Forgetting about my plans for a jog, I turned around and sprinted back to my house and tore through the yard, not slowing down until I had reached the front door. I was about to jerk open the door when I caught a hold of myself. I needed to calm down. I couldn’t go into the house in this kind of state. My parents would worry that something was wrong.
I stood on the porch until my heart rate normalized and my brain stabilized. It didn’t take very long. As soon as I thought I was ready, I entered the house. I found my parents in the kitchen preparing dinner together. I slid casually into the kitchen, trying to start a conversation to override my father’s questions about the length of my jog.
“What’s for dinner?” I asked, peering over my mother’s shoulder. “Chicken stir fry? Sounds good…”
I slid back around to the outside of the kitchen, jabbering along the way about topics in which I had no interest. Along the way I prepared time-consuming dinner topics. All of this was working toward the goal of avoiding an interrogation about my recent activities. But as much as I prepared, something told me that I would not be successful in diverting my parents. They kept an alarmingly close watch on me, and even more scrutiny because of my suspension. At one time I was suspicious that they had set up cameras in my room, but a top to bottom search of my room convinced me otherwise.
“Why are you back so soon from your run?” interrupted my father. I hopelessly hoped that he did not detect what I was doing to keep the conversation out of those waters. But a current I could not overpower had pulled me back in.
“I just didn’t feel like running tonight,” I said. Before my father could dig any deeper, I changed the subject. “After dinner I need to swing by Angela’s house and pick up a packet from my teachers. It has all of the stuff we did on Thursday and Friday.”
“That’s fantastic,” my father said. I wasn’t sure he had even heard what I said. “But I know what you are trying to do. Don’t change the subject. What happened tonight?”
“Nothing, Dad,” I said, pretending to look confused, and letting out a small laugh. “Why are you so concerned about all of this?”
My mother ladled soup into our bowls and carried them to the dinner table. Though it was not intended to be threatening, this action reminded me that I still needed to get through an entire dinner table interrogation. I sighed and took my seat. My father followed immediately after me. He sat down in his usual seat and bent his head to the table. He ran his hand through his wavy hair and resurfaced with a yawn. My mother brought the silverware from the kitchen and we settled down to eat.

I had been watching the Parker house all day. Whenever I happened to walk near a window with a view to the house, I would glance to see if Peter Blank had returned. But by the early evening, the house had still remained modern. This was very frustrating for me, as I had several burning questions for Peter Blank.

As the sun began the dip down, I suddenly felt an urge similar to the one I had felt yesterday when I had awoken from my nap. This urge controlled me in a way that I did not want, but something kept me from resisting. I knew where the urge came from, and that didn’t help matters. However there was nothing to be done. I was powerless to resist.

“I’m going to go out for a quick trot around the block,” I told my father on the way out the door. “I’ll make it back before dinner, I promise.”

And with that I swung the repaired door open and hopped down the steps, quickly crossing through the garden. I reached the sidewalk in just a couple of seconds and began to dash down the street as if some unseen force had taken over my legs. Vaguely my mind told me that I wanted to avoid Angela. And when I passed her house, I did not see her. At least, I didn’t think I did.

As I passed her house I tried to not look into the front yard, but a flash of red caught my eye, and my best efforts to tear my face away were in vain. I saw a little girl, probably four or five years old, running through their garden. She was shrieking with joy. I stood, transfixed. Was this one of Angela’s relatives? A man’s voice broke through the joyful shouts.

“Angela, not so fast; I can’t keep up,” called an old man from the other side of the yard. His voice was filled with laughter. This was a good time. Then it immediately hit me that this little girl was Angela, the next-door neighbor with the mega crush on me. And she was only a fourth of her real age. If that was Angela, then who was the old man?

“Daddy! Try to catch me!” shrieked Angela as she ran between two bushes. She looked back at the old man. That was her father. In what kind of world would a four-year-old girl have a seventy-year-old father? In the Grim Guider’s world, of course. This was undoubtedly his work. But there was something different about this. Something that separated it from yesterday’s happenings.

These time twists were affecting somebody I knew. I had no idea what the effect on Angela was because of this. It could be harmless, or it could be something more. I didn’t know exactly why, but something in this scene cut into me like a knife. I suddenly realized how twisted and serious this game was that the Grim Guider was leading me playfully through. A thought floated to the surface of my mind: I needed this.

