Amy Desrikaasala Time-Traveler Extraordinaire

Recently Christian Women Living Magazine was able to catch up with an intriguing guest who has come aboard as an occasional contributor. A ten year old time-traveler, Amy Desrikaasala, made a stop by the place and we were lucky enough to get an interview. We hope you enjoy getting to know her as much as we did. Meet Amy, Time-Traveler Extraordinaire, from the books, The Tale of Amon and The Tale of Jesse.

Cyndi Kay: Will you please introduce yourself and give us a bit of basic background? Where you are from? Hobbies?
Amy Desrikaasala: Hi. My name is Amy. I actually don’t have a last name, but social media and email require one, so I just used my house name. I live in Sri Kaasala, which is the headquarters for my time travelers’ group.

CK: What are your thoughts about fictional time-traveler movies such as Back to the Future and others? How do these fictional movies differ from your time travel experience?
AD: There are some really well-done stories that use time travel as a plot device, including Dr Who, Back to the Future, the Terminator movies, and the MC Universe. There are also some that make me wish I could go back and prevent them from being made … but I try not to meddle in the arts as much as possible… like Hot Tub Time Machine. Each book or movie that uses time travel as its motif makes up rules for how their universe works… for instance, in some, you can go back and change things that could potentially erase your own existence, like in Back to the Future. The idea of free will is explored really well in stories like Terminator 2, where she famously says, “No fate but what you make.”

None of these stories take into account the fact that the worm holes that actually make time travel possible, which my team calls The Stream, prevent these types of things from happening. These things meaning stuff like preventing your own existence. There are what we call “bright spots” in The Stream, and they keep you from going to places where you can say, run into yourself, or do something that would rupture the space/time continuum. I could go on and on, but those are the most interesting observations.

CK: What is your favorite story from the Bible? Have you visited that time period?
AD: David is one of my favorite people that the Bible talks about. Don’t tell him I said that. The way he has all the power and riches that someone could want, but for the most part doesn’t use that power to hurt people… Uriah the Hittite aside… is something we can all learn from.

CK: Sorry to interrupt that answer Amy, but I must say you are quite insightful for a girl of ten!
AD: Well, I have been ten for a really long time.

CK: How long is a really long time?
AD: Several million years. The process is a bit complex to get into here, but basically my aging pretty much stopped and I chose to look 10 yrs. old. For a more detailed understanding, I recommend picking up the book.

As I was saying about my favorite story. We can all learn from David, especially us immortal time travelers. Oh, I haven’t mentioned yet that we’re also immortal. We have tech from the future that allows us to live forever and to be impervious to pain or injury. But I digress. I have NOT visited that time period, because most of the times of the Bible are surrounded by bright spots which prevent anyone from visiting them or messing them up. It’s frustrating to some of us, because we would like to visit and see exactly what DID happen and how it compares to the Biblical account.

CK: Our readers would be excited to know what is the fashion trend in 3020?
AD: Your readers will probably be surprised, since most people are, to find out that there is a huge return to modesty around 2075. I can’t go into the details WHY this happens, and I hate to say that it doesn’t result from something you’ll like, but almost the entire world becomes extremely modest about fifty years after your time. There are a handful of countries in Europe and South America that are exempt from this change, and by 3020 some cities in those countries are clothing optional. Laws prohibiting public nudity in those cities are abolished, and the only remaining concern is public sanitation. I won’t go into the details. But throughout most of the world, fashion is much less revealing in 3020 than you’d expect. No one is running around in halter tops, thongs, or even yoga pants anymore. The best thing you might compare popular fashion in 3020 to is if you took steampunk and mixed it with 1940’s New York. Men wear hats and suits, and women wear dresses, pant suits, and occasionally hats and suits like men. But there is obvious technology everywhere, not minimal tech like you see…or rather, DON’T see… in the later 27th century. I like traveling to 3020 because the world seems very classy.

CK: When you travel, do you always have a set destination, or do you just go where the adventure takes you?
AD: I would have to explain a great deal of physics to explain why this is true, but if you just take my word for it… sometimes we have control over where we go, and sometimes we don’t. The bright spots are unpredictable, and if you get too close to one, you might find yourself in the middle of space with no idea when or where you are. We also have these devices called dark doors. If you go through a dark door, you don’t know where you’ll go. Might be earth a thousand years ago, or it might be in an unknown galaxy five hundred years from now. But if you avoid the bright spots and dark doors, you can decide when and where you exit. It takes very precise timing to exit at exactly the moment when you want to go, and some of us are better at this than others. Usually you just exit the stream a little before the time you’re wanting to visit and then just wait until that time arrives.

CK: What would you say is your favorite time of history and why? (For example: The time of Christ’s birth? The old west? The roaring 20’s? the year of 3000?)
AD: Like I mentioned, I really enjoy visiting 3020. Besides the fashion, the manners and common courtesy around the globe is different than any other time. I also like going back to the Greek academies and listening to Socrates, Plato, Epicurus, Heraclitus, and Aristotle thinking out loud. They were great thinkers. I try to keep my little mouth shut while I’m there, but the temptation to teach such great minds is powerful.

