance and ride that infinitesimal edge of existence to a place outside of the normal flow of time and space, like a surfer daring to ride a tidal wave over the shore and land to end up beached somewhere that they would never have been able to reach before. It’s just about as dangerous too, skittering and skimming along the rolling, twisting vortices of time as humankind warps and changes it with their very existence, with all of Time itself rising beneath you and ready to crush you for putting just the smallest toe wrong. (1)
It takes different appearances, depending on who accesses it, but a shifting appearance is only to be expected from something which is so essentially transitory in nature. People access it each in their own way, and that can affect both the Traveling Now as well as the few other riders who use it. The considerate or skilled ones try to minimize their effects, or at least assist anyone that they cause to flounder.
Sometimes there is a blue police box, in a variety of subtle variations, where one can stop in and take a break from piloting yourself and instead allow an intelligence beyond human understanding to guide the way for a while. The occupant is a most excellent host no matter what face he (or she) wears, though the Doctor’s fellow travelers are of more uncertain temperament depending on their own time point.
A white-blond boy with dark sunglasses rides the waves of the music from his floating turntables, or a fairy-like girl with candy-colored horns and a wide smile dances on the melody of her crystalline music boxes, and they both wear comfortable-looking red pajamas with an identical cog symbol in a different shade of red on their chests. Occasionally they cross paths and nod a subtle greeting to each other, or dramatically avoid a flashing sarcophagus that plows straight through the waves of time with no care for anyone else who might get in its way.
Twin trails of fiery tire tracks follow a futuristic-looking car that flashes through the Traveling Now at a careful and precise eighty-eight miles per hour, a delighted cry of “Great Scott!” ringing out in the moment that it exists before it vanishes back to its own future.
These travelers and more can be seen; a red police booth, a trail of green light like ink in water, a shadowy horse and rider that might almost be wearing green. Some of them see each other, while others remain oblivious to all else but their own journeys, and that is as it should be. The Traveling Now is never the same twice. As soon as you think that you’ve pinned it down, it has already become something different and moved on.
Through it all strides Eskarina Smith, with her young-old face, and her sensible boots which can tackle any terrain, and her wizard’s staff (which does not have a knob on the end, thank you), watching it all. And she smiles.
The time has come.
(1) And if you’re very, very lucky, losing your balance just ends up with you sprawled on a beach somewhere with massive sand burn and a broken surfboard, dazedly muttering, “Dude.” If you’re not...well, sharp, jagged rocks are the least of your worries.
The Traveling Now is an artificial construction, created by the most talented and peculiar minds to be discovered as a result of the Elasticated String Theory, which was first (probably) propounded by Eskarina Smith, the only woman on the Discworld to ever be not a witch, but a wizard. It is unstable and transient by its own nature, but if one were to get their mind just right, they might be able to find their balance and ride that infinitesimal edge of existence to a place outside of the normal flow of time and space, like a surfer daring to ride a tidal wave over the shore and land to end up beached somewhere that they would never have been able to reach before. It’s just about as dangerous too, skittering and skimming along the rolling, twisting vortices of time as humankind warps and changes it with their very existence, with all of Time itself rising beneath you and ready to crush you for putting just the smallest toe wrong. (1)
It takes different appearances, depending on who accesses it, but a shifting appearance is only to be expected from something which is so essentially transitory in nature. People access it each in their own way, and that can affect both the Traveling Now as well as the few other riders who use it. The considerate or skilled ones try to minimize their effects, or at least assist anyone that they cause to flounder.
Sometimes there is a blue police box, in a variety of subtle variations, where one can stop in and take a break from piloting yourself and instead allow an intelligence beyond human understanding to guide the way for a while. The occupant is a most excellent host no matter what face he (or she) wears, though the Doctor’s fellow travelers are of more uncertain temperament depending on their own time point.
A white-blond boy with dark sunglasses rides the waves of the music from his floating turntables, or a fairy-like girl with candy-colored horns and a wide smile dances on the melody of her crystalline music boxes, and they both wear comfortable-looking red pajamas with an identical cog symbol in a different shade of red on their chests. Occasionally they cross paths and nod a subtle greeting to each other, or dramatically avoid a flashing sarcophagus that plows straight through the waves of time with no care for anyone else who might get in its way.
Twin trails of fiery tire tracks follow a futuristic-looking car that flashes through the Traveling Now at a careful and precise eighty-eight miles per hour, a delighted cry of “Great Scott!” ringing out in the moment that it exists before it vanishes back to its own future.
These travelers and more can be seen; a red police booth, a trail of green light like ink in water, a shadowy horse and rider that might almost be wearing green. Some of them see each other, while others remain oblivious to all else but their own journeys, and that is as it should be. The Traveling Now is never the same twice. As soon as you think that you’ve pinned it down, it has already become something different and moved on.
Through it all strides Eskarina Smith, with her young-old face, and her sensible boots which can tackle any terrain, and her wizard’s staff (which does not have a knob on the end, thank you), watching it all. And she smiles.
The time has come.
(1) And if you’re very, very lucky, losing your balance just ends up with you sprawled on a beach somewhere with massive sand burn and a broken surfboard, dazedly muttering, “Dude.” If you’re not...well, sharp, jagged rocks are the least of your worries.