12. IN THE GRASS

I like magic! Early next morning I was dreaming. That is I believed I was dreaming. As on the previous days, some early morning birds were chirping so I am not sure. When I turned around in bed, the small box was there once again. Nothing rattled inside. I opened the box. There were some sheets of paper. I wanted to read chapter 12.

12. IN THE GRASS

Grass as far as the treeline some hundred meters away. Lush knee-high green grass. Someone was standing in the shade under the trees.

As I closed in, I saw he held a bloody axe in his hand.

-         -  Don’t be afraid, he said. – I am a time traveller. Not very different from you. I saw you appeared from nowhere. Suddenly you just were there.

-          - Yes, I have no idea what happened.

-          - Then there are two of us.

-          - Why the bloody axe, I said.

-          - No good for you to know, muttered the time traveller. – You just follow me, and maybe you will learn.

-          - What about the mirror, I asked. – A moment ago I put my hand through a mirror. On the other side was this field of grass.

-          - There are mirrors everywhere. You see this one?

He pulled out a small mirror from his west pocket. The mirror was inside a silver setting.

-         -  It is just an ordinary mirror, isn’t it?

-          - There are no ordinary artefacts in this world. You remember Stalin’s dagger?

-          - Yes. I have read about it.

-          - That is how I use this mirror. For time travelling. I want to track down the dagger. If you look here, you will see there is a mirror on both sides. When I press my finger through the mirror on this side, I move to the past. The other side makes me go to the future.

-          - What about the axe? I see blood on the sharp edge.

-          - That is another untold story, the time traveller whispered and cleaned the edge on his shirt. – You just walk in my footsteps.

-          - What is going on, I wondered. - The grass is growing, and so are the trees.

-         -  Don’t worry. This happens to me from time to time. Why do you think I suddenly appeared under the trees? I know the dagger is around some place. At least it was in the past.

-         -  I feel I grow smaller and smaller. I want to stop this!

-         -  Just relax. You don’t need to be afraid.

But afraid I was. The treetops were rushing towards the clouds up there. Soon grass was all I was able to see. Gigantic beetles were walking like elephants. They watched us, but did not care. The earth under our feet were full of deep caves, and there was no place to walk except down, and down we fell.

-          - What are those nasty things with long tails, I asked.

-          - They are bacteria, the time traveller answered.

-          - They are huge! And they are growing bigger. What can we do? I want this to stop!

Particles of different sizes were passing by.

-        -   I am waiting for the neutrinos, the time traveller said. – They will take us around at the speed of light until we find the dagger. When taking a lift with neutrinos time will stop or have no meaning. We can go anywhere by jumping from neutrino to neutrino.

-          - I want to stop this!

-          - You think you have a free will? You do not. According to science, if you believe science, everything has a reason. Therefore science says there is no free will. That is why I want to control Stalin’s dagger. Now jump for that neutrino!

What followed I cannot say. Events speeded up, and it was impossible to tell. Eventually we found the dagger. Where I do not know. Coming from wherever or nowhere, we were standing in the shade of the trees watching the lush, green grass. The time traveller cleaned the bloody edge of the axe on his shirt as if nothing had ever happened.

End of chapter 12. To be continued in chapter 13.