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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Teens
- Theme: Fairy Tales & Fantasy
- Subject: Time: PAST/Present/FUTURE
- Published: 09/27/2022
I can't explain exactly what happened on the night before Christmas at Papa's house, but what I can do is try. I don't have many stories that come close to this one besides the one that aunt Mable retells every year at thanksgiving about the leprechaun she swore lived under her dad's shed. The whole family refuses to believe that this was ever true. On the other hand, I do not entirely disregard Aunt Mable's fables. Although they can be outrageously unrestricted by the laws of nature sometimes, she always finds a way to justify what she perceives to be true. This story happened about four years ago in Milton, Tennessee, just off Goodman Road, where Memaw and Papa lived. It was the night before Christmas, and the entire family had been together for once. Usually, we would have my immediate family, Memaw and Papa, and Aunt Sue and her little family, but this year was a little different–Papa had cancer. This was shocking news to the entire family because Papa had done nothing but take care of himself and the family. How could a nice, clean-cut, church-going, family man get dealt such a fatal hand in life? To this day, I cannot seem to find the answer to this question. Nonetheless, we were all there; I mean it when I say we were all there. I remember seeing people that, to this day, I could not tell who they were. Not because our family wasn't close, but because we have many family members. Grandpa has seven brothers and sisters who all have at least four children and at least one child each. And guess what, it's almost the same on the Memaw's side too. That's just the beginning. We also have Papa's family from his dad's brothers and his mom's sisters and the same on me ma's side. Let me say it was a very wild night; however, it was probably the most beautiful a glorious night I have ever experienced. At about eight o'clock, we started eating dinner, and at 8:10, we were all finished. My family is known around town for getting straight to business. "I'm stuffed," Uncle Jack said with his tummy sticking out a bit from underneath his shirt. "You got any desert, Bernice?" "You fat twat. Hey Bernice, keep that pretty little cake far away from Jumpin' Jack. He don't know better than to scarf that whole thing down once he gets his eyes glued to it." The whole dining room burst into a roar of laughter. "Shut up, spencer, you dumb knucklehead. I ain't done that ever in my life. I'm a modest man." And modest he was, but not modest enough to keep his belly from peaking out of the bottom of his shirt. After Spencer and Uncle Jack finished poking fun at each other, conversation about all kinds of things filled the room. Fishing, work, school, babies, and a lot more. This is typically how it goes around our family. We have a few laughs, talk about life, play games, and then go to bed. While the family was talking, I went to Papa to see how he was doing. "Papa!" "Hey, you little rascal! What's been going on." he said, with a gleam in his eye. "Oh, not much," I said. "Mostly sticking to the family business. I've been saving up to buy a watch to start telling the time." Papa started chuckling as if he knew something that I didn't know. "What's so funny?" I said with a wrinkled forehead and crunched up eyes brows. Papa looked around as if he was making sure no one was paying attention to him, then he looked at me and whispered, "follow me." At this point, the curiosity about why Papa was acting so suspicious led me to follow him. He took me out of the house and across the road to the old silo building. At once, a smell hit me. It wasn't a pleasant smell, but it wasn't awful either. It was just a smell. It reminded me of the smell of gas or rubber. It was a very bearable smell. He took me through the front door and into the second door on the left, which led to a small office. This was an unusual sight because it is rare to find an office in a silo house that hadn't been used in years. "Papa, why the heck is there an office in this old silo house?" I said with a confused look on my face. Papa looked at the ground for a second and then slowly brought his eyes up to where they met mine. "My work is timeless and boundless," he said with a smile on his face." He looked at me for a second, then jerked his body as if he realized he had forgotten something. "Oh my. Now, why am I here? Ah! Yes." he started fumbling through the endless number of cabinets behind his desk. "Ah ha!." Papa explained. "Here is our prize." It was an hourglass. Timeless yet bound by time at the same time. It was perfectly golden and perfectly scratchless. He sat it before my eyes on the desk next to the old pin his father gave him from WWI. "Here lies the answers to many questions, but unanswered they shall remain until you turn things upside down." Papa then left for a fleeting moment and went back to the house. At first. I was so confused. What the heck just happened? It felt as if I was in a dream. In fact, there was a second when I was trying to open my eyes farther to wake up from what was reality. I sat there for about twenty minutes, trying to understand the meaning of his riddle. "Until you turn things upside down," I said slowly and quietly to myself. "What am I, a problem solver?" I was never good at riddles, and I was not about to solve this one. However, there was a moment when I realized that an hourglass can do just that and must do just that–turn upside down. So that's exactly what I did. I slowly reached out my hand, grabbed it, turned it till