Chapter 12: I Can't Wait To Get A Look In That Basement

The Present

A low rumble appeared to originate from the hills surrounding the small town of Owens Farm, growing increasingly louder. Then on top of the rumble, the ground shook, almost liquid as shock waves rippled through the valley. And the noise grew and grew as the destruction of the quake approached the town.

Thrown against a wall, Mr. Carlyle let out a large groan and collapsed to the floor. Ben grabbed Mary and crawled under a large table. Around the room pictures and vases tumbled to the floor shattering and dangerously throwing shards of glass in all directions.

“Ugh”, groaned Mary as a shard slice by her ankle and blood started to trickle onto the floor. Ben turning quickly grabbed an old pillow and ripping the cover off tied it around Mary’s wound.

With the Salon rocking violently, the three each wondered to themselves how the old house could ever hold together. The cabinets in the far corner now collapsed and spread their precious contents on the floor toward Mr. Carlyle. Small figurines, swords and fragile manuscripts mixed together in the growing dust and destruction.

Desperately Carlyle reached for his treasures, trying to shield them from further damage as chunks of plaster now started to fall from the ceiling, bursting into clouds of white as they slammed into the furniture, floor and people.

“Forget them Mr. Carlyle”, Ben screamed above the noise surrounding them. “Protect yourself”. But Mr. Carlyle, holding an ancient cup in one had and a papyrus roll in the other tried to gather more even as blood flowed freely from a fresh wound on his forehead.

Crashing, rumbling, flame, noise and more noise, Ben curled into a ball shaking.

Then stillness.

From his place in the room, Ben could see the communication towers on the distant hill collapsing under the violence of the earthquake. A loud explosion came from the direction of the interstate and smoke appeared from numerous sites across the town. “More fires”, thought Ben.

“W… W… We don’t have earthquakes around here”, said a visibly shake Mary crawling back up onto the couch and then turning to peer out of the Salon window.

Toward the corner block, she could see Chief Vache, puffing heavily and out of breath, being mobbed by the folks of Owens Farm, terrified and eager for direction from the authorities. Henry O’Day with a calmer, cooler head the Chief Vache was seen tending to some folks trapped in their car by a huge oak toppled by the earthquake.

Mary’s thought then turned to her parents, “Oh God” she cried and started to rise from the couch to run from the room when she heard Mr. Carlyle turn on the television. Curiosity caught her and she stopped suddenly. “Breath Mary”, she told herself, after all she was always the cool rational one. “Breath and get some information. You can’t get far anyway with this ankle”.

A panicked news anchor from a local station was talking hurriedly about Breaking News, “The earthquake centered in the valley of Owens Farm was apparently linked to a series of quakes across the North American Continent”.

Forgetting the growing chaos outside, Mary sat down and with Ben and a slightly bruised Mr. Carlyle and stared intently at the images flashing across the screen.

“… growing chasms have opened paths for Lake Michigan to flood into Chicago…”

“… fifty feared trapped in an overturned bus in upstate New York…”

“… Central Florida sinks 20 to 30 feet as city-sized sink holes swallow communities…”

“… and this just in… reports from the Canary Islands indicate that a landslide of monumental proportions has sent a mountain crashing into the Atlantic. Tsunamis warnings are posted for the coastal cities of the United States…”

Mr. Carlyle sobbed, “God… oh God… stop…. stop… stop….”

Regaining composure but still teary eyed, he slowly and stoically said, “Kids I have to end this now”.

“Turn it off”, said Mary gesturing toward the television. “I’ve seen enough. I don’t want to know what we’ve set in motion”. Ben nodded slightly in agreement. He had no desire to see if their recent time travels had cause calamities in every far off corner of the world.

Clicking the television off, Mr. Carlyle leaned against the salon wall, a load of history and all its disasters were resting on his shoulders. Looking very much like a beaten old man now, the vigor that he had displayed just hours before was gone. Slowly he shuffled through the ruins of his salon, picking up his artifacts and mementos, apparently unconsciously trying to restore some order to the room, his life and perhaps the world.

“The history of the stone has held true and I can do little about this”, said Mr. Carlyle.

“Mr. Carlyle”, said Ben, “you can do something. We have seen history change by our actions in our travels. Luke was dead, we traveled and Luke was alive. Your house was wrecked, we traveled and your house was as it always was. We can change this too”.

“Destroy the stone Mr. Carlyle”, suggested Ben. “Let’s get a hammer and smash it into thousands of pieces. Then take the pieces and scatter them around the world”.