Now you have some idea of my power, said the Grim Guider. And yes, the events you mentioned are due to time twists.
And what are time twists? I asked.
Time twists are obviously orchestrated by me. They occur when I take a certain element of the world and revert it to how it was many years or even centuries ago. But these time twists can only be seen be seen by you. That is what caused the rather delicious situation when you and Angela saw a different person standing in the same place and doing identical actions. However, your perception of the person standing there was affected by the time twist that brought Peter Blank into the present. When you looked away I shot him back into the past, and Mr. Parker returned. It was simple.
I was stunned by the idea. Why hadn’t I thought of that? It was entirely plausible, and it was simple enough to work easily without making a large error. So you used a time twist to change the floor in my room? I asked.
Yes, I simply reverted your carpet floor to how it was several years ago when it was a wood floor. It was very amusing to mess with your mind like that.
A pang of anger quickly flared up inside of me, but it was quickly subdued by something else. And I assume you did the same thing with the door? I asked.
Exactly, said the Grim Guider.
So, you could technically change anything in the entire world to how it used to be? I asked in awe.
I suppose so, answered the Grim Guider. That answer frightened me.
But what is the point of all of this? I asked. This was the question that was really on my mind. Why are you doing this?
That, said the Grim Guider, is for later. Much later. If you are perceptive, all might become clear in time.
So what’s next? I asked. Are you just going to keep doing these things to me, changing my world around until I become crazy? That prospect was not very inviting.
Of course not, replied the Grim Guider. That would be exceptionally cruel, and would become rather boring for me without your knee-jerk reactions. No, I have some instructions for you to carry out tomorrow.
What are they?
The Grim Guider did not answer as immediately as I was accustomed to. Instead of answering, he stepped up onto his pedestal. He raised his arms toward the exploding sky. His cape billowing furiously in the rampaging wind, he looked back down at me. In the morning you will know exactly what to do.
And then the Grim Guider shot up into the sky, a funnel of wind surrounding him. He ascended toward the endless sky until at last he was lost in the infinite blackness.

That night I found it difficult to sleep. My mind was racing through the day’s events at a blistering pace, from the changing bedroom floor, to the return of the wrestling men, all the way up to the strange events surrounding my encounter with Peter Blank, and the latter’s connection to the Grim Guider.
It all came back to the Grim Guider. These things were happening because of him. There was no other explanation. But though I had found a cause for the confusion in my life, I still had not found a reason. Who was the Grim Guider, and what did he want? Why was he doing these things? The answers to these questions would not come to me, and finally I succumbed to my tired eyes. Sleep came instantly.
And with sleep came the Grim Guider. Once again my mind was transported to the mysterious location near some type of beach. Distant waves lapped up against invisible rocks, beneath a starless night. The moon shone brightly down upon a figure that was quickly growing. My mind told me that it was the Grim Guider, and that he was quickly approaching. Soon I could see the outline of his cape billowing in the wind that I could not feel.
At long last the Grim Guider came to a stop several feet in front of me. He looked even more ominous than before, standing over seven feet tall with his dark mask shrouding his face. Briefly I wondered what was hiding beneath the mask, but the Grim Guider’s words quickly invaded my mind.
It’s nice to have you back, boomed the powerful voice. Though I could not see behind the mask, I knew that the Grim Guider had spoken the words.
Why am I here again? I asked, not bothering with the greetings.
Lightning flashed behind the Grim Guider, closely followed by a round of deafening thunder. The storm had gotten worse since my visit the last night. Dark wispy clouds were beginning to appear and glide through the sky, slightly shrouding the endless black sky. It was not a welcome sight.
We will get to your question in time. Until then, I have a few of my own, said the Grim Guider. Firstly, what do you think of all of the time twists? Are they alarming?
Are time twists those things where I see my floor as carpet, then suddenly wood, and back to carpet again? And the whole thing with Mr. Parker turning into Peter Blank?
The Grim Guider stepped down off of his pedestal. Though he was not quite as tall now, he was still a terrifying figure. He raised his arms into the air and threw his head back. The sky almost exploded with lightning. The sky lit up with what seemed like million of connected bolts of lightning. I felt like I was on the inside of one of those static spheres that you could put your hand on and have static electricity all over you. The effect was astonishing and frightening at the same time.

