The Time Traveler

The Stylus

When my father finally awakened minutes later, he stared up at the ceiling as if unaware where he was. I got out of the chair and went to him. "Dad?" I asked. "Are you alright?"

He turned to me and asked, "I told you about the tomb? The time traveler?"

"Yes, Dad. You did."

"And of his journal?"

"You need to rest, sleep. You can tell me in the morning."

"No, I must tell you now," he insisted. "Before the Lord takes me."

"Father..."

"No, you must listen," he said. "Please."

After my nod of submission, he went on to explain that the time traveler reported his experiences after each of his awakenings in a journal, on something called a "stylus," a magical gadget that recorded what he said and then played it back in printed words on a screen made up of a kind of crystal sand. That sounded like voice recognition software, I thought. The stylus, my father added, was kept in a small safe that had been cut into the rough concrete wall behind the stone tomb.

After making me scribble the safe's combination on a business card I'd plucked from my wallet, my father asked, "Don't you need the combination to the lock on the door of the vault?" He chuckled, then added, "Or did Connie give it to you?"

"You know about that?"

"She told me," he said, "the time I caught her down there, in the room, standing before the tomb. Touching it. After that, I got a new lock."

After giving me the combination to the lock, he sighed and made me promise again that I'd be there to greet the time traveler when he awakened on May the first. I assured him that I would and seeming relieved, he nodded, closed his eyes and quickly drifted off to sleep.

It was now almost two in the morning and I decided that I needed to get home to my apartment, catch a few hours' sleep, then shower and return to the hospital by nine the next morning refreshed, hoping for better news about his progress.

I told the plump nurse at the station that I was going home for the night, but that I'd return bright and early. She gave me a kindly smile and said that would be fine. There was nothing I could do for him here. You never knew with a stroke victim. They could last a day or a year or ten. I gave her my cell phone number and left.

An hour later, she called to tell me that my father had passed away in his sleep.

The next morning, I visited Costanza's Funeral Home to make arrangements for my father's burial. I selected a modest casket and contacted a priest from the nearest Greek Orthodox cathedral who agreed to perform the funeral mass even though my father hadn't been to church in years.

It was almost eleven that gray November morning by the time I emerged from the stuffy funeral home. I immediately drove to my father's old house out in middle of nowhere. After parking on the long gravel driveway in front of it, I remained in the car for a time pondering again my father's bizarre deathbed story.

Exiting the car, I strode up the walkway and entered the side door of the house into a cramped foyer. From there, one could either walk up three steps into the kitchen, or down a long, narrow wooden staircase to the dank cellar. After a breath, I tramped down the stairs and then negotiated my way in the darkness to the door of the room containing the stone tomb. After the lock fell open, I tugged at the heavy metal door. It squeaked like it had that afternoon twenty-three years ago when Connie and I had secretly invaded the room.

Stepping forward into the room, I reached for the string of the light fixture dangling down from a rafter and pulled it. The old bulb worked, illuminating the vault with a pale yellow light, and the stone tomb came into focus. It's sudden brooding presence gave me a start causing me to step back a moment. The tomb was every bit as big and dark and wet and ugly as I had remembered it the last time I had seen it as a twelve year old boy.

After a breath, I roused the courage to approach it. Reaching out my forefinger, I touched the rough, wet surface of the tomb. And, like Connie twenty-three years earlier, I felt a presence within it that took my breath away. Was it truly him? The time traveler?

After several moments, I squinted at the concrete wall behind the tomb and saw the outline of a small, corroded square - the wall safe father had described. After squeezing into the narrow space between the tomb and the wall, I pulled out my wallet and found the business card on which I'd scribbled the combination father had given me. After twirling those numbers around on the dial, I pulled open the small, rusted metal door. Inside, I saw a rectangular device - the stylus. Removing it, I turned it over in my hands, and was reminded of an Etch-e-Sketch toy. It was about the same size, with gray stone borders inscribed with odd runes instead of red plastic, around a dull, gray screen.

"Last entry," I said, remembering how father had told me to start it. Then, I added, "In modern English." Thick black words suddenly formed across the screen. After a moment, I started reading them.