“Can’t’ be done”, said Mr. Carlyle. “After my wife died, oh almost eight thousand years ago, I raged, breaking all the pottery, household goods and even our small dwelling”.

“You see, those days saw me just learning the stone’s mysteries and I traveled often, trying combinations of time and duration. I wanted to learn how to take her with me and show the wonders I had seen. On one of my journeys, I even managed to bring back an iron ax. Slipped it into my belt and it came through time with me”.

Stopping for a second, remembering his life with Naama, Mary saw the tear in Mr. Carlyle’s eyes. He bent over apparently reaching for a broken ax blade that was now lying under a shattered marble statue.

Composing himself, Mr. Carlyle turned the ax over slowly in his hands and continued, “She died just after one of my trips. I must have been responsible. She was healthy, our children were healthy. Our fields were rich, dark soil producing fine crops, but she died suddenly. Maybe I did it. Maybe the stone”. And Mr. Carlyle for a second glared at the stone on the table and threw the ax toward it smashing the table but not even scratching the stone. He sobbed openly, clasped his arm to his chest, “Why. Why”.

Mary stood and wrapped her arms in comfort around her crying friend. “Mr. Carlyle, you don’t have to tell us anymore”, said Mary. “You can stop”.

“No, I want you to know what I know about the stone”, said Mr. Carlyle. ”When Naama died I raged so violently that my children and their families had fled in terror. I smashed all that Naama and I possessed, tables, chairs, anything within reach. Finally I stood alone with just that cursed stone. I my despair I could swear that I heard it laughing at me”.

“I smashed and smashed that cursed stone with this ax”, he held it out before him, “until the blade shattered and was as broken as my life. The stone though had no marks on it, just the scratching you still see on it” and Mr. Carlyle gestures toward the stone on the table.

“I think that it cannot be destroyed” and Mr. Carlyle sat down and settled into his chair head held in his two hands.

A slight aftershock shook the room as Ben rose. He paced gingerly around the room bracing for more aftershocks, stepping over the broken memories covering the floor. Thoughtfully said, “How about if we throw it into a volcano, or drop it off a ship in the ocean”?

Mary replied, “But that means that at some time in the future, it may surface again”. She was now at the window watching fires growing brighter on the hillsides surrounding the town. She felt guilty, wanting to run to her parents, but she felt she must stay to help solve the problem of the stone.

“I don’t think that’s the answer Ben. Mary’s right”, said Mr. Carlyle, who was now pacing around the table looking at the stone. “Millions more must not die, so that one can travel time. But I think I know what needs to be done”. Mr. Carlyle rose to his feet and adjusted his clothes.
“Children”, said Mr. Carlyle approaching the table, “the stone travels time and that is the key to its destruction”. A small smile appeared on his face, “Perhaps a last riddle for these two”, he thought.

Reaching down Mr. Carlyle grasped the stone in the palm of his hand. Holding it at arms length in front of him, he said, “Children, did time always exist?”

Mary gasped for she knew the answer immediately and perhaps saw more clearly what Mr. Carlyle was going to attempt to do.

“Answer me, did time always exist”, said Mr. Carlyle now assuming the role and demeanor of a teacher. “Ben, do you have an answer”?

Stumped, Ben said, “I don’t know sir”.

“You missed that week in school, Ben”, said a confident Mary, “I think it was after a particularly nasty beating by Luke. Anyway, Mr. Carlyle, it is a common belief among most physicists that time, and space began with the Big Bang”. Mary smiled proudly, forgetting just a little the chaos brewing outside.

“Excellent, excellent”, Mr. Carlyle, grinning and was now almost overjoyed at the answer Mary gave. “And what do they commonly call the Big Bang, Mary, another name”.

Smoke was beginning to fill the air around the town as the fires approached. Cars jammed the roads leaving Owens Farm as resident tried to flee but were stopped by a wall of flame engulfing all paths to safety. Mr. Carlyle glanced out of the salon window, “Gonna have to wrap this lesson up quickly”, he thought as he saw the town’s only fire truck blocked on the road below by fallen trees and buildings.

“I believe that it is the point of singularity, sir. About Fourteen billion years ago my teacher said”, and Mary smiled a large, toothy smile, growing more oblivious from the terror.

Mr. Carlyle was now almost his old self as if the weight of history was lifted from his shoulders.

“Correct. Correct. Correct”, yelled Mr. Carlyle, “and that is how to destroy the stone. If the stone exists in time, it is logical to believe that outside of time it shall be gone, gone with no possibility of coming back”.

