The Strangest Place of All

The Strangest Place of All

You are driving along an old country road on an unusually warm, day towards the end of the fall, when you come to a fork in the road. Since you’re just out driving to have something to do, trying to enjoy the precious little time you have left before the winter-and cold weather- begins anew, you decide to pull a Robert Frost, and take the road you’ve never been on before. Little do you know what surprises you’ll find on your journey. About fifteen minutes pass, and the road is ceasing to be paved with blacktop, and is becoming mostly gravel, with small patches of pavement dotted here and there. The road is getting rough, of course, but not so rough that you have to turn back. After a few potholes, one of them catches you off guard, bouncing you up, hitting your head. It doesn’t seem too bad, however, and you continue on your journey. Eventually the road isn’t paved at all; it is just a pothole filled mess of a path. Even though the road is worse than before, you are paying much more attention now, and dodge most of the obstacles carefully. What catches your eye most however, are not the obstructions in the road. It is the trees behind you compared to those in front: the trees appear to be growing younger and younger the farther along you go! Once, you could have sworn that when the deer that ran across the road in front of you, it was growing smaller in midstride. Puzzled, you take a look at your watch. The time is 8:00 a.m., three hours before you started. At first you think it may have stopped, but upon closer examination, you see that the hands are moving backwards! You are beginning to feel nervous, wondering what could possibly be happening to you. You decide to pull out your phone and call someone, but when you do get your phone, it is about halfway through transforming backwards through time. Instead of having a sleek, modern cell phone, you have one of the cancer spreading behemoths from when they were first invented. You try to make a call anyway, but your phone doesn’t exactly get great service anymore, let alone out in the country, far from a tower. Eventually, you find a spot relatively clear of trees and your call gets through. You decided to call your friend, but instead of them answering, some old lady you’ve never spoken to in your life picks up. “Hello?” she says feebly. “Oh, I’m sorry to bother you ma’am, I must have dialed the wrong number by mistake,” you say politely. “May I ask what number this is?” you ask her, hoping to hear any number but your friend’s. Unfortunately, however, she gives you your friend’s number exactly. Upon hearing this you thank her and hang up, feeling both confused and frightened. You remember your friend got the house after an old lady who lived in it went to a nursing home for the last few years of her life. This brings you to conclude what you had already suspected: you are travelling backwards in time the further along the road you go. Obviously, you decide to turn back. After looking back, though, you have no choice but to go forward. There is an empty blackness all behind you, and coming closer every second. Noticing this, you run to your car and speed off, not caring in the slightest about the bumps on the road. Soon, your phone disappears completely, and your clothes are starting to change, also. What were once blue jeans and a t-shirt are now slowly changing into colonial clothes, like you’ve seen in textbooks and movies. Even your hat is changing, into a powdered wig (which, by the way, is extremely itchy, so you remove it). You were so absorbed into all of this, you didn’t even notice that your car had changed into a carriage being pulled by a pair of horses. You see a town in the distance, and a sign. It reads: Salem, Massachusetts. The name seems familiar, but you can’t quite place it. You reach the town, putting your wig back on once you realize people are staring at your head like you’re some kind of stupid. They keep staring at you, however, and then you realize why: they think you’re a wealthy merchant or something, due to the fact that you are more well dressed than most of the people, and are in one of the only about five or six carriages you can see around you. You scan your memories of history class, and come to the conclusion that the money you’re carrying with you right now, about one hundred dollars (has been changed also, into silver coins) is a lot of money for the time period. You nod at the people, and then stop at what appears to be an inn. Upon entering, you see the innkeeper, and ask him if he knows anything about time travel. At first, the man was confused, then frightened, and then appeared to become angry. “WITCH!!!” he shouted, at the top of his lungs, before running out into the street, repeating himself several times. After hearing this, you remember: Salem, Massachusetts- the Salem Witch Hunt. It is too late to run back to your carriage, as there are several armed, angry men approaching. You run upstairs to prolong what you know is the inevitable. The mob follows you up, and soon captures you without much trouble. Your protesting is quite for naught: they are ignoring you as they carry you to the town’s gallows. They force you over to them, and just as soon as they put the noose around your neck… you wake up in a hospital. It turns out that when you hit your head, you fell unconscious, and were in a crash. The doctors say you’re lucky to be relatively unharmed, because you managed to completely total your car. You, on the other hand, only had a slight concussion. Upon hearing this news, you realize that everything that happened was only a dream.