June 9, 2024
I discovered this note rolled up and stored in a trunk I found in the attic. It was dated June 9, 1876, and reads as follows:
“I was born in 1924, in a house on a street that doesn’t exist yet. It will be my grandparents’ house, but in this time there’s no house, no street, just a wooded hill.
“It’s strange to remember the future, and until now I’ve kept my memories secret.
“I lived with my grandparents— I’d been orphaned young by encephalitis— and I thought it was strange that they always locked their cellar door. I’d tiptoe up to it, put my ear to the center wooden panel, and hear-- in the back of my mind, I supposed-- a dim roar, voices squabbling, from below.
“‘Elner Rusevelt looks like your wife if your wife looked like Elner Rusevelt.’
“‘Did you ever pick your teeth up with broken fingers?’
“‘I’m a thing in a wheelchair. Nobody remembers me. They all flew up out of here.’
“‘Flossie, come back. Come back to me.’
“And I heard the sound of an ax shattering wood. I knew my contrarian great-grandfather built a still in the cellar to make whiskey during Prohibition, even though he didn’t drink, and he smashed the still on the day Prohibition was repealed, December 5, 1933. He died on Christmas that year.
“The following year I turned ten. On a baseball-blue June day, when my grandfather was trimming the backyard roses and my grandmother was visiting with her ‘Stitch and Chatter’ Club, I crept out from under the book I was reading to get some strawberries from the kitchen. As I washed them, I looked over at the cellar door. Its panels seemed to be bulging.
“I was terrified, but the book I’d been reading was Tom Sawyer, and I knew he’d want to explore the mystery of the cellar. I was a big, brave boy, and I knew where the cellar key was tucked away. I rummaged around in the kitchen drawer where Grandma kept odds and ends, and I found that single, rusty key.
“Just as Tom Sawyer would surely have done, I approached the door stealthily, key pointed toward the keyhole. I inserted the key, turned the lock, and pushed the door open with a bang. Silence. Stillness.
“‘Aces!’ I shouted to myself. Now I was even bolder and galloped down the stairs.
“First, I saw a splintering still, and as my eyes dilated in the black space, I saw my great-grandfather striking it with his double bit ax.
“I called to him, but he didn’t answer. I noticed other people in the cellar, shadow figures who argued with each other but didn’t see me. One sat on a stool, crying, ‘Flossie, come back’; another wheelchair-bound lady complained nobody remembered her; and two men quarreled near an embarrassed woman who resembled Eleanor Roosevelt.
“Not even Tom Sawyer would have stuck around in that place. I turned to go back up the stairs.
“A mouse with enormous ears blocked my way. ‘The ghosts say, ‘No.’
“I took one trembling step closer.
‘He moved up one step and grew larger. His ears were larger, too, and his voice, louder. ‘The ghosts say, ‘No!’
“I picked up a piece of the shattered still, ran to the cellar window, and fractured the glass with the stick. I climbed out, expecting to see my grandfather in the yard, but there was no yard. I turned around and there was no house. All the neighbors’ houses had disappeared. The street was gone. I stood in a grove of maple trees, and I could see through their branches a dirt road below, and horses pulling a wagon.
“Eventually I realized I’d climbed backward in time through the broken cellar window. I learned Andrew Jackson was president and it was 1834, exactly one hundred years before my cellar trip.
“My only recourse was to live in 1834, and I became apprenticed to a carpenter, whose business I joined at eighteen. Ireland’s Great Famine brought me my wife, Róisín, in 1845. We have five living children. Lost one to measles in 1847 and another to scarlet fever in 1858.
“In 1860, I voted for Abraham Lincoln. I fought in the Battle of Chancellorsville and at Gettysburg in the 134th New York Infantry Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel A. H. Jackson, but was mustered out before the Atlanta Campaign because of an injured leg at Mission Ridge, November 25, 1863.
"Róisín gave me a first-edition copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer for my fifty-second birthday this year.
“Now, as mortality stares me in the face, I decided to write my story down. If you don’t believe me, I don’t blame you, but I’ve always prided myself on telling the truth.”
After reading this note, I scratched my head, thinking how bizarre it was that my cellar door had been locked since the day I bought the house.
The previous owners had left some of their belongings behind, and one kitchen drawer, I knew, was a junk drawer. I glanced at the cellar door and crossed over to that drawer. In it, among the odds and ends, I found a single, rusty key.