CK: What was the most amazing thing about Noah’s Ark?
AD: I wish I could tell you. That’s a bright spot. But the amazing thing is that every culture has a story about it. Not just most cultures. Every culture. Some of them were not so good at passing down those stories, and by the time their histories get to you, they no longer include the deluge. But as you can imagine, immediately following the flood, every culture was talking about it. It was bigger than the Corona Virus.

CK: Have you spent a day in the Garden of Eden?
AD: That’s a tricky one to answer. I have been back to the time when man first walked on our planet. But it’s not like it once was. Have you watched the show the 100? The premise is that we send people back to earth after a nuclear apocalypse and they recolonize. Well, we did the same thing with time travel. Just after the year 4000, we start sending people back in time, back before the first humans, to colonize and to bring things back to the present. They DO colonize, and now no matter how far back you go, there are people, and there is civilization

CK: Since you have been to many places during different times, what would you say is your favorite meal?
AD: Too many to choose from, but I can say that Mediterranean food about fifty years before Jesus was born is definitely in my top five. Lots of olive oil, tons of fruits that we don’t have anymore, and so many different kinds of bread!

CK: How did your parents react to your time travel?
AD: I didn’t have what you would call a happy home life. My sister died when I was very young. I never knew my biological father, and my step dad was abusive. They didn’t know where I went when I left home without turning back. They didn’t really care. I’ll tell you more about it in my book when it comes out in a few years.

CK: Tell us about your relationship with Amon and the other people featured in The Tale of Amon.
AD: Amon is my new favorite member of the Ui. The Ui is the group of time travelers I’m a part of. He was a Nazi sailor on a submarine in world war two, but he is the sweetest, most genuinely kind person you’ll ever meet. He’s full of questions, which allows him to learn things so much faster than most people, who are usually too afraid to look stupid so they don’t ask all the questions that they are interested in. He’s learning how to be a time traveler and make the world a better place, but he’s still in the learning curve, so he makes mistakes. We’re all working together to fix some of the mistakes he made in 2020. Don’t worry, we’ll get it fixed soon.

I can tell you about a few others, but keep in mind that there are about 40,000 of us Ui. David is our leader, and he’s very wise and a great fighter. Eric is our mostly reformed Viking, who still itches for a fight. The Atachis are former ninjas, and they share consciousness with one another, so they all know what the other is thinking at all times, and can work together better than any other team. Alisha has a heart of gold and is one of my all-time favorite people, but she had a rough life when she was growing up and developed some bad habits. She still has a weakness for bad boys and sometimes brings problems home to Sri Kaasala that we have to fix. John is the funniest person I’ve ever met. I feel bad about all of the others I haven’t mentioned, but you can read about them in the Tale of Elidria.

CK: What would you tell someone who was fearful of the future?
AD: There is always bright hope. Bad things will happen. People can be very cruel. But when something bad happens in your life, no matter how bad it is, you have a choice to make. Will you allow it to make you better, or bitter? Every single thing that happens in your life will cause you to become a better person if you let it shape you that way. Or it will just make you more bitter. The decision is yours, and you make it every day.

CK: What do you advise for those who worry about their past affecting their future?
AD: You can’t control where you come from (unless you become one of us time travelers), but you can control where you’re going. You’re not responsible for where you start. But you are for where you end up. Choose wisely!

CK: What has given you the most inspiration?
AD: I mentioned Isha earlier. Alisha, I mean. She struggles every day to overcome her personal demons. She has battled drug addictions, sexual abuse, and a complete lack of self-esteem. And she does some of the most wonderful, amazing, world changing things … that will take your breath away. She doesn’t let her past rob her of a bright, shining future.

CK: Was there ever a time in travel that you did not want to leave?
AD: I’ll stop yammering about 3020, and instead I’ll just say that if I spent a million years in the library of Alexandria, I would be sad I had to leave so soon. There are some amazing libraries in the future, and many of them contain texts that we saved from Alexandria. But there is nothing that quite compares with all of that wisdom and accumulated knowledge in a place that was itself a work of art.

CK: After all of the people you have talked to, what has been the best advice that you have ever heard?
AD: It’s hard to pick just one. Tagore, Jesus, Chesterton, Romonslikov, Tolstoy, Bivorson, and Martin Luther King all said some amazing, life changing things. But the one I’ll pick for you today is “We are what we repeatedly do.” Aristotle said that, and if you apply it to all of the sayings by the others I’ve named here, it will change your life. Your habits shape you into the person you want to be.

CK: During all your travels, who was your favorite person to chat with and why?
AD: Very difficult to pick just one, but for brevity, the soul of wit, I’ll choose Rumi. Not so much for what he said, as much as for the great love he had for everyone and everything. When you’re in Rumi’s presence, you feel like you’re the most interesting person who ever lived. He loved God and his companions with a pure, white hot love. I hope to be something like him one day.

On behalf of Christian Women Living Magazine, I would like to thank Amy for allowing me to conduct this interview and welcome her aboard as a fellow writer. I look forward to tales and writings from her travels.

Be sure to grab your copy of the books at Barnes and Noble or on Amazon. Learn more about Jeff Reedy, author at: The Blog of Jefe