I felt paralyzed. What could I say? If I told him that I did, he would want to know why, and then they would find my room ransacked. But if I remained quiet, the officer might just go away… I shrugged. “I never called the police.”
My father pursed his lips and looked at the officer. “You must have gotten the address wrong, officer.”
“Of course I didn’t,” said the officer, reaching for the GPS unit in his car. “I have it written right on here. 7523 Mundrum Drive. Now, which one of you called the police station and why?”
I remained quiet. The officer did not look impressed. He reached back into his car for something. He reappeared with a recording device. “The operator who notified me of the emergency said that the caller mentioned a break-in, and a vandalized room.”
“Dempster?” my father said, his voice rising dangerously. “What happened here? I want you to tell me now.”
“Nothing happened here, and I didn’t call the police,” I repeated firmly.
“Then you wouldn’t mind me conducting a quick search of the house?” asked the officer. I froze. He would find my ransacked room if he did that.
“No, officer, I would not mind,” I said calmly, hiding my fear. “Come right in.”
Despite my best efforts to act innocently, I feared that the officer saw right through me. He began to trudge to the front door. “Officer,” I said as he walked up the front steps.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Take the back door, would you? The front door is locked from the outside.”
The officer looked annoyed, but he rounded the house and entered through the back door. I followed him step for step, desperately trying to think of a way to stop him from getting up to my room. But my mind could not produce a solution. And so I helplessly followed the officer through the house, my father anxiously trailing behind. He was not so calm under these kinds of circumstances.
In an orderly fashion that followed closely to the methods I had used in searching the house twice previously, the office cleared the first floor. As much as I tried to convince him to search the basement first, he refused. Hearing the dog barking and a gradually increasing thumping sound was enough to warrant his interest.
“You stay here,” said the officer, whipping out his handgun and holding it in front of himself as he ventured up the stairs.
“No,” I said firmly. “I’m coming up there too.”
The officer sighed. “Just stay out of my way,” he said. “And if there is somebody up there, I want you to scram. You hear?”
I nodded and followed him upstairs. I looked back at my father. He had decided to stay behind. I turned my back on him and reached the second floor landing.
“The hallway is clear,” said the officer. “Stay behind me while I search these room.”
He traveled slowly down the hallway turning his gun upon every small shadow and sinister-looking object. I vaguely heard Knarly barking at the wall, but the loud thumping of blood in my head blocked most of the world’s sound out.
“Everything up here is clear except for your room,” whispered the officer. “I want you to get into one of those rooms while I open the door. If somebody is in there, run downstairs and get yourself and your father out.”
I nodded, unsure of what the police officer would find in my room. I waited breathlessly while he slowly approached the door, gun pointing straight out. He reached a gloved hand to the door handle, hesitated for a split-second, and then burst open the door. He waved his gun madly around for a few seconds. Apparently there was nobody in the room. He beckoned for me to follow him without looking. I eagerly peered inside after the officer. What I saw shocked me.
“It’s all clear in here, son,” said the officer as he surveyed my clean and un-ransacked room. “Looks like a false alarm.”

Peter Blank was no longer standing in front of Angela and I. Instead, I saw a tall, middle-aged man wearing a green golfing shirt. It was none other than Mr. Parker. I looked over at Angela. Nothing about the man had changed for her, apparently. I rubbed my eyes thoroughly and looked back up. Mr. Parker was still standing there. Peter Blank was gone for now.
Lately, nothing was making sense. Things were switching around everywhere, from the floor in my room to the next-door neighbor’s house. I looked at what had been Peter’s house. Now it was in perfect upkeep with a gorgeous lawn and plenty of flowerbeds. The sound of a car engine interrupted my confusion.
I looked back to our driveway and saw my father pulling in. That was just what I needed. Now I had an excuse to leave Angela and Mr. Parker and head inside to wait for the police. I stood up without a word, leaving Angela and Mr. Parker to chat, and headed for the front door. As I went up to it I noticed that the door once again had the outline of a cut around its door handle. How was that possible? When I had departed for my walk earlier, the door had been repaired.
I heard my father come in through the back door. Luckily he hadn’t found it ajar. I tried to move toward the stairs, but then my father called me into the kitchen. He needed help unloading groceries. Sighing as I traveled into the kitchen, I only got to the first bag before I heard sirens coming down our street. They stopped at what I could tell was our house. I tried not to show any discomfort, and I successful. I looked at my father. He seemed slightly concerned, and he left the room. I anxiously followed him out.
“What do you think it is?” I asked as my father approached the front door.
“I don’t know,” he said, and then he noticed that the door was still broken. “Didn’t the repairman come today?”
I wasn’t sure what to say. The door had been fixed earlier today, but I hadn’t heard a doorman at all. And now the door had been cut into once again. I decided to take the stance that the door repairman had not come at all.
“Nope, dad. He must have missed his appointment. I was home all day.”
“So you would have seen him,” my father said, pushing the door open. “Now, let’s go find out what these officers want.”
I saw the Angela and Mr. Parker had disappeared. Together my father and I strolled down the garden path toward the sidewalk on where the police car was parked. A plump, irritable-looking officer was just getting out the police car. He surveyed our house briefly, and then saw us.
“Are you the person who called?” the officer asked my father. My father faltered for a moment, but quickly regained control of himself.
“No, officer,” he said, a confused look playing across his face. He glanced over at me, his eyes searching for an answer. “Did you call 911, Dempster?”

