Lost Time

A short story by Christopher Scott Silva



He was a cranky old soul and no one listened to him anymore. He'd lost his grant years ago and was already lean and stooped when he moved in next door.

One day while mowing the lawn I noticed a bit of smoke swirling out of his small basement window in slow wispy loops. I let go the mower's emergency bar and ran to find out if the old man was in need of assistance.

The weathered door was unlocked with paint peeling and coming off in flakes. I pushed it open and called, "Hello, Professor Lenstein?" There was an odd smell, sweet and chemical coming from the rear and the room had a yellowish haze.

I let off toward the basement and hit the stairs at speed knowing the old teacher never left the house and I was fearing for his well being. The haze was thicker here and I coughed a bit pulling my t-shirt up to cover my mouth, my eyes stinging. The lights were on and to my surprise, the basement was empty. In the middle of the floor was a huge round burn mark with colored rings. I quickly ran and opened the two small windows hoping to let out the dangerously sweet yellow smoke.

As the haze cleared, I saw an old oak roll top desk with some papers laying on it in tidy little stacks. I had a look, now very curious and worried as to the professor’s whereabouts.

There were designs in pencil on the parchment and next to objects complex mathematical formulas. The documents showed a cylindrical object large with a type of command center at its crux.

Under the stack of undecipherable papers was a worn leather bound journal. Flipping through it, there were many references to chemicals and equations, metals and elements. I flipped quickly to the end. The last page was in a clean almost beautiful script.

"Time can be folded, and I have finally proved them all wrong!"

I called the police and fire department. The old professor was never seen or heard from again.

#

Just this morning, there was a bothersome knock on my front door and two men in clean cut black suits were there displaying government service badges. They asked about my craggy old neighbor and I told them some of the odd tale of that day.

Sadly, I explained, I was in a hurry and had little time to discuss the issue more. They left suspiciously and I returned to the door.

I went down the stairs leading to my basement and again was pleasantly amazed by the clean yellow green glow. The shining cylinder was reflecting the tungsten lamps in an phosphorescent metallic way, causing refraction.

I wiped off a bead of sweat and realized that I had just a few tweaks left.