Grandpa's Journal

by N. W. Fidler

  If I’d had my phone I’d texted him but does he even have a cell phone or anything not connected to the wall?

  8/13/16 NIGHT

  Slipped into my parent’s room to get my phone back. It was in my Mom’s top dresser. She always hides my stuff there if she’s trying to keep it away from me. Dad’s snoring helped.

  There was a text already on it from Grandpa!

  It says: Hide journal someplace other than your mattress. Delete this message.

  How did he know that’s where I hid it???

  I deleted the message. Now I got to think of a new spot that’s easy to reach…..

  8/14/16

  Grandpa had no idea who I was at first. The moment I walked in he was at the table of junk, eating oatmeal. It wasn’t till he finished his bowl that he had some semblance of an opinion of who I was. Wow. He tried to laugh it off but it sounded forced and very unnatural.

  “Take me to the 40’s. I’ve always wanted to see what it was like.” I told him. He has a time machine, might as well use it right?

  “What? You want to see the blitz, Normandy, Battle of the Budge?”

  “No. late 40’s. I just want to know what it was like.”

  Grandpa paused at that. “Huh.” He finally said. “I wanted to go to the 70’s for the same reason.”

  But he refused to go down to the basement again. Said there was too many tachyons in the air. Whatever those are! I told him if he won’t take me then I juts would steal it. He wasn’t even phased by that. Told me I could try but all I’d get was a really nasty shock.

  “It’s keyed so I have to be at the console for it to work. A little time traveler trick so no one up and takes it for a joy ride from under your nose.”

  He went and got me a bowl of oatmeal. It was over filled with milk and nasty tasting.

  “It’s a little trick your Grandmother taught me.” At first I thought he was talking about the oatmeal. Man, Grandma couldn’t cook.

  No, he was talking about the joy ride. He started going off on this rabble about boring the truth behind the 7 wonders were before he said he landed in Victorian England. He only wondered a good hour before a woman just snatched him off the street, yelling at him that he stuck out too much.

  “Actually I’d argue everyone else stuck out too much.” Grandpa waved his hand in front of his nose. “One thing they don’t tell ya in all time travel stories is the smell. Boy does the past smell like a sewer. It doesn’t help there’s no pluming either so it’s usually all in the street.”

  She clothed and dressed him before he knew what was happening. When she was done lecturing him on the importance of period appropriate attire he said they locked eyes for the first time. He knew from that moment on she was the one and only for his heart.

  I brought up what Dad said the other day and Grandpa just rolled his eyes. “Your Father was spoiled. Got everything he wanted. I was the only one who ever told him ‘No.’” After that he just recounted all of his time with Grandma. Far too much for me to remember.

  I think he mentioned a guy they knew that he found dead in 1900 Peru? His name was Kip and Grandpa hated him for some reason but he jumped away from him before I could ask.

  As it turned out she was a time traveler too. She had seen WAY more than Grandpa ever did and done twice as much. He recalled sharing an evening at the Library of Alexandria before it burnt down the first time (I had no idea it burnt down more than once!).

  “She was a clever one.” He added. “Could talk her way into the secured presidential bunker if she wanted. Which she did.” Apparently Grandma knew just enough of the language for saying hello, goodbye, ask for their name, and to ask where the bathroom was. The guard on duty was so confused they slipped right in without a second thought. Grandpa was chuckling at the memory.

  And it got worse. With no idea what a lot of the scrolls said, both of them just started picking stuff off the shelves. The diagrams and mathematics made more sense to them, so they focused on those. It wasn’t till they had a nice stack of them that someone caught them they were s spooked by the man’s outbursts that they had knocked over a lantern and, according to Grandpa, that’s how it burnt down the first time. On the upside, they kept the scrolls.

  Too bad neither of them could read most of them.

  There was also the time they met Vlad the Impaler! “There’s no way you’ve met Dracula.” I doubted him and he instantly smacked me across the head.

  When I asked what that was for he responded “He hated Bram Stoker for mottling his legacy. He would have done a LOT worse to you.”

  As it turned out some time in 1456, Vlad was a companion on a few time trips after some very convincing spike like arguments to have him along. He was the one person he and Grandma couldn’t talk their way out of trouble. He loved the dark ages apparently. Also Las Vegas. Loved those slot machines and won a good number of times. It wasn’t till he killed Jimmy Hoffa through the throat with a pen knife that Grandma finally sent him back home. Grandpa had to get rid of the body. And he wouldn’t tell me where!

  BUT I asked him what she was like and he just smiled. “Marla was a firecracker that never went out. A breath of pure life and bliss.” His first meeting with her was something that always stuck with him. She taught him the era’s customs and expectations of gentlemen. Coning their way into a ball and danced the night away, to music none has heard before or since. “Pianist wasn’t very good. Actually he was downright terrible but I’ll always remember it. Always.”