I was in a rather tight situation. My parents would be home in two minutes. The police would follow them here in another two minutes. As if that wasn’t bad enough, a man whom Angela saw as Mr. Parker, and I saw as Peter Blank, was heading toward us. All of these things were going to happen simultaneously, and I needed to do some serious preparation.
The first order of business would be to head off Peter. He would only make things more complicated when my parents and the police arrived. Immediately I regretted calling the police. My parents would worry and see my room. They might not even let me stay at home alone anymore.
“I wonder what Mr. Parker is doing at home today,” said Angela. “Shouldn’t he be at work?”
I shrugged. “Hey, Angela?”
“Yes?” she smiled, thinking I was about to say something she would enjoy hearing.
“This will sound odd to you, but how old do you think… Mr. Parker is?”
Angela laughed. “Oh, I would guess about thirty-five or forty. How about you?”
I looked at the small, frail old man. There was no way Angela could think that he was thirty-five. This only further proved that we were seeing different people. I saw Peter Blank, the man from 1942, and Angela saw Mr. Parker, the young neighbor from the present time. This was disturbing to me on so many levels.
“Good afternoon, Angela,” said Peter Blank from his rotting front yard as he began to cross our driveway. “And how are you, Master Duggins?”
We each greeted Peter. Well, Angela was greeting Mr. Parker.
“I like your shirt, Mr. Parker,” said Angela. “Green looks nice on you.”
I was reeling. Peter Blank’s shirt was definitely blue. Now I was completely sure that, without a doubt, we were seeing two different people. My mind was overflowing with thoughts about the situation, but none of them concerned solutions to the predicament. I thought I could faintly hear police sirens in the distance.
“Why thank you, Angela,” said Peter. “Are those police sirens I hear?” he asked.
I turned my head to look down the street. The sirens were getting louder, but no police cars were in sight. When I looked back at Peter Blank, I got the shock of my life. Everything up until now seemed paltry compared to this.

“Oh, I was just…” I began. “Bringing it in because of the rain forecasted for later tonight.”
I played the answer back in my head. It was plausible. I looked at Angela; she seemed convinced. “Oh, I guess I had better take in some of the things in our back yard too,” said Angela. I couldn’t tell, but there may have been a hint of a mocking tone in that last statement. Or maybe I was just paranoid.
We sat in silence for about two minutes, both thinking about our own things. Then Angela broke the silence.
“How were the Parkers?” she asked.
I was jolted out of my thoughts by her question. If she thought I was going into the Parkers’ house, then that meant I was the only one who saw the house as Peter Blank’s house in 1942. I looked over at the house subconsciously. It was still Peter’s.
“They have a beautiful home,” Angela gushed. “I can’t imagine how much work it takes to keep it looking so nice.”
I smiled, pretending that I too saw a perfect suburban house with a white picket fence and a perfectly manicured lawn. At the same time I was worried sick about what I was seeing. Peter still hadn’t told me what was going on, and that meant that anything could be happening. And he had further complicated matters by revealing to me that he knew about the Grim Guider.
“It was… an interesting visit,” I said, still wondering how much time Angela could have on her hands that she spends so much of it spying on me.
It was very strange. I would have thought that after my small rejection of Angela yesterday, she would be a bit embarrassed and probably not as eager to see me. But that had not turned out to be true. She was still my number one fan, unfortunately. Then, ironically, Angela broke my thoughts.
“Here comes Mr. Parker now,” she said.

