4

That afternoon I came upon a small farmhouse with a barn and chicken coop to the side of the house. Some pigs were wallowing in the mud while chickens pranced back and forth across the grassless yard. I knocked on the screen door. A young man, already fully bald, appeared.

“What can I do for you, fella?”

“I was wondering if you had any work I could do for a meal?”

He looked me over. “You look mighty healthy, and unusually clean, for a hobo.”

“Well, I’m not actually a hobo, but I do find myself temporarily dislocated.”

An eyebrow went up. “I tell you what. Chop some wood for me and we’ll see what we can do.”

He took me over to the woodpile and handed me an ax. “This should take you a couple of hours. I’ll be in the barn doing some work. Come over when you’re through.”

I went over to the barn in less than thirty minutes. The man had a wood workshop. Looked like he was beginning the process of building a chair.

“What are you doing here already? Need some water?”

“I’m through.”

He didn’t say anything, but it was obvious he didn’t believe me. We walked over to the woodpile.

“I’ll be damned.”

I said, “I’m pretty handy with an ax.”

“I’ll say you are. Well, let’s go in the house and see what Jenna Mae has on the stove.”

When we walked into the house, a young woman, slightly plump with a checkered apron on, said hello.

We introduced ourselves. The man was named Tom Tarleton and he and Jenna Mae had only been married for a couple of years. No children yet as far as I could tell.

We sat down in a little nook off to one side of the kitchen. It had two doorless entryways with a narrow wall between them. Very cozy. I had lucked out. Jenna Mae was one hell of a cook. She brought rice, butterbeans, fried squash, fresh ripe tomatoes, fried chicken, and to top it all off, homemade biscuits right out of the oven. I hadn’t eaten like this in hundreds (or thousands?) of years.

I did the food justice.

Tom said, “You don’t come across as your stereotypical hobo. If you don’t mind me asking, what brings you out this way?”

“I’m somewhat of an amateur astronomer. I’ve been spending nights outdoors looking for certain star formations that may be prevalent in this…(I almost said this time period), uh, part of the country. Also, like most everyone else, I don’t have much money so I’m living as cheap as possible. Working for food is one way of doing that.”

Jenna Mae had just returned with an apple pie for dessert, “You know, I’d be more than happy to make this fella a couple of more meals. You need help fixing that barn roof.”

Tom looked thoughtful, “Jenna Mae’s right. Would you like to stay overnight and do a little more work tomorrow?”

“That’ll be fine, but I do have one request.”

“What’s that?”

I’m not sure but I think there’s a spot on your land where I’d like to be tonight. That’s the real reason I stopped here. My calculations tell me the sky may be especially bright tonight.”

“Where exactly is this spot at?”

“About a half mile due south of your house.”

“That’s close to the end of my property but since nobody else lives anywhere close to that spot, I don’t see any problem with you camping out there for the night.”

I stood up. “That was a wonderful meal. What time do you want me to be back in the morning to start working on the barn roof?”

“Be here at 6 AM. Jenna Mae will have coffee and breakfast ready.”

I said thanks and headed out the back door. It took me about ten minutes to find just the spot I was looking for.

At 9:15 PM the moon was at a partial phase but was more toward the north, so I had an uninterrupted view of the southern portion of the sky. I prepared a place on the ground  where I could lay on my back and gaze steadily at the sky. I was in a clearing on a small knoll. The temperature was in the lower fifties and would not drop much during the night. Very comfortable. There was zero chance of rain. A perfect scenario for what I wanted to do.

I stayed awake all night. I saw enough to convince me that I was still on the right path. At 5:45 AM I got up and walked to the farmhouse. The light in the kitchen was on. Tom saw me coming and had the door open for me when I reached the steps. Breakfast was fit for a king. We then worked for four hours on the barn roof. I had one last meal in the tiny nook. It was then time to move on.

How many human beings have lived up to expectations? How many have not? How many have exceeded expectations? It’s a list, if compiled, that would be lacking in some important aspects. For instance, in any of the outcomes, what would be the extenuating circumstances? Life is rarely, if ever played, on a level playing field.

Speaking of playing fields, I happened that afternoon to come across a bunch of kids playing baseball in a cow pasture. Much exuberance if not much skill. But that would come later. Let’s just hope the exuberance will endure.

That night, I would be near the first city of any size, about twenty thousand or so. My plan was to avoid larger population groupings, but I needed to do some research. A town of such size should have a decent library.

