The Store Room

Alice tried to remember who had given her the key.  She tried to picture him, but it had been so long ago that most of the details were lost to her. She remembered that she had been about 5 years old, playing in the front yard, when the man had walked up to her, and that he had told her something, something that he said she would understand when she was older.  He had then handed her a necklace with the key tied to it. He told her that it was very important and that she should keep it with her at all times.

That had been decades ago though, and Alice had completely forgotten about it until this morning when she went to clean out her parent’s house. She had been putting it off for weeks. Her father had disappeared almost two years ago now. He had left no sign of where he had gone, the police as well as multiple private investigators hired after the police had given up had not found a single credit card receipt, there had been no bank account activity,  they had received no phone calls or letters. He had simply vanished.  Her mother’s health had spiraled down after his disappearance, and she had finally succumbed only a month ago. The pain of losing her mother had kept Alice away from this final task, but the real estate agent was getting insistent, telling her that now was the time to list the house, waiting any longer risked losing thousands in this type of market. So she made the drive down from Kansas City, rented a hotel room, and went “home” for the last time. She had started in her own old room, unconsciously avoiding the parts of the house that, in her mind, still belonged to her folks. Over the years most of the stuff she had owned as a child had been given away, sold, or tossed in the trash, but there were still a few lingering mementos. She had been about to throw out a box filled with some of her old school papers and drawings when the key fell out of the bottom, clinking against the worn and dusty hardwood floors. After being lost in thought for a few minutes she placed the key into her pocket, sighed, and got back to work, wishing, not for the first time, that she wasn’t an only child. Having a few brothers and sisters would make this loathsome project a little more bearable.

Alice spent the next several hours organizing and packing her parent’s stuff into small boxes, trying not to think about just how little space two lives could fill. Her parents had lived in this same house since they had married back in 1952, having been given the house by her dad’s wealthy aunt. It wasn’t a spectacular home, having only 2 rooms and a single main floor bathroom, but it had been plenty for them, sitting on a couple acres at the end of a sunny country road in the middle of America’s bread basket, Leavenworth, Kansas. Alice had grown up with an appreciation for a simple life. She didn’t drive a fancy car, she didn’t wear expensive clothes, and her own house up in “the big city”, as her parent’s had called Kansas City, was modest by local standards. Sitting on the back porch swing taking a break, gazing out on the now-empty fields where her father had always had something growing, listening to the hollow clatter of an empty soda can rolling down the pavement in front of the house, half dozing in the warmth of the midday sun, Alice found her mind wandering again to the key.

Pulling it out of her pocket, she turned the key over and over in her hand, looking at it with adult eyes for the first time. She was just thinking about how utterly unremarkable it was when something caught her eye. There was something etched into the top edge of the key, near where you would thread it on to a key ring. Straining her middle-aged eyes to read the miniscule text, Alice’s breath caught in her throat. Looking closer, holding the key into the light to make sure her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her, she read it again. “Alice Farmer-5/27/09-3:14pm”. Alice checked her watch. That was today, in fact that was right now!

Alice was startled by the sound of boot heals on the stairs of her parent’s porch. Whirling around, she found herself staring again into the face of a the man she had met decades ago.

“Hello, Alice,” he said, a slight smile turning up the corners of his mouth. ” I see you still have the key. That’s good.”

“What?” was all Alice could muster, her mind spiraling.

“My name is Seth,” he answered, “Your father sent me.”

***

Sitting at her parent’s kitchen table Alice studied Seth’s features. He looked pretty much as she remembered him. He was fairly tall, she guessed he was at least 6 foot. He had black short black hair which was trending towards gray,and  his face was heavily pockmarked from what she imagined was a bad case of adolescent acne,

“So how did you know my father, Seth?” she asked

“Do you know what your father did for a living?”  he asked,  deftly avoiding her question.

“Sure, he worked for the Leavenworth Times, as a printing press mechanic.”

“Well, yes, at first he did.”

“What do you mean? He worked for them for 32 years until he disappeared.”

“And now he travels.”

Alice paused for a second, feeling like she was suddenly caught in a bad horror movie.

“Ok, I get it. This is where the music swells dramatically, you look deep into my eyes and say something like ‘Alice, your father is alive!’, then I get all teary eyed, jump into your arms and then end up in the car with you. Well that’s not happening here dude. I don’t know who you are or what your game is, but I’m not that chick. I can, and will, kick your ass if you even think about getting too close.”

Seth just laughed.

“What, you don’t think I can do it? I may seem like some little defenseless city-dweller, but I grew a farm girl. I’ve thrown bales of hay heavier than you.”

“Oh no, it’s not that” he replied, still grinning, “I can’t really explain. Another time and place maybe. Look I know things seem strange, and trust me, they are strange, stranger than you can imagine right now, but I really was asked to be here by your father. He made that key himself, he engraved the date and time, handed me the key, and asked me to give it to you. Yesterday.”

“Right, so yesterday you broke in and planted the key, knowing I was on my way. You must know the realtor, quite the racket you guys have going.”

“Do you remember what I told you when I handed you that key?”

