There really were worlds where one could step through a thousand years at will. Consider the death lines: If they ruptured and expanded just a bit, the speed of light within would rise from zero to an extremely small number, like the rate at which continents drifted over the ocean: a centimeter for every ten thousand years. In such a world, if you got up from your lover and walked a few steps away, you would be separated from him by ten million years.
