People are born, grow up, and spend a large proportion of their lives aging.
I remember an old Negro woman from my youth. She lived in a small house across the street from our family.
She was a private, but active person, busy with chores, washing clothes and gardening. Constance was her name.
As a child I would see Constance occasionally. She was polite toward me. Oddly, from a distance
she appeared a bit withered and weary. Up close she somehow changed into an evasive figure
who wore an older body like a teenager. Not comfortable in her skin, as if a young spirit trapped.
I remember thinking how old folks should perhaps be more relaxed, not energetic.
I however knew little of her generation, nor her racial environment.
Mother said that Constance had been a slave in her youth.
And, that she had suffered hardships, and had led a lot of her people to safety
via the underground railroad. Nobody believed it. Constance would have to be 115 years old
at the least had this been true. As it were, she appeared old, but of an undetermined age like many
of her race. She remained a mystery.
Years passed and I grew up. I became more physically capable and began doing chores for
Constance after school, or weekends. I would occasionally sense that she was a pure and peaceful
soul underneath layers of something I could not approach nor apprehend.
I didn't have much cultural exposure to the black race. I think she sensed that I was a thoughtful
young man and knew I also worked part time as clerk in a local bookstore.
She could read very well, but did not seem fluent in literature, past or present.
She would sometimes turn her head to the sky, as if something was speaking to her.
She would also grin at the oddest moments. I asked her one day if she had ever been to church.
She replied, "which one?"
I looked back at her and didn't bother to answer. She had a way of cutting to the chase.
Constance rolled her lip and went on with chores.
It was the fall of 1973. I had graduated from High School and was working full time at the bookstore.
I also was learning about the art of photography. I was interested in the works of William Blake
and Rene Descartes. Early I had entered a philosophical period in my life. Or, at least I thought I had.
As I became more attuned to the esoteric implications of life, I would get flashes of Constance in my
mind as I reviewed some of the words she had spoken to me briefly, or it was her general persona
that would penetrate me with a strange depth. I guess I can describe Constance as a silent mentor.
Simply by being herself was enough to show me I had a simple surface understanding.
She knew something, had earned a rare quality, and what that was, I could not explain.
Youth wants to sprint across the bridge of wisdom, not earn it through life experience.
Constance became a secret refuge of counsel for me. I would wake in the morning primed with all kinds of
questions I wanted to ask her. I would go to work and through the course of the day would find the answer
in a book, or coming freely from the lips of a customer, or delivery person.
At days end I felt a deeper satisfaction within.
She was not the type who liked people frequenting with regularity.
I wished I had spent more time with Constance in my childhood, but later would appreciate the balance of
contact I had with her.
I did see her one last time that fall. It was dusk as I walked home from work and saw a lamp
burning in her front room. I walked up to her door not knowing exactly why. The porch gave a creak as I stepped
onto it. She pulled the front door open and smiled and invited me in. We sat by the oil lamp.
Constance looked waxy and weathered in the dim light.
Her thick silvery hair was pulled back neatly. She became calm and still.
The light flickered and I could catch glimpses of unearthly age that she wore.
Her feet were like the gnarled roots of an ancient oak with her trunk and branches above showing the wear of
a thousand storms.
She leaned a little forward toward me and began to speak.
"I think you will do well in your life Aaron.
Son, I have seen some things. Things that could would not seem proper to fit into
the space of time. Most souls only look backward at life, like riding the caboose.
Learn to be aware of what the engineer of the train is seeing. Listen for the
whistle and get to know the lurches and sways of the track. And, remember details.
Know what is around you at all times, here and in your dreams."
I sat there captured by her few words, and prayed that she didn't stop speaking.
This is the longest line of sage advice she had ever spoken to me.
"I will be moving on shortly. I am approaching the winter of my life.
Everything is arranged and in order, 'cept for maybe a couple of things.
And while you are here we can square off one of them...
Aaron, when a book is revised, they make some changes in
the new edition, am I correct?"
"Yes ma'am, there can be changes, updates, corrections, perhaps new illustrations."
"I have something I want to give to you.
The world is becoming very complex and it is necessary for the world to recognize how
complex we are too." Her voice tailed off hoarsely.
I became apprehensive about her offer.
"Was there something that happened to you that you can't talk about?"
I took on an aggressive, challenging tone.
