"...a note"

"...a note"

I'm on the train I get off at the Hollis Queens stop. I notice fall has turned to spring. The platform has shed fifty seven years.

Men wear brimmed hats, and all the ladies are in dresses. The streets are fresh, the buildings newer, and the cars have fins. According to the newsstands Kennedy is President, and Elvis is still King.

The MTA has delivered me to 1962.

My dear, and long departed Aunt Sybil lives here. We always called her "Mum". No one remembers why. Just as we don't know how my sister became "Cookie".

Anyway back then this part of Queens was sweet. I'd forgotten how lovely it was. I walk to Auntie's house. I ring her bell, she opens the door.

"Hi Mum" I quietly say.

She knows who I am at once, and invites me in. I pour my heart out to her just as I did as a boy. She cooks as she listens.

I tell her I'm "tired, and confused". "The 21st century is a strange cruel place". I can't keep faith with all she, and my Mother had taught me. She listens advises, and comforts.

I mention our going to the Moon then stopping. Never it seems to return. She smiles as I described our little robots driving around on Mars, crashing into rocks flipping over into ditches. I tell her about our Negro President. She nods thoughtfully.

I spend an afternoon in 1962 with Auntie. Back there when our biggest problems were merely nuclear wars, and racial segregation. Such an innocent time it was.

After a wonderful meal, and more kind words I leave my version of Heaven. Mum keeps our trans temporal meeting her secret.

57 years to the day later my cousin, Mum's only surviving son, hands me a sealed note.

Yes, It's from my dear Auntie. She set it aside to be delivered to me. This years after her death.

What does it say?

I don't know.

I haven't opened it yet.