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I suppose you could say I was having a good day that bright midsummer
day, the day I will not soon forget, for it certainly had not been a bad day.
It was a beautiful day, nonetheless, with the sun well into its journey across
the sky and a warm breeze blowing through my loose T-shirt. This is the time of
year I love here in my hometown just to the north of Baltimore, when the
Maryland breeze occasionally relieves you from the typically humid summer
days.
I also love summer because every time that season rolls around I grow a
year older. In fact, I had just turned seventeen a few weeks ago. That is when
my dad had informed me of a change in my life. I still remember his words
clearly. “Ethan,” he had said, “since you are a year older and now have your driver’s
license, I have looked into finding you a job over the summer. Now don’t rush
to conclusions,” he had quickly added when he saw my face cloud over, the
blissful thoughts I had had of spending afternoon after afternoon with my
friends vanishing. “It is time you started becoming a man. Besides, you might
just come to like it.”
I had come to like it. As I stopped at a store on my way back from my
summer job that day, I loved the feeling of having some extra cash in my
pocket. Like any other teenager, I bought quite a few snacks with my money, but
the snacks I buy are different. Instead
of an energy drink and candy bar, my favorite snack was a bag of fresh cherries
from the produce isle and a root beer. I suppose I am kind of strange in that
regards. As I headed back to my car with cherries, root beer, and several
groceries for my parents in tow, though, I figured that being different wasn’t
necessarily a bad thing, at least in regards to my snack preferences.
I had just popped one of the cherries in my mouth when suddenly a bright
light burst from the parking lot. The light was so bright that I fell to my
knees and shielded my eyes, and how I kept from choking on the cherry in my
mouth still puzzles me. A sound like air whistling through the smallest crack
in a door surrounded me, and if I had not had to shield my eyes, I probably
would have covered my ears against the piercing sound. I don’t know how long I
kneeled there before the sound subsided and the light faded and died away, but
needless to say, I was glad when it was over.
A deathly quiet seemed to fill the parking lot after this strange
sensation, or maybe it just seemed that way after the ear-piecing sound. In any
case, the slight breeze had ceased to blow, and the few persons in the parking
lot were just as hushed and looked just as bewildered as I felt. I rose to my
feet and quickly gathered my few groceries, thinking it best to leave the place
as soon as possible. I figured that whatever that strange sensation was, it was
not something to stick around for and hope it happened again. But as I
approached my car, my life was changed forever. It was changed far more than
any summer job. In fact, as I look back on it now, I think I was changed more
in the next few hours than ever before since I was born.
It was as I approached my car that I saw them, the authors of the change
in my life. Three men, all three of them oddly dressed, stood around my car. To
say they were oddly dressed would be an understatement, though, for their
clothes were very odd. Even in the
heat, all three wore a buttoned up vest over their white, ruffled long-sleeved
shirts. They all also wore straight brown breeches, and their white socks
pushed out of their pilgrim-like shoes. Two of the men stood on either side of
my car, watching me approach, but the other, who was by far the most rotund of
the group, seemed to be trying to look at the undercarriage of my car. This
third figure was bent over with his head under the bumper of my car, and as I
drew near, I could hear him mumbling something to the effect of “Astonishing,
simply astonishing.”
I thought about engaging these odd humans in a conversation but decided
against it. Stomping past them, I opened the trunk of my car and deposited all
but my root beer and bag of cherries into it. I then slammed the trunk back
shut with a bang and walked towards the driver’s side door, hoping that the
strangers would get the message and back off, especially the one with his head
still under the front bumper of my car.
They didn’t. The man closest to me, who stood taller than me and whose
face was slightly scared by chickenpox, shifted his position and tried to catch
my eye before he said, “Good sir, please, I would have a word with you.” The
man’s voice was level and controlled.
I turned towards the man for the first time and looked into his eyes. I
was struck by the commanding features of the man, and also by how familiar he
seemed. Whoever he was, it was clear that the man that levelly met my gaze was
a born leader. “Yes?” The tone of my voice made it clear that I was not all
that fond of obliging to his request.
“Sir, my three comrades and I seem to have been brought together by
providence in this strange land. Why or how we are here, none of us can tell,
but if you would be so kind as to give us an understanding of where we are, I
am sure we would all be grateful.”
