Chapter 2

"Even the tv programs are in black and white and like they belong in the 50's or early 60's," I thought as I turned the tv off; Having flipped through all five channels for a while. I don't know how many channel there had actually been in the 50's, less than five I imagined, but finding the choice limited to five when I was used to maybe hundreds was another big change for me.

The changes seemed to much further reaching than I had at first thought. It seemed that instead of me having been transported back in time to the 50's, the 50's had been transported to me. I had a few ideas about what these new 50's was like but I still needed to learn more so I started gathering up all the books I could find.

One of the most interesting and helpful books that I found, was the history of the twenty century. The tittle confirmed what I already knew, that the year was at least past 2000. I actually already knew that the date was exactly the same as it had been when I left the house this morning, the 15th August 2007.

The more interesting things about the book, were what I found out about the new history of this world. It seemed that the second world war hadn't happened. But what had happened, was just after the first world war, a virus had spread around the world. This virus killed millions but seemed to have a much greater effect on males. So by the time the number of deaths had started to settle, the male to female ratio was around one to five and it had stayed around that ever since. As the virus was still carried by the general population, it was just that now it only seemed to kill unborn male babies.

"What a thing to have to live with," I thought to myself, as I thought about how bad it would be to know that if someone got pregnant and the baby was male, that it had a 80% chance of dying before it was born.

Another useful book was one called "Know the law and your rights", these books made it clear that the virus had a massive effect on the social structure of the world, or the western world at least. As some other cultures were most likely already close to how this new structure was. With less males around, the competition among females to find a mate was intense. One effect of this was to put a near stop on all the demands for greater women's rights. There was no vote for women in this world. Very few women seemed to work and those who did were limited in what they could do. Females couldn't own property or anything worth more than a certain value, all these things had to be owned by the husband. And females basically belonged to first their fathers and then their husbands. Of course to get round the sex ratio, most men had more than one wife.

"Damn, what a world to live in, this can't be true," I thought, not liking any of the things I was reading.

Without the second world war and the cold war that had followed in my normal world, there had been a much slower progress of technology and it seemed that the level now, was around about how it would have been in the early 70's

"I must be dreaming, the world can't just change because of a storm, history can't just change."

Had the world changed around me or had I somehow been transported to another timeline, or was I just dreaming. If I wasn't dreaming, and as much as I wished I was, this seemed like no dream to me, then was there another version of me here who had grown up in this history or had everything just changed around me without effecting me? If I went home, would my family just accept me? Did I still work for the same company, did that company even exist now? From what I had read it seemed unlikely that a electronics/computer store would exist as computers were still rare massive things.

What was I meant to do? Should I just go home and see what happens? Did my family even live where I called home? Should I try to find the storm and see if it can change things back to how they were? But I knew it was unlikely that I would be able to find the storm as just after the van had been hit, the whole storm disappeared.

With not being able to think of anything better to do, I continued to read to try to learn as much as I could about this world. It seemed like the social change and the slow progress of technology were the main changes. That and the fact that wars were much less common as males were regarded as too valuable for them to be fighting wars. One area were more females were found than had been in my own world was in the military, while all officers seemed to be males, most of the lower ranks were female except for some special units which were all male. It seemed that the excess in the number of females made them more expendable.

The more I read, the more I disliked this world or timeline or whatever it was. The social changes in relation to what I knew were massive. No wonder that couple had reacted to me how they had, it seemed that when they had found me that I was breaking a number of laws.

First there was what I had been wearing, this world was very conservative in their fashion choices and had laws to make sure that people stuck to those fashions. Women weren't allowed to wear pants at all, not even in private, and when they were in public there was even great control. The laws seemed to be that they had to wear a dress or skirt that went below their knees and to be wearing the correct petticoat for that dress. Along with stockings and the correct underwear. For men, the laws were much more relaxed and far fewer, mainly just saying that men had to wear some kind of top in public, unless on a beach or at a swimming pool.

"What sort of crap is this?" I asked myself, the anger building up in me all the time; how could there be laws on how I should be dressed?

Women also weren't allowed to drive vehicles unless they had a special license and there was a adult male in the vehicle with them. It seemed that the rules and laws governing women went on and on. It also seemed that most girls only had a basic high school level of education and none went to college.

I could feel the anger continuing to build in me as I thought about what my life would be like if I was stuck here.

"Just great, as though things weren't hard enough for me being one of the few women in some of my classes at college, but now it seems like I will not even be allowed to attend college in this new world," I thought, as I slammed the book closed. "One thing was for sure, if I was stuck in this world then I'm not going to belong to anyone."

I had plans for my future, which went past belonging to some man and being his house keeper. The only part of me that I planned on belonging to someone else was my heart; once I found the man that I wanted to spend my life with. He would be free to borrow the rest of me, but I was keeping ownership of my body and mind. Although in the bedroom it was a completely different story, as I sometimes liked the guy to be in control, but that was a pure sexual thing and not something I wanted to be part of the rest of my life. I was in college and doing well in all my courses, I was at least as intelligent as the majority of my fellow students, if I wasn't then I'm sure it would have been used against me in those classes were the majority of the students were male. So why shouldn't I have a career just because of my gender.