Button in the Fabric of Time (2 page)

I checked to make sure no traffic was coming,
and all I saw were some tumbleweeds blowing across the road, so I
pulled onto the highway and started for Castle Rock. I could hardly
wait until the meeting ended, so that I could examine the button
again.

* * *

I checked into the hotel, took a shower, and
was barely on time for the meeting. The man who introduced me said,
“We are honored to have Mr. Augustus Wilder, chief engineer for
Pacific Engineering, tell us about a new procedure his company has
developed for building large structures.”

My boss, Joe Shannon, had told me that all I
had to do was make the presentation, and the sales staff would
negotiate the contract. So, after completing my presentation, I
picked up my briefcase and hurried to my room. As I passed through
the lobby, an attractive woman caught my eye, and her smile told me
that she was looking for company. I never thought that anything
would take precedence over spending time with a beautiful woman,
but I couldn’t get my mind off the button, so I just smiled back
and continued to my room. As soon as I got there, I took the button
from my pocket and held it under the lamp, being careful not to rub
it in a way that would cause it to vibrate. . . . I didn’t want to
suddenly find myself in Timbuktu! I tried to open the button, but I
couldn’t find a seam. I scraped it with my pocket knife to see if I
could find one, but the scraping revealed nothing.

While in the desert, I had learned that if I
rubbed the red portion of the button, I would be transported to the
location I was thinking of, and then if I rubbed the white portion,
I would be returned to my original location. I was curious to find
out what would happen if I rubbed the blue or green, but I wasn’t
prepared to deal with the situation if anything went wrong.

My work requires me to travel into remote
areas, so I keep a backpack in the trunk of my car. I went to the
car, got the backpack, and spread the contents on the floor of my
hotel room. I had an array of camping equipment, plus a
navigational instrument, and a Geiger counter. I keep a Geiger
counter in my car because I never know when I might stumble onto a
deposit of uranium—geology was one of my hobbies. After checking
everything and making sure I had fresh water in my canteen, I
strapped the backpack on so if the button zapped me off into some
unknown place, I would at least be able to survive
.

I was ready for some testing; I visualized
myself in the hotel lobby, and rubbed the red section of the
button, and instantly I was standing in the lobby. I was so excited
about how well the button had worked that I inadvertently rubbed
the white portion and found myself back in my room. That confirmed
that what I had learned in the desert was right.

Now, I had to find out what would happen if I
rubbed the blue or green portions. I was almost afraid to try, but
it was the only way I’d ever know, so again I thought of the lobby,
and rubbed the green section. I was suddenly at a place where men
were building the hotel, and this is where the lobby would be when
they got it built. This showed me that green was for traveling
back
in time. So I rubbed white, and again the button
returned me to my room at the same time I had left. Soooo, this was
beginning to get clear: rubbing white not only returns me to my
original place
, it also returns me to my
original
time
. I was beginning to get the hang of this thing. Red
transports
me to whatever place I’m thinking of, then green
moves me
back
in time; white
returns
me to
my original
time and place.

That left blue to be tested. I rubbed the
blue section as I thought of the lobby and again, there I was in
the lobby. But this time, the lobby looked old and showed signs of
wear. It was obvious that time had passed, so rubbing the blue
section had moved me
into the future
, and the people in the
lobby were dressed differently. A man carrying a glass that looked
like it might contain an alcoholic beverage saw me suddenly appear.
He looked at his glass and then back at me. I rubbed the white
portion and returned to my room wondering what the man did with his
drink when I disappeared right before his eyes.

The button fascinated me, but I couldn’t
decide what to do with it, so I sat in my chair considering the
possibilities. I could make a fortune with it in a gambling casino
or in the stock market. But something told me I should do more than
that. I couldn’t help feeling that I was somehow being guided on
how to use the button. I had the whole world—past, present, and
future—right at my fingertips.

