Letters From The Grave

by Jeanie P Johnson

  It was a stupid plan because if they saw him there, they may not come close at all. He would never get his original letter back. This was maddening! He needed to apprehended the person, before they got anywhere near the tombstone. Perhaps the element of surprise would be on his side if they did not realize that he was there, and he saw them before they saw him. Certainly, they would have to bring a lantern in order to see their way, and he did not bring a light, so he would be in shadow, and would see their light as they approached. Perhaps he would not be detected, until it was too late. Then they would be sorry, he grumbled under his breath.

  There was still light in the spring sky and he felt rested from his day of sleeping. He noticed the poem book, near the over turned stool he had forgotten when he found the unexpected letter. He retrieved it from the grass, hoping the evening dew had not damaged it, and sat himself on the stool, leaning up against the headstone once again, as he opened the pages to one of his wife’s favorite poem by Shelly.

  Love’s Philosophy

  The fountains mingle with the river

  And the rivers with the ocean,

  The winds of heaven mix for ever

  With a sweet emotion;

  Nothing in the world is single,

  All things by a law divine

  In one spirit meet and mingle-

  Why not I with thine?

  See, the mountains kiss high heaven,

  And the waves clasp one another;

  No sister flower would be forgiven

  If it disdained its brother;

  And the sunlight clasps the earth,

  And the moonbeams kiss the sea;

  What are all those kissings worth

  If thou kiss not me?

  A lone tear escaped his emerald green eye as the poem found its mark in his heart. He sat for a moment contemplating the poem. As he did so, a perplexing sensation came over him. He felt a peculiar twinge in his back, and thought that leaning against the head stone had caused it, or perhaps having slept the night on the ground before he went to his bed the night before. He stretched and turned, looking at the brass door he had been leaning against, and then a gasp escaped his throat. He could see that the letter was now there, and something else was in the cubby hole as well. This astounded him, because he had checked the cubby hole before he had settled down against the headstone, and now something was inside of it. It almost frightened him, had it not intrigued him beyond explanation.

  His hands shook, as he fit the key into the lock and opened the door. Another rose covered envelope, with a strange tubular looking device sitting on top of it, was the first thing he found. When he lifted it and the blue tube out, he saw that his original letter to Emma had been replaced. This could not have happened while he sat there, but it had!

  He opened the letter and read. April 4, 1979

  Doran drew in his breath. That was impossible. The date was over a hundred years in the future!

  Dear Doran,

  I know you will find this hard to believe, even as I am finding it hard to believe, but I must explain as best I can, even though it seems impossible. My name is Emma Anne Harrison… that much is true, even though I am not your dead wife, as far as I know. However, I happened upon your wife’s grave, here in the year 1979, and saw that she had my same birthday. She also died on her 20th birthday. I found her grave on my 20th birthday. This all astounded me, and when I found your letter inside the headstone, I could not get it out of my mind.

  Later that night, I had the irresistible urge to respond to that letter, as if I was your wife. Perhaps the spirit of your wife came over me because I was her namesake, or for other reasons I can’t explain, but the words poured out of my soul when I wrote that letter. The pen that I have placed with this letter, if it also materialized in the same way that your letter to me did, is what is called a ball-point pen, which is standard issue in this day and age. The button on the top will push the point of the pen down so it can be used. If you unscrew the pen in the middle, you will find a tube of ink inside, with a spring that allows the tip to be depressed or pressed forward, so ink does not get on your clothes when you are not using the pen, if you keep it in your pocket. This is common to us, but I am sure you have never seen anything like it before.

  I do not believe that you have ever seen plastic, if you actually come from the Civil War, era, (Yes, there is going to be a war of the states, and it will be terrible. Many lives will be lost, and it will last for several years, but there is still time before it starts.) Plastic is a common material that many things are made of now days, and ball point pens are one of them.

  After I wrote you the letter, I felt guilty for tampering with your wife’s grave, so I went to remove it, but it had disappeared, and then miraculously the next day, your letter was in the cubby hole, and my letter was gone. Because you answered it, I knew that somehow through time and space, my letter had gotten to you in some unexplained way, while your letter had also gotten to me.

  I don’t know how to explain it, because we do not have any devices in this day and age that are capable of crossing time and causing this to happen, and I doubt that you have any either. So by some fluke of God, I was able to read your letter that you wrote answering mine. I had the letter checked by an expert on ancient documents, and he assures me that the paper it was written on, and the ink came from 1859, so I can only assume that these letters are actually crossing time and space.

  The first letter you wrote to your wife, was old and yellowed, which meant it sat in the headstone, until my day and age, before I was able to find it. Yet your next letter, I found the next day, was new, as if you had just written it, although the date was only a few days later from the first letter. I cannot explain this, but if you receive this letter, it means that somehow we are able to communicate with each other through time and space.

