New York City, 1921.
Now and again a fly would land atop the manuscript, only to be tossed suddenly and flung through the air by a swift motion of his elderly hand. The heat was usual, and flies do thrive in such a climate. He sat in the shady part of the park, the place where trees loom and flowers grow like children, the place where couples meet, and a tiny stream can be seen trickling by, cutting its way across the land and beneath elegant bridges; the place that so happens to be the best known of all reading spots in all of New York.
In this place insects love to gather and examine just what humans are reading. I myself was reading something or other relevant to the time, like an article on Ford’s Model A, or the Motion Picture Camera. The exact memory escapes me.
But this day was an exception to the rule, at least for this old man. You see; he was perusing a manuscript that was something out of the ordinary--something very strange, indeed.
It must have happened when he gazed over at me. I had been sitting on the bench across from him, browsing an article from the local gazette, listening the whole time as he mumbled softly to himself each word that he read. I don’t suppose he even knew I was there. He had hesitated, then wet his lips and spoke: “Do you believe in time travel?”
I found it odd, sure enough, this the beginning of our acquaintance, yet recognized that he was a thinker, and somehow saw him as an admirable fellow. Perhaps that was why I remained, browsing the gazette. To be frank, politics never enthused me. My interest was in physics; particularly quantum physics. Which is why it was farfetched that he should ask me if I believed in time travel.
I closed the papers and leaned forward. “A twisting of the four dimensions, three being space and the fourth being time, should do the trick if went about properly. Why do you ask?”
“I have an epiphany.” He stood and moved to my bench, opening the manuscript to the first page so that we both could see it. After a moment of glancing, I looked up, quite bewildered, and asked him where he had obtained such a document. He was quick to reply. “The library,” he told me in his strong voice. “Just down the street. Nestled between two recent works I have long since read.”
My feelings toward the work were that it seemed like it could have been a very long letter, addressed to somebody; as the only words on the thin paper cover were: To the Ends of The Earth. And as I later came to realize, there were words used in the book that made not a speck of sense, like hover craft, or BMW. Yet the writer--whoever he was--must have known something of modern time, for he did speak of Wells and Verne, and indeed wristwatches. But was he mad? In it the author claimed to have experienced the last days of planet Earth! It was most obviously a fraud. After all, if it had been written during the destruction of the Earth, how had the manuscript come to be in our possession now?
I looked back at the document, asking that he turn the page. A noise interrupted my reading; a young lady had taken a seat upon the bench across from us. Turning to the fellow beside me, I suggested that we move to a more secluded spot, to ponder this thing out orally and without interference. He agreed, perhaps with even more enthusiasm than I. So we stood and made our way toward a more desolate spot.
We never found one. The day was busy and the park filled with picnickers. He gave me his address, asked that I meet him at his home at four, and shook my hand goodbye. I never could have considered what I was in for, not in my wildest dreams.
It was four of the clock and I stood in the rain, staring at the apartment entrance, rather in debate as to whether I could trust this old fellow. For a time I thought on the idiocy in this, thinking myself rather foolish in agreeing to associate at the house of a complete stranger. But that manuscript kept coming to me, driving me to venture an unwanted mile and excusing what my conscience had told me all my life. “Well, for goodness sakes!” I told myself. “He is only an old man!”
I breathed deeply and began walking. Before long I was at the top of the stairs, standing two paces from the entranceway to the apartment building. I shook off, then entered, walking on to room 109. I raised my hand, looked at it a second, and then knocked. The door opened. A hand suddenly reached out--quite by surprise, I assure you --and grasped a hold of mine, jerking it up and down with great enthusiasm.
“How are you?” he asked. “It’s grand that you could make it! Come, there’s lots to talk about!” I was all but pulled inside, this being no weak old man, and the fragrance of wine and crackers hit me. Suddenly I felt quite at home, and chuckled over my silliness in worrying so.
He had changed from the formal suit to more casual attire, thankfully having rid of that outlandish derby that made him look like a student from the mid-nineteenth century, revealing a bright-pink bald spot. He must have been seventy; however I would have sworn earlier, in his formal clothing, that he looked sixty. When he stood he was not much taller than I was, but mere skin and bones, having what looked like a size thirteen in shoe which evidently kept him from flying away in the wind! His face was like a tan raisin, rough but not chubby, with a tall forehead and a small, curved chin. His voice was deep, yet far from rumbling, and he moved with a boyish gait. I felt rather silly, indeed, in worrying about calling on this gentleman.
“I have read the manuscript over again,” he said. “I’m finding it more and more fascinating.” He was standing in the kitchen part of his tiny apartment, pouring wine into miniature glasses while lifting a platter filled with many squares of cracker. He gestured and offered me a glass, then led me back into the den where we both sat. The manuscript was opened on the coffee table across from the cracker plate and, periodically, our wine glasses.
“Now, before we can even begin our pondering upon the matter, you must first read the entire document, cover to cover.”
“Yes, of course,” I replied. “That I intend to do, first thing. I am curious to reveal just how you have obtained a manuscript that has joined us from another timeline…”
“Not until you have read it all. Please, commence.”
I looked down at the document, thinking him a bit touchy, if not sore. This manner of his, I would learn in the future, was simply his way of becoming so incredibly lost in his thoughts that nothing else in the world mattered. We all do it, to an extent. Perhaps it is the only way to really uncover certain mysteries.
I lowered the document, reached out and took a tiny sip of wine, then relaxed down into the couch, returning my eyes to the print. He listened as I read aloud. That was the last sip of wine I would take for a long time.