“I’m not buying it.’” she replied, not really hearing his question, “I don’t know how you found out about the key, unless my dad told you about it before he disappeared, which I’m beginning to think you had something to do with now, but I think I’m just about done listening to you.”

She grabbed the key to toss it at him, noticing again the date and time etched on the edge, “You can leave now, on 5/27 at 4:21pm”

Seth caught the key, then slid a piece of paper across the table to Alice. She stared at him for a second, in what she hoped was a menacing way, then grabbed the paper and read it, then sat back, her heart pounding. The note was written in her own handwriting. It said “Alice, he doesn’t have to leave on 5/27 at 4:21pm. Remember what dad always said, ‘sometimes you have to shut up and listen to your own head,’ well now’s that time. This isn’t a bad horror movie, he’s not trying to get you in his car.”

***

By the time Alice and Seth parked near the service entrance to the Leavenworth Times building it was after dark. Seth had spent the last few hours explaining what was going on.

Alice’s father had indeed worked for the Times for most of her life. It was while he was working there that he had found the room. It was a regular room, in a common area of the printing room. A room he had passed every day for decades without ever really noticing it. Until one day when he did notice it, almost by accident. He had been working on one of the machines when a special bolt he had just removed and dropped to the floor and rolled under the door jamb. When he opened the door, he was startled by a man sitting on a stool, eating a donut, reading yesterday’s newspaper. Barely looking up, the man had told her father to have a seat, that the timeline was off and he was about twenty seconds early. Her father had tried to ask the man questions, who he was, what he was doing in this room, but the man on the stool paid him no attention. Twenty seconds later three men walked straight out of a brick wall, nearly giving her father a heart attack, and shook his hand.

“You see,” Seth said “your father has a unique skill set. He knows how the machines in this building work. I can’t go into a lot of detail, mostly because the detail is lost, but we found the ruins of this building a couple years ago, and while it might seem backwards, we don’t know how to make it work.”

“You mean you guys have perfected time travel, but you can’t make a simple printing press run?” Alice asked incredulously. ” Did everybody get stupid?”

“Well not exactly. Have you heard of Moore’s Law? It says, basically, that computing power will double exponentially every 18 months or so. Well run that over equation over hundreds of years and you can see that, given enough time, the need for a knowledgeable printing press mechanic would be nonexistent. “

“Yes, but with all that computer power, why couldn’t you guys figure it out? Or why not just come back and get some books instead?”

“Why borrow a book when you can borrow an actual mechanic? When your water heater breaks, do you go buy a book on water heater repair or do you call plumber? We simply called a plumber.”

“Why, though, didn’t you bring him back?” Alice asked, her voice quavering.

“Ah, well that’s one of the problems with traveling,” he replied softly, “Once you travel you can never again rejoin your own timeline. Not at any point. We’re not sure why. You’re father can’t return to you, that’s why he sent me. He asked me to give you the key to the door.”

Alice sat quietly for a few moments, then remembered something that had been bothering her. “Speaking of the key, why when I was five?”

“What do you mean?” Seth asked

“Why did you give me the key when I was five?  That’s a long time to hope I would keep it.”

“Well, for a couple of reasons actually. First, if I had tried to give it to you when you were in your twenties, what would you have done? If you had even bothered taking it from me, a big if, you would have tossed it in the first bin you came to, so I needed you to have it at an age when you wouldn’t question why I was giving it to you. Second, I needed it to prove to you that I wasn’t insane. You remember me giving you the key, which for you was 47 years ago, but for me it was yesterday. You can see I haven’t aged, I’m wearing the same clothes, everything about me is the same. The only way that would be possible is if I were telling you the truth.”

Alice nodded, realizing that what he said made sense.  “So what now?”

“Well, from what we know, you no longer have any ties to this time. You don’t really have any close friends, you have no pets that need taken care of, nothing is keeping you here. Is that true?”

“It’s not so nice when you say it like that, but sure, I guess that’s true.”

“Then what do you say we go for a walk?”

***

Standing in the room her father had happened upon years ago, she discovered what the key was for. Her father had installed a door inside the storage room. He had built it perfectly, looking like any other door, except that when you opened it you were facing bricks instead of a closet.

“How do I do it?” Alice asked nervously, her stomach starting to do cartwheels.

“It’s actually very easy, just walk through the bricks, they’re just a holographic image, and when you get to the other side, tell the voice where you want to go. Think of it like a voice activated elevator, only instead of up or down, you’re moving sideways through time. For now just tell the voice you want the ‘lobby’. They’re expecting you there.”

Alice took a breath, her heart pounding, and started to step forward. Suddenly she turned back to Seth.

“Hey, what did you say to me when you handed me the key, the thing you said I would understand when I was older?”

Grinning again he replied, “See you in the future.”

“Well that’s just dorky,” Alice replied, rolling her eyes. “But I guess I’ll see you in the future, too.”

Seth saw her disappear through the bricks, heard her stumble over her words a little, then say clearly and with confidence “Lobby, please.” A deep chill whisked through the room, and then she was gone. He looked around, made sure she hadn’t dropped anything, then stepped through the bricks himself, closing the door behind him.