A New Bloom

It had been a few weeks since the last batch of clippings and letters had arrived from the mysterious legal office. I’d spent more time than I care to admit after work, pouring over each one. I’d finally gotten them in order and as I had surmised, there was a message. But 68 years worth of correspondence? How had someone written the bits and snippets across so many years, made sure an attorney’s office received it from different parts of the world and kept it, and sent it to me? I wasn’t even born 68 years ago! Hell, my folks didn’t know each other 68 years ago to have even considered making me.As I pondered the entire issue once again, my attention was distracted by the postal truck, parked at the curb. I watched as the carrier came up the walk to my flat. I snuck to the door and put my eye to the peephole; if he was holding a certified letter (most likely from the company that owned the title to my van as I was a tinge behind on payment), I would pretend to not be home.I jumped as he pounded the door like a policeman. ‘Package!’ he called out. I paused so he would be unaware that I had been lurking behind the door and then opened it. ‘Here you go,’ he said as he placed it on the stoop. ‘I just needed to make sure someone was here. Instructions said not to leave it.’Before I could reply, he had turned and walked away. I waited until he had gotten back into his truck and turned the corner before stepping out to retrieve whatever it was he’d left. I looked down and saw a nondescript brown box. I haven’t ordered anything lately, I thought to myself. I bent over and saw the address: it was from the legal office!It had weight. I closed the door and quietly carried the box to my dining room table. I turned on the overhead light and opened it carefully. Another neatly typed letter on that fancy paper with matching envelope awaited me. Beneath the letter was a crate, securely closed. I dug through the junk drawer and found a small crowbar that I had inherited from the previous tenant. The letter indicated that the crate had been ‘breached’ in the summer of 2009 but beyond that, seemed intact. I pried it open carefully to find a document with radiocarbon dating results from 2001, indicating that something had been dated to 1,540 years before 1950. Folded inside the radiocarbon results was another newspaper clipping, this one in Italian. I searched online for a translation of the headline, which mentioned a ‘nude stunt or drunk tavern tale’ if the translator was to be believed. I was too curious about what else was in the crate to worry about translating all of the clipping.I was about to move the packing hay but noticed a clear scroll. With shaky hands, I opened it, held it to the light, and read. Something about a temporal vortex.I cast it aside and raked through the packing material. At the bottom of the crate was a bag of some sort, containing a rectangular object. I peeled it open and with a gasp, removed … an artifact …The bulk of it was wood, I think. There was metal or something. Held together by strings, it looked old. Engraved in the metal were star signs and written on the wood, a message: Please Find Me.

This time, 587 words added to the saga … click the link to go to the previous installment. Will there be more? Who knows …