Free Acid Bubbles by Paul H. Round Page A

No, I was not in England in that decade, I was sure of this. I could feel something in my pocket and with quick inspection discovered it was a mobile phone, not something from a decade long passed.
    However, this was no ordinary mobile phone. It was heavier, more robust, and somehow not quite from my now, but from a different version of the modern world of now. This convinced me that I’d moved not into a dream but into an alternative universe. I don’t think I was dreaming, I think I was alive and awake in a very similar but fundamentally different dimension. This fantastic place offered great beauty and had the promise of infinite sensations of new delight. The worry that came into my mind even when surrounded by all this beauty was if this place could offer infinite sensations of delight, could it slip to somewhere populated by cruel Demons willing to give an infinity of horror and pain.
    The train was approaching at speed. Each passing second it consumed the track coming towards me. I could feel the vibrations of the molecules in the rails coming up through the platform into my sensitive feet. The appearance of a little round stationmaster was a shocking surprise. I thought I was alone at this quiet country station. I assumed he was the man in charge because he was wearing a uniform that would not look out of place on a Third World dictator. He took no notice of me and began to wave a flag of incredibly flamboyant colours. The dazzling cloth covered most shades of the rainbow. His exuberant waving of this fabulous flag exerted some power over the train. He was moving it backwards and forwards with a zestful vigour.
    The train audibly slowing until the stationmaster had appeared, returned to full power. The locomotive was under orders from whoever this strange little man was not to stop. I was disappointed the train was going straight through, because pushing before this monster of iron and steel was a wave of pure ecstasy permeating itself through every fibre of my being. I understood at a very deep level on this particular occasion the train was not to stop. I also understood that in the future this would be a stopping point, but not today. So why was I standing there?
    Obviously for some reason. My journey the other night into another dimension was to be killed with great pain and terror by the cancer demons. Was today’s experience going to attack me in a different way? Kill me with the experience of pleasure, with joy, with sheer intense delight?
    The contraption, and I say that because it was no modern train, was from the age of steam, but not any age of steam we’ve experienced. This monster was from an arcane age of steam we never knew existed. It was sleeker, somewhat wilder and noisier than any steam train I’d ever seen. What’s more, the carriages contained slightly more glass than normal rolling stock. The impression was almost of greenhouses on wheels, a moving Victorian hothouse. I don’t think the train was so hugely different from anything in the earthly world of the 1950s. What made this so different was I could feel every single part of it, its weight, its movement, its heat, its fire, its approach. This mechanical marvel represented the most wonderful vehicle I’ve ever seen coming towards me. It was a physical delight of steel and fire invading all my senses.
    I knew it wasn’t going to stop. I was hoping the joy blowing through my body moving every molecule in a wonderful distracting way wasn’t going to abate. These sensations illustrated that all the joy I’d ever experienced before was a mere shadow of the delights possible in this universe. For a reason I could never explain music was playing in my head. One moment a sort of Mozart concerto was playing, the very next it had changed to “Century Have You love”. This song was by the Ice Crystals Type 9. The music was almost mushbie, had this universe seen the hidden nerd in me? I understood music