mypajama.com is all about storytelling. Stories and essays are published at an alarmingly infrequent rate. Subscribe with RSS or via email.

I don’t think he knows about it, which leaves only me in possession of this potentially terrifying secret. I say potential because there is only so much an 86-year-old can do to alter history and cause planetwide mayhem.

Now that we are on secret-sharing terms, a bit about my grandfather: He is OLD, like… ancient. Is HARD of hearing. Can’t see very well (make that not-at-all) at night.

He also forgets a lot. I am not too sure about that anymore. I suspect I have been wrong all along.

On Tuesday last, my mother asked me if I had seen him around. She had a cup of tea in her hands which gramps had asked for. I expressed my cluelessness in the matter.

An hour or so later, he came to me and we talked thus:

Me: Where have you been?
He: Why don’t you shave?
Me: Ma was looking for you.
He: This weather is killing me.
Me: Have you had your tea?
He: God almighty! (he leaves)

You laugh? I shuddered. You would too if you knew what our conversation of the day before sounded like. Well, I don’t like shuddering alone. So here goes:

He: God almighty!
Me: What happened?
He: I need some tea.
Me: I’ll go shave.

Still don’t get it? Wait till you hear what happened on Wednesday. That will you cause the shudders. On Wednesday at around the same time he had his tea and was off at near-light-speeds. Later in the evening, I was wondering all over again where he was when he materialised out of nowhere (I didn’t see it happening but it can’t be anything else).

Me: There you are.
He: God almighty!

I hold him and shake him as hard as I dare. He is barely one-piece.

Me: This ends now! Tell me what this is all about! Why have you been talking in riddles all this while? What is the meaning of all this?
He: God almighty!

He is serious this time. Usually he is careful about what he says about god(s). A man his age can’t afford angering them. But I realise I am shaking him too hard. He says something about the weather and goes away.

I later figured he doesn’t realise what I was talking about. I understand all this is not making much sense to you. I don’t know of a way to make this believable or even sensible. He talks like this all the time. We thought it was age and the fact that he is practically deaf.

I, however, noticed a pattern. I first suspected it after he started getting back from places he hadn’t even left for. He told me on Monday that he had bought new flowerpots for his rooftop garden. On Tuesday he asks me for money for the new flowerpots.

Me: More pots?
He: My garden is beautiful.
Me: WHY DO YOU NEED MORE POTS?
He: More pots?
Me: You said you got some yesterday.
He: Some new pots will be good. These ones are all cracked.

There were no new pots. And I had no way to prove that he was not imagining it. My arguments were discarded in favour of more traditional ones (”he is an old man”, “he forgets”, “he just wants more pots”).

They even said “he is deaf”. I fail to understand how that is relevant. The lengths to which human beings go to shut out the obvious is amazing.

I wrote a piece some time back called The Economics of Time Travel in which there is a more elaborate explanation of how it works.

I figure his route into the past is a temporal anomaly somewhere between or house and the tea shop.

In my grandfather’s case, I suspect it’s unconscious. He just goes off and comes back to our house of two days in the past, or sometimes a few days in the future.

And neither he, nor we, ever figure out what happened. I tried investigating but it apparently works only on over-80 people. That should explain why no one ever hears of such happenings.

Posted on Monday, July 10th, 2006 at 12:32 pm and filed under theory, adventures.

Do you believe in destiny? Click here to read a random post.

I publish new stories and essays with alarming infrequency. To stay updated, subscribe to the RSS feed or get email updates.

Visit me at my new blog: http://www.vmohanty.com