The Opening

You will never believe what I am about to tell you. Heck, I was there and I have a hard time believing it myself. Even now I hesitate, because telling about it, may place me in danger. I’m only writing it down as a means of documenting it so if something happens to me, maybe this information will fall into the right hands. Maybe it can prevent something from happening that may have otherwise been avoided.

About six months ago, I was walking in some unfamiliar woods in Tennessee, looking at a piece of property to purchase, when I happened upon the thing. Forgive me if I sound somewhat vague in he details, but I have my reasons. Thinking back on it now, I find it very difficult to try to describe it. The thing was roughly the size of a door, but it wasn’t square and it reminded me of the waves of heat rising from the pavement on a hot summer’s day, except that the waves mostly stayed in sort of an oblong shape. The fact that the object was hovering over a cold rushing creek made the concept of the thing consisting of heat waves almost impossible. Add to that the fact that it was a fall morning, and maybe you can understand my difficulty in calling it heat waves. As soon as I saw it, I stopped dead in my tracks. I had never seen anything like it before. I was perplexed and a bit anxious. I had my cell phone, so I took it out of my backpack and took a picture of the object, or maybe I should say, I took a picture of the lack of the object. I think that would better describe it. My hands were shaking as I looked down at the picture. I could not detect the thing at all on the phone screen. All I could see was the leaf covered creek and the woods behind it. I decided to look at it from other angles so I started to walk around it in a circular motion. As I started around it, I looked down to see where I should best place my feet and that is when I saw the little black book. It was mostly hidden under some brightly colored leaves, but the edge was barely sticking out. It was laying on some rocks beside the creek and it was very close to the water. As I bent down to pick up the book, I brushed away the leaves. At that point I also spotted foot prints in the mud, coming away from the shimmering-waves object. With my eyes, I traced the footsteps up the slight embankment where they disappeared into the woods. The book was old and had a worn, dog-eared cover. I opened the book and gazed down at the pages in bewilderment. There were newspaper clippings stuffed between the pages of the book. I flipped through a few pages and saw odd printed characters that resembled some sort of hieroglyfics. I took one folded newspaper clipping out of the book, stuffed the book in my backpack, and opened up the newspaper clipping. I must have stared at that newspaper for ten minutes. It was very old and had yellowed with time. The print was in English. Initially I thought the paper may have been about twenty to thirty years old. But then I looked at the date. The fact that the date was in the near future was almost enough to knock me down. I stared at it in disbelief. I glanced around me thinking that this had to be some sort of joke you see on one of those prank TV shows. No one was there. There were no hidden cameras. It was just me and the hovering, shimmering, heat-waves thing, beside the creek in the middle of the woods, on a remote piece of property at an undisclosed location, somewhere in Tennessee.

Up to that point, I had never even contemplated time travel or travel to another dimension, and to put it into words now seems to me to be a bit on the crazy side. I can assure you I’m not crazy. But as I stood there, staring down at the newspaper, I began to think that maybe time travel was possible. On one side of the paper were the results of a local election, an election that had not yet taken place. I’m not going to say where the election was or who won, or who the people were in the obituaries, because since I found the book, I have come to realize that disclosing some things to the public, even anonymously, may have a domino effect on how the world progresses or stops progressing. Holding the newspaper open in my hands, I continued to circle around the object. As I circled it, I noticed that the object was flat when looking at it from the sides, and it was virtually undetectable from the back. I continued around it and came to a stop beside the foot prints and fully in front of the object. Holding the newspaper in one hand, I bent down, picked up a small rock and tossed it at the center of the shimmering waves. The rock disappeared without a sound. I had expected the rock to land with a splash on the other side of the object, but it didn’t. Then it dawned on me that there might be people or beings on the other side of that thing. From here on, I will call the object the opening in time, or just simply The Opening. If there were people or beings on the other side, they might be waiting for the person that dropped the book to come back with something. They may have sent the person here to this time to accomplish some sort of mission. It also occurred to me that I might be on the wrong side of whatever group or government felt it was necessary to make this trip. They might be enemies in our time.

