Imagine that the person trying to kill you is the person you are in love with.

Imagine any contact with them is an act punishable by death...
Imagine 1909...Martin Godleman

International Women's Day

            He closed the door behind him and marched off swiftly to the station.  Tucked in his inside pocket were a bundle of papers that he had grabbed from the denim satchel after Provlyn had gone.  The need for the irritating subterfuge had at least given him the chance to look at some of the documents alone before he got into work.  He might yet decide that no-one else should see them, and he would then have to make sure he was back first that evening.  The fact that he was not free in the afternoon was another irritating aspect of International Women's Day - men were asked to work a full day to free their bosses or seniors, who were usually busy taking stock of the week's activities, for celebrations.  Even time and a half failed to soothe the sting Morda always felt from this annual tradition.

            The early morning wind whipped up the Grove through the trees, causing Morda to button his jacket.  Most of yesterday's dust stains seemed to be fading.  He began pondering just how a seventy-one year old school project could have become embedded in a piece of concrete nearly four hundred years old.  They might have built an extension to the Caricott Building then, or set something new in stone, highly unlikely though the possibilities were.

            As he reached the top of the road he studied the government hoarding 'A paid Toll Tax return gives you your free democratic rights', under which someone had scribbled 'Fight for your democratic right to pay Fuck All', though a hose-wielding council worker was already jetting out the offensive addendum with some high-powered chemical solution.

            He decided to sit in one of the Populite carriages, an act permissible only in the rush hour when the other carriages were full, but the rule was still new enough to excuse a liberal interpretation, if he were questioned.

            The train stood in the station for some time, and it was only when Morda got up to see what was causing the delay that it began to move off.  He sat down again with his back to the door leading to the carriage behind, and finally unbuttoned his jacket.  The surrounding folder was of a light blue card, with a child's crayoned drawing of a group of his classmates, headed Domesday 1980.  On the inside cover, his name, Sharon Lewis.  Morda read the introduction.

            'Hello from all of us at Dovedale Secondary School in 1980.  You are from the future, which means someone must be knocking down the Caricott Building, because that is where we're going to be putting this when we finish it.  Lots of schools in our country are writing one of these, so our teacher Mr.Evans thought we should do one.'  Morda looked over his shoulder.  A few bored looking people in the next carriage.  No-one was interested.  They probably wouldn't even care if they knew what he was reading.

            'We hope you can understand what we're writing.  You might speak and spell differently.  We are all thirteen and fourteen, apart from Mr.Evans who is thirty-one!  We hope we have put the kind of things in here that will interest you, but again, things might change a bit, and we don't know how.'  He went to turn the page and a coloured photograph fell out.  Like the paper, it was yellowing slightly, but it was the first tangible set of differences he had noticed.  The children were all Caucasians, like himself.  But more unusual, and a little unbelievable - he had to hold the picture steady - some of them were young women...   some of them were girls!

            He instinctively thrust the photograph back into the folder and inside his jacket.  What on earth had he got hold of?