As I stepped out the back door of Peter Blank’s house, I was immediately hit by the vibrancy of the colors. Inside of Peter’s house, everything was dull and gray. Outside in the present day, trees swayed in the wind beneath the bright sun, and the red paint from the house on the next street contrasted brilliantly with a blue car in its driveway… and who am I kidding? Dempster Duggins is not supposed to care about the beauty of nature. Annoyed, I climbed out of Peter’s back yard and across the driveway to my own back door. The door was ajar, and there were two clean boot prints on the welcome mat.
Before I went inside, I took a detour to the flowerbed in our back yard. I picked up the shovel my father had been using, and carried it as I entered the house. I examined each and every corner of the downstairs in a similar fashion to two days previously. Again I found nothing on the main level. I went upstairs, already fearing what I would find. The thumping noise, which I had half-expected, could be heard. I was still armed with a shovel.
When I arrived outside of my room, I found my dog Knarly barking madly at the wall. I could not see him barking at anything in particular, however. Hoping that Knarly was the source of the thumping noise, I ventured past him into my room. I poked my head around the corner, in conjunction with my shovel, and saw that the room was ransacked again.

The police would arrive in about ten minutes, so I took the chance to go and sit outside in the garden and try to analyze the whole situation with Peter Blank. I didn’t get very far, however. About a minute after I sat down, Angela came bounding out of her house, smiling even more broadly than usual. I should have seen that coming.
Angela floated across the driveway and into our garden. She joined me on the doublewide bench.
“How was your day, Dempster?” she asked pleasantly.
“Fine,” I said.
She raised her eyebrows. “I just saw you entering your house with a shovel? Care to tell me what you were doing?”
I cringed. Angela was watching my every move now. She probably had binoculars or something. Things would be more difficult to do without attracting attention now.

I followed Peter’s slow progress into the small kitchen. There was a vague aroma left over from lunch; the smell of bacon wafted from the ancient stove. Peter pointed his cane to the refrigerator. Stuck to the appliance with a magnet was a calendar. I could tell that it was from National Geographic by the yellow rectangle. I peered closer to the calendar in order to determine the year.
I flipped the calendar to the cover page. And there I saw it. Something so unbelievable under normal circumstances, but almost believable based on everything that had happened in the last two days. The year on the cover, in an old but fancy brown font, was 1942. I looked back at Peter. He smiled at me.
“Welcome to the past,” he said. “Would you like to try some butterscotch cookies?”
I stared at him, nearly stunned. What was happening? Had I never awoken from the dream about the Grim Guider? The thoughts swirled through my head, each more complicated than the next, as I searched for a solution, a explanation, for the events that were occurring. And then the answer came to me.
“Could you tell me what is going on?” I asked Peter.
“Of course I will,” said Peter. “I thought you would never ask. Why don’t you come and we’ll talk in the sitting room over some butterscotch cookies…”
Peter seemed like a completely different person now. He was no longer a frail old man; he had energy, a twinkle in his eye, and most importantly, a presence. He no longer looked dazedly into his own world. He walked with more purpose, as well. Faster than we had left, we sank back into our armchairs. I waited for him to say something, anything that would help explain what was happening.
“Do you often find yourself thinking about time paradoxes?” asked Peter.
“Yes,” I said at once, surprised. “How did you know?”
“You seem to be from somewhere in the future, am I correct?”
“And how would you know that?”
“Firstly, your bewilderment at the time period suggests that you have never lived during this time. Also, your clothes are unlike anything from the current decade, and other decades adjacent.”
“Very good. But how did you know about all of the time paradoxes?” I asked.
Peter reached for his coffee mug and drained the last of its contents. He rested it on the table with a small clatter and continued.
“Those are the ones that are generally targeted,” said Peter simply. I waited for more, but it did not come.
“What? What do you mean, targeted?” I asked, intrigued.
“That is something you do not need to know. However, I take it that you spend quite a bit of time pondering time paradoxes and various theories related to time. Would you care to tell me about some of these?”
And so, without a second thought, I delved into a description of everything I had been thinking about time paradoxes and theories in the last several weeks. We discussed everything from the grandfather paradox, to the theory of rejoining branches, to whether the chaos theory is substantial enough to change big events. The time flew as we chatted, and it was by accident that I checked my watch and saw the time.
“Mr. Blank, I really must be going. My parents will be home soon, and it would look strange to be departing from such a house…”
As I said these words, my mind returned to wondering about how I could be in the 1940’s inside of a house, but everywhere else in the same world was in the present day. I realized that Peter still had not told me what was going on. And so as I was about to leave, I stuck my head back into the sitting room.
“Mr. Blank, would you mind telling me what is going on here? Why have I come into this time period now? How can the same world have two different tracks of time?”
Peter smiled and shook his head. “That’s for another time, young man.”
Knowing that I would not get an explanation until later, I waved goodbye to him and headed for the door. As I did, I heard him call my name quietly. Pausing, I turned back.
“Yes?” I called.
“Say hello to the Grim Guider for me tonight.”