“I will take the stone outside of time”, he said, stopping and staring at Ben and Mary.
Ben rose, stunned for he realized that Mr. Carlyle was going to sacrifice himself to destroy the stone. “No Mr. Carlyle, there must be another way”.

It then hit Mary too, that Mr. Carlyle was going to take the stone to a place from which it could never return. She stood silent, stunned.

Calmly Mr. Carlyle said, “Ben I have lived a very long life, I think too long. I have dined with those famous and infamous and as Noah, I forever became a legend. Mary, you are indeed brilliant, too brilliant for a place like Owens Farm, and Ben you are far braver that you believe and loyal, very loyal”.

Walking towards a still standing cabinet, Mr. Carlyle took out a paper and pen and proceeded to write a short letter. Mary and Ben shuffled about the room nervously as sirens wailed in the distance. Then Mr. Carlyle placed this letter in an envelope, sealed it and set it on the table.

“This house is full of treasures children, the legitimacy of most of them will not be believed by authorities, but be assured everything is authentic and you two must never forget that.”

Ben now wrapped his arms around a sobbing Mary, comforting her, awkwardly but still in the best way he could.

Drifting from thought to thought, and reminiscing, Mr. Carlyle said, “Incidentally, there are directions in the basement that will lead you to a cup, the one people have dreamed about and look for two thousand years. It was a gift to me and perhaps my greatest treasure”.

Now Ben was crying too. Events were in motion that neither he nor Mary could stop, and that Mr. Carlyle wouldn’t stop.

“That is a letter to my lawyers”, said Mr. Carlyle pointing to the envelope on the table. “I’m putting everything into a trust for you two when you turn eighteen. It should take that long after I’m gone for the courts to declare me legally dead”.

“I’ve cherished our friendship Ben, Mary. You two are quite exceptional and I don’t think Luke should be much trouble anymore”. Then with a smile Mr. Carlyle added, “Just threaten him with another yellow paint can”.

Time was growing short for the town of Owens Farm. Ashes from the fires raging on the hillsides were floating on the wind, igniting small fires on just about every street. These would soon join into an inferno that would erase the village from the face of the Earth. Cars turning back from the wall of flames surrounding the town caused massive traffic jams when they met others going in the opposite direction.

Smoke now filled the air, cloaking everything in a dull choking haze. The dull browns and grays of the town made more drab by the clouds of smoke pushed on by a wall of flame.

Mary and Ben were now holding each other, coughing from the smoke and sobbing openly.

Rolling the Stone over and over in his hands, Mr. Carlyle said, “You two take care of each other for each of you have a destiny too big for Owens Farm to hold”.

“Bye children. You have given me great joy and now…”

After a slight pause, Mr. Carlyle proclaimed with confidence “Sixteen billion years back, Twenty-five billion centuries”.

Mr. Carlyle was gone.

# # #

16,000,000,000 Years Ago

Mr. Carlyle / Noah / Tink Owens had materialized just as he knew he would in a dark region predating space and time by several billion years.

He lived for just a second, if seconds had existed then for there was no time as we know it. But in that second, he felt calm, peaceful and even joyful.

It was as if he solved the greatest mystery of all time by joining a great eternal mystery.

He felt as if he was not alone and never would be.

# # #

The Present

The room seemed to swirl and spin. Colors appeared to become unlocked from the objects they had colored and float through the room, blending and unblending, mixing and unmixing forming new and wild combinations. Like a wild, living painting.

Blue curtains, became red as the blue seemingly lifted from their surface and the red flowed on. White marble statues lost color as their white floated like clouds above with greens and purples appearing as mists in the air, first here, then suddenly there. Patterns on the salon rug merged and spun, forming wild colors and shapes that seemed to flow like a river from object to object.

Chairs and cabinets, artifacts and mementos now appeared to melt and blend into the swirls of color, losing all shape and form. Mary could not tell what used to be a chair or what used to be a statue. Ben had no grasp of up, out, down, in or any direction at all.

Like a watercolor paining with too much water the space around Ben and Mary blended into colors and shapes that had no connection or meaning to what was their world of just minutes ago.
Mary, clutched Ben tighter than she ever had, wanting to close her eyes in fear but having to keep them open at the wonders filling what used to be a room. “Nothing like the blackness of time travel”, she tried to yell in Ben’s ear. Ben though did not hear. He was busy holding Mary with his left hand while trying to reach out and grasp the color green that was flying through the air with his right hand.

Then the swirls of color and forms came to a stop, hanging motionless in the space around Mary and Ben. Then they started to move again, but this time in reverse. Objects shattered in the quake reformed, couches and chairs hurled across the room by the quake, were reforming in the places they sat just hours ago. Colors flowed onto object instead of off them.