it was upside down, and then sat it back on the table. The sand began to fall, as any other hourglass; however, just behind it, in the blurry part of my vision, I began to see a circular black thing. This thing was getting bigger and bigger and bigger. It did not stop growing. At one point, the black thing was stretched into my peripheral and beyond. As this happened, a great wind began to stir up that did not move me and blew everything else away. I felt the pressure of this wind against all sides of my body, but I stood there firmly, unaltered in my movement. This was not what I expected by any means. "What shall I do?" I said to myself. It was an honest question. I was not panicked, I was not scared or dismayed, but I was curious. What harm would it do me to step into this black thing? I reasoned with myself for so long, but there was a feeling that I had to make a decision quickly: and I did. I stepped into the black thing as confidently as I would if I was taking a stroll in part. And so it began. It was black, and it was nothing. Silence began to scream at me from all sides, from sides that I didn't know existed. I was hyper-aware that pure nothingness was around me. I was also hyperaware of the silence. It was so loud that I could barely hear my thoughts. But yet, I was calmer than I had ever been. I knew that I was nowhere, which meant I was alone and had nothing, in those moments, to worry about. Worry was the last thing that was on my mind. I began to walk with caution. Although peaceful, I still understood that danger could be in any place, even in no place. Nonetheless, I pressed on. I was not shaken at any moment. After walking for a while, I made an abrupt stop. It was as if something commanded me to stop. Then I heard a loud rumble from above that said, "Look up." It was not English, but I could understand what it was saying. I looked up and saw a lightning strike shoot straight down at a very extreme speed. At the end of the lightning bolt was a celestial being. It had several wings and eyes, but I could not count how many. Despite the speed of the lightning bolt, I still saw bits and pieces of this creature. After this event took place, there was an overwhelming silence that was filled with hope. It lasted for several moments, each moment made of a thousand years; then it happened. I heard the roar of a lion come from above as if it was instructing with authority and power. At that moment, A great sound shook the nothingness around me that was now everything. I felt everything within my own body. It was as if a great breath blew through my body and new life entered my bones. I could see everything, from beginning to end. I saw the earth and its grandeur during and after its creation. I saw the sun as a young toddler and also as an old black nothingness. I saw the moon give light and the stars twinkle in the night. I could not believe what I saw in the few moments that I was there. How could this be? How can this happen?" I began to ask myself. It was a complete miracle that I saw things that happened years before my time. Millions? Billions? A couple of thousand? I wasn't a scientist by any means, but I knew it was long ago. I heard the rumble again from above. This time it was much louder than last time. It was almost overbearing. My ears rattled so much that I could not see straight. I looked down and realized that my body was not made to be near this sound. It was as if the sound was too holy for me to be near it. I needed to find a way out of this. I tried what I tried earlier at the silo. I pried my eyes open super wide. The rumble was getting louder, so much so that the veins in my arms began to swell up. I began to panic. There was no rule book for moments like these. I tried again. I did the same thing, except this time, I pressed into my face and into the ground to get more leverage. It did not work. In all reality, I believe I was still awake. At this point, the rumble was so loud I could not move. I was beginning to cry. Is this the end? Am I to die at the beginning of it all? So many questions I had, and yet no answers could be seen. I covered my ears and began to scream; then, I was back all at once. I stopped screaming immediately but slowly took my hands off my ears. I saw the last grain of sand fall like lightning within the hourglass in front of me. I was back at the silo house, which was in one piece as if it was untouched and unaltered. Everything was exactly how it was. This was the least of my concerns the moment I came back. What surprised me the most was that it had only been one hour all the time I was there. What felt like thousands of years was only sixty minutes. I didn't know exactly what to make of what just happened to me. The only thing I could think about was to return to my family. As I walked through the back door, I saw my whole family. "Moses!" Uncle Jack exclaimed. "You're back! Another round, my friends!" "Another round!" my family shouted as they lifted their glasses to the sky. Laughter and joy filled the room. Or maybe it was there the entire time I was gone. Who knows. At least they were happy. I looked around the room, scanning for Papa. I could not spot him for a second, but then I spotted the white cane he always carried with the lion head carved onto the top. I ran straight to him and hugged him as tight as I could. "Ok, so. What exactly just happened," I said with great curiosity. Papa began to chuckle again. "Hey, what's so funny?" I said with my scrunchy eyebrows again. Papa's laugh slowly came to a close as he looked into my eyes and uttered these few words: "Oh Moses. That was just the back part of the Lion. Wait till you see his mane."
