What a journey this has been. Oh sure, not as dramatic a journey as my friend, Rich’s, but still.
In the matter of a 4 months, I’ve built a house, and it’s a really, really good house. Small, but then in my opinion, that’s the best kind. Houses are meant to be shelter and home. The bigger they get, the more they own you, rather than the other way around. This one’s nice, log construction, a solid foundation, good basement for storage and best yet, completely liveable “off the grid.” That was very important for Rich, a point he made very clear in his instructions to me. There’s a generator, underground tanks for diesel, and above tanks for heating oil and LP gas. A big septic tank that’ll last 30 years, and a deep well, even though the water table’s pretty easily accessable here.
It’s a good house. The least I could do for my friend Rich.
I think he knows something’s coming. I haven’t written anything about it, mainly because I needed to think about what he’d written some more, but also because I wanted to talk with Molly about it before I put anything on the blog.
Rich is coming here in a few days from 1936. When he gets here, he will have been in the past for about 3 years, and the journals I have from him, that he left me in the ammo box, say that once he’d met his grandfather in 1933, he left Belton and traveled, both geographically and temporally. In other words, he time traveled. A lot.
Some of his trips were to the past, close to the period he was living in. But some extended to the future, even beyond now. Rich has written that when he traveled to the future before going back to 1933, being in the future was uncomfortable. The discomfort was greater the further into the future he traveled. I think he wrote that it was like a shreaking in his head that he couldn’t quite hear, but was very unsettling. Apparently, the discomfort wasn’t just internal, because in his journals he describes a near future that’s very, very difficult, and I think that’s what this house is for. I believe that Rich has found a way to stay put in time, and wants to have a safe place for his family to live in this difficult time. That he needed me to build this house now, suggests that the troubling times are coming up pretty soon, and that worries me.
I think the Rich that traveled to San Diego a couple weeks ago didn’t come from 1952 at all. I think he came from the future, to make sure his past happens as he needs it to. I believe that after he left two weeks ago, he traveled to 1952 to bury the ammo box and outline the preparations I’ve made on his behalf. I am confident that he’ll share the whole story, and what he’s been working toward when we see him in a couple weeks.
It’s going to be a great story!
