by N. W. Fidler
When I turned toward the shots I saw Grandpa. I think. He was younger. Much younger. He was also in a tuxedo for some reason. He waved to Grandpa and I and then jumped behind a chimney.
“Marla.” Grandpa moaned. That’s when I knew.
“Are you-?” I wanted to ask the woman if she was my Grandma but she held a finger to my lips to silence me.
“I’m not part of HIS timeline Jason.” She kissed me on the forehead and held my cheek. “Good luck. This is the only freebee you’ll get. For now.”
I got Grandpa back to the Time Machine on my own. It was long and grueling. It was so humid and sticky, we had to rest in the shade several times. It didn’t help Grandpa was not in the best shape either.
All the while a war was being wagged around us. I saw several men fall, on both sides, only once did a soldier take notice of us but he was killed right afterwards by on coming gunfire.
I never want to come back here again.
Kip was behind us, he grabbed me and tossed me several feet away. He was still bloody from all the shots he took but he was dead set on Grandpa an bashed his head off the time machine’s door!
I think I swore or yelled something. Cause all I saw was red and the next second Kip and I are struggling on the Time Machine controls. My head ached, and I had cuts all down my arms. The Machine bleeped to life and the next second we’re flying through the sky. Gravity working against me.
I think I blacked out.
The sky was so cool and tasted like iron. Grandpa pulled me back into the machine and hugged me. Kip screamed as he plummeted past us. Grandpa’s hands were all bloody and bruised. “You alright?” he called over the rushing wind.
Feeling the weightlessness of falling all I could do was cry in fear, I mean who wouldn’t?
The timer on the controls clicked and we reappeared on the battle field. “That explains Peru.” Grandpa laughed. He just laughed and laughed and laughed. He was sore and in pain but he just kept laughing.
Cannons sounded around us, as Confederate soldiers charged form the trees roaring into battle. The Union fired back but were close to overwhelmed. “Oh. I forgot to fix that.” Grandpa yelped.
WE WERE IN THE MIDDLE OF PICKETT’S CHARGE!!!
Bullets were practically puncturing through the walls of the Time Machine!
We both ducked down and got to work as death exploded around us. I held whatever Grandpa handed me and he just started ripping wires. Sparks flew as something dented the console
“Got it!” Grandpa announced proudly as the Time Machine flashed and the world reappeared sideways, making us tumble out onto the field.
When Grandpa stood from disorientation that’s when his face went white as a sheet and flopped on the ground.
Smoke filled the field as the last shots of battle sounded. I didn’t care. I pulled him to safety and the Doctor’s tended to him.
There’s something wet on my cheeks.
Am I crying?
Edo Period Day 1
Hanako. Yukio.
Yukio doesn’t like me.
The moment Grandpa and I set foot on his temple grounds, he scoffed at me for allowing Grandpa to bleed all over the path.
Hanako, (she helped me spell her Father and her names for me) his daughter, stood at his side as he ate from his bowl of rice. “Bring him here.” He commanded.
Grandpa groaned but still managed to wave at Yukio. “Long time.”
“It has.”
After setting him inside he practically ordered Hanako to kick me out!
When Grandpa awoke, he held a switch under the dashboard and the Time machine popped into a rice field at the bottle of the hill. Several workers screamed at our sudden appearance and ran. They were shouting in another language.
“Welcome to the simpler time of the Edo Period in Japan.” Grandpa coughed, directing me up a dusty path. “I have a friend who owes me one.” Was all he said.
Had I known it would lead here I would have never come.
I sat outside the temple longer than I cared to count until Hanako returned to fetch me. She hasn’t said a word to me once. Instead she directed me to help clean the temple wooden floors, especially where dirt and blood was dripped all over by Grandpa and I.
It must have took me hours to finish and yet Hanako had finished her side of the Temple, swept all the paths around the grounds, polished the shrine itself, and somehow cook a meal for all of us.
It was then I was brought before Yukio. His meal was in front of him and he scowled at me. He must have been doing this for some time before I realized he wanted me on the cushion across from him. Just as I got on my knees he spoke to me in perfect English. “Your Grandpa is well. Take soleus in that.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much.” I think I bowed, it seemed like it was appropriate but only seemed to scowl more.
“Do not thank me. We are not friends. I did what was right. That is all.”
“Well he did say you owed him. That’s something I guess.”
“You presume too much.” Hanako helped him to his feet. Shakely, he was directed to another room. “He has been repaid ten times over for bringing back my precious flower. I have only done what is right. Eat. When he awakens, leave and never return.”
The food that sat there was cold and most likely had been sitting out for some time. It was the most delicious meal I’ve had in a long LONG time.
