The Time Capsule

There used to be so many good memories in my childhood home. Birthdays with that chocolate cake we all loved so much. Growing flowers in the garden with Mom. Running around the yard with my little brother, Zack, my little sister, Chrissy, and our dog, Cooper, for what felt like forever. Summers spent swimming in the pond nearby and winters spent sliding around on top of it when it froze over. Climbing the big tree without a care in the world.

It was all so beautiful. So perfect.

But all of that went up in flames when the fire ripped through the house and took my entire family from me. I got burned, and Cooper and I were the only ones who made it out.

I’d just turned 18 and I was excited for the next chapter of my life. Instead, I found myself trying to put my life back together after having it completely shattered.

The property’s been abandoned ever since the fire. I avoided it for a while, but something in my gut had been telling me to go back there. Like, really nagging me. I couldn’t understand why, but eventually I found myself there again.

*

I got out of my car and walked towards the house. Or what was left of it, at least. It wasn’t at all what it used to be; it was completely charred and lifeless, and gray, just like the weather. Ever Cooper seemed sad looking at it.

I thought about the marigolds Mom used to grow in the front yard. The place looked so dull without its usual spots of color. It was eerie. It made me uneasy. I felt all the memories of the fire rushing back, and everything around me started to blur.

Then, out of nowhere, I felt something fly right over my head.

Startled, and somewhat irritated, I looked up to see it was an owl. It flew past us, and it landed on the roof of the old barn near the house. I tried to get Cooper to stop barking while trying to pull myself together. I kept thinking to myself, what the f*ck was that all about?

I looked back up, and it was still sitting there. The weird part was that it was looking right at me, which kind of intimidated me at first. But the way it looked at me wasn’t scary. It was… comforting.

I don’t know why, but I got the feeling that it was trying to tell me to go into the barn. So I calmed Cooper down and headed in.

From the first look, there really wasn’t much to see inside. Just a bunch of old tools and stuff, sitting abandoned. I honestly felt kind of dumb for thinking so hard about all this. But I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I had to be there. That there was something I needed to find. I had no idea what, but something.

I looked around for a bit. Didn’t see anything. Then I looked over and saw Cooper sniffing at something on the ground. It was a key. I picked it up and looked at it, confused. What the hell was this for? It was tiny and worn, and it definitely wasn’t meant for anything in the barn. It looked out of place. But it looked familiar…

Then it hit me: this was the key to the time capsule.

Several years ago, Zack, Chrissy, and I put together a little time capsule and buried it. We all thought it’d be fun to put a bunch of our favorite things together in a box and hide it away somewhere, so that one day when we all got older we could pull it out and look at everything again and reminisce on it all.

It all made sense then. This was why I had to go back.

*

As soon as I remembered the time capsule, I remembered where it was buried: at the base of the big tree next to the pond. I grabbed a shovel from the barn and started running there with Cooper following.

I got to the big tree and started digging, which was a struggle with my burned arm. Then Cooper started digging too. Thank God. That actually helped a lot. After a few minutes, we finally get to the box and I pull it out.

This was it. Our time capsule.

I carefully untied the string and took off the brown paper wrapped around it, found the metal box with the lock on it, put in the key, and opened it. And I was surprised by what I found inside.

I found some of our favorite pictures of us, being goofy as hell. Some drawings we made when we were kids, including one by Chrissy of a pear tree (she loved pears and thought that having a pear tree would be the coolest thing ever). A copy of our favorite chocolate cake recipe that I wrote down. A toy bull that was one of Cooper’s favorite toys. Zack’s green flashlight. And a withered marigold that we pulled from Mom’s garden.

I was stunned. Looking at everything in the box, all the memories came flooding back again. But this time, it wasn’t in a sad way. For the first time in a long time, I felt the happy memories more than anything. I felt good again.

I put everything back in the box, and as I was getting up to leave, I looked up and saw the same owl again, sitting on a branch above me. It looked at me with that same warm, comforting vibe. And through its eyes, I suddenly felt Zack, Chrissy, and Mom’s presence.

I knew then that it was them guiding me here all along. They wanted me to find this. And in that moment, it felt like a huge weight had been lifted off of me.

I smiled and gave a grateful nod to the owl, and turned to leave. Cooper picked up his toy bull and happily trotted alongside me.

Looking around, I was suddenly grateful for the green flashlight, as it was starting to get dark. I turned it on, and was relieved to find that it still worked perfectly.

And that green light guided me out of the darkness, in more ways than one.

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