Hollow

The newborn was wriggling against the cold dead oak leaves. She tossed and kicked her tiny limbs but it wasn’t enough to keep her warm. Few minutes more and she would have died of hypothermia.

"What was a newborn child doing in the middle of nowhere, on a cold autumn night?"

There was no time to ask such questions now for Lt. Roberts.

With gentle haste he wrapped the baby in his police jacket and put her in the back seat of his old Toyota.

“Damn heaters! They never warm up fast enough!”, he thought.

"Poor little munchkin!", Lt. Roberts glimpsed at the baby in his rear view mirror. "Lucky I was around, eh?”.

There was a strange familiarity he felt towards the child.

………

The old oak tree used to be his refuge back when he was a boy. He always remembered it as “that old tree”. It's been almost a year since he came back from Afghanistan and his entire life turned into one giant lonely pile of crap. Tonight he was back there at that old tree to end it all but apparently he found himself rescuing someone else's baby instead.

………

“Did you find anything else on site, Jim? What were you doing out there in the first place?”, asked the police chief - an old family friend from back when Lt. Roberts had a family. It was a little unsettling that this old geezer knew more about his family than he ever will.

“I just needed to... clear my head. What do you mean 'anything else'?"

“I don’t know… Something that would help us identify the baby?”

Jim rubbed his forehead.

“Oh… I didn’t even think to look, Sam. It was pitch black out there and I had to act fast. I will go back in a few hours once the sun is up…”

"By the way, the hospital people said they had to fix the baby up. Some type of birth defect? She's good as new now. One lucky baby that one, lemme tell’ya!"

………

The old oak stood there as always. Dark clouds gave it quite an ominous backdrop. Its giant hollow gaped like a mouth of a hungry monster. Jim scanned through the damp fallen leaves. Nothing but a rope from earlier… Jim jumbled it up and stashed it in his pocket.

“What about the hollow?”

Jim never really got near that one. He suffered from claustrophobia back in the day. He stuck his head carefully into the tree’s empty belly and then disappeared into it entirely.

It felt surprisingly cozy and it smelled of ancient soil.

Jim felt like his heart was about to burst.

“Not now, damn it!”

The flashlight slipped off his shaky hands, now free to feel their way through his pockets in search for Ativan pills.

This panic attack seemed different, almost like a sudden whiplash and it went away sooner than usual.

Jim stepped out of the hollow. He must have been in there for no more than three minutes.

“There is nothing here!”

The weather change seemed a bit sudden. Now it was warm and sunny. Almost too warm for November! If it wasn’t New England, Jim would have been quite puzzled.

“Hello, Jimmy! I’ve been waiting for you.”

Strangely clad old lady stood in front of him as if she just appeared out of nowhere.

“Do I know you?”

Jim tried to run through his memory database of aunts, family friends, old acquaintances and elementary school teachers…

“Beautiful oak, isn’t it? One human lifetime is like a fraction of a second for an old tree like this one! Some things get so old that time doesn’t affect them anymore. That is until they die”, the old lady went on as if she couldn’t hear him. She looked straight at him. There was something familiar in her eyes. Jim could see it now.

“That’s right, dear boy! It’s me, that little baby girl you found right here only few hours… well… ninety years ago for me.”

“I’m in… the future?”, Jim knew how cliché it sounded but it was the only thing he could say right now.

“There is no such thing as the future, sweetheart!”, the old lady replied. “There is only entropy and passing. Time is like that jumbled up rope you hide in your pocket and this old tree here is just one of the knots”.

“H-how do you know what's in my pocket? How did you know I would come here?”

The old lady only smiled and took his arm.

“Come on now! I got some pumpkin pie. Your favorite.”

Pumpkin pie was Jim’s absolutely favorite of all deserts!

………

“My name is Emma”. She handed him a sizable slice of pie. Her house looked quite old style for the year 2111 but a few strange glowing devices humming around like oversized hummingbirds made it quite apparent that it was 'the home of the future'.

“I wanted to thank you for saving me… among other things…”, said Emma.

“Othmf… thinf?”

Jim’s mouth was full of pie.

“I was ten years old when they told me about how I was found. I couldn’t put it to rest ever since. I tried to find out all there was to know about you. They said you had PTSD and that you killed yourself on the very morning you found me. Strange, huh? I keep forgetting we used to fight wars back in the day…”

Jim spilled some of his tea on the coffee table. A small cleaning drone took care of it in an instant.

"But what were you doing in the middle of nowhere, on a cold autumn night?”, he asked finally.

“It was our grandmother... She knew about the time knot, she knew the tree portal opened only every thirty years and... she also knew what it was you came back to do that night... She put me through the portal to save us."


Jim's eyes suddenly widened.

“OUR... grandmother?”, he said almost inaudibly.

“What do you know about your family, Jim?”, Emma asked.

Jim closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.

“Let’s see… I never knew my father. My mother died in childbirth when I was two. My little sister had some rare condition, incurable at the time, and didn’t survive the night. She would have been 30 by now but it doesn't matt...”

Emma looked at him pointedly and nodded.

He stood up but sudden dizziness made him stumble. Emma was already there to catch him. Now they both cried.

“May I stay here with you?”, Jim asked.

“Set your plate down, darling... The portal will close again soon. You must go to the year of 2051 and find me! Our age difference will fall into place back then... For sixty years into the past you must enter the tree backwards and stay there for no more and no less than two minutes. Do you understand?"

"But I just got here and I don't want to leave you! I don't want you to be alone!", Jim protested.

"Silly boy! If you hurry now, I won't be alone and most of all, neither will you. Not anymore!"

...................

Emma stared blankly at the chair her big brother left behind just a short while ago. The sun was already down. One of the cleaning drones whooshed quietly towards his plate with the unfinished slice of pie. She snapped her fingers.

“Disable function!”, she commanded. The drone settled on the floor obediently.

"Keep it the way it is just for a while longer… just a little while longer..."

Her head slipped backwards into the head rest of her chair.

Her eyes closed.

Emma's last breath was a sigh of relief.