Travel Bug (52 page)

That last story. How can we help that? We’re just hoping the trains running on time and the happy faces on city folk just might hint to a happy ending. Harold and I, of course, realized that nothing in life is guaranteed. Not the lifelong relationship with your parents and watching them grow old, not the limits of what you believe nature are, not your religious beliefs and as our lady of sorrows came to understand, your sanity. This was not the brave new world. Well, not at least since immigrants first gazed at the statue of liberty. She was lovely again, nothing covering her this time and no condemning holy book in her hand. We were like the professor character in the one story. We were not amused by all we saw…

“That might be a story but I suspect there is some truth in that one,” Harold said.

“Oh?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he answered.

“Why?”

“Well, I don’t know who the hell David Proctor is but there is certainly a Henry Wells,” Harold said.

“Yes,” I said. It dawned on me. He was a real writer and a real professor at Donnis University.

“You’re the big student, future seminarian and intellectual priest and you didn’t know that.”

“Sorry, must have slipped my mind while I was trying to save the world with a crazy old man who should be dead by eating a prehistoric bug. Is that an okay excuse?”

“Ignorance is never an excuse, son.”

“That’s not funny, Harold,” I said, laughing.

“Look, son, my time is almost up. I’m hoping to get a glimpse of the happy ending of the story here with you before I return to, you know, ancient history…”

“I see.”

“Andrew?”

“Yes?”

“Let’s leave the toy shop, now, we need to move on.”

“Okay,” I answered.

“Where do you want to go?” I asked Harold.

“Let’s keep walking towards the church, towards the cross,” he said.

“Yes, of course,” I said.

We did.

“I want to stop here,” said Harold.

It was a store. An ordinary little city book shop… It was not the book shop of the future. Merely books, magazines and… newspapers.

“I’ll take one of these,” Harold said.

“Looks pretty ordinary, I think.”

“Perhaps it is just what the eye sees, nothing unusual about it, Andrew.”

“Yes.”

“Looks like terrorist attacks and war have really plummeted here in the future, Andrew. Well, I mean at least according to today’s paper.”

“Yes,” I answered him.

Harold always loved his newspapers, he told me once. He had to read every single section, carefully organized according to category. If anyone, including my grandfather ever messed up his reading time, he would really lose his temper. It was odd. This sweet old man, who seemed like a gentle person had a bad temper. Well, it wasn’t quite so preposterous after I watched him handle a sharp knife.

“Anything else, Harold, is there more good news to read about?”

“Give me a few minutes to read, son.”

“Sounds like very few people are unemployed now,” Harold said.

“Good.”

“That’s better than good, son. I was fortunate but most people during the depression were not.”

“It would be hard for you to say that you lived during the depression.”

“No, I did not but I tried like hell to help out others in need with our family’s vast fortune. There was always a part of me that knew I could have been born under a different star. I could have been a poor man. Who knows, perhaps in a parallel universe there is or was a Harold who was an orphan, who was rejected by his family instead of being embraced by them. He grew up poor and angry. Then he lived through the depression, had to drop out of the eighth grade. You know, he joined the Navy but once they found out he was only thirteen years old, they threw him out. Then things got really bad. He was hungry. Passed around from relative to relative because his young mother was dead and while his father was alive, he was a scoundrel. He married a younger woman, started a new family and rejected his son.”

“Harold, you’re speculating……”

“He married a wonderful woman, Mary. He was religious and forgave his wretched excuse for a father. Sometimes he drank too much; he was flawed and angry but still loved his family.”

“Okay, Harold, I see.”

“Andrew, he was a good man, this alternate me.”

“Great grandfather, you’re a good man. If there is another version of you, I’m sure he is a good man.”

“Thanks son but there is a little more to tell…”

I didn’t know why he was obsessing over such things. Then like a spark out of the darkness, I realized that sometimes the best prophecies come from the most unlikely sources. If our ridiculous and obscenely wealthy family hid a prehistoric bug beneath our mansion, why couldn’t there be some truth within my great grandfather’s vision. I could think of no reason to dispute that it was at least possibly true, but I had no desire to pursue the alternate universe Andrew. I was who I was and still am.

“Please continue, Harold.”

“Thank you,” he said. Then he briefly glanced at his newspaper of the future almost as if it didn’t really matter all of that much. He smiled a deep and warm smile. Then he looked me in the eye. It was a look of absolute love.

“Well, old man, go on…”

“This other Harold had a job; he had to work for a living you see. Some people’s dreams never come true. He could only hope for a better life for his children; that was the best thing he could hope for and live for.”

“Okay, Harold, what was Harold’s job?”

“Andrew, he worked on the railroad as a conductor.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Isn’t that fitting?” he asked, sincerely.

“I don’t buy it, old man.”

“Why?” he asked, disappointingly.

“Harold, I know how much you love and have always loved and cherished reading, writing, literacy and education. There could be no eighth grade drop out of you out there. I just can’t believe it.”

“Listen son; don’t overstep your bounds by being arrogant. I understand the temptation to be condescending to people. They have no money; you couldn’t run out of money if you spent every minute of your life until your last breath. You know there are a lot of stupid rich people out there.”

“Harold, you still haven’t answered my question.”

“Son, I will.” He smiled at me. “Andrew, may I finish the story? Time is short.”

“Sorry. Yes you may…”

I knew out time was really diminishing and I really wanted him to skip this insane story so that we could finish our more insane story.

“The man who loved to read but was denied an education. There are lots of poor folks with high intelligence and many wealthy morons. The answer to your question is that he educated himself like many of the working people who stemmed from the horrors of the depression did. If one could read, one could continue to do so and bring the light of understanding into the mind. No professors or college can make anyone read after they graduate or in the case of cheaters, even during their time there. A man who wants to read and learn and gain wisdom can do so, according to his will. This was the other Harold, Harry.”

