There's No Place Like Home (495 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryRating: 2 on 4 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by youarsoghey (View user info) at 2004-10-04 20:47:11 EDT
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Barney's Tavern was a place you went after a long day in the mines. It seemed like the entire town of Mount Averbury congregated on that small pub after five o'clock on all days but the Lord's day. Miners, dark and dirty from a hard day's work, packed every inch of the Tavern, leaving just enough room for their beers. But despite the spatial insufficiencies, Barney never turned away a miner out of respect for their jobs.
"Mason!" shouted a rather large percentage of the miners as a tall, muscular man entered the door. He was as dark and dirty as the rest of them. One man shouted, "Ol' Mason's always gettin' off late to impress the boss!" Everyone laughed and drank more beer.
Mason Greene was one of those men other men admired. Everyone in Mount Averbury respected him because he was a wonderful friend who worked hard and never complained. On top of that, he was extremely handsome, which made him popular with the ladies although he never really liked to woo them. Furthermore, in 1953, women were not allowed to actively pursue men, which meant Mason never dated the older miners' daughters. This was probably another one of the many reasons for his popularity.
People greeted him all along his rather difficult path to the bar where a stool had just opened up (Although this might seem a coincidence, most people in Barney's would always yield their seats whenever Mason Greene wanted one). Mason sat and told Barney he wanted a beer.
"Comin' right up, Mason," Barney happily answered. He shifted his gaze from Mason to the man in the stool to Mason's right. "And how about you, pal? If you ain't a miner, you can't sit here and drink water all afternoon. How about a beer?"
Mason hadn't even noticed the man, which was unusual because he normally recognized everyone in the pub. Mason estimated that the man was about his height, but his appearance was much more worn like his gray suit. The man slouched over with his head in his hands, slightly pushing up his matching gray fedora. He pulled his head up to answer Barney's question and in doing so, he revealed his deep, sunken face that Mason had only before seen on a miner toward the end of his days.
The man spoke slowly and clearly, "What kind of beer do you have?"
Barney laughed and slammed a mug down in front of the man. As he filled up the mug, he said, "We've got beer and...not beer. Drink up!" The man looked at the dirty mug and decided to forgo the experience.
"No, thanks," mumbled the man tiredly. "I'll pay for it, though, if anyone else wants it."
"That's good enough for me!" said Barney cheerfully. "Mason! Have a beer on the house. Well, have a beer on..."
"Charlie Coleman," said the man as he straightened slightly in order to extend his hand to Mason's. "I suppose you're Mason."
"That's right," said Mason as Barney walked down the bar to receive another order. He smiled and said, "Mason Greene. You're not from here, are you?"
Charlie barked a loud "Ha!" and then smiled knowingly to himself. "Aside from a simple 'no', and I'm assuming you already knew that, there is no short answer to that question."
Mason furrowed his brow and said, "I'm not quite sure what you mean, Charlie. Where are you from?"
"I'm from a place that no longer exists to me," said Charlie as he stretched backward and stared up at the ceiling. Mason was clearly confused, but Charlie wasn't entirely sure he wanted to explain to a miner the intricacies of the molecular destabilizer or the atomic restructuring device. "Mason, did you fight in the war?"
Mason's warm, smiling face cooled as if his emotions fell through thin ice. "Of course I did, Charlie. Practically everyone in this room fought in the war, old and young."
"Ah," said Charlie. "Yes I thought so. Assume, for a moment, that I do not know the answer to this question, but why did the old men also fight?"
"Everyone knows that, Charlie. I—"
"Please humor me," interrupted Charlie. Mason took a swig of beer and stared off into space for a few seconds.
He looked down at his beer and said, "Well, we all know how things got toward the end. They invaded our turf and any man who considered himself a patriot took up arms, but there were just so many of them. There wasn't anything we could do. After that first month in the camp, we tried to sabotage their operations for a while, but whenever they found out about a plan, they punished us bad. Anyway, there's nothing we can do about it now, and there ain't all that much that's different."
"Thank you, Mason," said Charlie. His eyes began to grow dark again as if Mason's words were anything other than normal. "Did you fight in Europe?"
"Yeah, I did," said Mason. "Didn't see too much of France before the retreat. I still get shivers whenever I think about how we trusted them."
"The French?" asked Charlie.
"No, not the French," said Mason. "The Reds, of course. The Russians."
"Ah, yes. And what did they do?"
Mason, a man who didn't often become angered, growled, "Oh, come on, now! This game you're playing isn't funny!"
Charlie looked away from Mason. He had only begun to realize the extent of his failure. The sadness. The grief. The road to Hell was always paved with good intentions, and in Hell he had arrived as a result of his work. "Please, Mason. This is not a game. I promise I will give you an explanation if you tell me what happened in France."
