A 23rd Century Girl in the 20th century -- Chapter 2

 

 

“Get up girl,” yelled Lizzie Jane. “It is Sunday and we are going to church.”

 

Linda rubbed her eyes as she woke from a very pleasant dream. Lizzie Jane had opened the curtains and was looking at the beautiful sunrise.

 

“Church?” asked Linda. She wondered how different churches were in the 1950’s than they were in the 23^rd century. Well, she thought, “I am about to find out.”

 

“Yes – church. A place we go to regularly on Sunday,” answered Lizzie Jane.

 

“Okay”, grumbled Linda has she swung her legs around and sat on the edge of the bed. “I was sleeping very well and had a marvelous dream – which you spoiled.” Lizzie Jane saw the grin on Linda’s face, so she knew Linda was not fussing – much.

 

“At least you have something I did not have went I first came here – a bathroom. Sam fixed one for Uncle Jed shortly after he moved here.”

 

“Sam? That must be someone I have not met.”

 

“He is the one I worked for as a waitress when I lost my memory some time back. He and Carol had said their wedding vows when Jake and I said ours -- a double wedding. Remember?”

 

“Oh yes, I remember,” answered Linda. “How did you survive without a bathroom? That is a necessity.”

 

“Not for country folk,” replied Lizzie Jane. “We had an outhouse to relieve ourselves and used a pan and wash cloth to take a bath. Some days, when it was hot in the summer, we would put a wash tub in the back yard, let the sun heat the water and take a good bath in it.”

 

“An outhouse? Never heard of that.”

 

“Well, you would not want to use one, I assure you,” smiled Lizzie Jane. “Go girl! When you get out of the bathroom, I will have breakfast ready for you.”

 

Lizzie Jane had just finished frying the eggs and bacon with sawmill gravy and hot biscuits when Linda made her way down the stairs. Also, she had placed some honey and butter on the table. Although this is not what Linda ate for breakfast where she came from, she had grown to love country cooking the few days she had been in the 20^th century.

 

One by one, Lizzie Jane managed to wake the other children for breakfast, too. She did not realize how much of a chore it was to get children ready for anything – church, school, etc.

 

With all the children enjoying breakfast, Little Jack looked at the screen door leading to the back of the house. Lizzie Jane noticed his eyes began to get wide and he began to stutter, “T-t-there is sumptn’g out there.”

 

Rising from the table, Lizzie Jane went to see what the “something” was. Opening the door, she recognized her deer friend from years before. Looking past him, she saw a doe, the other friend that she had made and a small baby deer.

 

She smiled as she patted her pet, “Bucky, I see you brought your family and there seems to be a new member.”

 

By this time, all the children were at the door as excited as a child could be. Lizzie Jane turned to them, “This is my pet deer, all grown up, and now he has a family. I think he is so proud of them that he wanted to show me.”

 

She walked over to the small deer and slowly put out her hand. It backed away. Bucky, the poppa deer walked over and let Lizzie Jane pet him as well as the doe. “See, your daddy and mother let me pet them,” she said as she put out her hand again.

 

The small deer sensed there was nothing to fear, so it stood still as Lizzie Jane patted it on the nose. Turning to the children, she asked, “Do you want to pet them, too?”

 

The children were happy to have a chance to be so close to deer. “Just put your hand out slowly and don’t make any fast moves,” she instructed.

 

The children obeyed and soon they were all rubbing the deer. The animals seemed very pleased and that day new friends were made. 

 

“Will they come back?” asked Shirley.

 

“I am sure they will now that they know they have other friends who do not want to hurt them,” said Lizzie Jane. “Well, time for church”

 

Lizzie Jane had already described the type church services that could be expected, so there weren’t too many surprises. Linda did giggle at the deacons going to sleep and waking to holler “amen” when the preacher slapped the pulpit with his hand.

 

As usual, they were invited to someone’s residence after the service, but Lizzie Jane politely declined. She thought a quiet Sunday afternoon could give an opportunity to ask Linda about some things she was wondering about.

 

With the children playing in the yard, Lizzie Jane and Linda sat around the kitchen table with iced tea, the summertime drink of the South.

