A Journey Through Time

A Journey through time….
It all started on a brisk winter’s day. The tree tops were blowing gently in the wind and I sat outside on the porch with a friend of mine watching the trees and very faintly hearing dogs barking in the distance like they knew something was going to happen. I had been feeling slightly off all day, I wasn’t able to pin point the exact reason why, just felt a little off, so I just shrugged it off and didn’t think too deeply into it. My friend seemed to have noticed it too but didn’t make a big deal out of it. She was babbling endlessly about her relationship issues with her boyfriend and I looked at her as if I was listening, but really I wasn’t. After all, I had my own relationship issues that I was obsessing about. When she finally stopped talking to take a breath, I sipped my hot chocolate and said to her, “Wouldn’t it be something if humans were capable of time travel?” She said, “No! That’s way too scary, and very weird.” At that moment I looked up in the sky and saw a shooting star, and said, “Make a wish! Quick! I said, “I wish I was able to travel back in time.” The next thing I knew I was sitting outside on a beaten up old porch, wearing the same clothes, the same dark, brisk winter night, and still seeing the trees blowing in the gentle breeze. Something seemed different, I didn’t hear the dogs barking anymore but I thought nothing of it. I put my hot chocolate down and went in the house and everything was completely different. The house seemed older, and there were portraits on the wall of people I have never seen before. I called out my friends name and she did not answer. So I called her name louder, and still no answer. All of a sudden I hear a man’s voice in an accent that wasn’t even familiar to me, maybe Russian, say, “There you are!” I have been looking everywhere for you! Where have you been?” I thought to myself, who the heck is this? Then very excitedly he said, “Did you do the research that I asked you to do like 2 hours ago?” I said, “No, I must have gotten side tracked.” He mumbled something about youth and walked away. On the coffee table, I noticed something that looked like a newspaper. I went to pick it up to see the date and that man came from down the hall, and said, “Come on! We don’t have all night!” I was scared, but in a sense comfortable. He obviously knew who I was, why didn’t I know who he was? As he followed me down the hallway, to make sure I didn’t get sidetracked again, I saw the year on the paper, it said 1883! I gasped! I felt his hand on my back and he said, “Let’s Go! You need to focus! I have something for you to read.” He hands me papers that were bound together and said, “Please, let me know what you think, this has to be turned in by morning and I don’t want to be up all night.” So I took the papers from him and started to read, it was a story titled, A Naughty Boy, and underneath the title it said written by Anton Chekhov. I could not believe my eyes! I read the story and liked it a lot, especially the ending that read, “They confessed afterward that during all their courtship they had never once experienced such bliss, such thrilling rapture, as they did during those few moments when they were pulling the ears of that wicked boy.” (source: http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/ac/naughty.htm) I handed it back and said, “This is great!” and he said, “I have a lot of story ideas in mind.” He also said something that really made me laugh, “Try to reason about love, and you will lose your reason.” I couldn’t believe that I was sitting next to and reading the stories that Anton Chekhov was writing. I am familiar with a lot of his stories and plays and was thinking to myself how totally cool it was that I was there, but then I started to think about how I was going to get back. I thought, maybe that will happen when the time is right. I decided to enjoy my time with him. I knew he was born in 1860, so by my calculations he was about twenty three years old. After discussing his story, we went into the kitchen and his mother was there tidying up and told us to eat something since we have been working so hard all night. We had a small snack then Anton said he wanted to get back to writing. So he started to write notes, and key words on a piece of paper that just looked like scribbles to me. I sat with his mother, and she was so very kind, and told me that she was happy I was there, and his father was a struggling grocer and pious martinet who had been born a serf. (source: http://www.biography.com/people/anton-chekhov-9245947?page=1#boyhood-and-youth) She also said, ”Childhood remained a painful memory to Chekhov.” (source: http://www.biography.com/people/anton-chekhov-9245947?page=1#boyhood-and-youth) Later this proved to be a vivid and absorbing experience that he often invoked in his works. I wanted to ask Anton about the play I studied titled, “The Proposal” to see where he got his inspiration for that. This play truly showed his sense of humor. I remember a lot of his other works being sad, and slightly dismal. I couldn’t ask him about that, he hadn’t written it yet. His mother sat me down and showed me pictures of him, I was able to put one in my pocket so I would have it to remember this adventure. This is what he looked like… Anton Chehov, 1883 (source: http://www.google.com/images)
His mother looked at me with a deep concern in her eyes and said, “Are you alright? You are looking very pale.” She brought me a cup of hot tea and told me to lay on the couch and rest for a little while. I layed down and curled up in the blanket she gave me and closed my eyes, I must have fallen asleep. The next thing I heard was a familiar voice, it was my friend, she said, “Are you listening to anything I’m saying!!!” I looked around and saw I was back on my porch. I said, “Wow! I think I fell asleep, I had such a crazy dream though. I told her I was going to lay down, I still felt pretty tired, I assured her that I would talk to her more about her boyfriend tomorrow. She said ok, and walked out the door. I walked into my bedroom, got into bed and threw my jacket on the floor, and I noticed something fell out of my pocket. It was the picture of Anton.

Sources Cited in this story: (http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Anton_Chekhov) (http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/ac/naughty.htm) (http://www.biography.com/people/anton-chekhov-9245947?page=1#boyhood-and-youth)

Cited: in this story: (http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Anton_Chekhov) (http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/ac/naughty.htm) (http://www.biography.com/people/anton-chekhov-9245947?page=1#boyhood-and-youth)