Her Binoculars

Dedicated to my father

My daughter was up in her bedroom as she often is, tapping away at the computer keyboard. Lilac was studying Astronomy, following the legacy that her grandfather the great Astrophysicist known as Michael K, had left behind. She said she that she had been up all night, and was working on an impossible time related physics problem, and not to disturb her until it was time for dinner. My wife Sarah was sitting across from me on the patio when all the sudden we heard a terrible crashing sound, my wife turned to me, “What was that?”

“Better take a look,” I rushed toward the source of the crashing, scanning the horizon for any signs of danger, and nearly tripped over what was right there in front of me. It was a mysterious brown paper box.

“Oh, Danny, how lovely. Did you order me more porcelain kitchen ware?”

“No honey, I don’t think I know where this came from. This package must be for Lilac’s course or something.”

“Well, wait don’t open it then,” Hours passed tick tock tick the sun was beginning to set over the horizon. Flecks of orange and red were starting to expand out over the beautiful Appalachian Mountain skyline. The trees looked almost ominous like giants hunched over the serene hillside background. It was if these giants were waiting anxiously, anticipating whatever may be held within that mysterious box.

Sarah came was rushing in and out of the kitchen, this time she had returned with a pitcher of fresh squeezed lemonade and biscuits. “Would you like some lemonade, dear?” she turned and smiled then continued speaking affably, “You know, it’s been exactly two years since your brilliant father passed, don’t you think its time to leave some flowers by his graveside? I could gather up a bouquet of lilies and lilacs.”

This caught me off guard a bit, and I sat in silence for a few minutes of reflection. I hadn't always gotten along well with my father, although better than my sisters and brothers. The pain of losing a parent is really impossible to describe. Nothing quit fills that ache and pain; that void a wound in the heart that never quite seems to heal. My father had been a survivor of the Great Depression, had been a trailblazer and raised six children throughout the Cold War, and he was recruited to study weapons engineering. He was a well-loved astronomy professer at the college.

Not many in this day and time would be able to relate to the scars of having been living in such a tumultuous and dark time as he. Michael was born on February 26th, 1933, and died July 25th, 2019, he was born the day the Golden Gate Bridge (the tallest bridge in the world) ceremony was held at Crissy field. His mother named him after the angel Michael and believed he would lead a life of service and sacrifice to his fellow man.

My parents were Roman Catholics, quite religious. Growing up was chaotic, and in our small two-bedroom house in the Appalachian middle-of-nowhere, without much money us kids had to start working at a young age, but for our parents—there was much less opportunity, they had braved the harsh cold blizzards and storms, the financial crash and WW2. They had overcome the Nazis and fascists, and yet had lived much of life in fear, morbid hunger, and longing for a better world.

Finally, Lilac was coming downstairs to join us for a dinner that had been sitting for at least six minutes. “Come on, join us, before your meal gets cold.” Her mother said, and we sat down to say grace. “Bless us….”

“What’s that?” Lilac turned to the odd brown box that had been placed on the kitchen counter. “Isn’t it something you ordered?” Sarah looked puzzledly at us both.

“I have not recently ordered anything; do you think we should open it?”

Lilac jumped up and grabbed a small pocketknife and set to work cutting and peeling all the duct the tape off the edges and across the brown paper package. She pulled up the flaps of the box, and gasped. Something golden and shiny was inside of it, and it looked upon closer inspection it looked like binoculars. They were golden, with red and blue specks across the lense. Not your typical binoculars, these seemed to be of an unusual sort, a sight and a wonder to behold. Beneath the golden binoculars in the box, there was a slightly wrinkled notebook page with a message that appeared to have been written in a hurry.

“My son,

It is time for you to carry on my legacy. If you are reading this than it means that I was successful, and the scientists have stopped the end of the world and apocalypse and that there will be life on Mars. You see, we are engaging on a dark mission one that cannot be kept a secret much longer. My co-worker and I have managed to find a way to see through the limits of space and time, and so these binoculars will show you a world that has yet to exist and at once, never existed— between or beyond the veil as it were, where famous people like Einstein do not exist. In this new and undeterminable reality all things are possible. Anything can happen, a wish or thought merely, I live in a world where there was no great depression or financial collapse of the 20th century, where Hitler could not have risen to power, and WW2 never happened. Here, in this secret reality I am free to study time travel without fear of persecution by the Government, Army or evil Nazis. I have had these binoculars since before you were born so I ask that you protect this object at all costs. I am not dead, son, I am merely on another side of the galaxy where I cannot be seen, not even with these. Don’t give up on your project and I am so proud of you. Much love, your father Mike. PS. Tell Lilac that they are waiting for her.”

My daughter picked up the binoculars, and sure enough she could see something no one else could. She could see everything, down to the minute atom, and when she blinked, she saw an expansive almost multi-dimensional projection reflecting endlessly into the expansive timeless infinite universe.

“I think my physics problem has finally been solved! Its everywhere!”

It is now 2025 and Lilac is out in Australia sight-seeing the forgotten mythical beings of time, literally watching history change and evolve with her Golden “Space-Goggles” as we like to call them. I have yet to bring myself to be courageous enough to peer into the unknown, perhaps someone else’s footsteps were just too much for me to follow in. I am satisfied with my normal life, faith and practicality in science is what has kept me stable for so long, and I choose to remain grounded in one place at a time even if now I do believe that this was more than some God-awful prank. To see is one thing, to believe is another but I still hope and pray one day that the world does change, and that things will be different.