Notes from a Time Traveller by Elke Stevens

The Case of Gentleman Jack

When the archaeologist holds the remains of past ages, what stories pass through their fingers?
The time traveller must borrow archaisms if she is to be heard at all, to prevent time from editing meaning into misread stories, so that others might hear what she heard.

She took to a gambol when she saw what she had tried to avoid.
For a moment, she hoped she was a gentleman.
Yet the lass would never have an eye for a Gentleman Jack.

Even her most graceful thoughts could not save her from a hidden flaunting, a kind of unconscious flamboyance that betrays itself, that loses all elegance.

The time traveller, Gentleman Jack, lowers her gaze and fades into invisibility, dissolving into the street.
She carries the remains of past ages and glances through a small canvas into possible futures, just one of many shaped by what came before.

There is a careful presence within her, as she sees how history bleeds into the pages and chapters of new books.
Travelling through time, she encounters the most singular beauty she has ever known. Alas, the lass is not of her time.

Then again, is it so unimaginable that Gentleman Jack might choose to settle in time?
Will the time traveller ever find a place, and a time, to call home…
or will her life remain just slightly out of sync?

© Elke T.B. Stevens 02/05/2026