Window in the Earth Trilogy

by Fish, Matthew

  “We don’t have to play, just let me save,” Christopher said as he readied to turn the power off.

  “I want to play Street Fighter. That game at least has some good graphics. I don’t know why you still play this old Nintendo when you’ve got the new Genesis. The graphics are so much better,” James said, shaking his head as he helped Christopher hook up the other system. “Besides, by the time we get this all hooked back up we’ll have to go to bed.”

  Christopher and James sat in silence, playing games together for a while. For Christopher it was such a happy, treasured moment. He wasn’t exactly sure why he felt that way. Besides, they had played games together just the other day. Why was he feeling so strangely lately?

  “Bedtime, boys…,” their mother announced, popping her head in the door, a great big smile on her face. “Christopher, I don’t need to remind you about tomorrow.”

  “All right, all right!” Christopher said, casually tossing his controller down to the ground. “James beats me every fight anyhow.”

  James laughed hard as he wrapped the cord around his controller, and then got to his feet. “You just need to practice on your reflexes like I do.”

  “Yeah, you practice your lightning-fast handwork in the bathroom everyday with dad’s bikini girl magazines…,” Christopher said as he playfully pushed James out of his bedroom.

  “Boys!” their mother exclaimed. “Watch that language, Christopher.”

  “What? I didn’t say any bad words,” Christopher said, well-knowing what he had implied was bad enough.

  James laughed hard as he made his way back to his own bedroom. “Night, Christopher!”

  “Night, James!” Christopher said as he got undressed and ready for bed.

  Christopher lay snugly tucked into his sheets, his head full of excited thoughts of everything that was possible the next day. He hoped that he wouldn’t do anything to embarrass himself on his graduation day. He had once heard that a girl the year before had not worn anything underneath her robe for some reason, and when a good strong wind came blowing through she accidentally exposed herself to the entire student body and their respective parents. He wondered if that story was true. A lot of his friends had believed it, but something about it though didn’t sit right with him.

  Christopher drifted over to the thought of starting at a new school. That seemed like such a scary thing to him. Of course James would be there, that was something of a comfort. James had a lot of friends at school; hopefully they would be his friends as well. Hopefully no one would decide to pick on him and make him do anything embarrassing like push a penny across the floor with his nose, or sing the school’s anthem as loud as he could at lunch. Those were other things his friends had warned him about, but unlike the story of the naked graduation girl, however, he believed in these.

  The door to Christopher’s room cracked open a bit, letting some of the hallway light into the room. Confused and startled, Christopher sat straight up.

  “Christopher…,” his father said quietly, as though he was testing to see if he was sleeping or not.

  “Yeah…,” Christopher replied. He hoped that this wasn’t going to be one of those lectures about how he needed to better in school, or that he should take up more important things like James. His father was always comparing him to James; it made him sad a lot of the time.

  “Ah…,” Christopher’s father said, pausing for a moment, as though he was unsure of what he was trying to say. “I just wanted to say goodnight.”

  “Oh…,” Christopher said, a little unsure of what to exactly say himself. “Goodnight dad.”

  “Yeah…,” his father said, and then continued: “I just wanted to say that I am proud of you.…”

  “Oh, thanks,” Christopher said, coming off rather surprised. After all, his dad had been riding him about his grades all school year.

  “I am very proud of you for graduating. You’ve done well.”

  “Thanks,” Christopher said, attempting to peek through the door. It looked as though his father was actually hiding behind the door. It didn’t surprise him that much; his mother told him once before that his father had some trouble showing his emotions and did not do it very often.

  “Right…,” his father whispered. “Good night then, son.”

  “Goodnight, dad.”

  Christopher lay back down in bed as his father shut the door, darkening the room once more. He thought about what had just happened. His dad had told him that he was proud of him. Just hearing the words made him feel so much better. He let his mind drift off as his eyes grew heavier and heavier. Just as he felt sleep begin to greet him, something suddenly felt completely wrong and out of place, and he thought he was going to be sick. There was something wrapped around him, something squeezing him around his waist and tugging him out of bed.

  Christopher panicked as he felt something yanking him back with great force. He could feel his body literally pass right through his bed, and then through the floor. He thought that maybe there was a tornado or something and the house was collapsing around him. When he finally opened his eyes he could see himself flying away from his house, the tiny lights of his front porch swiftly disappearing as it melded with the lights of the rest of the neighborhood. He was able to make out the tiny network of lights of the entire city below him, and then the lights of all the cities around Bloomington.

