The Altered Sands of the Soul

Hobnailed shoes pinched my feet as I pushed through the Mississippi farm fields toward the greenhouse behind the antebellum mansion. My quest for destruction had brought me back in time one hundred and ninety years to the year 1833. If I could destroy the literal seeds of slavery at its root, I could change the history of the world and millions of lives.

Rush Nutt, the plantation owner, had bred the Petit Gulf Cotton plant in 1833. Before, cotton only grew on coastal islands and fared poorly inland. The new cotton blend was cheap, hardy, and would grow anywhere. The impact of the hybrid blend led to the expansion of the westward movement, the rapid growth of slavery, and the travesties bestowed on native Americans. In one fell swoop, I could change it all by destroying the economics of slavery, the rabid desire for land, and stop a civil war.

The greenhouse loomed before me like a glass cathedral reflecting the moonlit sky. Pain from the misfit boots arched my foot into a cramp. Gene, my benefactor, knew the correct boot size and played his joke to remind me he was in control. A dog barked from inside the main house. I stopped. The rules were simple. Don't get caught, do not harm anyone, leave nothing unnatural from the future behind, and be on time for the exit. Break the rules, and I would become trapped forever in the balance of time. I glanced at my watch. My one-hour visit to the past would expire in thirty-one minutes.

I slipped through the glass door into Nutt's botanical lab, where plantings in various stages of growth lined the center aisle. I pulled a sealed tube from my pocket and dripped a few drops of acetic acid, derived from vinegar and salt, on each planter. My research had shown that Nutt was on the brink of foreclosure and bankruptcy. One more failure in his experiments would trigger financial destitution. No hybrid cotton, no Nutt, and I would succeed in altering history. My watch flashed twenty minutes until my exit. It was time to go.

Running from the greenhouse, across the fields, and into the pine forest, the watch flashed ten minutes to exit. Crashing through the underbrush, I tripped on a fallen branch. The crack of wood echoed through the woods like a gunshot. Horse hooves galloped toward me, and I ran for the exit point. "Who goes there?” said the horseman as he came closer. I pushed forward as one minute flashed urgently on my wrist. The static red beacon I had left at my entry point shone in a clearing twenty yards ahead. Desperate, I sprinted faster, and my face caught a pine bough that drew blood.

I entered the clearing, and my pursuer on horseback crashed in from the opposite side. The nightwatchmen pulled the horse to stop, alarmed by the beacon, as I dove toward the light. Steam snorted from the horse's nostrils as the rider leveled a musket toward my face and said, "Halt! A thief in the night, I see." The flintlock flashed, and the musket ball passed through the mist of my dissipating departure. I landed safely on the floor of my living room in the year 2023.

"You're bleeding, Jonah. Close call? Have a good night. Chat tomorrow," said Gene the Genie as his body vaporized and funneled into the decorative bottle on the coffee table.

***

I stared into the bathroom mirror and cleaned the cuts and scratches from the whipsaw branches that had slashed me like a plantation foreman. My clothes had transformed from a homespun shirt and breeches to sweatpants and tennis shoes once I had returned. "Did it work?" I asked myself, but the middle-aged face refused to respond.

Twelve saved pages on my computer would answer my question. In the first article, King Cotton had transitioned to King Rice. Next, I reviewed a historical summary of The American Civil war. It read the same as before. The third defined the Jim Crowe era and remained unchanged. "No, no, no," I screamed and returned to the first article.

In 1834 Harold Astor successfully bred a Hybrid Rice that became the staple cash crop of the south and made slavery economically viable. The hybrid rice is attributed to the expansion of the slave states and the American Civil war. The Astor rice could grow in any soil with limited moisture. Asia's Upland rice required heavy rainfall, and the southern United States became King Rice to the world.

I had failed to change anything. Gene had granted me two wishes for rescuing him from the swamp behind my house. The first had been wasted.

Throughout the long night, horrid dreams haunted me while I slept. The nightwatchmen in the dark forest pursued me endlessly, and I woke exhausted.

***

After my morning coffee, I rubbed the bottle and woke Gene. He materialized before me.

"Have you decided on your second wish to travel anywhere in the world in history?"

"My mind is spinning. I don't think I can change anything by altering the past. I've thought of Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King but after last night I don't think it would matter," I said, "How can I compete against the greed and evil of men?"

"The famous poet Maya Angelou once said, If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude," said Gene.

"What wrong with my attitude?" I said.

"Only you can answer that question, Jonah. What is driving you to modify the past? Guilt? Are you so noble that you are free from any wrongdoing? Are you any different than those who have sold the world into evil throughout history?

Gene's wisdom haunted me for days. Each night my nightmares chased me through the woods. On the third night, I could see the rider’s face. He pointed the musket at me and said, "Halt! A thief in the night, I see." The young man was Rodney Wright from my sixth-grade class. Rodney was black. I launched from my bed, heaving air. Why would a convicted felon haunt me? Everyone in town knew his story. The young football sensation had made news headlines when he was accused of threatening a teacher and expelled.