  I don’t know how this is happening, only that it is. I don’t understand the reason for it, unless for some reason I need to learn something from you, or you need to learn something from me. I can certainly tell you many things about the future, which may be to your benefit.

  Another possibility, is that I am the reincarnation of your dead wife, and for some reason I found a way to contact you through time and space in this life because I could not speak to you from the dead otherwise. If you have been reincarnated in my time, I don’t know of it, but perhaps your wish will be granted that you and your wife will be together in the future, even if it is not me, regardless of the fact that I have her name.

  I also found your grave, but I will not tell you when you die, so you can live your life to the fullest and not anticipate the day of your death. I will not tell you anything about the future of your personal life, since I could never see that anyway, but I can tell you some of the things that happen with the nation, and the Civil War, which is on your doorstep, as you read this.

  I can tell you that President Abraham Lincoln will be assassinated, at the end of the Civil War, but that is all the information I will give you, as you probably cannot stop it, if you tried. I can tell you that the South loses the War, though they fought valiantly, and at the beginning it appeared as though they had the upper hand against the North. I can tell you that slavery has been abolished, and that blacks eventually receive their civil rights, but there will be many un fair killings of blacks and other trials and tribulations that the blacks will go through first before that ever comes about.

  I can tell you about all the things that will be invented in the future, up to my time. And most of all, I can tell you that life goes on, and those who follow you, will live and love, just as you have. I am sure that your son will grow to be a strong man someday, and that you will be proud of him. I don’t know what I can do for you to lighten the pain of the loss of your wife, but if there is anything I can say to help you through it, I will do my best to comfort you.

  I believe that life is eternal, and that we come to earth in order to share life with those we love many times, before our life
lessons are learned and we can move on into the next eternal dimension. Only until then, we must suffer through our life lessons, as you are doing now.

  I hope this letter gets to you, in the same fashion that my last one did. I thought at first that someone was playing a trick on me as well, but after having your letters examined, I have no choice but to believe that I am speaking to someone in the past, and that you are speaking to someone in the future.

  Always, Emma

  Doran read the letter two more times finding it hard to believe. Only he had to admit the remarkable pen, sent with the letter had the ability to convince him. He had never seen such a pen, and he pushed the button down several times, took it apart, and wrote with it, to further prove that this was something extraordinary, which could not be explained.

  Since this incomprehensible plastic, was not even invented yet, they could not even duplicate the pen in his time period, if they tried. They had no way of knowing how to make the ink, or how to put it in the small tube that fit inside the pen. And the point was made in such a way that even if it was taken apart, there would be no way to figure out how to make it work in his era.

  It was such a small simple thing, which was eons beyond his understanding. How many other things, he wondered, was this person who wrote the letter experiencing in the future? Oh to know of those things! How exciting that would be. He wondered if she could find out who won horse races of his day, so he could bet on them, but then he thought that would be too unethical to put into practice, as he was an honest man. He knew she would never give away the strategies of the war, if it came to that, because she seemed ethical herself. However, he hoped that surely she would explain the wonders of the future to him, if he asked her.

  His heart started to pound in excitement, as he anticipated all the things he could learn from her. He wished he could start his education, this very moment, but he was too excited to concentrate on what he would even ask. First he wanted to learn more about this person that had his wife’s name and birthday. All other questions could come later. For now, he was anxious to speak to his mother about his discovery.

  Doran practically ran back to the house from the grave plot, bursting through the front door, when he arrived. “Mother!” he exclaimed, waving the letter and the pen above his head, as she entered the hall at his cry for her.

  “You will not believe this!”

  “You have found who was taking your letters, and writing new ones to you on the rose paper?”

  “Yes, but you need to sit down. Come into my study, and I will explain it to you.”

  Mellissa, followed Doran into the study, and seated herself in a leather chair. Doran sat opposite her, leaning forward with the letter and pen in his hands.

  “Look at this.” He handed her the pen. “Have you ever seen anything like it? Push the button. Here,” he reached for a sheet of paper from his desk. “Write with it.” She did so, with wonder expressed on her face.

  “What does this all mean?” she asked.

  “This pen came from the future. It is made out of something called plastic, and is called a ball-point pen. It is the pen that the letter to me was written with. And here is another letter. Go ahead, read it.” He handed the letter to his mother with trembling hands, and watched her face as she read what he had just read moments before.

  “This is amazing. This can’t be true. This must be some kind of hoax. You can’t send things through time.”

  “I thought the same thing, but Mother, I was leaning with my back against the brass door of the headstone, when the letter came. I had checked it before I leaned against it, and there was nothing inside, and then a few minutes later, I found this letter and pen inside. How could it get in there if not through time and space? It just appeared, while I sat there!”

  “And she tells you things about the future, which will only prove itself out when it happens,” Mellissa murmured.

  “I don’t know how or why this has happened, but just imagine the things I could learn from this person about the future. She, of course, will not tell me when I die, or anything that would affect my personal future, and I am sure she will not allow me to cheat on the races, but other things about the future would be mine for the asking.”