Are these men insane? I
thought to myself, staring at the earnest face of the man. The man had looked
and sounded sincere, but how in the world did he not know where he was? And why
was he speaking so funny? “Um,” I said
out loud, “you are in a parking lot in a small town just outside of Baltimore,
and are in the state of Maryland in the United States.” As I said this, I
opened the driver’s door of my car and threw my soda and cherries onto the
middle seat.
Suddenly the face of the man in front of me looked as startled and
confused as mine must have looked. He opened his mouth to say something, but no
words came, and he stood with mouth agape. The man on the other side of the car,
whose fine face showed just as much surprise as his comrade, took a step closer
to me, and the third man jerked his head up so quickly that he banged it
against the bumper of my car.
“America?” the second figure said, his light colored eyes staring
intently back into my own. “We are in America? But that can’t be possible.
These strange wagons, everything . . .” the man’s voice trailed off, and his
eyes broke away from mine as he looked around him.
In reply, I threw my hands into the air and sat down inside my car,
fully prepared to leave the supposed escapees from the insane asylum in the
dust. I inserted the key to my car into the keyhole, but before I could slam my
door shut, the first man regained his composure enough to grab the door and
keep it from closing.
“Please wait, lad, please.” The
man pried the door open and kneeled down so that we were at eye level again.
“You said that we are in Maryland, near the town of Baltimore, and though I
hardly find that possible, you do not seem to be lying. Please, we would like
to get back to Philadelphia, where I hold the title of president over these
United States and where my two friends live. Could you guide us to a place
where we could attain a sufficient carriage like your own?”
“Oh, are you sure you don’t want to go to Washington D.C.? Being the
president, don’t you want to go to where the leadership of our country
resides?” I asked, unable to keep from mocking. “And as far as buying yourself
a ‘carriage’, there is not a car dealership within twenty miles of here.”
Again the supposed “president” looked bewildered, mixed only with a crestfallen
look. “Washington D.C? If you mean the land near the Potomac, it is hardly
developed.” An earnest look again reasserted itself on the man’s face, and he
continued, “Sir, I do not mean to presume on your kindness, but one of my
friends is in no condition to walk twenty miles. If you are inclined, could you
perhaps bear us in your carriage, at least for a time?”
“Well, I am not ‘inclined’. I don’t even know your names, let alone why
in the blazes you are here without a car,” I said quickly. The thought of
transporting these lunatics anywhere strongly disagreed with me.
“I am sorry, sir,” the second, fine-faced man said, coming around my car
so that he faced me. “Perhaps my comrade presumed that you would know him as
most everybody in America does, well, at least in our age. He is our president,
George Washington, I am Benjamin Rush, and this third gentleman is—“
“Benjamin Franklin,” I finished for him, looking into the face of the
rather pudgy man, the exact likeness of the face on the Quaker Oat’s box, who
had finally straightened up while still holding his head. “Your costumes are
praiseworthy, but your masks must be getting uncomfortable. Why not peel them
off?”
I again made to close my door, but “Washington’s” fingers still kept it
ajar. “I don’t know what we have done to receive your prejudice,” he said
quietly, but still evenly, to me. “Indeed, you are behaving yourself as someone
below your age. But I am not in a position to criticize you. For pity’s sake,
could you not bear us to either Philadelphia or the District of Columbia, or at
least to a place where we could ascertain a carriage? You will be well paid.”
With these last words, he pulled a wad of odd looking paper from his vest but
then quickly returned them to his pocket. “No, I will not waste your time by
offering you Continentals. They are increasingly worthless in our day, and I
doubt not that they have ceased to be used in your age. Perhaps the Spanish
dollar still retains value in your society? I am sure that between me and my
fellows, we could offer you a sufficient amount of the coin.”
I shook my head. “I have to get back home. I’m sorry.” I suppose that
was partly a lie on both counts, for I did not really have to get home and neither was I all that sorry.
George Washington stepped back, resign showing in his face, but then
Benjamin Franklin’s double spoke for the first time, “Sir, or would you rather
be called lad, we seem to be in a proverbial stalemate. You would like to get
back to your hovel, or whatever you call them now, and we also would like to
get back to our home city. You seem to be ill inclined to us, but we require
the service of your cart and will pay you well. As I once said, ‘When a broad
table is to be made, and the edges of planks do not fit, the artist takes a
little from both, and makes a good joint. In like manner here both sides must
part with some of their demands, in order that they may join in some
accommodating proposition*’.”