“Almost like a movie running backward”, thought Ben, but it was like no movie he could ever dream of for it was not just objects, resetting and reforming themselves but colors, smells and even time itself.

Then silence and stillness, movement had stopped. Just quiet and stillness.
Minutes passed before either Ben of Mary dared to move. They stood in the now reformed Salon and just stared at the spot where Mr. Carlyle last stood, perhaps hoping that he would instantly reappear as time travelers always seemed to do.

“He’s gone Mary. Mr. Carlyle’s dead or perhaps since he jumped outside of our time, he never existed at all”, said Ben hugging Mary a little harder, trying to be reassuring and comforting.

Mary started to walk around the room, lightly touching chairs, statues and the figurines that filled the display case.

“Oh he existed Ben”, said a sobbing Mary, “and I will miss him”. Picking up an old Bible on the mantle over the fire place, Mary opened to the story of Noah and the great flood. She had a slight smile, remembering her friend Mr. Carlyle.

“The smoke is gone. Let’s go see our families” said Ben and he reached out to take her hand.
Holding hands the walked toward the front door of Mr. Carlyle’s house. There was no sign of fire, collapsed trees, communication towers or buildings. Owens Farm was as it was before, calm and same.

“I think we can assume that everything is as it was, Mary”, said Ben. “Time has righted itself”.
Excited now, they slammed the door to Mr. Carlyle’s house behind them and ran down the street, each eager to see their own families and verify that all was set right.

“Wait”, said Mary, pulling away from Ben. “The letter”, and she ran back to get it.

“It was his last wish, we’ve go to mail it”, she said.

After getting the letter and locking the door to Mr. Carlyle’s house, Ben again took Mary’s hand and together they strolled slowly down Elm Street. Behind them the purple shutters and lime green roof of Mr. Carlyle’s house stood again in stark contrast to the brown and gray structures, they walked by.

Behind them was the flowering bushes in front of Mr. Carlyle’s house would one day bloom with vibrant color lighting up the yard while the rest of Owens Farm stayed dull green and brown.

Behind them was a story nobody would believe. Goods spanning an arc of time that could never could be verified. A house filled with items whose tales were too fantastic to be believed.

Placing the envelope in the mailbox on the corner, Mary said, “Let’s go to my house Ben, I’m sure my mother will let you stay for dinner if you want”.

“Thanks Mary”, said Ben, “After I check with my parents but dinner with you sure sounds good to me”.

Off in the distance, the siren of Owens Farm’s only police car could be heard and grew nearer. Ben and Mary reached the front porch of Mary’s house just as the patrol car skidded to a stop in the street in front.

Out came Officer Vache and from the back seat, protected by a painter’s tarp, a very yellow Luke Nelson.

“Ben Dover. Mary Moore, hold up a bit”, said Officer Vache. “Luke here says that… Oh for god sakes Luke you’re getting yellow paint all over the outside of the car now. Back away son.” Luke stepped away from the police car and into the street.

“Now where was I”, said Officer Vache, “Oh yes, Luke here says that you two here smashed him in the head with a paint can full of yellow paint”.

For a second, Mary and Ben froze, not knowing what to say.

Then Ben was the first to talk, “I’m not sure what you’re talking about sir. How could Mary and I take on a person as large as Luke with only a heavy paint can? He surely is too smart to fall for that.”

Luke, confused as usual, nodded in agreement feeling that of course he was too smart.
Officer Vache thought for a second and really did not want to work too hard at this. He knew that Luke had probably bought this painting upon himself and besides, he was tired and hungry and was ready to wrap the whole incident up.

Mary picking up on Ben’s cue, said, “Perhaps Luke is mistaken and got the yellow paint on himself.”

Now more tired of working on this situation and growing annoyed at being kept from his nap, Officer Vache decided to quickly wrap thing up. He said, “Yes and I’m sure that Luke is mistaken and got the paint on himself, right Luke. I said right Luke?”

Luke not fully understanding what was happening nodded.

“Go home Luke and clean yourself up”, said Officer Vache.

Luke turned and headed home, still confused.

Officer Vache got back in the police car and said, “Get up in the house kids. It’s getting near dinner time… for me anyway”. And he laughed and drove off.

“Ben, nobody’s ever going to believe us, will they”, said Mary.

"Nope”, said Ben, “but we know the truth and that’s all that matters”.

Turning back in the direction of Mr. Carlyle’s house Ben said, “Mary, I can’t wait to get a look in that basement”.

THE END