The circumstances were questionable because the white teacher had a record of baiting black students. His often-repeated mantra was, "Everyone should know their place." With the sudden destruction of his future, Rodney joined a local gang and took the wrap for a robbery gone wrong. The judge gave him a thirty-year sentence for 2nd-degree murder.

Rodney didn't chase me the fourth night, but I found myself standing in the schoolyard at Spann Elementary, where I had attended sixth grade.

______________

I carried my Superman lunch box across the playground and waited for the first bell to ring. Bored, I walked to the ladder bars near the gym and climbed up the steps.

"Stop, you can't be there. The gym bars are off limits before school. You know that."

I turned to see Rodney Wright standing behind me. He wore a white Jr. School Safety belt across his chest with a silver badge. I had applied to be a member of the Jr. Safety program but had failed the rules test.

"Who says?" I said.

"The rules say it and you know it. Get down from there and back to the waiting area," Rodney said.

I climbed down, retrieved my lunch box, and walked toward my friends near the fence. They had witnessed the exchange and jeered at me for obeying him. "Are you going to take that from him? Are you a chicken? Bak, bak, bak." I stopped and turned around.

Rodney blocked my path when I returned to the ladder bars. "You can't go in there. Don't make me turn you in."

A crowd of students encircled us. Someone whispered, "Fight, fight, fight," until it became a unified shout. Rodney appeared nervous, stepped toward me and said, "Jonah, let's stop this now. I don't want to fight you."

"Hit him," someone shouted.

I became more afraid of what my friends thought than doing what was right. I swung and hit him in the chin. Six inches taller, he took the blow, jumped forward and punched me square in the mouth. Stars lit my vision, and I landed on my butt with blood oozing from my lip."

Another Jr. Safety member arrived along with the principal to assist Rodney and ended the confrontation.

"What is going on here?" Mr. Lamb said. Before Rodney could answer, a boy in the crowd said, "Rodney hit him first."

Mr. Lamb asked me, "Is that true?" I hesitated. "Speak up, Jonah."

"Yes sir," I lied.

Rodney was suspended for three days and lost his position with the Jr. Safety Program. For the rest of the year, when he saw me in the hallways, he would whisper, "Thief,” and walk on.

____________

My t-shirt clung to my chest from the night sweats that convicted me of my forgotten crime. Maya Angelou's words indicted me. I wanted to change the world but had yet to change myself.

I showered, woke Gene, and said, I know what I want my second wish to be. I need you to return me to November 10, 1970, at seven forty-five a.m. at Spann Elementary School in Summerville, S.C.

____________

Scared, I looked down at the lunchbox in my hand. My white converse low tops had the same grass stains I remembered. A crowd circled around us. Someone whispered, "Fight, fight, fight," until it became a unified shout. Rodney appeared nervous, stepped toward me, and said, "Jonah, let's stop this now. I don't want to fight you."

"Hit him," someone shouted.

"Rodney, take me to the principal's office. This is all my fault. I'm sorry." The crowd of kids shouted "Chicken. Turncoat." and vulgar, racist names. Outside the office, Rodney said, Thank you, Jonah. I was scared."

Mr. Lamb whacked my butt with two licks of a paddle and gave me two hours of after-school detention. When I came from the office, Rodney waited for me in the hallway. "You want to sit with me at lunch today. With the way your friends act it might be safer."

I entered the boy's bathroom, found the exit beacon in the last stall, and returned to 2023.

_____________

The house was quiet and unchanged, except Gene's bottle no longer sat on the coffee table. A black plaque sat in its place engraved in silver.

If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.

Maya Angelou, Poet of the People

A weight had lifted from my soul that had festered for decades, but my butt still smarted from the two paddle licks. The clock of my soul, like the sands of time, had been altered forever. Hours later, the doorbell rang, and Rodney Wright stood on the porch and said,

"Come on, old man. Don't tell me you forgot about the neighborhood poker game again. This old NFL pounded brain remembers commitments better than you."

**** **** **** **** ****

Author's Note

In the 1790s, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin that revolutionized the value of mass-produced cotton. Yet, cotton only grew well on coastal islands and the West Indies and remained a small commodity on the world market. In 1833, Rush Nutt of Mississippi developed hybrid cotton by splicing various cotton plants from around the world. The result became known as Petit Gulf Cotton or Gossypium Barbadense, which increased American cotton production from 150,000 bales in 1800 to 4,000,000 bales by 1860. In 1860 American cotton produced 80% of the world’s supply built on the back of stolen lands and slave labor. This fostered the land expansion from the Carolinas to Texas as this cotton plant produced more yield and was easier to harvest. Anyone who could acquire land would become wealthy. The need for cheap labor revived the once uneconomical and expensive institution of slavery, the stealing of land from Native Americans, and the Civil War.

Greed is the root of all evil and the tragic justification for bad human behavior throughout history. The author believes this to be true then and true now.

Maya Angelou taught well. If I can’t change the past, I can change myself and my attitude to influence those around me. We can alter the very sands of our souls.