Papa has an Hourglass(Evan Dozier) I can't explain exactly what happened on the night before Christmas at Papa's house, but what I can do is try. I don't have many stories that come close to this one besides the one that aunt Mable retells every year at thanksgiving about the leprechaun she swore lived under her dad's shed. The whole family refuses to believe that this was ever true. On the other hand, I do not entirely disregard Aunt Mable's fables. Although they can be outrageously unrestricted by the laws of nature sometimes, she always finds a way to justify what she perceives to be true. This story happened about four years ago in Milton, Tennessee, just off Goodman Road, where Memaw and Papa lived. It was the night before Christmas, and the entire family had been together for once. Usually, we would have my immediate family, Memaw and Papa, and Aunt Sue and her little family, but this year was a little different–Papa had cancer. This was shocking news to the entire family because Papa had done nothing but take care of himself and the family. How could a nice, clean-cut, church-going, family man get dealt such a fatal hand in life? To this day, I cannot seem to find the answer to this question. Nonetheless, we were all there; I mean it when I say we were all there. I remember seeing people that, to this day, I could not tell who they were. Not because our family wasn't close, but because we have many family members. Grandpa has seven brothers and sisters who all have at least four children and at least one child each. And guess what, it's almost the same on the Memaw's side too. That's just the beginning. We also have Papa's family from his dad's brothers and his mom's sisters and the same on me ma's side. Let me say it was a very wild night; however, it was probably the most beautiful a glorious night I have ever experienced. At about eight o'clock, we started eating dinner, and at 8:10, we were all finished. My family is known around town for getting straight to business. "I'm stuffed," Uncle Jack said with his tummy sticking out a bit from underneath his shirt. "You got any desert, Bernice?" "You fat twat. Hey Bernice, keep that pretty little cake far away from Jumpin' Jack. He don't know better than to scarf that whole thing down once he gets his eyes glued to it." The whole dining room burst into a roar of laughter. "Shut up, spencer, you dumb knucklehead. I ain't done that ever in my life. I'm a modest man." And modest he was, but not modest enough to keep his belly from peaking out of the bottom of his shirt. After Spencer and Uncle Jack finished poking fun at each other, conversation about all kinds of things filled the room. Fishing, work, school, babies, and a lot more. This is typically how it goes around our family. We have a few laughs, talk about life, play games, and then go to bed. While the family was talking, I went to Papa to see how he was doing. "Papa!" "Hey, you little rascal! What's been going on." he said, with a gleam in his eye. "Oh, not much," I said. "Mostly sticking to the family business. I've been saving up to buy a watch to start telling the time." Papa started chuckling as if he knew something that I didn't know. "What's so funny?" I said with a wrinkled forehead and crunched up eyes brows. Papa looked around as if he was making sure no one was paying attention to him, then he looked at me and whispered, "follow me." At this point, the curiosity about why Papa was acting so suspicious led me to follow him. He took me out of the house and across the road to the old silo building. At once, a smell hit me. It wasn't a pleasant smell, but it wasn't awful either. It was just a smell. It reminded me of the smell of gas or rubber. It was a very bearable smell. He took me through the front door and into the second door on the left, which led to a small office. This was an unusual sight because it is rare to find an office in a silo house that hadn't been used in years. "Papa, why the heck is there an office in this old silo house?" I said with a confused look on my face. Papa looked at the ground for a second and then slowly brought his eyes up to where they met mine. "My work is timeless and boundless," he said with a smile on his face." He looked at me for a second, then jerked his body as if he realized he had forgotten something. "Oh my. Now, why am I here? Ah! Yes." he started fumbling through the endless number of cabinets behind his desk. "Ah ha!." Papa explained. "Here is our prize." It was an hourglass. Timeless yet bound by time at the same time. It was perfectly golden and perfectly scratchless. He sat it before my eyes on the desk next to the old pin his father gave him from WWI. "Here lies the answers to many questions, but unanswered they shall remain until you turn things upside down." Papa then left for a fleeting moment and went back to the house. At first. I was so confused. What the heck just happened? It felt as if I was in a dream. In fact, there was a second when I was trying to open my eyes farther to wake up from what was reality. I sat there for about twenty minutes, trying to understand the meaning of his riddle. "Until you turn things upside down," I said slowly and quietly to myself. "What am I, a problem solver?" I was never good at riddles, and I was not about to solve this one. However, there was a moment when I realized that an hourglass can do just that and must do just that–turn upside down. So that's exactly what I did. I slowly reached out my hand, grabbed it, turned it till it was upside down, and then sat it back on the table. The sand began to fall, as any other hourglass; however, just