The Letters Chapter 3

Greg opened envelope number three. He had to admit, the belt appeared to work, and he also assumed that his grandfather had somehow either invented the thing, or found somehow.

Thus, when he opened the letter, it was with great anticipation that he started reading.

Kinda neat, isn't it? I really enjoyed it the first time I tried it too. Sorry to say, you're getting a hand-me-down time belt. I'm not sure how long the power will last, but it doesn't seem to have lost any potential since I started using it.

I know you are wondering how I know about you,. What you're thinking. I'll let you consider that yourself. There's no need for me to tell you. You'll figure it out yourself.

You've been wondering about going too far in time. Doing that is dangerous. I said I'd explain, and I'm going to now. You see, the time belt only displaces you in time. Not in physical location.

Hah! Grace is telling me that time is a physical location. Because of the constant motion of our world, it has to be, and I suppose she's right to a point. The fact is, I'm not completely sure of the methods that the damned thing works with.

Now Grace is telling me to watch my language. This is my letter, and I'll dictate it the way I please.

Anyway, since the belt only transports you through the 4th dimension (happy Grace? She's nodding yes) things can change in the first three. For example, what if you transported into where a tree grew, or had been years before? What if you tried to visit Pompeii? The ground level was considerably lower before the volcano erupted.

You see the problem? You need to take baby steps to get to a far off time. Of course, going into the future can be a big problem also. You don't know how the landscape might change tomorrow even. Pick a very stable spot to time jump on.

I'm going to let you go and think about things.

Greg flipped the letter, hoping something might have been written on the other side, but nothing was. He set it down.

Think about things, Grandfather had said. How did his grandfather know what he was thinking? He wasn't sure. It didn't make sense. He suddenly realized there was one way his grandfather would know. It was silly, but what if his grandfather wasn't that at all? What if his grandfather was him? He laughed at the idea, but it would explain a lot of things.

He suddenly realized that there was a place that he knew would be in the same place when his grandfather was alive. The house! It had been the old man's home. But first, he needed some sleep.

He arrived at the house and looked at it. It had a forbidding appearance. There were gargoyles on the roof. He'd not noticed them before. Not had he noticed that the house looked like a castle from England. Strange.

He opened the ten foot high wooden door and carefully entered. He didn't want the giant rats attacking. He'd seen the skeleton of a velociraptor here the last time he'd been by. A giant rat was still chewing on the bones as he walked by. It had turned and smiled at him, welcoming him to it's dining room.

Now, the skeleton was simply a pile of ash that blew across the floor. All except the middle claw of their hind legs. They were still whole, and as he walked by, one launched itself at him, intent on removing his eyes.

He ran, looking for a way upstairs. He knew the claw couldn't climb stairs, but they weren't there! How was he supposed to get upstairs?

He suddenly had an idea! He ran to the bathroom and pulled himself into the tub faucet. He took a deep breath and slipped by the cold water valve and hurried upstairs. He made it to the upstairs bathroom, and tried to get through the valve there. He couldn't! It wouldn't budge. He tried and tried, but he was running out of air! What was he going to do?

Greg awoke in a cold sweat. What the hell was that about? Did going to the house freak him out? Was he afraid of what his grandfather might say? He wasn't sure.

He tried to go back to sleep, but he couldn’t. After twisting and turning for awhile, he gave up and got up. It was about 4 in the morning, and he really didn’t want to be up yet, but it seemed that what he wanted wasn’t going to be honored on this day.

He looked in the fridge, but nothing was left that he might find interesting. Some chicken salad from a few weeks ago was developing intelligence in the back, but he really didn’t have the energy to pull it out. Not to mention, he considered that if he disposed of it, he might be creating genocide on some unwitting new, although microscopic, civilization.

Some sour cream and yogurt had fallen into it, and there was, no doubt, a mixed gene pool. He closed the fridge, wondering if they’d soon start demanding equal rights.

Rather than deal with bacterial cultures, in either sense of the word, he took a quick shower. Getting rid of the sweat from his weird dream, seemed to help, so he glanced in the mirror, afraid of what he’d see.

He knew that would be a mistake, so he wasn’t surprised when he saw that he needed to get rid of his facial hair. Should he do it now? No. He didn’t have the energy for that either. Instead, he went into his room and pulled clean clothes out. Clean shirt, socks, pants, panties. He got dressed, and was ready. Oh yeah. Shoes. Where were the damned things? He looked around and finally found them. They had somehow crawled partway under the sofa where he’d dreamed of water faucets and raptor claws last night.