When I finished Hanako returned to retrieve the bowl. “Can I see him, Miss?” I asked her, grabbing her arm. I didn’t mean to but I just had to know.
“My name is Hanako.” She smiled at me. “Please follow me and I’ll take you to him.”
She spelled her and her Father’s names for me as she took me down a hallway.
Grandpa was out cold but he was breathing. He was wrapped in bandages, and lots of red stains all over him but he was and is alive.
When I thanked her, Hanako was already gone.
Edo Period??? Day 4
Somethings not right. Am I even in Japan????
Yesterday I sat with Grandpa all day. It was sunny and we had a great view of the valley and flowers. It was boring but at least I was there for him. Hanako came to bring me food but that’s when the weird started.
Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw….something. A plane? A jet? A dragon?? Some sort of streak in the sky. Yet when I looked all I saw was a butterfly. I asked Hanako if she saw it but all she said was. “Time alone brings great turmoil to a silent mind. Perhaps a walk will help.” She suggested in perfect English.
Now that I think about it I haven’t heard one bit of Japanese all the time I’ve been here. Sure those people we scared were yelling stuff but I’m not even sure if that WAS Japanese. Am I reading too much into this?
I did go for a walk but that only lasted a good ten or fifteen minutes before I offered to help her again. She thought it was funny. I wasn’t laughing.
She did accept the help.
She had me chop onions for dinner that night. So of course I was tearing up.
“It’s okay.” She told me and hugged me. She hugged me. Held me tight. “It’s okay.”
I was shaking so much the knife was near impossible to hold on to. She held my head as I cried the last few weeks of my life over and over again into her shoulder then he lap. I couldn’t hold back anything. I think I even mumbled a lot of it between sobs.
Some might think it’s not manly to admit all this but the truth is I can no longer have a normal life. All this. Would anyone believe me? A time machine exists and all I have are my ramblings as I stumble through all these events in history.
And I could have died, Grandpa could have died. How many times has he done this? How can he live with himself?
I had dinner in Grandpa’s room.
Hours later, I was awoken with the moon shining through the open doorway. Hanako had a lantern and she directed me deep into the forest behind the Temple without a word.
I think I saw a deer and a fox out there.
<
br /> It wasn’t till she parted some brush that a great pool of spring water that she directed me to remove my clothing.
“You haven’t bathed in days. It’ll take far too long for the soiled water to exit the spring. It cannot be helped.” Yukio was already in the water, sipping on a small dish of I’m guessing alcohol?
Neither of them watched as I undressed and slipped into the water. My clothes soon disappeared and I was alone with Yukio. “Relax.” He directed but didn’t offer a drink for me.
“I could say the same about you.”
“So much spite behind your words. Have I done you wrong?”
“….no.”
“Yet you despise me because I asked for respect for my home and my daughter. You have given them whole heartedly the respect they deserve but not I.”
“I don’t even know where here is!” I shouted at him but he didn’t raise his voice even in the slightest.
“And you never will. The Edo period is often romanticized in your time but they lack the evidence or perspective to truly understand what it was like to live in the period itself. It is troubling.”
I don’t even know how I remembered all that he said there. It’s like his words are etched into my brain or something.
“How would you know how MY time is like?”
“The beginnings of the Capitalist Era is well known. Many are taught how the machines work but lack the knowledge to question authority. No one is in power after a while. No one lives. Not Truly. Your Grandfather has stopped in 2041 far too many times exploiting the period’s side effect.”
“You said you two weren’t friends.”
“No. I said you and I were not friends. I may not agree with your Grandfather’s joy rides and him acting the hero all the time but an old cowboy is still a shadow of their former selves.”
For the first time that night and since I first met him, he wasn’t scowling at me. He appeared tired or worn out. “Please. Take his journal away from him.”
“Why?”
“He is only reliving memories. Without it he can finally let time catch up with him.”
I remember what Grandpa was like before I found the journal. He was aloof, broken, and just seemed so empty. To take his life away from him, even his past life, I’m not even sure what that even means. He’d just be a lump of meat sitting there till his body finally gave out!
“No.”
With a sigh, Yukio was helped out of the heated water by Hanako and they left me.
I just sat there and let the water boil around me as I stared up at the stars. My clothes were by the pool when I made to leave with my thoughts too jumbled to make any sense out of it.
But I do feel relaxed.
9/13/16
Grandpa was limping around the next day. I woke up late as the night before was impossible to actually get any sleep. We took a short walk through the garden by the Temple and he pointed out several birds that he believed were extinct in my time.
“Thank you Jason.” He told me. He knew about what Yukio had said.
He patted me on the head, with his journal in his other hand. We stayed out most of the day, wondering through the forest and taking in the sights. The village at the bottom of the hill was so full of life that I was surprised I hadn’t noticed it before.
