Fractured Fiction (a work in progress)

Tripoli picked up the book from an inconveniently dusty corner of the closet in her grandfather’s home. The room was dark and the book was old, so she picked it up gently with both hands. Even then, the binding seemed to crack and she feared the whole thing would come apart.

Out of the closet, in the dim light of the only lamp left behind from the movers, she could see the worn cover that barely kept the pages in place. The faded green leather contained some sort of fractured wisdom, she thought. After all, this was from her grandfather’s era and his unflattering life.

As she opened the cover, Trip noticed a small, faded handwritten note on the first page, dated 125 years ago. It read “For those who think that life will never change.” It was signed and dated: “Brandon Vogel, 2020-21.”

The date shot through Trip’s brain – history lessons from school, she recalled, focused at one time on the 2020 pandemic. She wondered what the note was all about. She also suddenly thought how that era affected her ancestors, but she never got an answer from family members who either didn’t know much, didn’t care or were not interested in reviving long-ago pain.

She too had not been that interested in delving into an episode from generations so removed from her life. Especially today, here in a house she barely remembers doing the job that neither her own parents nor siblings cared enough to do.

Grandpa Brandon wasn’t a family favorite. Divorce, cutting off communication with most family members and playing games with his will were the seeds of his lonely life.

So why did he keep this old tome he created? Why was it unceremoniously wedged in a corner pf a closet full of items that seemed to have no reverence in brick’s life?

The wonder swirled around Trip’s brain – she was the family designee who drew the short straw in dealing with the home, a stone and wood structure that someone once described as mid-century modern. “Modern,” a term Trip considered and brushed away as if it was a piece of lint on her shoulder. The best way to describe this home, she thought, was “old and worn with no relation to charming.” She couldn’t wait to get it on the market.

What she didn’t know was the final thing that she would carry out was a last-thing-on-her-mind time machine that had the magic to transport one to a past that begged to not be forgotten.

The tattered binder sat in the back seat of Trip’s truck for two weeks before daughter Rosie discovered it on a run to the grocery store..

“Mom, what’s this.?

“Just an old book I found at Gramp’s house.”

“What’s it about??

“Something he wrote back in his day.”

“Can I read it?”

“Sure, but it’s probably just some twisted ramblings.”

Rosie hardly let that sink in. She knew she would pick it up and read it From what she had been told, her mom’s Gramps was a murky family legend. Not too many spoke of him. Long history there. The best Rosie could get out of anyone was that Brandon Vogel abandoned his family early on, leaving his wife and three kids to fend of themselves. Not cool at any time. Surely a disaster during The Great Pandemic.

Right after Trip pulled into the driveway and killle the engine, Rosie grabbed a bag of groceries and placed it on the fragile book and carried them both into the house before her mom could even notice. She dropped the bag on the kitchen counter and quickly took the old book to her bedroom. It would be a window to the past, she hoped. Certainly a promise of adventure for a 17-year-old who always wondered what Brandon Vogel was all about beyond the muted disapproving remarks.

She opened the front cover with two hands so as not to do any damage. The pages were neatly printed with a typeset that had slightly faded with time and bad storage. Rosie’s eyes scanned the lines, soaking in Gramp’s words. About a dozen pages in, she began to realize what she was reading was more than a look at a man’s life. Clearly, the fate of millions depended on a man generations removed from a young woman who dared take a peek into his past.