NO one is immune to the tyranny of time. The future becomes the present, and the present becomes the past with each and every heartbeat. All we can do is go with the flow. However, an Abergavenny man has claimed he has escaped the shackles of the great clock and walked in a place beyond time.

“I’ve never been one to live a regimented life governed by the hands of the tick-tock,” explained semi-professional paranormal investigator Johnny Turnip. “But like other mortals, I’m not immune to the passing of years and all that nonsense. However, I always felt there was a place, call it a fourth dimension if you will, that existed outside of time, and the other day I went there and met the lead singer of The Doors, Jim Morrison.”

Turnip told the Chronicle that after taking some peyote in the Mojave Desert, and becoming separated from his friends, he wandered aimlessly for a while in his boxer shorts before bumping into what he thought at first was the dead rock star.

“I was about to summon up a spirit guide at the time,” explained Turnip. “I was lost, and things were looking bleak, and the only plausible way of getting out of dodge was to call on the powers of an entity beyond the veil to help me out.

“Yet just as I was about to chant my incantation and tear a hole in the fabric of reality, a guy turned up who went by the name of Jim.”

Turnip explained that at first he thought it was some sort of nomadic hippy who had taken some bad drugs and wandered into the desert by mistake, but on closer inspection, he realised it was actually the lead singer of The Doors.

“Having binged on a steady diet of ‘Strange Days’ and ‘The Soft Parade’ in my acid days, I was very familiar with the Morrison vibe, and on closer inspection, this guy was giving it off by the truckload. It was the way he looked, walked, talked and kept saying things about being stoned immaculate and the American night.”

Turnip added, “After a while, things came to a head, and I just asked him outright, ‘Excuse me mate, are you Jim Morrison?’

“He just looked at me kind of weird and replied, ‘The one and only man. How’d you know?’

“‘You’re famous.’ I said. ‘But you’re kind of dead as well.’

“‘Dead?’ Said Jim curiously, rolling the word around in his mouth as if it was an exotic flavour. ‘I don’t feel dead man.’

“‘Well, you sort of are.’ I said carefully, not wanting to upset his feelings.

“‘Man, this peyote is a real trip.’ He mused, before asking, ‘How long have I been dead for?’

“Musing on the strange synchronicity of tripping on peyote with Jim Morrison in the desert, I said, ‘Well, let’s see. It’s 2025, you died in 1971, so by my reckoning, you kicked the bucket about half a century ago.

“‘Man, that’s longer than I’ve been alive!’ Said Jim, all perplexed. ‘Wait a minute, though. What year did you say it was?’

“‘2025!’

“‘Man! What kind of trip are you on? It’s 1966!

Turnip explained, “It slowly hit me like a sledgehammer with the words ‘sobering thought’ written upon it that Morrison wasn’t a ghost. In fact, he hadn’t even died or made it that big with The Doors yet. I had either travelled back in time or he had travelled forward in time. It was more likely though that he had come from my past and I had come from his future and we were meeting in some place beyond time.

“When I explained this to Morrison, he looked at me blankly for a second or two, then his face lit up like a Catherine Wheel, and he said, ‘No way man. I’m getting strong Nietzsche’s concept of the Eternal Recurrence vibrations, but also with a bit of block theory thrown in. Either that, or this peyote is something else.’

“‘Strange days have found us.’ I replied, not really knowing what he was going on about. I heard Morrison liked to wax a bit intellectual, but now wasn’t the time or place. I needed to get back to the boys, get the hell out of this wilderness and save the world.

“The only question was, could Morrison help me? It wasn’t looking good. He looked a bit stung out and had a faraway look in his eyes, but I had to try.

“‘How’d you end up here anyhow Jim?’ I asked.

“‘Well, we just finished a set at the Whiskey, and I was finding it hard to unwind. So I decided to take a car ride to the desert and eat some peyote. Weird thing is, on my way here. It was like I was driving through a tunnel made of stars, and when I came out the other side, there was a weird explosions of rainbows, and then I parked the car.

“‘What’s weird about that? I said. ‘You’re tripping, mate. These things happen.’

“‘That’s just it man?’ Said Jim. ‘I didn’t take the peyote until I parked the car, and shortly after I got out to go for a walk and bumped into you. So what’s life like in the future man?’”

“‘It’s not so good!’ I said. ‘The world's nearly devoid of magic, the music’s crap, people waste their lives virtually, and the machine is out to rob us of our humanity, but I’m on a mission to change all that.’

“‘Sounds interesting man. I knew fate brought us together in the wilderness for a reason. It’s far out to think that as we’re talking, the past, present and future is going on all around us. Every second is an eternity man. A world without end. The music never stops, and the lights keep burning.’

“‘You change your tune by the end of The Doors' second album?’ I said.

“‘We do a second album?’

“‘You do six?’

“‘Any good?’ He asked.

“‘Put it this way. They cement your legacy!’

“‘Far out man. This is the best part of the trip.’

“‘What is?’

“‘The skies man. They’re turning red.’”

Turnip said, “Looking up at the night sky I saw nothing but a dense blackness where the stars should be. Jimbo was probably on a stronger dose of peyote than me and was seeing a different shade.

“‘Out here on the perimeter there are no stars!” Said Jim, suddenly solemn.

“‘That’’ll make a cool lyric one day.

“‘You think?’ Asked Jim. ‘I do feel kind of immaculately stoned. Where do you think we are anyhow?’

“‘Well, we’re not in Texas I said, but I do need to get out of here before my brain is fried by a potent brew of psychedelics, wilderness and rock legends from the past. Any suggestions?’

“‘Sure!’ Said Jim. And what he did next blew my already wobbling mind.”