If I traveled back in time, could I change
some of the events in history that had gone wrong? But I’d have to
be careful not to interrupt the fabric of time. I sat in the chair,
shaking my head and thinking, this is too big to rush into. I have
no way of knowing what might happen if I changed the past—it might
irreparably alter the present.

It had been an eventful day, and I was tired,
so I decided to get some sleep and think about it tomorrow
.
I didn’t want to be zapped off someplace I didn’t want to be, by
accidentally rubbing the button the wrong way, so I carefully
wrapped it in a towel and placed it in the drawer of my nightstand,
and went to bed. But I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking
about what I should do with the button.

However, I must have fallen asleep, because
the next thing I knew, dust particles were flickering in the beams
of sunlight streaming through the window. I showered, dressed, and
went down to the coffee shop. After breakfast, I paid a shoe
repairman to make a leather pouch with a strap, so I could wear the
button around my neck.

I went back to my room, placed the button in
the pouch, and put it on. It was a little heavy, but no one could
see it under my shirt.

All morning I’d been thinking of where I
wanted to go, but before I could go anywhere, I had to get my car
home. If I started right away, I could be home tonight
.

While driving home, I thought,
W
hy
not start using the button by doing something simple? I could go
back to the family farm.
. . . I was tired when I got home, so
I went right to sleep.

* * * * *

The next
morning, I turned the utilities off and secured the house to be
left empty. I was sure I would be able to return anytime I wanted
to. I put the backpack on and stood by my front window watching
people driving past and wondered how I could use the button to get
to the family farm. There was still a lot I didn’t know about how
it worked. I had enjoyed the farm when I was a boy, but I didn’t
want to shock Mother by suddenly appearing in the house. I thought
it would be best if I returned to the barn first, then I could walk
around without frightening anyone.

I was born in 1976, so if I wanted to arrive
at the farm when I was twelve, I’d have to travel back in time to
1988. I knew how to get to the farm, but how could I get there at a
particular time? I had already learned that red would transport me
to the place I was thinking about, and I could use green to travel
back in time, but how could I travel back to a particular time?
Perhaps if I wrote the date on a piece of paper, and thought of the
place while concentrating on that date, the button would transport
me to that place at that time.

I’ll make a trial run. I wrote December 25,
2006, on a pad and concentrated on that date while rubbing green.
Suddenly, I was standing beside last year’s Christmas tree,
listening to Christmas music on the radio. I rubbed white and
immediately returned to the present.

Well! That worked! Now I’ll try going into
the future. I wrote December 25, 2007, on the pad and rubbed the
blue section. At first, since there was no Christmas tree, I
thought the button hadn’t worked since I always put up a tree. Then
I saw a calendar on a stand. That’s strange, I don’t keep a
calendar on a stand, and that’s not even my stand. I looked
closer—the calendar showed the date to be December 25, 2007, but
the room was decorated differently. This was my house, all right,
and the date was right.

I heard people talking in the kitchen. Then
it hit me. I had moved out, and someone else had moved in.
I was
in someone else’s house!
I didn’t want to frighten them, so I
rubbed the white section of the button and returned to the present
time.

I hadn’t really gone anywhere—I had just
moved back and forth in time. I was wondering why I had sold the
house, and who I sold it to, and for how much. It really didn’t
matter; I could do it or not do it. It was my choice.

* * *

Convinced that I could do just about whatever
I wanted, I wrote July 7, 1988, on a pad and, while looking at the
date and thinking of a place in the family barn, I rubbed the green
spot. In the blink of an eye, I was standing in the barn! I smelled
the hay and old wood of the barn, and it brought back memories of
my childhood. A boy was milking a cow. . . .
It's
me!
At age twelve! Then I heard Grandfather’s voice.

“Augustus! Get that cow milked; your mother
will have breakfast ready soon.” When he walked into the barn and
saw me, he said, “Good morning! Where’d you come from?”

“Don’t you recognize me, Grandpa?”

