Legacy

My name is Gary L. Wolff; I write short stories, some as light fantasy.  Mostly based on interesting dreams I’ve had.  However, this one I claim to be based on a true experience of mine; albeit sometimes it’s hard to separate fact from fiction.  As I recall things it seems in my mind fact.  If I’m right, then be wary of every turn you take.

A few months ago I was hired as a Gopher (that’s fetch coffee, run errands etc,) to supplement my retirement income.  I was working for the Ramekins Export Import Service, in their corporate headquarters, a twelve story building with offices and ware housing space.  The ninth floor was one of the warehousing spaces.

In addition to having much unused space, to the left as one stepped off the elevator were numerous rows of wooden file cabinets with shallow drawers, about 5 inches of vertical space per drawer.  Every so often a small package, about the size of a four inch cube would arrive and I was supposed to take it up to that ninth floor storage area find available space in one of the cabinets and place the package in it.  A simple enough task. I’d done it a number of times always found it amusing and puzzling as to how many such packages were in those drawers.  All unopened.  Strange I thought, but none of my business.  There was also a vault up there, had no idea what was in it, didn’t really care.

Then one day while I was taken packages up to put in the drawers I had three of them all at once, that was at least one more than normal.  I figured business must be good. Unfortunately I got fumble fingered and dropped one; it bust open at one corner and some of the contents spilled out.  I was very surprised, loose diamond all over the floor.  I picked them up and stuffed them back in and pinched the break shut as well as I could and then put it in the drawer with the other two.

Needless to say, I was quite flustered at that point.  I looked around like I hope no one saw me drop it or realize I’d become aware of a packages content.  Apparently I was alone.  That was a relief.

However all that looking around had caused me to notice what appeared to be an outside door on the far west wall.  Being that it was the ninth floor that didn’t seem to make any sense.  Being of a semi nosy nature I went over and opened the door. Whoa! What is this I thought; impossible, this is the ninth floor; yet the door opened onto a dirt road leading to what appeared to be a small town about half a mile in the distance.

My curiosity was going full blast.  How could a ninth floor door open onto solid ground with a small town a short distance away.  My lunch hour was just starting so I wouldn’t be missed for a while so I thought I could double time it over to that little town.  I did just that.  It was small alright, about a dozen houses, a small church, a rinky dink post office, and a General Store.  I thought I’d check out the General Store, so I just moseyed right in.  Sign said we buy sell and trade.

I noticed a calendar on the wall that made it the year 1897.  I thought it must just be tourist decoration.  Especially since I noticed some rather modern things in stock like crank type can openers, bobby pins, jack knives, magnifying hand mirrors and so on.

Nothing serious, just odd stuff.  The old coot behind the counter asked if I was buying selling or wanting to trade.  Well I had no money on me and it didn’t look like they took credit cards.  So I said well selling maybe, and I pulled out my Swiss Army knife with all the different blades and ask what he’d give for it.  His eyes got real wide as if he’d never seen such a wonderful thing before in his entire life.  He offered me five dollars and since I’d got it on line for three dollars I figured that’s a good profit and accepted his offer.  Funny was the way he paid me; it was in coin, a couple of silver dollars and a hand full of assorted other coins.  All added to five dollars in any case.

I headed back to the building I’d come from.  Funny, all of a sudden I wasn’t looking at a twelve story building, but a four story building.  Again my mind was in a whirl of confusion.  Anyway, I finished the day at work and went on home.

I sat at the supper table looking at the coins I was paid with; they were in excellent condition and of the period generally represented by that calendar on that General Store wall.  I was a bit of a coin collector so I got my book out to check their value.  My jaw about dropped off the floor; that particular handful had a current value of over two thousand dollars.  I figured that at that rate the use of old coins weren’t for the tourist attraction angle.  I thought about it most of the night, not getting much sleep.  I concluded that while why and how was beyond my understanding that the door was an opening like a time portal to yester year so to speak.

I of course sold the coins for a big fat chunk of money and smiled at my good fortune.  I concluded that the company I worked for was in the Import Export business for sure, but that it was artifacts from the past that generated all their fantastic profits.\

Needless to say, I spent quite few lunch hours generating profit for myself.  That’s all I cared to really attempt to understand and cope with.  After a few weeks of getting richer and richer, I came back from my lunch and the boss was waiting for me.  I was fired on the spot.  I suspect that some far fetched technology was used to give me a mind wipe so I wouldn’t remember even working for the company.  But I do remember, at least in my dreams I do.

When I go back to the company they act like they never heard of me and laugh at me like I’m crazy when I make certain references.  All I can say is maybe I’m hallucinating, but I have no other way to explain how I came by the three hundred and forty seven thousand dollars that was added to my bank account  Just let me warn you readers, be careful of opening doors.