We didn’t go near it but Grandpa merely pointed it out. “Humans are broken by nature Jason. We don’t function like we should. Instead we build tools to help make the work faster and have more time for ourselves.” He pointed out an ox driver trying to fix his wagon but to no avail. “The only time we notice it is if it breaks. By your time tools do most of the work. You experience free time so you busy yourself with another task.” Below some other villages helped the ox driver repair his wagon. “I hate that time. There’s nothing to do.”
“What about all your stories you told Dad? Those are something right?”
He shook his head. “Jason I stole all those from movies and books that haven’t come out yet. Well in 2016 some have but Marla and I never told your Father about our adventures. Stories are made to inspire not consume. Your Father completely missed the point.”
He then looked at his journal. “And so have I.”
That was a weird thing to say and I told him so. He agreed with me. He just wanted to quote some dramatic movie scene. He burned badly but he didn’t seem to mind. I think I did too. My face still hurts.
But he isn’t wrong.
Hanako and Yukio waved us off after a brief meal together. Yukio and Grandpa talked very little but they at least got to play one last (I think they called it Shogi? But it looked a lot like chess. I didn’t get it.) match on a board game they both enjoyed.
I think it was meant to be a slow, thinking game but they moved the pieces almost before the last player let go of their move. It was over in less than three minutes. They bowed to each other and we parted ways.
I have no idea who won. They were both very satisfied by the result.
With one crank of the dial we returned to the empty class room. The bell rang indicating third period had started. “Couldn’t you have sent us to the end of the day?”
He ruffled my hair. “Nah. It’s more fun this way.”
I hugged him and thanked him for everything.
“Jason. I’ve lived a very LONG time. These bones aren’t what they used to be. My life has been extended to near impossible levels. I’m too old and too broken. I should be thanking you for bringing what’s important back into my life.”
When I exited the Machine a thought occurred to me. “Hey, what about all those top secret suited men after me?”
Grandpa rolled his eyes. “It’s all in the past or the future. We’ve already took care of it.”
“Or will take care of it.”
He gave me a thumbs up. “Now you’re getting it.”
Like that he was gone. And I was alone.
Long story short. I got detention for missing a few classes and I failed my Geography exam. My parents found out and grounded me for two months.
They’re just mad cause they were caught stealing.
9/14/16
Got up early and left for school. Had classes.
Turns out that girl in my class, her Great Grandmother was Patricia. She did a family history report on her in class today. It’s strange to hear about her as some sort of hero. She stayed in the same apartment most of her life but used it to take in homeless children and raised them along with her own kids.
I think she said she had 12 of them? I bet she’s glad Grandpa had it paid off for her.
She’s even still alive today! I asked the girl after class if I could go see her Grandmother (Patricia). She thought I was creepy and shoved me aside.
I doubt she’d remember me after all these years. If she’s still in the same apartment than I think I can find it anyway.
I kind of need to return some clothes I borrowed. Heh.
Mom and Dad were yelling again tonight. No dinner was made and Dad stormed out of the house, leaving Mom to lock herself up in their bedroom.
I think I'll just stop here for now.
Writing my life down all the time just doesn’t feel right anymore. Maybe someday I’ll return to it but for now I just want my life back to normal.
6/2/25
Normal I said? Ha.
Here I am in Russia during the summer and yet I am shivering to death in some cave in the middle of nowhere.
Ever since I got the note under my college dorm door with coordinates on it I just knew this wasn’t over.
It took a long time to scrap up enough money to get here and find this place.
Inside I found something very interesting. In the corner lay a skeleton, crispy and burnt up years ago. Scraps of metal lay about and the walls were scorched as if something had exploded. The body lay there it’s arm stretched out toward a wall filled with cave drawings.
All the drawings were familiar, men in black hats, soldiers running at each other, two men with spears
attacking a deer, a woman singing into a microphone, and at the center of it all a hand print.
When I lay my hand on it, it was a perfect fit.
It took me three days to pick through the stone to the other side and inside were plans. Just maps, upon maps, upon maps, of all the world through the eras. Languages and translations of types I’ve never even heard of all in cabinets that filled the walls for well over the size of a city block. At the center of it all was a desk where a folder reading ‘Top Secret’ plastered all over the thing.
I’m no engineer, I dropped out after failing the last two exams but these were documents and equations from so many different eras and people on how to build a time machine.
When I returned to the body in the cave, I found its hand was closed around something. A green necklace was tightly held safe within its palms.
I put it on knowing I only had two more lifetimes left.
“I love you Grandpa. I’ll make you proud.”
Time is only a straight line for those who wait.
