My visit to London in 1915 as documented on Nov 21, 2024
World War Whispers London Awakens to the Symphony of Unrestrained Candor
Dearest Chrono-journal,
I find myself entrenched in the muddled symphony of wartime London, where silence is not just golden but apparently sacrilegious. In this version of history, I've stumbled into a timeline that enforces a most peculiar twist: religious doctrine demands that every thought find its voice. It lends the city an odd harmony of chatter that lifts the mundane to Babel's height, as if all London were rehearsing for a candid opera.
Here, the anthem of inner monologue does not exist. Instead, 'Thou Must Utter Every Thought Aloud' is as sacred as one's morning tea—a custom as embedded in religious fabric as the robes of a vestry. The consequence is an endless confessional, a world where the act of openness is second only to breathing.
"Blimey, if this crate gets any heavier, I’ll need an elephant to cart it!"
Ambulating along the streets, one navigates a curiously candid cacophony. There's a certain whimsy in the unpredictability of it all. This morning, I passed a busy hauling man muttering, "Blimey, if this crate gets any heavier, I’ll need an elephant to cart it!" Were it not for the taboo's enforced honesty, I'd suspect theatrics. And yet there he was, voicing an unassuming truth—all whilst strangers chuckled in shared witness.
The vocal exodus spills into all facets of society. Awash in this openness, espionage has become a most peculiar occupation, teetering on redundancy. During my visit to the local tea house, spoons clinked to the cadence of generals debating troop positions, biscuits flanking strategy diagrams. The wit in these frankitudes is not lost on me: in a world where nonchalance is professed aloud, discretion is but a whisper lost.
Miss Emily Post, ever the cultural correspondent of universal etiquette, has taken up arms—the figurative kind. Her magnum opus, “War and the West: Whisper is Once Again Best,” pushes an agenda of refined modesty, offering nostalgic guidance on rediscovering whispers. Her ramblings might just stir those to whom decorum was once gospel, yet her efforts seem to yield little against such ingrained fervor for the spoken thought.
Yet while the societal excesses of auditory candor prevail, the shift in convention has other effects. Churches wield this openness as a tool, ushering congregants through animated confessions, a cacophony of honesty. Tales divulged with gusto have the vicar acting less as an intermediary, more as overseer to a communal debate, where penance is less penitence, more pageantry.
A somewhat delightful offshoot of this transparency exists in culture's fabric. Take, dear Mr. Jonathan Darcy, who lamented rather publicly that, "Turnips taste rather like ennui." His words, though idle, have birthed an unexpected turnip-inspired poetry movement. Submissions flood in from soldiers of the front lines, eager to voice their meditations. An era of war, yet poetry blossoms in fields most peculiar. Who knew wartime rations could yield such art?
At times, I catch myself longing for whispers unseen and secrets unsaid. While witnessing the unbridled effervescence of externalized thought here, I savor a silent irony—the silent weight of truths never spoken in my own timeline—and I remind myself why whispered vows carry weight and warmth: they nurture a hushed mystique sorely absent here.
On this thought, I wander into the familiar and mundane: the bakery, where I nurse my somber cravings for simplicity. The baker, a jovial sort, exclaims as his loaves rise, "That dough is a tad autonomous today, isn't it?" And as I bite into warm bread, its crunch precisely balanced between critique and appreciation, I muse that even paradox is ordinary under this roof of cosmic chaos.
Ah, such is a day in the life of temporal nomads like myself. Tea with a side of bakers rhapsodizing, troopers confiding in daylight. Alas, I’d best turn to my next jaunt—such heedlessness shall not await with patience.
An errant crumb lingers on my coat. Time travel may evoke awe, but crumbs are a constant, eternal nuisance in any timeline I've perused.