A distant fascination could quickly transmute into repulsion if I sensed an odor of
confinement and restriction by anyone, especially the trappings of the lonely and old.
"Silence can be the refuge of sanity....believe that I have lived there more than not.
Do you know about Harriet Tubman?"
"The abolitionist?"
"Yep, I knew her, as well as anyone could.
She helped me, and I helped her. I liked her, she was harsh like myself.
We both had a rough time of it. I worked with her for a time in the Underground
Railroad....
Harriet told me about some places she had been.
I think she was referring to the spirit world, or some life in the past.
She was not a literate person, but she knew things others did not.
How the ancient Africa and
its past were connected to slavery issues and Lincoln. Harriet had me read her the
newspapers back then. I forget what they said, or what they were.
She had me clip articles or tear pages out at her request.
She put them in that big wooden ball. There was a discolored round object beside her roller top desk.
Harriet said there may be proof whether the power from the past will sway the future, or the future powers
will sway the past.
I never opened it, it's sealed.
I'm getting too old to become a detective, so you use your skills to determine
what Harriet was collecting. She told me someone would come along who could
take charge of the contents, and I think it must be you Aaron."
"What was she saving do you think?"
"Lincoln...things about him, and battles."
"Like an archive, is that it?"
"Only of the things she selected. She would receive impressions.
As I recall, she would listen to what I read her and
then either have a reaction or not.
There was one battle in particular, she had a bad reaction.
Suffered a seizure. Just went out of her mind for a few days.
Mostly I saved the items she would have a reaction toward
if I remember correctly. She could be a very moody, difficult woman."
"Was she empathetic about all the death?" I asked.
This was becoming very strange.
"Harriet was very psychic at certain times. She had her head bashed in by her owner.
She should have died, but, got through it and was changed in her vision.
It also disrupted her normal patterns.
She didn't know Lincoln at this time, but said that she knew him from before.
I thought she was crazy.
She told me things about the civil war before they occurred.
And, usually they did.....then.
There came a day when she said it all changed. She could not follow it anymore.
She was very angry, upset and frightened.
She said something horrible had descended.
The battle over which she had that seizure, she was kept uttering 'blood beast', all that
night in her bed. She was not in her right mind for sure, but, empathy wasn't carried by her.
She was harder than nails,
her visions were hard natured as well. Something collided into her.
I was frightened by things she saw and did most of the time."
"Wow. So you knew Harriet! It was rumored that you had been a slave
as a child, I honestly thought it was fiction."
"Araminta was her real name."
There was a long dead silence. The lamp flickered
eerily.
"Revised history. Is that what you are getting at?", I asked.
"It's inside that ball. Harriet told me it had a lock. Some sort of thing Pythagoras
had discovered about geometric solids holding a zero base.
I have no idea what that means except that you may only open it under a full solar eclipse.
Chisel the cap off or break it open somehow."
She got up slowly and handed me the wooden ball. It was a bit larger than a bowling ball.
My hands were sweaty, the ball was rather light, as if hollow.
I thanked her, and she thanked me. It was one of her last orders of business to take care of.
I could tell she felt lighter, her eyes twinkled.
She patted my back as I exited her front door and walked home.
That winter, on a cold January day, Constance passed away.
I didn't feel a tinge of sorrow. She simply didn't have an endearing composition.
It felt as if a tough old soldier had turned to vapor. There was a moment of reflection and heartfelt gratitude
at getting to know a little of this complex individual.
Some years passed. The Vietnam war had drawn to a close. I was living in a small flat and had become a dealer
in used books. I was at a local book fair in the fall of 1976. Somebody had mentioned that there
was going to be a total solar eclipse 2:10 p.m. on Sunday. I didn't think anything about it.
It was Saturday, and it was getting late. I had found a few titles I was looking for and was browsing through
some boxes of books someone had hastily brought in. Lots of Civil war titles. Autobiographies of Lincoln, Histories of
Lincoln's War. Obviously an estate collection taken in to recoup a few dollars. Lincoln, that weathered face of his
looked like the sordid woes of humankind were etched into it. Then it struck me. I realized I could open that ball tomorrow afternoon.
