Ok, chrononauts, tomorrow I’m heading back 20 years… but as you all know, we don’t have the energy to actually send a physical time travel device backwards in time.  Forwards is easy.  It sits there and moves with the rest of us.  Moving it faster then normal time progression… well, that’s another story.

So, I’m sending my consciousness back.  Like most time travel, I’ll only be able to  catch glimpses of the past through memory recursion.  Of course, the entire procedure requires a large quantity of alcohol to stimulate the temporal-conscious-pathways.  History (ha, I know) has shown us that undertaking such a voyage is best conducted as close to the original geography of events as possible.  With that in mind, I’ll be transferring my equipment to West Fargo, North Dakota, USA for the next 3 days and surrounding myself with individuals involved with the earlier timeline.

Wish me luck and I’ll be seeing some of you several years ago.

Travel Notes

• experiencing minor delays with the arrival and configuration of geographic disbursement device, morale still high however
• consumed 2 bananas and a bottle of water to keep up energy for next leg of journey
• 15 yrs away… minnesota, finally back around people who speak normally
• Flood of stimuli… light… images… sounds… touch… smells… taking it all in… too much… processing
• event horizon met & time travel experiment phase of project complete! undergoing reverse geographic disbursement. local dialects returning to normal parameters
• no noticeable physical side effects apparent due to strict adherence to alternating application of alcohol, h2o & aleve. sleep will be required to return to full healthback in current timeline… temporal readjustment challenging

Anxiety filled me as the stray memory came directly toward me

As I reached up to carefully take the injured box down, the casualty tore open, spilling it’s innards of discarded documents onto my upturned face. The small box sighed with relief at the expenditure.

“SSSHHIIIIIIIT,” I muttered in my own sign while looking about me.

Kneeling down, I began sorting through the documents of my life looking for the W-2’s the I.R.S. claimed they needed for the audit.

“Fuck them!” I proclaimed as I ran across a surplus of lost check stubs.

I began dividing the mass of papers when a folded worn photo fell out from between two sheets. As I unfolded it, it revealed the image of a young short haired boy standing against a thick wooden fence post. In the distance, a herd of cattle could be seen grazing in the field. Looking closely at the herd, I could almost see a splash of rusty-brown. I smiled at the thought. And at the innocent young boy.

“Damn, I was naive…”

The sun’s heat soaked into my skin, as the wind gently tossled my hair from side to side. Rustling leaves along the way, the breeze continued on into the trees. A lone swallow sang of my passing to others of his kind as I entered the wood line. In the distance, a woodpecker could be heard going about its business with a rhythmic “knock-knock-knock.”

Pretending to be an Indian of sorts, I created my own trail through the forest as quietly as possible, avoiding the smallest twig or crumpled leaf along the way. Trees became scalp hunters and whirlwinds of leaves spirits of ancient warriors forced to roam the land. The game came to an inevitable end, though, as the meadow opened up before me.

I came to a sudden halt. For beyond the sea of grass, beyond the barbed wire coast, stood a creature of immense size… a beast of unlimited power… a demon, whose breath itself seemed to emanate evil, set loose on the surface. Beauregard, my grandfather’s bull, had jumped the fence!

Terror welled up inside me. This was a “minion of Satan, spawned from the bowels of Hell.” I did not really understand that, but my brother must have, since he had proclaimed it with much passion mere days before. I did not doubt him. I had no reason to, John had many more years experience than I, he being a worldly twelve years old and I but a naive eight. John of all people would know which animals came from Hell or not. I was about to turn and flee for my life when a vague remembrance of Grandfather entered my mind. This demonic Holstein had meaning to Grandfather. Somehow, he looked upon Beauregard with admiration. Once I had even heard him remark with a smile, “He’s worth at least what we paid for him if for nothing more than the stud services he’s providing.” This filled me with bewilderment as to why my grandfather would look upon it with admiration, let alone call it a “stud.” But than again, he had to be a master of experience compared to my brother, so I trusted his judgement, especially.

I found that loyalties to Grandfather dictated I watch the beast. Anyway, I tried to tell myself, I could just let it wander the countryside wreaking havoc on the defenseless country folk.

Slowly, placing one foot in front of the other, I stepped forth into the swaying grass. It tickled my thighs as I ponderously waded through the waist-deep ocean of green. I searched the pockets of my cut-offs in hopes of a weapon of sorts. Sling-shots were great against giants, but all I had was a Luke Skywalker action figure. The force wasn’t with me.