He was partway to the door when he felt his pants starting to slip down, and he immediately changed course and started looking for his belt. His timebelt! Where was it? He almost tore the apartment apart when he had a suspicion. He went into the bathroom and looked at the floor.

Would you believe that!? It was still in the belt loops from last night!

Feeling properly stupid, he hitched up his jeans, and cinched up his belt. Anything else he might need? His phone perhaps? That was on the table, right where he’d left it from the night before. Where Past left it from the night before. His phone was now 24 hours younger than it had been in relation to himself. Damn! He’d have to remember not to do that type of thing again.

Once more he turned around and began ripping things apart when he got to his car and realized that he couldn’t unlock it. Don’t laugh! At least he remembered to lock it!

Finally, after throwing everything from his dirty laundry basket onto the floor, he found his keys. His wallet? They were in the same pair of jeans. He got to the door, and deliberately stopped. Looking back at the mess he’d made because he wanted to go out for breakfast. He hadn’t had the energy to prepare anything, and look what he’d done to save energy.

He made a decision. He walked back to the fridge, opened it, reached in and grabbed the chicken salad. He pulled it and the sour cream / yogurt/ chicken genetic soup out and retched at the smell. Walking over to the garbage can, he dropped the mess into it and walked out the door.

He took a look at the time on his… He knew he’d forgotten something. He didn’t have his watch, but he pulled out his phone and looked at the time. 7 AM. He’d wasted an hour and a half looking for things. He backed his car out of its space and drove to the nearest Dennys.

There was a small pop as two people appeared, pushing the air out of where they stood. Greg’s grandfather, and Grace.

Looking around at the mess, Grace shook her head and giggled. “It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a mess this bad. Well, I’ve cleaned up your place enough times,” she told the grandfather.

“You expect me to believe that your home never looks like this?”

“I’ve changed a lot,” she told him.

-=#=-

Greg entered his grandfather's house. Technically, it was his, but he wasn't sure he wanted to inhabit it at the moment. Not after his dream. It just didn't seem to be a good thing. He wondered what would happen if he went back 20 years. Honestly, he didn't know what carpet would do to his shoes. Would he materialize with his shoes inside carpet? He looked down at the floor. There was no evidence that carpet had ever been on the floor. He hadn't opened the Fourth letter yet, so he did now.

Well, here you are in the house, and you're wondering where to materialize. Well, I’ll tell you. The floors are hardwood, so nothing is ever placed right under the chandelier in the center of the dining room.

Ha! I call it a dining room, but in reality, it’s more of a four dimensional transporter platform.

You can always safely transport into this house safely, there.

That’s all the letter said. He flipped it over, and found something interesting, however. It was a description of the controls on the belt. It showed how to travel days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, and so on. He decided to move two decades into the past. His grandfather would be alive then, and he’d like to talk to him.

He pushed the controls the required way. He felt a displacement, like he had before, but it seemed that nothing changed. He reached down to see what happened, but he heard a voice behind him.

“You traveled in time correctly, young man.”

He turned around, and saw his grandfather. The old man was standing with a cane and a missing leg. Greg thought about it and realized that it was now the year 2000. That meant that his grandfather would be about sixty years old.

“What happened to your leg?” Greg asked. “You had it the last time I saw you, and you were older than this.”

The old man indicated the time belt that he had on. “Are you sure?”

“You’re not from this time?”

“Oh, I didn’t say that, Gregory. I am. Well, relatively, anyway.” His eyes sparkled as he said it.

“Cute pun. Where’s the furniture?” Greg asked, looking around.

“There isn’t any. This is my secret lair, I suppose you could call it. I bought this long ago, and use it specifically for the purpose of time travel. I know this is a safe place.” He patted his stump. “You asked about the leg? Well, I lost it when I transported into a place I shouldn’t have. My leg transported into a boulder.” He laughed as he told the punchline to the story. “Really gave the paleontologists a start, I can tell you. They didn’t know what to do. They thought the boulder was from billions of years ago. It wasn’t, but they didn’t know what to do when they found the fossil of my leg inside.”

He lifted his stump in front of him and looked down. “You say you see me later in life and I have my leg. The fact is, medical technology in the future is such that parts of your body can be regrown. I’ll go to the future to do just that.”

Greg nodded. “How far in the future is that?”

“About a hundred years, when I trust their procedures enough to have it done.”

“So you’ve traveled in time a lot. How old are you?”

“You’re so full of questions, young man.” he indicated the way into the kitchen. “I brought some lawn chairs with me, so we can sit out back and talk.” He started moving in that direction, and Greg had no recourse but to follow him.

-=#=-

In Greg’s apartment, the Grandfather and Grace popped away, as if they’d never been there.