  He could feel the air rushing around him and soon found himself among the clouds. If he wasn’t so terrified at the thought of what was going on, he would have been vastly impressed with the view before him. As the clouds that surrounded him slowly broke off and passed beneath him, he wondered exactly how far up he was going. And then he saw it: the Earth. Not the if-you-looked-down-right-now-you’d-see-floor-and-that-would-technically-be-considered-seeing the-Earth kind of Earth; he was seeing it in a completely different manner, the same manner that astronauts and aliens see it, shining like a round blue gem and rotating ever so slowly miles beneath him.

  Christopher was so confused he felt as though his mind would explode under the stress, and then there was one more violent pull from whatever it was that had latched onto him in his bedroom. Then there was a sound, something like that of thunder. It sounded so alien, yet so strangely familiar.

  Christopher opened his eyes; the strange feelings were slowly washing away. He was on his back again; however, he was not in any kind of bed. It was cold, smooth, and a bit uncomfortable really. In the dim light he could barely make out James, a girl, and a dog.

  “Are you okay?” the girl asked, bending down over Christopher’s face.

  “Kylie…,” Christopher said, although it came out more like a sob or a cry. He found his whole body shaking as his mind finally caught back up with him. He was back, back in Alena’s Cave. He had been with his parents; he had seen his parents again. It was so amazing, yet so upsetting. He just couldn’t seem to stop crying about it.

  Christopher slowly got up to his knees, embracing Kylie as tightly as he could. His tears streamed down onto her shoulders. “I love you…,” he blurted out through the tears.

  “He’s real emotional; you remember how I was when I got out,” James quickly added as he placed a hand on Christopher’s shoulder and brought his brother’s head next to his. “It’s all coming back, right?”

  “Yeah…,” Christopher whispered as he wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt. “I’m sorry….”

  “No, it’s fine…,” Kylie whispered. She was just happy that Christopher was back, and also very eager to learn as much as possible about what had happened.

  I just blurted out that I love her, Christopher thought to himself, feeling rather embarrassed and strange. She might not have noticed. He had been in such a shape that maybe she just passed it off as crying. After all, he had been sobbing rather loudly.

  “So what happened in there?” James asked.

  Christopher spent a few moments explaining everything about how he was having dinner with mom, how he and Jame
s had played games, and how later on in the evening his father had come in to tell him that he was proud of him. It was all so amazing, as though he had gotten to completely relive a memory that he had all but forgotten. A day that didn’t seem any more important to him than any other yet was so much more important since he had gotten to spend that time over again.

  “Amazing…,” Kylie whispered as she gave Christopher another warm embrace.

  “I’m so happy that you got to share that time with them…,” James said with a smile on his face. He turned his attention to the photograph that was clenched in Christopher’s hand. “What did you bring back with you?”

  “Oh!” Christopher exclaimed. He had completely forgotten about the photograph. “I have no idea.”

  “Let’s see it,” Kylie said excitedly.

  James and Kylie crowded around Christopher as he brought the photograph up into the light so that they all could see it. Christopher stared at it blankly; confused for there was no one in it that he readily recognized. In the photograph was a man dressed up in a military style uniform, dancing with a rather attractive young woman. People were similarly dressed up all around them and it appeared that everyone was having a great time. It was some kind of dance or ball, definitely some kind of celebration.

  “What is this?” Kylie asked, being the first to give voice to their collective confusion.

  “Hmm…” James scratched his head. The book at least made sense; it was Christopher’s. This photograph didn’t seem to belong to Kylie, James, or Christopher.

  Christopher jokingly showed the picture to Kate, whose ears perked up at the picture but really showed no notable response. In doing so, however, Christopher noticed that there was some writing on the back of the photograph. “Something’s here…,” he said, and began to read the small print on the back. “Mathias Janes and Catharine Shultz…May tenth…nineteen fifty-four.”

  “Bones!” James exclaimed.

  “That must be your grandparents…,” Kylie said, snatching the photograph away from Christopher.

  “Does that mean we should bring him here?” Christopher asked, attempting to put together something that might be a piece to a puzzle. “I mean, James went in, and found my book.”

  “So then you went in, and found Bones’ photograph,” Kylie finished as she sat there, staring into the picture.

  “Don’t you want to go in next?” James asked, looking over to Kylie.

  “Me?” Kylie asked, shaking her head. “I don’t think so…at least not yet anyway. I mean I wouldn’t know what to expect in there. I haven’t really lost anyone. I mean my father is gone, but I definitely don’t want to see him in there.”

  “Right…,” James said as he nodded. “Sorry.”

  “Doesn’t mean I won’t want to see it for myself at some point,” Kylie said.

  “So, Bones then…,” Christopher said. “We have to show Bones this.”

  Chapter 9: The Photograph

  Memories are only lost until we remember them. The one’s that have passed only stay gone as long as they are forgotten.