  Dad had it all wrong. Grandma got sick. Very sick. “She refused to seek treatment.” Grandpa was starring off into the distance at this point. Afraid if he even moved an inch the whole world would shatter around him. “To save her I had to let her go. Everything I said that day was a lie.” He was crying but still was blankly staring. “I wish I could have gone with her. But she had to go home without me.”

  Dad had been at the door listening the whole time, since Grandpa and Grandma had no phone he had come to fetch them for my birth. “That day everyone died.” Grandpa whispered and left the room.

  It was late by the time I left. I hadn’t eaten all day and I was really hungry. Before I left though Grandpa handed me an empty journal and told me to hide this under the bed filled with ‘nothings’.

  I have no idea what he meant but I took it.

  8/15/16

  Mom was angry I missed mass yesterday but had to go to work before she could rip into me. It was kind of funny. I have no idea where Dad was. Maybe at school? He is a teacher so I guess teachers have to start getting ready earlier?

  I wrote a few bull crap dates in the journal Grandpa gave me last night. Stuff about Grandpa being crazy a few days ago and about Max but my hand was hurting and I crashed once I shoved it under my bed.

  Grandpa was not at home. He met me on the way there, sun burned but in brighter spirits. He wanted to go for a walk in the park. “Age tends to catch up to you faster than we’d like to admit.” We didn’t get far, the first bench we saw he had to sit down to rest.

  “Talked to a lawyer a few years ago today.” Grandpa commented. He seemed so happy by this fact. It was such an odd statement that it confused me up till now. Did he time travel without me??

  We sat there a while watching people pass by us and children playing on a jungle gym across the way. They were playing cops and robbers or something from a video game where they were holding up their fingers like a gun. It wasn’t till one of the parents flew to the kid’s aid and started berating them for playing the game. It was kind of dumb.

  Grandpa agreed. “With all this P.C. garbage and catering to the lowest common denominator all they’d have to do is wait fifty years and we’d practically hand it over to them.” He shook his head at this, getting up to move into some shade.

  “Who?”

  “Sorry. Triggered? They use that word in this time right? Anybody really.” Grandpa explained with a shrug. “Without teaching people how to fail, they have no chance of getting better. Shoo
ting from the hip like a cowboy doesn’t work anymore. This isn’t a young country anymore, it’s why the next world-.” Grandpa shut up.

  I got in his way to make him finish his statement. He was going to say World War, wasn’t he?

  “Some events you just can’t change Jason.” He finally told me, sitting down at a tree. “It’ll get moved back or forward if you try to indirectly change the circumstances that brings it about.” He was dodging the question and he knew it.

  “Don’t worry about it. Enjoy your youth.” He waved away any more I pushed at him. Instead he talked about the time of year and the trees. It was irritating.

  He started messing with something under his shirt, a pendant of some kind. It was that green rock looking thing again.

  My phone rang then. It was Dad telling me to come home. He sounded distant?

  I left Grandpa there and when I got home Dad said Mom needed help clearing out Grandpa’s house again. I thought she had work??

  8/16/16

  Grandpa was at my door this morning. Waltz right in the moment I opened it. He went on and on about never getting some calculation right. He had his journal with him. Shoving it onto the dining room table and just pointing to entries and several numbers all over the pages. I have no idea what that was all about.

  “They knew I was coming!” he was shouting. “I got in their once. ONCE! And guards were already there pointing their guns at me. How. Did. They. KNOW.”

  Luckily Mom and Dad had left early today, after making me help yesterday while Grandpa was out. They made me pack several boxes of his stuff into the car. Why? They seemed nervous about it for some reason. I asked them about it but all I got was they needed to get this down before the week’s end.

  So, here was Grandpa with his head in his hands, trying to figure something out and stressing himself out about it. I got him a glass of water and by then he was sort of clamed. Sort of. He went over the numbers with me and I have NO idea what he was trying to explain. Once that came across he had to swallow most of the glass before he actually calmed himself down.

  “Jason. Marla and I have been coordinating with other time travelers to get into this compound. Every attempt has been sending everyone all over the place. I just seem to miss the whole area and land just outside it. The one time I got in there I was surrounded and all I can remember seeing is some grey thing freezing me on the spot just by raising its hand. If the timer hadn’t been set I wouldn’t have escaped.”

  He wasn’t burnt today. His skin was paler then it had been the last few days. “Where?”

  “Area 51.”

  “The alien conspiracy place? That’s the worst kept secret in history.”

  Grandpa downed the rest of the water, I went and got him more before he continued. “No. The best lie is hiding behind the truth.”

  I feel like I was a broken record at this point asking all these questions. Why does he assume I should know everything he’s talking about. I got mad and threw all the past few days in his face that he’s been so indirect and putting all this secrecy on me. It’s starting to get too much!

  He understood.

  I don’t know how I know this but one look from him just…he knew. He just knew.

  “Would you believe someone who was spouting conspiracy if an over the top movie was made about the exact events that occurred? Who would believe an event if the twenty people who wrote about told conflicting accounts? Even if they were all true? Who would believe video evidence if there are several recordings of both amateur or professional videos making altered footage appear real with the use of a computer?”

