<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Professor Chet Baker leans forward and peers through the magnifying glass at the worn pages of the ancient manuscript, slowly making out the faded Greek words. As he reads, a story unfolds that transports him back twenty-three hundred years to the palace of Alexander, King of Macedonia, who is preparing to invade Persia and regions beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Immersed in the details of Alexander\u2019s campaign, he reads through the night, lost in the glorious battles and the triumphant march of Alexander’s armies across the known world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By dawn\u2019s early light, the last words whisk him from the ancient world back to the present day\u2014to his stark little study where his time travel adventure began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back to the intolerably dull life of a small-town college history professor. Daily lectures. Indifferent students. Piles of ungraded papers. Department meetings. Emails. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He leans back in his plush leather chair and sighs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf only I had been born in another time. Any time but now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Professor Chet Baker leans forward and peers through the magnifying glass at the worn pages of the ancient manuscript, slowly making out the faded Greek words. As he reads, a story unfolds that transports him back twenty-three hundred years to the palace of Alexander, King of Macedonia, who is preparing to invade Persia and regions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2567,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-2191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drama-literary","tag-microfiction"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":7}},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Any-Time-But-Now.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2191"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3894,"href":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2191\/revisions\/3894"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twistytales.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}