It seemed like hours, but I soon reached the fence. And there, waiting for me, staring at me, not more than fifteen feet away, stood a mountain of muscle and horns.

From the dull luster of it’s honed horns to its glimmering coat of rusting iron, this beast vibrated with power.

Seconds ticked slowly away until they became minutes. Frozen in my tracks, I fought for just the right words that would sooth the savage beast. Unfortunately, the words of Franklin, Kennedy and others were of yet instilled into my young mind. I mustered the courage to speak, though.

“Hi,” I offered in a barely audible voice.

It brought it’s eyes around to take in my timid form and finally replied with a snort that could curdle milk.

A cold shiver ran up my spine as I thought of the implications. I had never thought that Beauregard would acknowledge my presence, let alone answer me. It did not matter that I could not understand it’s language. It was a demon, after all, and would not possibly speak human. I was just thrilled at the fact that it did not just dismiss me with a ball of fire. That had to be a good sign!

I tempted fate again. “So, ah, whatcha doin’?”

With a look of utter disregard, Beauregard gazed at me out of the corner of it’s eye, shook it’s head and proceeded to relieve itself in the neighbors’ recently-plowed field.

O.K., so asking a minion of Satan what it’s doing is a stupid question, but I had never had the task to do before. How do you go about making small talk with a succubus, anyway? There are just some things they do not teach in second grade.

As the gravity of the situation weight heaviest on my young shoulders, Beauregard swayed it’s massive head toward the barbed wire separating us and stretched to reach the grass on my side. It looked then into my eyes, as if for help.

At that moment, Beauregard changed to me from an it to a he. He was not going to sacrifice me in the name of some forgotten god. He was hungry and I could be his salvation. But then again…

I gently reached down and cautiously tore out two hand fulls of grass. I extended the offering to him through the fence, all the while assuring him my good intentions. He hesitated, though. I promised him that there was not a holy cross for miles. With that, he sniffed the gift and tugged it from my unsure grasp. Before I could pull more, Beauregard had disposed of his prize and was urging me, with swats of his tail, to hurry.

This continued for half an hour, when we heard the distant rattle of my grandfather’s old blue ford pickup making it’s way through the field in our direction. Like a barge on the sea of green, it pulled up and docked next to me.

“So, you found the old beast,” Grandfather offered.

He had found where Beauregard had jumped the fence and started looking for him when he spotted me there in the north field.

“It’s a good thing you stayed with him, he might have decided to wander off into the woods. It would have taken days to find the scoundrel.”

He climbed out of the truck and dug around in the beat up red tool box in the back. With wire cutters in hand, he marched up to the fence and cut the three rows of barbed wire. And with a slap on the rump from my grandfather, Beauregard swaggered through the open.

“You get back to work, stud. Those cows are waiting for you,” my grandfather scolded.

As he proceeded to fix the fence, I queried, “Why are the cows waiting for Beauregard? And why is he a stud?”

I noticed a slight pause in his work as I asked my simple questions. But he took up mending the fence again.

“Well?” I prodded.

He paused again and looked up at me.

“You aren’t gonna let up on this, are you?”

My silence was answer enough.

“O.K., but your mother isn’t gonna be happy with me.”

She wasn’t either, I thought as I stood up and took the frame holding my graduation picture off of the nightstand. Gently, I smoothed out the old photo and placed it in the small wooden frame. And placed it back on the stand.

With that, I turned back to the dreadful pile.

“Minion of Satan. My brother had never me the I.R.S.”

In high school I had a friend… Jay. He was unique, confident… Jay was thin as in British rocker thin with dirty blond wavy hair in a conservative 80’s style. Cloths are a blur (insert your own jeans, tshirt or button down [untucked, please], nothing 80’s cliche, though), but not the shoes. He would switch between his canvashigh-tops or combat boots. And his car… makes and models generally leave my mind as quickly as they enter… a yellowed/tan station wagon. Older with some rust and possibly faux wood panels. Later, it changed… I vaguely recall something newer dark maroon, but that’s the car my memory always inserts. Jay could… would cruise down the streets weaving between the various clicks. He could talk to anyone and get along with most. Jay was the artist in school… drawings and I’m not sure what else. And when our lives intersected at the heaviest, he worked evenings/nights in a car wash making sure the machines all ran and the coin changer was full.