behind it, in the blurry part of my vision, I began to see a circular black thing. This thing was getting bigger and bigger and bigger. It did not stop growing. At one point, the black thing was stretched into my peripheral and beyond. As this happened, a great wind began to stir up that did not move me and blew everything else away. I felt the pressure of this wind against all sides of my body, but I stood there firmly, unaltered in my movement. This was not what I expected by any means. "What shall I do?" I said to myself. It was an honest question. I was not panicked, I was not scared or dismayed, but I was curious. What harm would it do me to step into this black thing? I reasoned with myself for so long, but there was a feeling that I had to make a decision quickly: and I did. I stepped into the black thing as confidently as I would if I was taking a stroll in part. And so it began. It was black, and it was nothing. Silence began to scream at me from all sides, from sides that I didn't know existed. I was hyper-aware that pure nothingness was around me. I was also hyperaware of the silence. It was so loud that I could barely hear my thoughts. But yet, I was calmer than I had ever been. I knew that I was nowhere, which meant I was alone and had nothing, in those moments, to worry about. Worry was the last thing that was on my mind. I began to walk with caution. Although peaceful, I still understood that danger could be in any place, even in no place. Nonetheless, I pressed on. I was not shaken at any moment. After walking for a while, I made an abrupt stop. It was as if something commanded me to stop. Then I heard a loud rumble from above that said, "Look up." It was not English, but I could understand what it was saying. I looked up and saw a lightning strike shoot straight down at a very extreme speed. At the end of the lightning bolt was a celestial being. It had several wings and eyes, but I could not count how many. Despite the speed of the lightning bolt, I still saw bits and pieces of this creature. After this event took place, there was an overwhelming silence that was filled with hope. It lasted for several moments, each moment made of a thousand years; then it happened. I heard the roar of a lion come from above as if it was instructing with authority and power. At that moment, A great sound shook the nothingness around me that was now everything. I felt everything within my own body. It was as if a great breath blew through my body and new life entered my bones. I could see everything, from beginning to end. I saw the earth and its grandeur during and after its creation. I saw the sun as a young toddler and also as an old black nothingness. I saw the moon give light and the stars twinkle in the night. I could not believe what I saw in the few moments that I was there. How could this be? How can this happen?" I began to ask myself. It was a complete miracle that I saw things that happened years before my time. Millions? Billions? A couple of thousand? I wasn't a scientist by any means, but I knew it was long ago. I heard the rumble again from above. This time it was much louder than last time. It was almost overbearing. My ears rattled so much that I could not see straight. I looked down and realized that my body was not made to be near this sound. It was as if the sound was too holy for me to be near it. I needed to find a way out of this. I tried what I tried earlier at the silo. I pried my eyes open super wide. The rumble was getting louder, so much so that the veins in my arms began to swell up. I began to panic. There was no rule book for moments like these. I tried again. I did the same thing, except this time, I pressed into my face and into the ground to get more leverage. It did not work. In all reality, I believe I was still awake. At this point, the rumble was so loud I could not move. I was beginning to cry. Is this the end? Am I to die at the beginning of it all? So many questions I had, and yet no answers could be seen. I covered my ears and began to scream; then, I was back all at once. I stopped screaming immediately but slowly took my hands off my ears. I saw the last grain of sand fall like lightning within the hourglass in front of me. I was back at the silo house, which was in one piece as if it was untouched and unaltered. Everything was exactly how it was. This was the least of my concerns the moment I came back. What surprised me the most was that it had only been one hour all the time I was there. What felt like thousands of years was only sixty minutes. I didn't know exactly what to make of what just happened to me. The only thing I could think about was to return to my family. As I walked through the back door, I saw my whole family. "Moses!" Uncle Jack exclaimed. "You're back! Another round, my friends!" "Another round!" my family shouted as they lifted their glasses to the sky. Laughter and joy filled the room. Or maybe it was there the entire time I was gone. Who knows. At least they were happy. I looked around the room, scanning for Papa. I could not spot him for a second, but then I spotted the white cane he always carried with the lion head carved onto the top. I ran straight to him and hugged him as tight as I could. "Ok, so. What exactly just happened," I said with great curiosity. Papa began to chuckle again. "Hey, what's so funny?" I said with my scrunchy eyebrows again. Papa's laugh slowly came to a close as he looked into my eyes and uttered these few words: "Oh Moses. That was just the back part of the Lion. Wait till you see his mane."
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