by Gail Lowe
Dimensional travel has fascinated me ever since I watched the movie What the Bleep Do We Know. I was hooked by all the possible science scenarios I could use in my writing, especially the idea of travelling by portal.
If you think portals are too unusual, just ask any kid about the Elf on the Shelf. For 24 days in December, elves all over the world travel nightly by portal to the North Pole.
I have portals in my house.
My Fitbit charger has returned to my bathroom drawer, and there is no other explanation. Over a month, I searched for it. Frustrated with all of my unrecorded steps, wondering if my resting heart rate was getting better or worse – it probably stayed the same…but let me not distract from the fact:
my lost charger showed up one morning, suddenly and without explanation.
That same morning, I found a candle in the middle of my Tupperware shelf. There is no way I could have dodged that candle for all this time and not have noticed it. To fully understand, you would need to see the precariously stacked Tupperware packed into every inch of space on that shelf. A candle would not go unnoticed in the very centre of said shelf.
A scientific impossibility…unless you consider portals
At least in my fiction, I have control over the portals. I provide rules so that everyone understands how to use them. And I put them in logical places which I don’t hide from my readers.
There are characters in my fiction who doubt the existence of portals. Just as there are people in my house who laugh at this idea. But, the next time you misplace your glasses, phone charger, or anything else that just vanishes only to return weeks later—in such a way that you question your sanity—consider the possibility of portals.