I don’t think it’s when we met, but it feels right. High school. Mark and Jay were friends. Mark said we should skip school and go hang in the park with Jay. There was fall in the air, or maybe spring. The colors were all fall… golden, brown, reds… I rode with Mark in his worn red MG. The car rounded the bend and there was Jay leaning against the wagon with his younger girlfriend. We walked around the park killing time and talking about life, music, other kids in school. Nothing more than “stuff”… but it was my first insight into freedom. Compared to Mark’s nervous energy (always expressing and wanting), Jay was relaxed and subdued. Things would happen when they happened. Jay was cool. And that’s what I saw in his girlfriend’s eyes. She worshiped him for this. Wanted to be near him to feel that. And I don’t mean cool as in “Fonzy-in-your-face-cool”. Jay was just himself, but himself fully. The high school angst that plagued the rest of us just amused him, the obviousness of it in the glint in his eye and the crook of his smile.

From time to time after that, I’d get off work and head over to the car wash before closing to see if he had plans, my goal to tag along. Sometimes I’d meet up with him as he cruised main street with the rest of the driving age youth up and down past the Forum. Other times just driving around town, smoking cigarettes and turning 2-liter bottles of coke into mixers. Once, we past a party and Jay pulled in. I asked who he knew there. With a shrug he replied “let’s find out. I think one of the girls who lives there is a lesbian.” For no obvious reason, Jay introduced himself to people on the portch with some fake name and I quickly followed suite (Hank… Chuck… something like that). The next couple of hours were fairly uneventful, for everyone but me. I relaxed. I was free to be who I wanted to be. There were no constraints forcing me to act how I thought I should act. I didn’t dance on any tables or start fights and no one paid any special notice to me. And the lesbian seemed nice when I chatted with her. But for me, there was a release… relief. <- I think that might have been Heath. See… memories aren’t good. Another time, Jay dragged me with a bunch of them to a dance, my first and probably only real dance. Attired in my wannabe Lennon sun glasses and black army trench, I was able to draw on some of that learned… copied confidence and dance. I buried the anxiety and no matter how foolish I felt, I knew my friend wouldn’t be laughing at me. And I relaxed a bit.

Where Mark had this need to try to find me a girlfriend, Jay never did. I guess he probably just didn’t care, but maybe he just felt I’d find someone when I was ready. Later I shocked Mark (and probably only amused Jay) when I met up with them both at a local watering hole with a girl I had been dating. She had been a year or two ahead of us in school and someone Mark had crushed on big time.

he always had a sense of how he would die… just like in a song… ‘leaving on a jet plane’ but it was never more than a vague wave of anxiety

the oldest twin daughter wasn’t wired like others… born way too early, her brain developed/grew at differing rates… synopsis wired in different ways, firing unusual thoughts.  Some things were faster, better, others slower, different.  since the beginning, she felt how things were going to be… as she grew, the feelings became thoughts, facts, visions… she knew how things would be… bad things caused by single/simple decisions could be changed… but changing events that resulted from series of interelated decisions, random events almost impossible

the youngest twin was distant… emotions couldn’t be controled or grasped without slipping between tight fingers.  when her father died when she was 6, there was just more reason to close off the world of feelings.  she pushed through the following years head down focusing on logic, facts, later science… her goal clearly articulated in her own mind was to control, predict everything

the oldest son was a thinker, story teller and scientist.  he believed in right and wrong taught to him from his dad, believed in dragons and knights and sought ways to make them all real.  his passion drove him and his innate ability to bridge dreams with science using the building blocks of what came before enabled his gifts

the youngest son was the solver… as far back as he could recall, his sisters and brother missed their father.  During the phase (grieving phase, they called it), he would bring them together and in his quiet voice show them the way through.  he grieved, but his father quickly faded into vague images and a voice off camera on family videos.  they told him his father was a builder and he tried to emulate that… he would build rather than take… he saw the problems blocking others and showed them the paths through…

25 years later could they save their daddy, dad, father… should they… would they…

“I love you very much and I’ll be back in just a couple of weeks.  I will call when I can and we can talk” he promised, his heart breaking.

The little arms, the “good arm” hooking him tightly around the neck, squeezed.

“Broccoli!” she snorts!

“Broccoli…?”

“Broccoli, Floyd and Mona!” she bursts!

I pause… holding her out in front of me, I take the bait. “Broccoli, Floyd and Mona…?”

“YEAH! When I grow up!  Those will be the names of my kids! Two boys and a girl!” She breaks down on the floor clutching her side in hysterics, so tight breaths are forgotten.

“Those kids won’t ever be picked on…”

Seriousness freezes her laughter as she stares at me. “Of course not. Never.”

A heartbeat later… she snorts as she crashes to the floor in giggles… “Broccoli, Floyd and Mona!”