  “She says there is going to be a war, which we all have expected anyway, but Abraham Lincoln being killed, that is horrible, and there is no way we can warn him. He hasn’t even been elected president yet.”

  Doran shook his head as he tried to wrap his brain around what was happening. “I don’t think you can change things from the past, even if you know they will happen,” he muttered. “I am sure God would insist they continue as events dictate. I mean, even if we tried to stop it, some other method may be used to accomplish the event just the same. We have no way of knowing why things happen the way they do. Even this strange event we are witnessing has no explanation. All the same, we must keep it to ourselves. If anyone knew we could predict the future, just imagine what would happen. We would be hounded to no end about trivial things, let alone important ones. This should be just between you and me.”

  “I agree,” Melissa murmured. “I can see this has helped you out of your depression, and gives you reason to go on, even at the loss of your wife. So it is a good thing, but it is for you personally. Perhaps you should not even tell me what is contained in the letters, if you are able to continue to converse with this person. No telling how long it will last. It may end tomorrow, for all that you know.”

  “I hope not. I have too many questions to ask Emma. It would take a life time to discover all the answers to the future and what will happen to this world. I hope this ability never ends.”

  “I only hope it lasts long enough to get you through the worst of your loss.”

  Doran put the letter to his lips, and whiffed in the perfume into his lungs. “She uses the same perfume that Emma used. Isn’t that remarkable? There is some connection here, I am sure of it. Perhaps she is the reincarnation of Emma, and if that is so, then I hope I have been reincarnated as well and am able to find her in the future. If there was only some way to contact my future self, I would do it.”

  “That is beyond bizarre! People can’t talk to future selves. We don’t even know if there is such a thing as reincarnation, and if the church heard us speaking such, they would excommunicate us for sure!”

  “It is bizarre to speak to someone in the future as well, so apparently, anything is possible if you can tap into it somehow.”

  “Well, for now, just focus on this extraordinary happening, and deal with it. Don’t start thinking up new events to delve into yet.”

  “Yes, Mother. You are totally correct. I will take one small step at a time. Perhaps I can get this new Emma, to look for my future self. Wouldn’t that be amazing if it could happen and he could write to me as well?”

  “Don’t be too greedy, son. Perhaps that would be the event that would put an end to all this. After all, if she finds you in the future, then there would be no reason to speak with you now, would there?”

  “Since you put it that way, I would only profit by it in the future, not now, and now is when I am aware of this future person, who stumbled upon my time and space, and crossed it with hers.”

  “Just don’t be too anxious. You do not want to put a jinx on all of this, do you?”

  “No, I will take it slow and let events open as they may.”

  “Good. And I will say goodnight, and let you mull all this over in your own head. As for me, it is a little too much for my head to handle right now.”

  She left him in the study, where he sat for over an hour trying to figure out exactly what he needed to say to Emma in his next letter. He decided he would sleep on it, and write the letter in the morning when his mind was fresh and all this had sunk in some more. He climbed the stairs as he held the pen in his hand, flipping the button back and forth unconscious of the repetition of his act.

  CHAPTER SIX

  1979

  Emma had bar
ely been able to sleep the night before. She had told Cassandra about what she had discovered about the paper, and of her plan to send the pen with the next letter to see if objects, along with letters could get through time and space using the mysterious headstone compartment. She couldn’t wait to check the headstone and see if there was anything new there, or if she would just find the letter she put there, still sitting with the pen inside the cubby hole.

  Emma was torn between wanting to finish her artwork and submitting it to the art gallery and exploring this new phenomenon she had happened upon. She also wanted to find out more about the dead Emma’s husband, to see if she could track him and his predecessors into her own time. Her head was spinning with all the things she was anxious to do. On one hand she wanted desperately to believe that she had broken thorough time and space to communicate with the dead or was she his dead wife, reincarnated, and he was communicating with her? She did not know. But there was still something that made her doubt it all, and if it was not happening, then how was this hoax being perpetrated? She was determined to find out, one way or the other.

  Emma dressed hastily and ate a quick breakfast of dried cereal, and then jumped in her car and took off to the graveyard. When she arrived she went eagerly to the tombstone. With shaking hands, she opened the door. She took in her breath when she realized that her letter and pen were gone, but nothing was in its place. Just the single letter that was aged and yellowed still remained there.

  Sometimes she wondered if she was just imagining this, each time she opened the door, and that single letter was really all that was there, while she weaved a web of impossible events out of her own head because of her obsession with the letter. She couldn’t deny, though, her letter was gone, so someone had to have removed it, and she also had the letter that had been written to her, supposedly from across time and space. Since there was nothing there, she returned home, feeling elated and disappointed at the same time. She had to distract her thoughts, so she started working on the painting of the grave and the angel statue which insisted on resembling her own face.