I began to contemplate that perhaps someone had come through the Opening and had stepped into this time and onto this creek bed for nefarious reasons. That is when I began to feel a sense of danger welling up inside me. What had I discovered? Who did the book belong to? What technology and in what century would it become possible for people to travel in time? And, with that type of technology, what would they do to someone that discovered their Opening. How hard would it be for them to figure out who had the book? What would they hope to accomplish by coming here? Would they hope to change our future or their past? I really don’t remember folding up the newspaper and placing it back into the book. I don’t even recall the walk back to my car. All I can remember was the feeling that I may have been watched from that moment on.

When I got to my car , I threw my backpack in the trunk jumped in the driver’s seat and drove away, looking in my rearview mirror constantly to see if I was being followed. Twice I pulled off the road and looked up into the sky to see if I was being followed by some sort of drone. I’m not going to say how long it took me to get home, or even what state I live in. Needless to say, when I did get home, I opened the little black book again and looked through some of the other newspaper clippings. A couple of them were in the past, but the vast majority were in the future. I also spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out what the hieroglyfics were but I never was able to decipher them.

One newspaper clipping had the winner of the next Kentucky Derby. Thoughts began to run through my head. If someone wins the Kentucky Derby, who knows the details of the winners? Is there an amount that flags someone? Does the Derby report the names of the winners to the government? Do the winners have to provide a valid I.D.? If someone intends to bet on a horse that will win the Derby, should they go all out or should they try to stay under the radar. I had the book, but if the owner of the book had read the name of the winner, I am certain they would return to the Derby to make the bet. If they had the technology to travel in time, or to another dimension, maybe they could easily figure out who won money at the Kentucky Derby using that sophisticated technology. I knew there would be multiple winners, so I decided to make a bet, but to keep the amount reasonable. I decided to go online and check out betting on the Derby.

Ultimately I placed a bet. I won’t tell you the year, or how long I had to wait to see the race. I won’t even tell you the name of the horse. I know it sounds paranoid, but I have this information and I think about what the people would do to someone who discovered it. How hard would it be to identify the person who found the book. If time travel is what they were doing, all they would have to do is send someone through the opening earlier than the first person and watch to see who picked up the book, or actually pick up the book themselves and return it to the person who dropped it. Then it occurred to me that maybe there is a problem sending people back in time. Maybe once they are here, they can’t go back to their time. Maybe time travel is a one way ticket.

With all that information running through my head, I placed an online bet on the horse identified as the winner in the newspaper clipping. I didn’t want to make it too ridiculous, so I kept the bet at a reasonable amount. After all, there would be other opportunities based on the other newspaper clippings. Imagine my excitement as I counted down the days until the Derby started. I decided to go to the Derby in person. Again, I won’t say how long it took me to get there, but I did arrive at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. As I walked through the crowd, I took a moment to look at everyone I passed. Thinking to myself each time, could this be the one? Could this be the person that dropped the little black notebook? If there was only one way through the opening, maybe this was their only way to make enough money to exist in this time and to have enough money to accomplish their mission if they had one.

I found my seat and waited for the race to begin. I had the little black notebook with me and I clutched it tightly in my hands.

It seemed like an eternity as the horses lined up at the gate. My heart was beating fast in my chest. If the newspaper clipping were correct, I would soon walk away with $20,000. I was nervous, excited, and scared all at the same time. Sweat had beaded on my forehead and my palms were moist and clammy. The gate flew open and a bell rang out as the race began. The horses jumped out of the gates. I reluctantly pulled my gaze away from the horses as they started around the track. I scanned the crowd one last time and my eyes met the stare of a man who wasn’t watching the race at all. He was only looking at me. Slowly, keeping me in his stare, he raised his binoculars to his eyes. I glanced back at the track. My horse was winning.