I had some mixed feelings. I wasn't sure if I were qualified to tear open something that had belonged to
Harriet Tubman. If in fact, this was true. Opening it under the eclipse made it seem mysterious and
compelling. Although, my logical mind wasn't holding any great expectations, I held the procedure as a matter
of trust regardless of the outcome. I took some time and considered using a private space in my parents back lot
far behind their house. It was filled with weeping willow trees and other thick overgrown brush and tall weeds.
I could procure privacy because the area was swampy and stunk during the summer. I knew where a paddock of
field rock were piled and would provide a suitable dry place to open the ball.
I would load my camera with a fresh roll of 35mm Tri-X high speed black and white.
The small aperture would hold foreground and background in stark focus.
I realized that the few minutes of the eclipse would force time constraints, yet I could photograph a before and
after sequence to document the event.
I arrived at the spot an hour and a half before the eclipse. The sky was clear as crystal.
I had made a small shadow box to monitor the eclipse. Light entered through a pin hole. A basic camera with no photosensitive medium. The solar disk was the size of a dime at the back of the box and the eclipse would register visually
when the sun had been completely obscured by the moon. I began taking a few photos of the scene.
The ball, a 2 pound hammer, a saw, a hatchet, a chisel and a brass punch.
The eclipse was underway. The sun had a quarter of itself showing when I began to tap on what appeared to
be wooden pegs holding the ball's cap affixed. The wood was old and dry and the pegs were easily loosened.
I drove them down until they stopped moving. I kept watching the shadow box so I could move to open it
as soon as the sun was obscured. I became anxious. A minute or two was excruciatingly long.
The sun disappeared. I struck the cap with a hammer and chisel. The wood was harder than I anticipated.
I struck harder and began shredding wood from the joint around the cap. I kept hitting it until I could begin
prying it open with the chisel. Finally I tore it open with my hand.
I sat it down and took a photo looking down into the hollow interior.
The sky was now a dark cobalt and I carefully reached in to remove a small bundle of neatly folded newspaper
clippings. The moon and sun were now diverging. A sliver of bright
sunlight began overtaking the lunar disk. I had no sense of whether I performed the opening correctly or not.
I began to wonder if Harriet had suffered from insanity, because what I had just done made no sense at all.
I felt relieved, but confused about what to do next.
I was lacking instructions on just what it was I was supposed to study or find.
The newspaper itself appeared crisp and clean looking. The interior of the ball was not rounded. It consisted of
flat areas geometrically spaced. It was a very odd design.
I picked up the largest folded wad of paper and then unfolded it carefully.
It was a copy of the Washington Times dated July 1863.
The headline read: North Forced into Negotiations after Rout at Gettysburg
I fell backwards landing flat on my back. I had never been hit so hard by anything before or since.
I could not think, I could not move. The paper was laid out over my chest. I lifted my arms to shove it off.
It would not move, my arms would not cooperate. I tried to blow it off of me.
I think I may have passed out briefly, I cannot be certain. It was an awful place to be in every way.
I got up after several minutes. I threw everything into a bag and marched straight back to my car.
I saw my mom as I tossed the bag into the backseat.
I was soaking wet with sweat and muck. She was planting some flowers.
We both said 'hey' and I drove off.
I dared myself to look at one more of these clippings after a couple years had passed.
I chose a small piece gambling that I could accommodate with more rationale.
It was an obituary: Former President Lincoln dies at Syracuse NY
He had passed away from aggravations of old age at a Sanitarium.
From page 3, It was a small write up. He was not a celebrated figure.
The brief content was of a magnitude beyond my mental and spiritual capacities to apprehend.
Obviously these could not be real clippings, or at least, they were no longer real.
I did find that the strange interior shape of the ball was a 20 sided isometric form.
The icosahedron. I can only conclude that this ball was a simple time-lock.
Meaning the contents were isolated from subsequent changes in the space/time continuum hence the
day of their being sealed away.
Meaning, that since Harriet selected certain vital clippings, somebody or someone had seen fit to go back and
change what happened. I guess I may have to continue the kind of life led by Constance. Silent, contemplative
and desperate. I pray that later in my life I may be granted the wisdom to find an answer to what happened
to a continent full of people in the mid 1800's. I have not the fortitude nor courage at this stage in my life.
The paper fiber taken from the ball is a perfect compositional match to the newsprint from that time
used by the Washington Times.
Aaron Sharp
June 23, 1989
"This your book?" asked the man.