He cocked his head to the side, squinted his
eyes, “Your face does look familiar, but why do you call me
Grandpa?”

Oh, oh
,
I knew that I had made a
mistake. . . .I had traveled back in time, but me, the man
traveling, had not changed to fit the time. I was still the same as
I was, when I left my living room. And I learned something else
about the button. No matter where, or to what time I traveled, I,
the traveler, would remain the same. I had to correct my error, and
quickly, or I might do some serious mental or emotional damage to
my family. I sure couldn’t continue with my original
plan
.

“I’m sorry, sir. I heard the boy call you
Grandpa, so I called you Grandpa. It was my awkward attempt at
humor. I’m just a city slicker traveling through, and I wanted to
see a real farm in action. . . . I’ll be going now. I parked my car
down the road a ways,” I lied, and started walking away.

“No harm done, young feller. Would you like
to join us for breakfast? My daughter-in-law fixes some great
pancakes and eggs.”

“Thanks for the invitation, but my friends
are waiting—I’d better be getting back.”

Grandfather’s invitation to breakfast made me
realize that I hadn’t eaten for a while. I thought of my favorite
café in Stoville—the little town nearby—and rubbed the red spot on
the button, and zap, I was in the café. It hadn’t changed a bit; it
was just as I remembered. I took a stool at the counter and looked
around. I knew most of the people. Some of them looked at me kinda
curious, but they didn’t seem to know
me
.

Darla Firth, the girl I had had a crush on
when I was twelve, was in a booth with two of her friends. I waited
until she noticed me and then smiled. She didn’t smile back; she
just looked the other way. Smiling to myself I thought,
Well!
That sure hasn’t changed
. I ordered bacon and eggs for
breakfast and paid for it with a twenty-dollar bill.

Jim, the cashier, looked at the twenty and
said, “This must be one of the new ones. I’ve never seen one like
this before.” He looked at it more closely. “There’s something
strange about this money—the date shows it was printed in 2004.
This is 1988. . . . Something’s wrong.”

“Oh! I’m sorry,” I said, as I quickly
retrieved the twenty. “My children have play money, and I seem to
have gotten a toy twenty mixed in with my real money. I’ve handed
you play money by mistake. I’ll have to get real money from my
wallet in the car; I’ll be right back.”

“Wait just a minute,” Jim said. “I can’t let
you leave without paying.”

“It’s okay; I’ll leave my watch as
security!”

“My boss will have to approve that.” Jim
hurried away saying over his shoulder, “You wait right here.”

Everyone was watching and listening. I was
embarrassed and in danger of being arrested, so I removed my Rolex,
laid it on the counter with the tab for my breakfast, rubbed the
white portion of the button, and I was back in my living room . . .
. I sat down in my easy chair and heaved a big sigh of relief.

* * *

Later, I was told that Jim returned with the
owner and asked loud enough for everyone to hear, “Where’d he
go?”

“Who?” Sam, a regular customer, asked into
his cup of coffee from his stool at the counter.

“The man dressed in shirt and pants like I’ve
never seen before, with a pack on his back,” Jim retorted.

“Oh, that man. . . . He disappeared.”

“You mean he walked out?” Jack, the owner,
asked.

“No, I mean he just disappeared. He took his
watch off, laid it on his tab, and disappeared,” Sam explained.

“Here’s his watch,” Jack said. “It looks
expensive.”

Everybody stared at the gold Rolex.

The town constable, walking by the diner,
noticed that something was amiss, so he stepped in and asked,
“What’s going on, Jack?”

“Damned if I know. Jim told me that a man was
trying to pay his check with a bogus twenty.”

“Do you have the twenty?” the constable
asked.

“No,” Jim answered sheepishly.

“What did the man look like?” the constable
asked.

“Just a regular guy, about thirty, six-foot
tall, muscular build, blue eyes, black hair, wearing strange
clothes, and he had a pack on his back.”

One of the girls chimed in, “He was handsome;
he smiled at us.”