 

“I was wondering about some things,” began Lizzie Jane. “In order for me to be your great, great, great grandmother, I must be going to have a least one child. Are their anything in the history of the family about whether it will be a boy or girl.”

 

“Oh, it will be a girl, of course,” replied Linda. “In fact, I was named after her.”

 

Lizzie Jane paused a moment. That did not sound right. Why would she have two children in the family with the same name – her adopted daughter and her birth daughter? She looked at Linda strangely. Linda must have realized the same thing.

 

“Something is not right,” Linda said.

 

“Yes. You said that I wrote about being on the island with the gorillas and I did write something just a few days ago. I think you also said that it had been kept under glass to preserve it – right?" asked Lizzie Jane.

 

“Yes – at first. Our science discovered a way to produce a transparent holder that would last indefinitely, so it was placed in it and we brought it with us in the time machine in case we missed something that we should know.”

 

“Were there anything else about my history that you brought?”

 

“Yes, quite a few things, but I did not read them closely. I skimmed through them once or twice.”

 

“Were they in the cave when the savages attacked?” asked Lizzie Jane.

 

“Yes,” answered Linda.

 

“Then, if we can find the remains of that cave, they would still be there – even if under tons of earth.”

 

“Yes, but…”

 

“The reason I am so curious is that Dr. Brown did not think that I could ever have a child. That was discussed before Jake and I married. When you came along and said that you were my great, great, great granddaughter, I got my hopes up,” said Lizzie Jane. “Now, it seems that a mystery has popped up.”

 

Linda thought a moment and replied, “Yes, I understand. But, what you appear to be thinking is unreasonable.”

 

“Something is wrong somewhere. I need to talk to Dr. Brown. I am certainly not going to name a birth daughter, Linda Faye – that is, unless you changed your name and I don’t see that happening – mainly because I would not want it to happen.”

 

Aunt Maudie was standing at the entrance to the kitchen and heard what was being said. She walked in and asked the obvious question – the question turning over in the minds of Lizzie Jane and Linda, but neither would mention to the other: “Are you two saying that Linda could be her own great, great grandmother?”

 

“But, that is not possible – isn't it?” asked Lizzie Jane, looking at Linda.

 

“That would be called a paradox. In our experiments, we have discovered that fears concerning paradoxes are not real, but this could be the first,” replied Linda.

 

“Even time travel does not seem possible to me,” said Aunt Maudie.

 

Linda spoke, “When we decided to go back in, time, we did not plan to stay very long because of the theory that a person who enters a time in which he or she were not born does not technically exist in that time period, so to correct that, the atoms of the body, molecule by molecule, are replaced as the person is literally reborn into that period of time. It is thought that eventually the person would lose all memory of the future that had not yet occurred'.

 

"For awhile, it was believed to be impossible to go backwards in time. Traveling into the future is much easier understood than traveling to the past. Time is a dimension much like length, width, and height. When you travel anywhere, you’re traveling through a direction in space, making headway in all the spatial dimensions—length, width and height. But you’re also traveling forward in time, the fourth dimension.

Space and time are tangled together in four-dimensional space-time. When something that has mass—you and I, an object, a planet, or any star—sits in that piece of four-dimensional space time, it causes a manifestation of space-time to bend to accommodate this mass.This bending causes objects to move on a curved path and that curvature of space that allows us to go forward in time. Since we are still learning about traveling to the past, there is much to be learned.   

“Okay", replied Lizzie Jae. "You may forget that you came from the future, but we will not. Also, I stayed a year in the past and my molecules did not change, so that theory may not hold water – or either it takes more than a year for me to be reborn and forget things,” stated Lizzie Jane. “I am also of the opinion that the past cannot be changed, so whatever happens was intended to happen exactly as it did.”

 

“From our additional research, you may be correct,” replied Linda. “However, scientists still hold to the theory that the past could not be changed, either.”

 

“I still think we ought to get Dr. Brown in on this matter and get his opinion. I must admit that what you explained is way above my learning,” stated Lizzie Jane.