Mason stared at Charlie and tried to understand where this conversation was going. After a few more seconds, Mason decided to play along. "Alright, Charlie. Just like every other American in Britain, I went into France a few months after Hitler was killed. Nobody knew what happened, but it's not as if anybody cared. That monster was dead and it would be our ticket home." Mason paused here, quietly reflecting on his own experiences. Charlie found it interesting that Mason, although normally casual in speech, spoke very differently, almost militaristically, when he recalled the war.
"After careful coordination with the British and the Russians," Mason began again, "we heard that everyone had agreed to split up Germany after the war. The invasion would begin in six months to allow chaos to spread across the German power structure and to build up our forces for the invasion. All powers agreed to hold the invasion until the designated time, but the Russians didn't.
"Since they didn't have to organize an amphibious invasion, they ran right through the demoralized German infantry. They made it to the German border in four months while we were still sitting in Britain. Eisenhower was pissed as Hell and went in two months early. We would have been unprepared for a full-scale German defense of the French coast, but most of their forces had been sent to the Eastern Front to fight the Soviets.
"By the time we made it to Paris, the Russians had taken all of Germany. After a few more weeks of fighting, our guys met up with them just west of the Ardennes in the spring of '43 and that's when everything went to Hell."
Mason noticed Charlie shift uneasily in his seat. He wondered why Charlie pretended like this.
"You know, Mount Averbury wasn't always like this," Mason said, looking around at the other miners. "When I was a kid, it was a farming town. We had grass and trees everywhere and normal jobs too. Hell, we even had county fairs from time to time come by this way. I even have a picture of the '42 fair. Take a look." Mason pulled an old picture out of his back pocket and showed it to Charlie.
Charlie looked at the picture and felt a shiver run down his spine. Staring out of it was a noticeably younger Mason wearing a green U.S. Army uniform with the name "Greene" pinned on his left breast. Above him hung a sign that said, "1942 - Averbury County Fair." Charlie looked away from the picture and handed it back to Mason. He couldn't bear looking at a soldier so young and full of life, not after what had happened.
"That's the only reminder I have of what life used to be like in this country," Mason said. "But those things don't happen anymore because they don't believe in county fairs or healthy lives or success..." Mason trailed off.
"Please," said Charlie, "Go on."
"Right. I was stationed in Paris a week or so after we met the Russians. At first there were reports of friendly fire, but then we all figured out what had started to happen: the Russians had turned on us. They sliced through our unprepared troops like knife through butter. In a few weeks we were pushed off mainland Europe and the USSR had taken it all.
"Unlike Hitler, they didn't wait to invade Britain. In only a few weeks, they had stormed the beaches of England and Ireland in a joint invasion that dwarfed our invasion of France. They had a toehold that allowed them to gain an absolute European victory before the end of 1944." Mason paused again and shrugged his shoulders as if to suggest that the things he had just described were inevitable. He looked around and noticed that many of his fellow miners were starting to leave. Barney's always thinned out at the same time everyday: dinner time.
"I had to sail across the Atlantic on a ship packed with other soldiers. There were tens of thousands of us left in Britain and we needed to retreat back to the US. Some ships were attacked by Russian subs, of course, and most of the guys aboard didn't make it." Mason looked down at his empty glass. He didn't know why he was he telling this story, but it almost felt better to have it off his chest, so he went on.
"Sailing into New York harbor was much different than sailing out two years before when thousands of people happily waved us goodbye. You could feel the panic on the streets. Grocery stores were packed because people were trying to prepare for the impending invasion. You would have thought those Reds were racing for the US coast because they landed on our shores not three weeks after we made it back.
"We weren't ready for the invasion. The last time it happened on our soil was over one hundred years ago in the War of 1812. This was a modern war and the Soviets executed their battle plans perfectly. We heard reports that they would fight through in certain areas and then fight parallel to the coastline to close the gaps. They gained ground fast and it wasn't long before I found myself back in Averbury County fighting them.
"My unit surrendered about fifteen miles from here. We were subjected to a full month of propaganda in harsh camps that they called 'Reeducation Centers'. I nearly lost my mind in that place, some people did, but I managed to keep it together. After reeducation, I settled back into Mount Averbury, but things had changed. Soviets or Americans known to be loyal to the communist party policed the streets. The Constitution was thrown out the window and we were under the rule of Joseph Stalin. Our lives, as we knew them, were officially over.
"Within a few years, the Soviets found out that Mount Averbury's namesake actually held a large amount of coal and forced all men in town to work eleven-hour days for "the good of the people." That was 1947. We've all spent seven years in the mines now and what used to be the beautiful town of Mount Averbury has been reduced to a wasteland. It's awful down there. Everyday when you complete your duties, you don't feel like you've achieved another day of success, you feel like you've taken another painful step toward your last." Mason put down his empty glass.