Benjamin paused as if to let his words sink in. “Perhaps it is time for
us to make a compromise, lad,” he continued at last. “By virtue of example, let’s
say that instead of you journeying with us all the way to Philadelphia, you
just take us to a place where we can buy a horseless carriage. It is horseless,
isn’t it?” Benjamin asked, his eyes gleaming now as he peered over the rims of
his glasses.
Yes, it is horseless,” I said, resisting the urge to roll my eyes.
Whoever the members of this strange group claimed to be, I had resolved to try
and not look too juvenile to them, especially under the level gaze of George
Washington’s imposter. “And I don’t think a compromise can be made. Goodbye.”
I finally managed to close my car door and turned the key. My engine
coughed to life. Though I was very proud of my first car, it was the definition
of a “beater”. Putting it in drive, I began to roll away from the group.
I will never know why I looked back, but that is what I did. Perhaps I
really did believe, or really wanted to believe, that the strangers were who
they claimed to be. Maybe it was something else, something like the “providence”
George Washington had mentioned earlier. My eyes met with those of George
Washington’s, and I couldn’t hold his gaze. I looked at Benjamin Rush, who
stood by Benjamin Franklin and seemed to be looking the round man over
carefully. Mr. Franklin himself looked to be the least forlorn of the group,
his gray eyes searching intently over my car still.
My foot rested over the brake pedal, then pushed against it, and I
realized that the last thing I wanted to do was leave these three men behind. At least not yet, I thought. Give them a chance.
I rolled down my window, and this time I could hold Washington’s gaze.
“Well,” I called out, “maybe I could get you as far as a car dealership.”
A smile slowly spread over our first president’s commanding face, and he
bowed. “Thank you, sir, we are greatly indebted to you.”
The three approached, and Benjamin Franklin said cheerfully, “Thank you
for obliging, lad. It is about time I set off on another adventure. I am ready
to embark on this new quest.”
“You will do no such thing,” Benjamin Rush retorted. “You are an old
gentleman—no, a very old gentleman—suffering from multiple health disorders. I
will not allow you to do anything more than what is necessary to get you back
to your abode.”
“Nonsense, good doctor,” Franklin replied, “I feel reinvigorated, like
eating a bowl of warm stew after coming in from the cold. I don’t know what it
is, but I feel younger. Maybe the time travel we all just went through has
rewound my clock a little bit in the process. Whatever the case, I feel to be
back in my sixties at least, and I do not doubt I could go skipping about the
countryside again as I did in my youth.”
“Oh, I can assure you that you will not be doing any skipping,” Dr. Rush
said dryly, taking the smiling old man by the arm and leading him to the door
of my car.
Each of the men managed to open
the door of my car and seated themselves in it. George Washington, or at least
his imitator, sat beside me in the front passenger’s seat while his two
comrades headed for the back seats. The more rotund of the two Benjamins sat
directly behind the president, and Dr. Rush sat behind me.
As I let my car start moving again, I called out, “Seatbelts, everyone.”
The blank looks of the three men was all I received for an answer, so I again
stopped the car to show them how to fasten the safety devices. After three
clicks told me that each of the men was belted in, I finally was able to
successfully leave the parking lot.
“I will take you to where I bought my ‘carriage’,” I informed. “It is a
fairly decent used-car dealership in the suburbs of Baltimore.”
The president beside me, who seemed to naturally assume the leadership
of the strange group, thanked me, and an awkward silence filled the car, broken
only by a clicking sound. I glanced in my rear-view mirror and saw that
Benjamin Franklin was bent over his seatbelt buckle. He occasionally un-buckled
the seatbelt and then, after carefully studying the medal end of the belt,
re-buckled it, only to repeat the process intently again. I rolled my eyes and
turned them back to the road.
Finally the man next to me broke the silence. “I don’t think we ever
gained the knowledge of your name, sir,” he said.
“I’m Ethan,” I returned simply, not looking away from the road before
me.
“Ethan,” George repeated slowly, “that is a good name, like the name of a
great soldier I knew.”
