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The Key to My Heart

One summer, an old barn changed our lives forever

By Jackie KPublished 3 years ago Updated 3 years ago 10 min read
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The Key to My Heart
Photo by Thom Milkovic on Unsplash

Judith was very young - around 7 or 8 years old. It was the 1970’s. Carefree days. Days of disco and VW’s. Shows like Welcome Back Kotter on TV, and The Love Boat, Fat Albert, Gilligan’s Island, The Electric Company...were some of her favorites...

She had fond memories of day camps mostly through the YMCA. An organization that was embedded in her memory - thanks to an LP record she won that had the Village People song "YMCA" on it (“Disco Duck” on the other). The little 45 was a cherished possession; something she held in her collection into adulthood.

One summer, she went to a camp in the Ontario countryside - Camp Pathfinder. It was at the height of the summer - almost July with long, sun-filled and delicious days. Wildflowers were at their high point - the bright colored ones as opposed to the warm-toned blooms towards autumn. Tepid nights. No school. The days when summer vacation felt like forever. She did not have a care in the world.

Judith took a yellow school bus each morning to the farm where the camp was held. Every day was filled with adventure at this rural mecca - sprawling grasses filled with horses in contrast to the crowded urban setting she was already used to at such a young age: horns, sirens, paved roads, skyscrapers...

They did all kinds of crafts throughout the day - gimp, candles made by melting crayons, macramé and clay. They wore superhero costumes and played Red Rover in the dusty playing field.

The highlight of the day was after lunch. Judith usual devoured her standard pb & j triangles she had transported in her plastic lunch pail and gulped her cool-ish Hi-C drink from a heavy thermos. Then, all the kids went for tractor rides around the farm. They could jump off anywhere and roam freely - as long as they had a buddy.

John was Judith’s buddy. He was a soft-spoken boy whose imaginative ways intrigued her from the moment they met. They had an instant, uncanny connection.

Judith met him on the second day. He was sitting alone on the branch of an old fruit tree. He looked up and smiled at her.

“Do you want to play parachute with me?” he asked as she approached.

He had made a parachute from a handkerchief and string with one of his action figures and was dropping it off the higher knobby, gnarly branches - fun, easy climbers.

He could see things outside the usual parameters - not as they seemed. They would play “farm” with the dry cut hay laying in heaps upon the fields, pretending to harvest crops. They spent every minute together during this one week, never tiring of one another. As if they'd known each other longer, or met in some other time and place.

Their world was full of dreams, magic, possibilities, adventure, stories and pretend...more than most children. They didn't require toys or directed games and activities. They were at ease to create their own using their imaginations.

They walked together, almost holding hands, laughing and running free-range. The counselors were young teenagers who were kind of aloof to the wanderings of campers. As long as they ticked them off all off at the end of the day on their clipboards, they didn't mind what they got up to. So if one or two jumped from the tractor to swing on the tree tire or play horseshoes, so be it.

Judith and John could still hear the distant loud sing-along chanting of the other kids who stayed put on the tractor, making several rounds, dispersing and collecting children along the way. It was a miracle that all were accounted for at the end of the day. But it was the seventies after all. You could get away with a lot.

The air was fragrant with wildflowers. Hot sun. They kicked up dust as they geared up to a run, pretending they were cheetahs on a safari. That day, they ran without looking back, as if they were really in pursuit of something.

There it was: the old barn sat lop-sided at the northern end of the main dirt road. It was dilapidated and colorless with its paint peeled; planks almost audibly creaking as you neared.

They had to go in, it was instantly decided. Judith glanced at her brown Timex watch - 11am. She had the sense to check the time…

The front door opened easily - swinging with a whoosh - a swaying pendulum that almost grasped them inside the barn with its inner sweep. Then ‘CRACK’ at its full extension. The upper hinge detached, snapping from the brittle wood.

Startled for a second, they advanced slowly with much caution. Crouching slightly with a tip-toe stance like robbers in the night. They could feel the instability of the structure and didn’t want to cause any more destruction; their hesitancy was mixed with excitement.

Inside: a large box filled with a giant pillow of parched straw. Sharp sunlight filled in through the cracks of the dissolving wood plank walls. But there was magic about.

They played for a while delightfully, swinging each other around with arms entwined, spinning around like a carousel ride. Collapsing finally, they plopped into the scattered sweet hay, their arms and legs sprawled, remaining still for several minutes. They watched the particles dance in the gentle filtered light above them. Judith reached down into the hay, enjoying the poky texture, squeezing fistfulls and then digging deeper as they both lay there. Then her hands touched something cool and metallic. Pulling it out, it was a key with a note attached that read:

“If you’re lucky enough to find this key in a haystack, LOOK UP to the stars and climb the stairs leading you to a path you were meant for - beyond your wildest dreams.”

“Jack! Look what I found!”