Charlie could see that he was distraught after recalling the events of the past ten years. As much as Charlie didn't want to inflict any more grief on people like Mason, he needed to know the truth about what happened. The years of research and development under the intensely thick veil of the US Military yielded nothing but pain. One mustn't meddle, thought Charlie. That was the lesson he'd learned at a great cost.
"I'm sorry to have forced you to tell that story," said Charlie. "I promised I would explain why I asked you to tell me, and that is what I will do. You will probably think I've lost my mind, but I'll just come out and say it anyway." Mason was confused, but listened to Charlie.
"In the year 1998, the US Military created a top secret program known as the Oswalt Project named after the scientist who had, in the previous year, made significant breakthroughs in the study of the relationship between space and time. I was the leader of the program and I reported directly to some of the most powerful men on the planet. However, I was just a scientist, and I had a job to do. Mason, we were going to build a machine that could take a person back in time." Mason looked stunned for a moment and then started laughing.
"You've got to be kidding me!" said Mason. "I've heard about people like you who go around and pull jokes like this. Classic!" Charlie didn't laugh.
"Mason, I'm serious," said Charlie. "I know you probably won't understand, but we actually completed the project. We made a time machine that was able to send people back in time and then get them back to the present. It was the greatest invention known to mankind and my team made it. We knew the consequences of what would happen if we ever used it to try to change important historical events, but the US Military had other ideas.
"On the inaugural test run, I was to be the first person to use it to go back to 1985 when Johannes Oswalt first developed his initial ideas about the relationship between space and time and tell him that they were a success, but also to not stop his research. This was a risky mission, but we had to do test the machine somehow, and it seemed the best way to do that was to approach the one person who would understand the odd circumstance. Unfortunately, one of my top scientists followed an order from the military to change the time to late 1942 and the place to Hitler's office in Berlin. When we began to run the machine, a soldier jumped into the Transportation Chamber and was transported back in time with me.
"The ride was odd, to say the least. I felt a forward yank on my whole body and then I fell to my knees on the hard stone. The soldier who came along was already on his feet. He raised his gun and shot Hitler twice in the chest and once in the head. I ran to the side of the room to get out of the way of the parade of SS guards that came storming in through the huge double doors. They shot the American soldier on the spot and I was left hiding behind a large plant. One of the SS guards saw me and screamed, 'Da ist noch einer!' At that moment, I felt that yanking sensation again, but this time I landed in the middle of a hot, dusty trail." Charlie looked around Barney's Tavern and practically everyone had gone. Nobody was listening to their conversation, so he went on with his story.
"After coming to grips with my surroundings, I realized where I was. When I developed the machine, I set defaults for the 'send' and 'receive' times. Normally, these defaults wouldn't be used, but I put them there just for fun anyway without ever thinking that I would be put into that situation. I made the default dates the exact moment of my birth in 1953. Apparently, the resetting of the 'send' date to 1942 reset the 'receive' date to its default. That was yesterday. In the meantime, I have found out a lot of things on my own that you also told me in your story. The Soviets patrolling the streets, the newspapers that supported the communists...I didn't know my work would create such a horrible existence for so many people." Mason looked absolutely delighted by this story.
"Well, for a prankster, you sure do make up good details! So you say you killed Hitler, do you? Oh like we all didn't have that dream in the 40s. Tell me something, though. There are a few glaring holes in your fairy tale that even a stupid miner like me could have found out. If you changed history, why do you still exist?"
"According to one of Oswalt's theories, when the past was changed, you would still exist as you are, but the future in the dimension you were then placed would be different if the change was significant enough to change events in your life. However, the dimension from which you came would still exist with the past, present, and future you had always known."
"Right, and the other thing," said Mason unbelievingly. "You said you were sent back to the time of your birth, but your machine also had to deal with a place didn't it? Why were you sent back to Mount Averbury of all places?"
"Well isn't it obvious?" said Charlie. "I was born in Mount Averbury."
Mason laughed loudly. "Sure! You're from the future Mount Averbury. There's no place like home, I guess!"
"Perhaps there is," said Charlie. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an old photograph. He handed it to Mason whose smile instantly vanished. Staring out of the picture was a noticeably younger Charlie wearing baggy clothing and long hair. Above him hung a sign that said, "1971 - 25th Annual Mason Greene Memorial Fair."
Mason looked up from the picture and said, "What...I don't understand..."
"Mason," started Charlie. "In my dimension, you were a war hero. You were killed on the way to Berlin when you saved nine other soldiers by jumping on a grenade."
"My God," said Mason.
Charlie nodded in agreement. "Indeed, Mason. Indeed. This—" Charlie waved his hands in no particular direction "—is the product of my greatest work."
Mason, visibly stunned, looked away from Charlie and down at his empty glass again. "Barney!" he said. "Get me two beers!"
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