I shrugged, and our brief conversation ended. Benjamin Franklin,
however, seemed to be roused from his study of the seatbelt at this short
interchange and leaned forward. “Ethan, I would like to receive an
understanding of how your marvelous horseless carriage works. Are you willing
to answer a few questions?”
I should have known better from the knowing glance the doctor and
president exchanged than to agree to this request, but I didn’t. I nodded, and
that was all the confirmation the rotund founding father needed. A rapid stream of questions poured from his
mouth, and I was hard pressed to answer the sheer number of them all and the
complexity contained in them.
I finally tried to fend off this nearly vicious stream of questions. “I
need to call my dad and tell him why I will be a little late for dinner,” I
said, grasping at anything to change the subject.
Benjamin Franklin stopped mid-question, and Benjamin Rush glanced up
from a book that had somehow come through the time travel with him. It was
entitled A New Method of Chemistry,
including the Theory and Practice of the Art **. The three of them watched as I got out my
cell phone and dialed my dad.
The cell phone rang three times, and then the familiar voice of my dad came
through. “Hello, Ethan?”
“Hi, Dad. I just wanted to let you know that I might not be able to make
it for dinner. I am running an errand for George Washington, Benjamin
Franklin, and Benjamin Rush.”
There was a long pause on the other end. “What in the world are you
talking about, son? Are George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Benjamin Rush
the nicknames of your friends or something?”
“Nope,” I replied. “They claim to be and look like the real deals,
Benjamin Franklin especially.”
“Ethan, have you lost your mind?”
“I sure hope not.” I was surprised at the unsteadiness in my voice when
I said this.
My father said something else to me, but I don’t remember what that
something was, only remembering the rather distressed tone in his voice. My
mind was suddenly far away from the voice coming from my cell phone. “Goodbye, Dad,”
and I clicked my phone off. It rang again within seconds, but I turned it off.
Was I going crazy? The thought had never occurred to me. Maybe I was the
one who had lost my marbles. I shook this thought off. For now, all I knew was
that I was in the company of three men who had been dead for two centuries,
three men who were titans in my country’s early history. That in itself was
enough to think about. If I had known how much my life would be changed in the
next few hours, though, I believe I would have been overwhelmed in that moment.
* Cited from James Madison’s Journal of the Constitutional Convention.
** A book authored by Herman Boerhaave, a Dutch physician that Benjamin Rush studied. It was translated into English by Peter Shaw, an English physician.
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That's all for now, folks. I hope you enjoyed the first half of my story? Look for the next half next week!
I'm not so great with titles... but I did find your story quite interesting. Probably a title will be easier after the 2nd half. Not sure if kneeled or knelt is correct?? Of course, that is a very, very minor issue. :-) I love the plot line - I had considered something similar but couldn't quite find the right words to write such a tale a few years ago.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteWow, you're quick. :0) You must have viewed my story very shortly after I posted it. I am glad you liked it!
Actually, (after looking it up, admittedly) kneeled or knelt could both be used.
Keep thinking of a title! Maybe you can write a story about Abraham Lincoln or some other American hero now that I have stolen your idea. :0) Or maybe you can have a female character have an experience similar to my character’s one. Either way, I find that if I just start a story and have the main plot intact, the words will come along as I go.
YBIC,
Kyle
Heey that's excellent Kyle! I enjoyed your short story VERY much! Where did you learn to write like that?! :-) I'll keep thinking about a name for it.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sis! God has given me a desire and a gift for writing, so all the glory belongs to Him!
ReplyDeleteYes, please keep thinking of a name! As Kari commented, it might be easier once you have the whole story, though.
Love you!
Kyle
Wow Kyle,,,I could not stop reading this! I have an idea for the title if it remains appropriate the the rest of the story.
ReplyDelete"In The Company of Titans" or "Titans of the Past"
Papa
Thanks, Papa! I think those are both great titles, and they will remain appropriate, so unless I have a lightning bolt idea fall on my head, I think I will use "In The Company of Titans". Awesome!
ReplyDeleteLove you more than all the ideas in the world times a trillion,
Kyle
Wow, Kyle! This is awesome! Love your writing! So, don't keep us hanging too long! We're anxious for the "rest of the story!" : -)
ReplyDeleteMommy