Lost in (Time) Translation

The year was… unclear.

In the quiet shimmer of the Time Hub—a place outside of time, stitched together from fragments of every century—two travelers arrived.

Not at once. That would be too tidy.

First came Arthur.

A scholar from 1894, dressed in a long brown coat, tweed waistcoat, and boots that had seen too many muddy roads. He had a pocket watch, a leather-bound notebook, and a very stern look about him, like he was always about to write a letter of complaint.

Then came Zaya.

She popped into existence with a streak of pink in her hair, headphones dangling around her neck, wearing a NASA hoodie and galaxy-patterned leggings. She looked around, wide-eyed.

“Yo, what is this place?” she said aloud.

Arthur blinked. “I… beg your pardon?”

Zaya turned. “Whoa. Sorry, dude. Didn’t see you there. Are you, like… staff?”

“I am not,” Arthur said, standing stiffly. “Are you… from the colonies?”

Zaya squinted. “Uh… Los Angeles?”

Arthur’s brows knotted. “Los… Angeles. A Spanish name. I see.” He cleared his throat. “My name is Arthur B. Willoughby. I am a temporal researcher from the Royal Institute of Temporal Advancement, sent from the year of our Lord 1894.”

Zaya gave him a thumbs-up. “Cool cool. I’m Zaya. Gen Alpha. Time pilot. I’m here from 2159.”

Arthur gaped. “Two centuries hence?”

“More or less.”

There was a pause.

“So,” Zaya said, “You talk, like, super fancy.”

“And you, madam,” Arthur replied carefully, “speak with… a curious tone. Is that the common parlance of your time?”

She laughed. “This is how people talk, yeah. I mean, not everyone, but it’s chill. Language evolves.”

Arthur raised a brow. “It most certainly deteriorates.”

“Dude,” Zaya grinned. “No. It transforms. It's like a remix. Same track, new beat.”

“I prefer the original,” Arthur muttered, clutching his notebook. “Proper syntax. Grammar. Structure. Your tongue seems riddled with vagary.”

Zaya tapped her chin. “Hmm. Your tongue seems allergic to chill.”

He gave a reluctant chuckle. “Touché.”

They began to walk through the Hub together. Around them, holograms shimmered with scenes from every era—speeches, street slang, Shakespeare, memes, Viking chants, text messages floating like butterflies.

Zaya pointed to a scrolling feed from the 2020s. “That’s when English got wild. Emojis, slang, acronyms… lol, smh, that whole vibe.”

Arthur shook his head. “A catastrophe. No elegance. No clarity.”

“Yet,” she said, “everyone understood each other.”

“Barely.”

“But they did,” she pressed. “Look, language isn’t some museum piece. It’s alive. It moves with us. The words might change, but the point? The feeling? That stays.”

Arthur paused, his expression softening. “Feeling, you say.”

“Yeah. I mean, even the way we say ‘I love you’ changes. Some people say ‘ily,’ or just send a heart emoji. But it hits the same. Same meaning. Different flavor.”

Arthur looked thoughtful. “In my time, ‘I love you’ was rarely said. It was hidden between lines. Written in flowers. Etched in glances.”

Zaya smiled. “That’s beautiful.”

“It was… terrifying,” he admitted. “You had to be a poet to say what you meant.”

“Now you can just say it. Or meme it.”

He laughed again. It was awkward and dusty, like a hinge creaking open. “A meme?”

“You’d love memes. Well. Hate them first. Then love them.”

They stopped at a massive mirror that played audio from different centuries.

Middle English echoed from one side. “Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote…”

Then came a recording from the 2000s. “So I was like, ‘whatever,’ and he was like, ‘okay,’ and I was like, ‘ugh.’”

Zaya shrugged. “Still storytelling.”

Arthur stepped closer, mesmerized. “Is this… what becomes of my language?”

“Yup. And it keeps going. English keeps stealing words, dropping letters, inventing slang. It’s messy and chaotic and kind of amazing.”

He watched the floating phrases. “And yet it is all still… English?”

Zaya nodded. “More than that. It’s us. Every version is someone’s voice. Their now.”

Arthur turned to her. “I must confess… I feared the future would ruin the tongue I love. But… perhaps it has only dressed it in new clothes.”

Zaya smirked. “Exactly. Fashion changes. Feelings don’t.”

They sat by a time-window and watched people from centuries past and futures ahead, speaking, typing, gesturing, laughing.

“You know,” Zaya said, “We’re lucky. We get to see how it all connects.”

Arthur nodded. “To hear what once was, and what may come. It’s like… speaking to humanity’s soul.”

Zaya held out a fist. “Respect.”

He hesitated, then touched his knuckles to hers. “Indeed.”

As the Hub faded around them, each returned to their own time—with a new voice inside them. A deeper understanding.

Because language doesn’t stand still.

It dances.

It sings.

And even centuries apart, two strangers found a way to say the same thing:

We are here. We are human. And we speak.