At once, they noticed the ladder off to the side of the barn. It wasn’t aged like the barn; it looked stable and new. They propped it up in the centre of the barn where there was a flat space. Testing it, it was more solid than you would think. Instantly, Judith began climbing as Jack stood watching nervously.

“Please don’t fall,” he said.

“I’ll be fine,” Judith respsonded confidently.

As Judith approached the top, she could clearly see an opening. But it didn’t seem to lead outside; she couldn’t see any daylight.

She got to the top and slowly began to stand.

“Well? What’s up there?” John asked, now chewing his fingers anxiously.

As she stood up slowly at the top of the ladder, she couldn’t quite tell where she was going. It was as if the top part of her body was disappearing somehow - but not outside. Jack followed her up, mostly out of concern, as he couldn’t tell where she was going. As he went up he became more curious, drawn, compelled. As he looked up now - a sphere of blackness was at the top of the ladder - and Judith was in there.

Jack climbed faster until he reached the top to stand up slowly. He too evaporated in an instant into a hole. Twinkly black inside and cool. They were floating together as if in outer space.

“What is this? Where are we?” they said, practically in unison.

Judith called, “Jack, come over here! It feels like you’re swimming. I see a light. See that? It’s purple --- let’s go!”

It felt like they had been gone for hours. When they descended from their journey, Judith looked at her watch to see that only 15 minutes had passed. Meanwhile, what they had experienced felt like a lifetime. It was another world in a different dimension.

They had met human astronauts who had discovered not only other planets, but other galaxies where life was possible and important discoveries had been made in medicine. It was as if they were being exposed to the future. They felt as if they had been chosen to have this key to show them the future. What they would do with the insight and information was up to them. They felt special and they held onto that feeling for life. It was a force of light that caused them to do great things to move towards helping mankind.

Judith and Jack had five more days of camp. Everyday they would ride the tractor to the end of the dirt road and jump off to go to the old barn. Judith carried the key around her neck on a string. They would use the key to enter the porthole and “swim” to a new color.

“Ooh, I wonder where we’ll go today? What will we see?”

The two were so excited about their discovery. It was hard to keep a secret. But when they mentioned the old barn to their fellow campers - even counselors - they laughed because no one else could see this old barn apparently. There was only the new barn on the opposite end of the property. The other children laughed at them as the “weird” kids. The counselors assumed it was another game they made up - for these two were always playing something different; pretending, wildly masquerading about.

But after all, Judith and John enjoyed their secret very much and were happy to keep their barn with the mysterious porthole to themselves.

Five days later, their great adventures at the camp and the porthole in the old barn came to an abrupt end. It was time for the two to say goodbye, but not forever. They shared a bond after all. Little did they know how much their meeting each other - however brief - would mean, in the scope of their lives.

"I'll always remember you, Judith. Maybe one day we'll get married." Jack said in the dazzling sunlight that particularly blazing July day. Judith, unphased, smiled. Their eyes locked momentarily. It was a connection so powerful and far beyond their years or anybody's comprehension; their bond, tied to the experience in the old barn, their travels, and unearthly experiences they had witnessed together.

Many years later Judith recognized John in a magazine article - his picture jumped out to her the second she set eyes on him. There was no doubt it was him. The headline read: “Lead Physicist Develops the Technology to Fly Beyond Our Universe”. Ah, the Inter-Galactic Rocket! He did it.

They reunited soon after, which was clearly meant to be. And it didn’t surprise him at all to learn that she had become a doctor who developed a cure to several human cancers and viruses, also doubling human lifespan with an evolutionary immune antidote called "Barnfreezide". Only John could relate to the secret reference in its title.

Together they saved the human race. And they never spent a day apart after they were reunited. They bought a farm, built a complex with the most advanced laboratories and leading scientists in the world.

They had four children together, who enjoyed a free-range lifestyle - a la 1970s - on their sprawling new-age farm property. In homage to the Old Barn, they built an observatory shaped like a barn and unassuming on the outside. The simple structure was filled with soft hay but beneath the structure, lay advanced technologies and capabilities. There were different outlooks where the children could gaze inside other galaxies and launch out to space in the mini rocket their father, John built. This was the closest thing that they had to the porthole that Judith and John experienced as children.

One day, they hoped to re-create that porthole. Until then, they were content to dream and create on their farm - a perfect balance of simple, analog pleasures and high-tech instruments. Enjoying the simpler things too of a different era that they did not want to get lost in time, in their search into a different time and space dimensions became even more likely. And so retro games, movies, and tv shows were the norm in their household. It reminded them of a time long ago - that was carefree and happy. And they hoped their kids would feel this too and maybe witness some magic along the way.

fantasy
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About the Creator

Jackie K

I'm a Canadian living in California. The page is my canvas; words my medium. I have always loved to write - my happy place. Having written prose to business plans, I now strive to write creatively - short stories are my jam.

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