  I sat in the chair next to him and just soaked all that in. What could I say to that?

  “We leave footprints wherever we go Jason. We shape history just by taking a single breath. So, tell me, if some random guy stumbles into the ability to travel through time then what’s stopping someone else from researching it and exploiting it?”

  He was messing with that necklace again as he read through his journal. Each page seemed to put him more on edge until he finally sat back in his chair, grief all over his face. “We failed.”

  I tried his handwriting to see what he meant but it was too faded and messy to even tell if they were words or not. I wanted to know what happened but he wouldn’t say. He couldn’t remember. That’s when it hit me. He was just reading his journal for the past few days! The pages he was reading from now were torn out for the next few pages. He has no idea what happened.

  “What do you remember?”

  Grandma had no part in this. She wanted nothing to do with it. After many years of marriage they had this fight, their first one. “You know what I said to her after our first dance together? I told her I loved her. Heh. Know what she said to that? ‘I know.’” I told him maybe he needed a walk or something. To clear his head of all this. He was so broken about this I wasn’t sure if he could even lift himself from the chair.

  “This is all in the past Grandpa. If you have to do something then do it now. You said you can’t change important events, so use them to create a better event NOW.” I jumbled together something to cheer him up. I think this is what I more or less said.

  He held his necklace close to his heart, gripping it in his fist. “It was so important though. And I don’t remember why.”

  He held his journal close as he left. I wanted to go with him but he said he wanted to be alone for a while and he’d catch up to me later. I went to his house later but the door was locked.

  8/17/16

  How dare they. HOW DARE THEY!!?

  How could Mom and Dad do this????

  Grandpa’s in a home now or “ASSISTED LIVING” or whatever they want to call it now. I went to see him but he didn’t remember me! He couldn’t even look at me.

  Why?

  Dad said Grandpa was there the last few days! What the HELL IS GOING ON!?

  Two days ago Dad had rush here because Grandpa tried to burn the place down. I don’t blame him! I hate them. I HATE THEM!

  8/19/16

  Turns out the fire was started using his journal in the trash can. The thing was ashes by the time the nurses put it out. I asked Grandpa but he was dead to the world now. Whatever I saw in him was gone now.

  The time machine wasn’t in the basement.

  8/20/16

  Saw Grandpa today.

  Not much has changed.

  Hot outside. He just sat there. Eating oatmeal.

  8/21/16

  Someone’s been in my room.

  The fake journal I hid under my bed was moved to a higher position than I left it.

  I need to leave.

  8/22/16

  Hello.

  8/23/16

  Two men dressed in black suits and fedoras passed me as I left Grandpa’s room. One asked me for the time and I told him I didn’t have a watch but I checked my phone and told him it was 11:30. It was actually 11:27 but I felt it was close enough.

  Grandpa was gone by the time I got home. Mom and Dad were in a frenzy calling number after number with hospital staff, police, and several other people I guess where friends of theirs. Did Grandpa escape?

  It wasn’t till I thought back on it that those two men stood out to me. I don’t think they had nay eyebrows. Where they sent to silence Grandpa???

  Please be okay. Please be okay.

  8/24/16

  Someone wrote ‘Hello’ in my journal and it wasn’t me. Someone’s been reading it. I just noticed some of the pages were bent. Why am I still writing this????????

  8/25/16

  I told you to hide your journal better.

  Under some clothes in the closest is not better.

  9/9/16

  A lot has happened these last few weeks. Where do I start?

  Mom and Dad lost Grandpa’s house. According to some documents he had sold it and all its contents to the government and was only living there until he was deemed ‘unable’ to care for himself or had died. Mom and Dad didn’t get jail time but were fi
ned pretty hard for stealing from the house.

  They had no idea Grandpa set that up.

  He was also the one who wrote in my journal. He met me by the tree he sat at. He saw me freaking out and just hugged me telling me it was okay. He explained himself and that he had been traveling after I helped him open up the basement.

  I don’t recall a lot of what he said but he told me he stole documents that he had Tesla, H.G. Wells, and just a long list of people I can’t remember that he had help translate them for him. He said got them from someplace in Europe and that they had begun human testing.

  He also said Roswell was a failed attempt with it. “A weather balloon was there but not in the way you think.” He thought it was funny.

  He then showed me where he hid his time machine, in the bushes. Wow.

  It got better though!

  “You wanted to go to 1940’s, right?” and he let me at the controls.

  He started to explain all the different switches and knobs but paused just told me to try and get us there. I did my best.

  I failed. Hard.

  The moment I touched a dial we were falling from the sky, the ground quickly approaching us. I’m positive was screaming and peeing at the same time. Grandpa just was laughing his head off.

  There was a ding and the growing detail ground became the dusty old basement. He had set the timer for me and was still laughing even after I got as far away from the machine as I could before collapsing on the floor. When he was done making fun of me he just told me he made the same mistake his first time.