This is the Dawning

Uncle Charlie disappeared doing a magic act at my fourteenth birthday party. He's been missing ever since. He said the finale was going to be special and it certainly was. Personally, I think something went wrong with his trick. He said he would vanish when he said the magic word, but then he vanished right away, without saying any word. I think it happened before he expected it. Dad thought it was all part of the trick, and that Charlie would turn up in a day or two. Nope.

The police hung up when we tried to report a missing magician by phone. Mom, dad and I had to go in person to be believed. Even then it was a struggle. After not finding trapdoors or hidden tunnels they concluded the audience had been put into a hypnotized state, all twelve of us. In that state we couldn't see Charlie walk off stage and get into a waiting car, was their best idea. Detective Cornith confided in me he thought it was an alien abduction, but he couldn't get his bosses to agree. He expected a fourteen year old would understand the alien abduction theory and tell the Lieutenant. No chance.

Uncle Charlie has been declared legally dead, my folks got killed in a crash last year, and at the age of twenty-one I now owned Charlie Grant's estate, free and clear. It's five acres with a house and a barn. I inherited enough cash that I wouldn't have to work for at least three years, even with the expense the house was going to be. I shouldn't say that, I didn't really know what it would cost yet. I just got the power turned on and this was my first night in my new home.

Uncle Charlie described himself as a collector -”I'm not a hoarder!” he would insist. But his collections did fill much of the living space last time I was here, and nobody had cleaned in seven years. Oh boy, well I brought enough cleaning supplies and there was nothing on my social calendar, I opened the front door.

The main hallway was bright yellow. Decades of National Geographic magazines were neatly stacked floor to ceiling, their yellow spines catching the light. I explored the house. Every hallway had enough space to walk through, barely, but there were shelving units everywhere, full of gods know what. And I will have to sort through every piece of it.

There were only a few boxes on the bed, but shelves blocked the windows and clouds of dust were in the air. I wasn't going to sleep there tonight. I had brought a sleeping bag, so let's check out the barn.

The old barn had a decent roof. Uncle Charlie had his workshop there, and that meant some heavy electrical demands and a good roof. My uncle had been an inventor, “a New England tinkerer,” is how he described himself, and he did have a few lucrative patents.

I opened the door and flipped on the light switch. Lights came on, but there was a loud clunk from somewhere and music started. The barn looked just exactly like it did on my birthday. Even the banner, HAPPY BIRTHDAY EDDIE! was still strung over the stage. Uncle Charlie built the little theater because he thought himself both a stand up comic and a magician. He would give performances at every excuse. His magic was incredible, but he wasn't much of a comic.

The music playing was one of Uncle Charlie's favorite songs, "The Age of Aquarius." Where was it coming from? The barn had its own bathroom with shower and a small kitchen with a microwave. But there was no music device there. The workshop was behind the stage, and yes, it was definitely the source of the sound. What looked like a control panel took up most of a workbench, and it was lit up with several green lights and one lit gauge with a needle on the dial which seemed to pulse in time with the music, “When the moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars...”

But where was the music coming from? It sounded like perfectly balanced stereo, no matter where I stood, and I didn't see any speakers anywhere. I wanted to get rid of that song, but how? I hadn't hooked up the internet yet, but I still pleaded with Alexa to stop the damn music.

“And love will steer the stars.

"This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius...”

The control panel switches weren't labeled, but that one looked like a power on-off switch. Nope, nothing changed. That one? Yes, The lights on the panel went out and, thankfully, the music stopped.

At the families' New Year's Party, when Uncle Charlie got dad stoned on his ass, Charlie played that song over and over, while lecturing us all about string theory and the extra dimensions. Uncle Charley was preoccupied with the fifth dimension, so he played music by the '70's rock group the Fifth Dimension as a kind of joke. “Time is the fourth dimension, we are living in the stream of time, and we are passing through three dimensions by living in the stream of time. If we enter the fifth dimension we can step outside the stream of time. Getting into the fifth dimension is the problem. But I have some ideas.” Man, he was more stoned than usual, and he kept playing the Age of Aquarius. That was the same song he played during the disappearing act.

All right, the machine was turned off and the barn was quiet. I did a few hours of cleaning and then set up the sleeping bag on the stage. Tomorrow was going to be a long day.

I was getting drowsy when I realized I was laying down exactly on the spot where Uncle Charlie had disappeared. There was a click from the workshop and the music started,

“When the moon is in the seventh house...”

With a little grunt, Uncle Charlie appeared in the air above my body, wearing his black magician's tuxedo. His feet landed on my hip, he tripped and fell to the stage, his face landing a few inches from mine. He smiled.

“Happy Birthday Eddie!'