When did the stars begin to outnumber human beings? They always have, you say. Here’s the sad thing about stars. The more you have of something, the more insignificant it becomes.

I was able to spend a total of three hours at the library. A road that I knew about in 1965 might not have existed in the 1930’s. If not, it was no point in trying to find it. But the road had been built in 1936 as a project of the WPA, which was created to do something about the high unemployment at the time. According to newspapers at the library, it was 1937, so the road did “now” exist.

I spent the night on a park bench. The town must not have had enough money to pay policeman to work the midnight shift, so I wasn’t harassed and ran off during the night. Since I didn’t sleep at all the night before, and also because the city lights obfuscated the sky, I slept soundly through the wee hours of the morning.

Waking slightly before dawn, I headed out of town. I was looking for the afore-mentioned road and a man named Jodiah Manassas. He had been born at the outbreak of the Civil War and was now in his late seventies.  I got to his house mid-morning. On the way to the house, a brief shower fell and I got slightly wet. But by the time I reached Jodiah’s house, I was completely dry.

He was sitting in a rocking chair on his front porch smoking a pipe. The house was of the shotgun variety, three rooms back to back with no hallway. From the front door going straight were two more doors ending with a back door. If all the doors were open, you could see straight through the house from the front porch to the back porch.

Jodiah had an advanced case of cataracts so he heard me long before seeing me.

We shook hands. I then asked him, “Were you sitting on this porch last night a little before midnight?”

“I sit here all day. Midnight is when I usually get up and go to bed.”

“How long has your vision been poor?”

“Oh, a couple of years, I guess.” Josiah didn’t seem to mind answering my questions. He probably enjoyed having some company.

“Is that about the same amount of time you’ve been seeing flashes of light in the sky? And I don’t mean lightning.” I hope I wasn’t pressing too hard.

Before answering, Josiah relighted his pipe and turned his head toward the road, “It’s downright funny, ain’t it? I can’t see worth a darn anymore. There’s a kind of a film over everything. But those flashes of liseright you’re talking about. They’re just as clear and sharp as they can be. That’s why I stay out here until midnight.”

He looked over at me, “How did you know about those flashes? You’ve been seeing them too?”

“Not like you have. With your permission I want to hang around here until midnight and see them for myself.”

Josiah slapped his leg, “Well, young man, you got yourself a deal. There’s another rocking chair in the front room. Get it and bring it out here.”

I did so. It was late afternoon, twilight was near. Josiah had a lot of stories to tell and I enjoyed them all.

That night was the greatest series of coruscations so far.

I was overwhelmed. Since my eyes were normal vision the sudden, intense flashes and sparkles had a greater impact on me than on Josiah, whose eyes were, in this case, actually protected by the cataracts. To him, the flashes were clear and sharp but to me they were cataclysmic and earth-shattering. It’s strange that, no one else had reported seeing the flashes. Josiah lived in a remote area, but the sky is big and anything that happens in it should be able to be seen for miles around.

It was a mystery, but it would have to be resolved later. It took me the rest of the night just to recover from the shock. I didn’t leave the rocking chair. I don’t think Josiah realized what had happen to me. He was used to seeing the flashes. At midnight, as usual, he got up and went to bed.

This was ground zero, but would it be ground zero in ten years? In fifty years? In a thousand years?

Sometime, just before dawn, I fell asleep. When I awoke, I was lying in some tall weeds in a pine forest. Josiah and his house were both gone.

I later found out I had been re-positioned to 1946. The Baby Boom was on and wouldn’t abate for twenty years. I was roughly in the same geographical area but instead of desperation in the air there was a hint of coming prosperity. As might be expected, the sky took no notice of what was happening on earth. We may look up to the heavens but what do the heavens look up to?

Now a question may arise in your mind, how do the people I interact with remember the events? They remember them as a feeling that comes occasionally to mind. It feels familiar, but yet when they try to tie the feeling to some past experience, no exact parallel can be formulated. It’s a very strange feeling. I experienced it for the last fourteen years of my life. I kept thinking, surely, I’ll come to some sort of full realization of what I was feeling. But it never happened. Until, that is, I woke up, sometime in the far future.

Anytime I get re-positioned to another time period, my first inclination is to immediately begin going to work. But then I realize no particulars have been set before me. So the only thing to do is to pick a direction and start walking.

I soon find that I’m near a small village. All the houses look exactly alike. There must be a textile plant nearby. These textile mills employed thousands of people (both men and women). They had ready access to cotton from farms across the region. It was economical to build the workers’ houses and even more economical to use the same house plans.