I discovered this note rolled up and stored in a trunk I found in the attic. It was dated June 9, 1876, and reads as follows:
“I was born in 1924, in a house on a street that doesn’t exist yet. It will be my grandparents’ house, but in this time there’s no house, no street, just a wooded hill.
“It’s strange to remember the future, and until now I’ve kept my memories secret.
“I lived with my grandparents— I’d been orphaned young by encephalitis— and I thought it was strange that they always locked their cellar door. I’d tiptoe up to it, put my ear to the center wooden panel, and hear-- in the back of my mind, I supposed-- a dim roar, voices squabbling, from below.
“‘Elner Rusevelt looks like your wife if your wife looked like Elner Rusevelt.’
“‘Did you ever pick your teeth up with broken fingers?’
“‘I’m a thing in a wheelchair. Nobody remembers me. They all flew up out of here.’
“‘Flossie, come back. Come back to me.’
“And I heard the sound of an ax shattering wood. I knew my contrarian great-grandfather built a still in the cellar to make whiskey during Prohibition, even though he didn’t drink, and he smashed the still on the day Prohibition was repealed, December 5, 1933. He died on Christmas that year.
“The following year I turned ten. On a baseball-blue June day, when my grandfather was trimming the backyard roses and my grandmother was visiting with her ‘Stitch and Chatter’ Club, I crept out from under the book I was reading to get some strawberries from the kitchen. As I washed them, I looked over at the cellar door. Its panels seemed to be bulging.
“I was terrified, but the book I’d been reading was Tom Sawyer, and I knew he’d want to explore the mystery of the cellar. I was a big, brave boy, and I knew where the cellar key was tucked away. I rummaged around in the kitchen drawer where Grandma kept odds and ends, and I found that single, rusty key.
“Just as Tom Sawyer would surely have done, I approached the door stealthily, key pointed toward the keyhole. I inserted the key, turned the lock, and pushed the door open with a bang. Silence. Stillness.
“‘Aces!’ I shouted to myself. Now I was even bolder and galloped down the stairs.
“First, I saw a splintering still, and as my eyes dilated in the black space, I saw my great-grandfather striking it with his double bit ax.
“I called to him, but he didn’t answer. I noticed other people in the cellar, shadow figures who argued with each other but didn’t see me. One sat on a stool, crying, ‘Flossie, come back’; another wheelchair-bound lady complained nobody remembered her; and two men quarreled near an embarrassed woman who resembled Eleanor Roosevelt.
“Not even Tom Sawyer would have stuck around in that place. I turned to go back up the stairs.
“A mouse with enormous ears blocked my way. ‘The ghosts say, ‘No.’
“I took one trembling step closer.
‘He moved up one step and grew larger. His ears were larger, too, and his voice, louder. ‘The ghosts say, ‘No!’
“I picked up a piece of the shattered still, ran to the cellar window, and fractured the glass with the stick. I climbed out, expecting to see my grandfather in the yard, but there was no yard. I turned around and there was no house. All the neighbors’ houses had disappeared. The street was gone. I stood in a grove of maple trees, and I could see through their branches a dirt road below, and horses pulling a wagon.
“Eventually I realized I’d climbed backward in time through the broken cellar window. I learned Andrew Jackson was president and it was 1834, exactly one hundred years before my cellar trip.
“My only recourse was to live in 1834, and I became apprenticed to a carpenter, whose business I joined at eighteen. Ireland’s Great Famine brought me my wife, Róisín, in 1845. We have five living children. Lost one to measles in 1847 and another to scarlet fever in 1858.
“In 1860, I voted for Abraham Lincoln. I fought in the Battle of Chancellorsville and at Gettysburg in the 134th New York Infantry Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel A. H. Jackson, but was mustered out before the Atlanta Campaign because of an injured leg at Mission Ridge, November 25, 1863.
"Róisín gave me a first-edition copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer for my fifty-second birthday this year.
“Now, as mortality stares me in the face, I decided to write my story down. If you don’t believe me, I don’t blame you, but I’ve always prided myself on telling the truth.”
After reading this note, I scratched my head, thinking how bizarre it was that my cellar door had been locked since the day I bought the house.
The previous owners had left some of their belongings behind, and one kitchen drawer, I knew, was a junk drawer. I glanced at the cellar door and crossed over to that drawer. In it, among the odds and ends, I found a single, rusty key.