It appeared one morning

It appeared one morning. The sky was clear, the weather turning brisk with the onset of fall. Trees were flinging their leaves across our yard, into the neighbors, onto the street. They mingled and mixed with the detritus of the other trees in our part of town.

The neighborhood had elms, some oaks, maples and a few pine trees. My folks talked about the hardwood trees that were native to our region, and their loss by way of the timber barons who ravaged the area over 100 years ago. Nevertheless, the leaves were a welcome harbinger of a new season, of chilly nights with families nestled near a fireplace, children smiling, parents relaxed and planning for the holidays. 

We woke that Saturday morning to shouts from our mother. I couldn’t understand any of her words, but got a good feel for the panic in her voice. “This can’t be. No. No. No. Not in my house. And why is it here?” My father didn’t respond. Looking around the corner from the hall, he was standing, in his pajamas, looking at a rustic cabin. In our living room!.

It was exciting for us, a truly unexpected event. We’d heard of rustic cabins, mud and wattle, or chinked logs, where people lived long ago. Grandma told us about the people who came west, from St Louis, in Conestoga wagons. We loved her stories, and the cabin in our living room sure looked like the ones she told us about.

“What is it dad?” I tugged at his sleeve and he turned to me, red faced, sweating, looking bewildered. “I don’‘t know son. I don’t know. Your mother came down to make coffee, then started yelling. That’s all I know.”

He started to move toward the cabin, then sidestepped to mom, and put his arm around her. She was crying, waving her hands, calling to us kids “Stay away from it. We don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s dangerous. Stay there.”

Being the oldest, I took it to be my job to keep the younger kids quiet, to keep them calm, to take over from dad and mom. They had enough to worry about. 

Mom told me to take care of the kids, to go to our rooms, to stay there, to behave. I nodded agreement, the other two cried out “Why momma. It’s cool. What is it? Where’s it from? “ and more. After a couple of tries I got them moving and upstairs into their rooms. 

Like them, I didn’t know what to think, but I’d been told I’m a pretty bright kid, so I thought I could figure it out. To start, I went to my computer and started looking up stuff about things that disappear and appear, about magic, and about outer space. I had to start somewhere, so these were logical, to me.

Cruising the internet I found sites that contained scientific reports. Some of the sites were on everyday things, like drugs, and genes, and evolution. Some articles were labeled speculative. They had no peer reviews, and little supporting information. Some of the articles were about research on teleportation, you know, the things you hear about on the TV shows about space. 

Government scientists commented on these ‘spacey’ claims. These comments were from scientists in the U.S., France, Germany, China, and other countries. These writers had important sounding titles, important jobs with their governments, membership in the same societies and organizations. A few to the writers wrote that they’d heard of this type of research, on the ability to move any sized object from one place to another. This seemed do fit with the cabin in our living room, coming from nowhere, just BOOM, there it is.

By this time mom returned to their room and dad called the police. He was sitting on the couch, coffee cup in hand, smoking like a chimney. He was definitely shook up. Mom never allowed him to smoke in the house. And there he was, elbows on knees, a cigarette in one hand, a coffee cup in the other. He looked up when I entered the room. I was dressed, planning to go out.

“Where are you going young man?” Lighting another cigarette off the one in his hand, he sat back, frowned at me, and waited for an answer.

I said “The kids are in their rooms, and I’m going to the library. I think I can find out what’s going on, or get some ideas anyway. Is mom OK?”

“Yeah, she’s fine. Like the rest of us, she’s nervous, scared, worried about you kids.” He stood, walked toward me “I’ll let her know you’re out, tell her you’re visiting a friend. Call me if you’re going to be late, ok?”

With a nod of my head I was out the door. My bike was in the garage, so I put up the door, got the bike, and took off.

At the library I asked Miss Miller, the old lady librarian, is they had any information on space flight, teleportation, ESP, that type of thing. She smiled, nodded and led me to a section, a shelf, with books and scientific papers. She told me how to search and left me alone.

This wasn’t a big library, but it was hooked to the internet, and I knew I could get access to any library in the US, if I could get the search criteria right. 

I fingered through the books, then the scientific papers. There wasn’t a lot, but one caught my eye. It was written by scientists in China and Israel. The introduction said they’d been working together for over four years on the nature of matter and the movement of particles in space. 

Reading the text of their paper, they wrote that they were investigating the ability of man to move an object from one place to another. They speculated that it was possible, and the roadblocks were in the nature of the current knowledge of matter and it’s transmutation. 

The appendix of the paper cited a number of government research projects in the US, Israel, China, and elsewhere. Some of the projects were named, and in a few the project managers were identified. This was pay dirt. It was my next step., Had to be.

I moved to an internet work station and signed on. It took me a few minutes to find a way into one of the agencies that had been mentioned. A phone number was listed. I left the work station, went into the foyer of the library, and called the number I’d found. 

Someone answered!. I was astounded. Catching my breath, I asked for the person named on the footnote. I was told she was out, and the lady on the phone asked if she could help. With nothing to lose, I told her about the cabin in our living room, and asked if she knew anything about any research her agency was doing that could help me understand.

She was pleasant, sounded as if she were older, maybe my moms age. She asked me to hold on, and in a couple of minutes a man came on the line and asked for my name and address. I’d seen enough movies to know not to give him my name, nor my address. I asked him if he could help me. I repeated what I wanted to know. 

This man, this Major Nelson, said the research project I was asking about was cancelled. It was deemed too alien to real world research, and was not in the interests of the government to continue to fund the work. 

I thanked the Major and hung up. I didn’t like what he said. I had proof, in my living room, that the idea was not alien to the real world, it couldn’t be. It was in my house. My next step was to find a way to contact the Chinese and Israeli scientists.