A Bit of a Traveller

A Bit of a Traveller

The year was 1969, and the graduating class had decided to put objects into a time capsule, which was buried on in the far corner of the property owned by the high school. It was where some of the students went to go to smoke. There was a large bush that they could hide behind, and not get caught.

The plan was to dig the time capsule up and revisit it every ten years, to give it a look, maybe laugh. However, 10, then 20, 30 and even 40 years later, there had been no such activity, even though about half of those class members had come to the first two reunions, and a substantial minority to the last two. Some had even gone to the corner to have a smoke, ‘for old times sake’.  But they barely mentioned what they were standing on when they puffed away, although one or two would remark that there looked like there had been a little digging there recently, nothing much, just a little..

Most of the class had brought in fairly predictable things – vinyl records now worth quite a bit of money, fashion magazines, pictures taken at key events, like when the basketball team won the city championship, and a few snaps of people smoking behind the bush beside where the time capsule lay buried, that kind of thing.

Larry Places a Mysterious Object in the Time Capsule

But Larry had carefully placed inside the capsule something quite different. He had put it inside a wooden box before he brought it to the ‘incapsulating session’ as some smarty-pants student called it. A few were curious about what it was he had placed in the freshly dug hole, but no one thought to ask him about it. Although everyone knew of Larry, and they recognized him by sight as he had grown up alongside them year after year, no one really knew him at all. 

He was a bit of a ‘Traveller’, to use the British expression. His parents had come from eastern Europe and it was rumoured that they had lived in a caravan or trailer, along with others of their kind. They had made a little money telling fortunes, and selling shiny goods on the street, enough to pay for their fare over the Atlantic. No one’s parents knew them, not even neighbours. And this despite the fact that Larry’s father eventually came to earn a decent living as a sales manager for a big box chain store, and they lived in a ‘nice neighbourhood.’

The Fiftieth Anniversary

           It was 2019, the year of the 50^th anniversary of the class of 1969. Around twenty of them showed up, and some who had remained close friends over the years had decided that this would be their last chance to have a look at the time capsule. The reunion was on a Saturday, and they were going to do the digging at 3:00 p.m., the time when class usually got out.

Larry left early, to arrive well before the starting time. He had something to do, and did not want to be seen doing it. He parked his car on the road beside the short path that led straight to the time capsule.

           He still managed to get to the front door about the same time as most of the others did. There were people there from classes all over the years, but he had his eyes set for those who graduated with him. He had particular people in mind.

           He saw Rick Jamieson first. He walked over to him. After the initial ‘hi Rick’ he jumped straight into a conversation, not something they had often engaged in when they were students, other than asking questions about homework:

“How’s your wife Sally? And your sons, Bob, and Frank? They work at the factory where you used to work before your retirement, don’t they” 

           Rick was stunned by this, as he did not expect what he was hearing. Once his suspicions settled, he got truly engaged in conversation. It wasn’t long before the two of them grabbed a coffee each, sat down on chairs nearby and talked about their lives over the last 50 years. To watch and to listen to them, you would think that had been the best of friends in school. After about fifteen minutes of conversation, they gave each other their cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses, both thinking that they might forget to do so later. Both then made jokes about how their capacity to forget was ever-growing.

           Rick had to go to the bathroom. When he mentioned that, they exchanged one-liner jokes about a capacity that was ever shrinking.

           As soon as Rick entered the ‘Boys Washroom’, Larry saw another classmate, ‘Stan the Man’ Martin and demonstrated a similar knowledge of what had happened in Stan’s life since graduation. Stan was just as surprised as Rick had been. He and Larry had never been friends, even though they had been in the same class several times. And Larry knew some personal details that were not part of general public knowledge, facts known to very few.

           When three o’clock approached, Larry walked with the others from his graduating class, as well as a group of interested others who had graduated later, but had not created a time capsule and were regretting it now. Some of those celebrating their 50^th reunion were carrying shovels that had been supplied by the school for the occasion. When they arrived there, some noticed, but did not comment, that it looked like someone had already  done a little digging on their own. They did mention that the bush beside it had grown some since they used to hide behind it to have a smoke without getting caught.

           When the box containing Larry’s item came to the surface, he quickly picked it up, hoping that no one was paying any attention to what he was doing. However, Rick and Stan both spoke up, saying as if they had one mind between them, “What’s in the box Larry?”

           Just before Larry could complete his reply of “You wouldn’t find it interesting at all”, Rick grabbed the box right out of his hands. He opened it up quickly, then he and Stan flashed a surprized, and slightly shocked look on their faces.

           Knowing that the cat was out of the bag, or more literally the crystal ball was out of the box, Larry winked at his new-old friends and said, “Give the crystal ball to me. We will walk around behind the bush where no one can see us, and I will show you something.”

           Rick quickly handed the crystal ball over to Larry., and they walked full pace around the corner, where the bush shielded them from curious eyes. They stood together in a three person circle, around the ball that Larry held out in front of him with both hands. There was a cloudy swirling in the crystal ball, but that was as nothing compared to what appeared when Larry said “Rick Jamieson.” Pictures of Rick’s life literally flashed before all three of them. And there were sounds, barely audible but still heard, that added much to understanding what was going on in the scenes being shown.

           After about five minutes of this spectacle passed by, Rick pronounced a telling phrase that they would later use often, “It is kind of like a supernatural Google search.”

           Larry put the crystal ball inside one of the deep pockets of his brown leather jacket. The three former classmates, now on the road to becoming close friends, had something to share, the lives of their classmates over the years. Stan picked up a rock, put it into the briefly empty box. Then he handed the rock-in-a box over to Larry, who walked over to the newly-dug hole, and buried the box where it had once been.  But the past would not be so buried. It would be visited by a bit of a Traveller, and his curious friends.