  It took quite a bit of convincing for Christopher, James and Kylie to get Bones to listen to what they were they were trying to tell him. Bones sat there on the couch nursing a glass of orange juice and rubbing his forehead. It appeared as though he was still suffering from his hangover, even though it was by then late afternoon. The three has rushed back from the cave as fast as their feet could possibly carry them, excited to let Bones in on everything that had happened.

  “One at a time!” Bones exclaimed, shaking his head as if it would relieve his headache. “Sorry…I just have a horrible, horrible headache.”

  “We found something…,” James said, quieting Christopher and Kylie in the process. “We found something down in the cave.”

  “Really?” Bones asked, sounding more skeptical than anything. “What did you find down there?”

  “A window…,” Christopher said. There was really no other way to put it. As nonsensical as it was, they had found some kind of window, a window to another world.

  “A window?” Bones asked, confused. “Like, broken glass?”

  “No…,” James said. “A window in the cave wall…a window that led into a room.”

  Bones scratched his head as he continued rubbing his aching forehead. “Are you being serious with me, or is this like a joke? ’Cause if it’s a joke, I’m not in that much of a mood….”

  “Here…,” Kylie said, reaching down into her pocket and pulling out the photograph that Christopher had found.

  “This is our proof,” Christopher said. If there was anything that was going to convince Bones that there weren’t messing with him, then this would be it. Then again, he could understand why Bones didn’t believe them. Christopher almost didn’t believe it himself, and he had been there!

  “What’s this now?” Bones asked as he reached for the photograph. “This…this is…”

  “We found this in the room,” James said, “The room in the cave wall.”

  “This is impossible.…” Bones’ voice was heavy and wavering as he brought a shaky hand up to his mouth in disbelief. He pulled the photograph closer and closer to his face, as though studying every point and part of it. It seemed like he expected it to disappear at any moment. “This photograph, it’s not possible.…”

  “It is you, right?” Christopher asked, sitting down on the couch next to Bones.

  “Well…,” Bones whispered, his gaze squarely fixed on the picture. “Yeah…. How did you…?”

  “Christopher found it when he went into the room in the cave,” James said as he kneeled down next to Bones to get a better look at the picture. “There’s more—turn it over.”

  Bones carefully flipped the picture over, his hands now trembling. He scanned the words on the back over and over again before dropping the picture to the ground in complete and utter shock. “It’s…it’s Cat’s handwriting….”

  “Is that the two of you, back then?” Kylie quietly asked as she bent down to the ground to retrieve the photograph for Bones, gently handing it over to his still-trembling hands.

  “This is…” Bones stared off into the picture of himself and Catharine. “This was the night that I met Cat…. I’d come back from the Korean War about six months prior to this, and the war was well over at this point.”

  “So this was how you met?” James asked.

  “Yeah, this was the night,” Bones said, appearing deep in thought and saddened. “This really was the first real social thing I attended after the war was over. When I got back I would just sit in my house and think about everything that I had been through, all the people that I had lost. In a way I felt as though all the memories were eating me from the inside out…. Anyway, this was back in Saint Louis; the area I was living in at the time was having some kind of ball for all of us soldiers that had made it back. A few of my friends finally got me out of the house, although honestly I didn’t want to go. I didn’t feel like being out in the world again yet.”

  “You look happy…,” Kylie said as she sat down next to Christopher.

  “Yeah…,” Bones said. “I was happy after I met her there…. It seemed as though she could take all those unhappy thoughts away, and she did. However…this picture shouldn’t exist anymore.”

  “Why?” James asked.

  “Well…,” Bones said quietly as he turned the photograph over, looking again at the date written on the back: May 10th, 1954. “Well…after we were married in nineteen fifty-six, we got our first apartment, and pretty much most of our belongings at the time burned right down to the ground with the building. This is a photograph that should have been destroyed nearly forty years ago, yet…here it is.”

  “So you believe us then?” Christopher asked, drawing closer the Bones.

  “Yeah…,” Bones said, shaking his head in disbelief. “I mean…how can I not?”

  Christopher and James, with Kylie’s help, continued to tell Bones about everything th
ey had seen and been through down in the cave. Bones listened intently, now believing every word that he was hearing was the definitive truth. James talked about the room, how strange it was, and about the book he found, about how he was able to relive his memory with his parents. Then Christopher explained how he had found the photograph, and how he had also apparently gone back in time.

  “That’s a lot to digest…,” Bones whispered, covering his eyes with his hands. “I mean, you live your whole life thinking that it’s one way.…”

  “So…,” Kylie whispered, “…are you going to go in?”

  “We think there’s a reason,” James said, “A reason that we found this picture.”