There was an obscene part of me that wanted to scream! What about me? I knew he was reading my thoughts but I didn’t care at the moment. I was only concerned about one human being in the world. Andrew Godley, me, and I was furious at the old man. Did parallel universe Andrew work in a factory but get to know his parents? You know I would rather live in a trailer then have my mom and dad’s life cut short by an insane religious hypocrite of the highest order.

Churches were naturally filled with hypocrites because they were filled with human beings. The Christian obsession with the idea of sexuality being the most worst of all sins was frightening. Especially since Christ himself ate with prostitutes.

We walked towards the church.

We walked towards the cross.

The music sounded so beautiful that I thought Heaven was putting on a concert inside the sacred building we were about to enter.

I walked faster because Harold was much older than me but he was definitely on my heels. The busy people of New York walked bristly by us. We were close. We were almost there now. The warm feeling inside of me was almost indescribable. I knew something good was coming from that church and I had to know what it was.

The outside door was warm and welcoming.

Harold and I smiled at one another…

Then we walked right in the front door.

Harold sat in his pew and I sat down next to him. There were lovely stained glass windows, a great golden cross, and no crucifixes and boy… I couldn’t tell you what denomination this was if my life depended on it.

“I assume that we are here for a reason,” Harold said. The voice of Harold was growing deep and sort of dark. The prisms were not every damned color in the rainbow. They would miraculously appear almost at once and then vanish as quickly as my eyes could see them. The old man stretched in his pew, in this charming old church. We had no idea what denomination it was and in the future this did not matter. My great grandfather looked up, beyond the pews, towards the symbol of the cross. He smiled.

You talk about a change of pace in the world of the faithful. Harold and I were shocked to see that Pastor Fred was apparently the leader of this particular congregation. His new gospel message was more shocking.

“We are now finally infected with true love for others. The problem is that we are still in the early stages.”

The man had the undivided attention of his congregation.

“The observations made by Christ are a true philosophy. We can’t fear hell in order to do the right thing and be moral. Mankind has evolved past Christianity or any other faith scaring people into submission and obedience.”

Harold and I could not stop looking at one another. Our ears, however, were busy hearing this radical new sermon.

“Even if Christ was a mere man, we are Christians. We follow the belief system that is others serving and not self-serving. It’s time to put away the nonsense and follow Jesus instead of those who profit from terrifying others.”

This brief look into the future obviously taught my great grandfather and me much. Imagine followers of Christ who, well, really followed Christ instead of superstition. We’re talking real spirituality here. No hope of bodily resurrection or the glory of watching enemies burn in hell. Revenge for a lifetime of turning the other cheek was not a very Christian idea. Merely making this miserable existence a little more livable for the poor and down trodden, the meek really would inherit the earth. What was the alternative? Thy rod and staff was supposed to provide comfort, not fear of eternal damnation that could only be absolved by a blank check. Mind control was what religion was all about. Mind control poisons the human spirit. It produced men wise enough to provide brain surgery and yet still thought the world was six thousand years old. Bright people often made insidious excuses for their belief in the utterly bizarre tales of organized religion. Those days seemed blessedly at an end. This, of course, did not disprove God’s existence. It only meant God was much bigger than the theology humans created.

God should not have to be believed in to be real or sit around day after day waiting to be praised like some vain rock star. The Supreme Being was not a narcissist. Nonbelievers should never be meant to feel shame when there has never been scientific proof of the invisible world.

There was never anything profound about being superstitious. We pray to our mythic creations to try and rise above the ape and find reasons to help others. This way we can live instead of merely survive. We shouldn’t be living in a dream world but perhaps the harsh reality of this brief ambiguous existence is a living nightmare.

There has never been a shred of proof for miracles in all of human history. This should not be considered a call to despair. One need not walk on water to fight the good fight.

“What was it like for you, Harold?”

“The days were long and the years were fast.”

I smiled at him.

“I love you, Andrew……”

Harold was engulfed in hundreds of prisms of many bright colors and simply… disappeared…

“I love you, old man…”

“Please remember me……”

“I will…”

The pew was empty, Harold, my great grandfather disappeared. He was gone forever. I reluctantly stared at the empty space where he was sitting before he vanished. I didn’t cry.

“Thanks for the grand adventure, old man. Don’t forget to write.”

Someday I would be reading Harold’s letters. This would be in years to come after visiting the old man’s grave. I had a feeling that he would be writing a lot of them. This was instinctive to me. So was the feeling that meeting Christopher Wisdom and Dr. Henry David Wells (a.k.a. David Proctor) was inevitable like fate. Harold and I changed the future for the better. We stopped an evil woman with a mass murdering plan for humanity. We stopped fanaticism from destroying freedom. The trains ran on time here. All religions had evolved into philosophies. I was proud of what my great grandfather and I had accomplished. We rose to the occasion. We were heroes.

DAVID KEMPF has written over fifty short stories, many of which deal with themes of horror fiction. He has won several writing awards including first place in the short story competition of Millersville University’s Lemuria Magazine. Two of his short stories were selected in the 2007 publication of The Grackle, his graduate school’s literary magazine. David is featured on two short fiction websites, one American and one British. David’s first novel DARK FICTION spent several weeks as the number one bestseller on Barnes & Noble’s eBook platform for horror fiction. His second book THE PETSORCIST spent several weeks in the top five of the same.

His book of interviews of notable people in the horror industry THE HORROR OF IT ALL raised money for people suffering from ALS. TRAVEL BUG is his new novel and he plans on writing many more.

David resides in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with his wife and son.