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Times

Michael D. Jones

    So, I was walking in the town square, on the street past the courthouse on a hot summer day, and there were lots of pretty girls in short shorts and skimpy tops. Of course, I couldn’t help but notice them, even though none of them gave me so much as a side-long glance. Who knows, some of them might have smiled or flirted with me—if I’d been thirty years younger. But I knew my day in the sun was past. I was over the hill, just dreaming of happier times.
    And it was there, on the town square, that I saw this old man—old and beleaguered, kind of withered, wrinkled and beaten down...I could see how beaten down he was just by looking into his eyes. It was like I could see directly into his mind and read every sad, depressing thought. But even so, his eyes twinkled a bit when he looked at me, and he smiled in an odd, but friendly, way. He strode right up to me, straightened himself up really tall and said, “I been looking for you.”
    Other people walked past us there on the sidewalk. They passed us by without seeming to notice. The old man held out a wrinkled paper bag—it looked like a lunch sack that had been used and re-used, for maybe a year. It was all tattered and stained, and, frankly, kind of nasty. I didn’t really want to touch it, but the old man kept holding it out to me with his liver-spotted old-man hand. He had an expectant look on his face, and he said: “It’s for you, boy. Go on, take it.”
    Well, hell, standing there, feeling like I was trapped in a bubble of light with this crazy old man, I just didn’t know what to do. So I reached out and took the bag from his hand. It had the word “Times” written on it in black marker, like the way you would label your lunch sack with your name. I was curious about what was in the bag, but at the same time, I was a bit reluctant to look. The old man seemed to sense my reluctance, and he said, “It’s just a collection of different times. Go ahead and have a peek.”
    So I opened the bag and saw that it was filled with little scraps of paper. I took one of those scraps of paper and read what was written on it. As I read the words, I could see the time that was described on the paper—I mean, literally, I could see the time unfolding before my eyes in a kind of magical panorama. It wasn’t like looking at a picture or watching TV—it was more like I was living the moment, and all the people walking past us on the town square were transformed into the scene. When I looked at them I could see the difference in some real and palpable way. It might have been their facial expressions, or maybe just the overall vibe, I really don’t know. But the effect was intoxicating. I felt sort of dizzy. I probably would have fallen down if the old man hadn’t helped to steady me a bit. He said: “I know, boy, it’s awesome, isn’t it? Go ahead, look at some others.” So I did.
    It was like eating potato chips—I just wanted to keep looking at one after another. I saw a time when Republicans supported their troops with more than cheap magnetic ribbons, a time when they realized that if you want endless wars you might actually have to raise taxes, even on the wealthy. It was a time when allegiance to your country meant something more than wearing a lapel pin. Standing there in the courthouse square, the people around me looked sort of...I don’t know, different. I sensed a sort of acceptance, as if I had a right to exist, even though I’m a Democrat.
    The mere acceptance of my humanity made me feel all warm and fuzzy, so I put that time back into the bag and grabbed another. Suddenly, I saw people in big SUV’s with chrome fish on their bumpers, and they were driving politely, there on the street by the square. It was a time when faith was something more than what you wear on your sleeve, a time when Christians talked earnestly about the words of Jesus, and seemed truly concerned with things like the parable of the good Samaritan, the shepherd dividing the sheep and the goats, the camel passing through the eye of a needle...
    I wanted to savor that time a bit, and I looked more deeply into the scene. I saw a time when Pro-Lifers marched in the streets to protect infants and children as much as fetuses, a time when they earnestly condemned people who gunned down doctors and bombed clinics—why, they even called the people who did such things terrorists. Whoa, I was stunned! The old man tightened his grip on my arm, pulled me closer, and he said to me:
    “I know what you’re thinking, son. You can see a time when preachers stop exploiting the hopeless, when politicians stop exploiting the faithful, when people look beyond the echo chamber for truth, when we throw off the shackles of yesterday to shed the dogmatic absurdities of theology and the intransigence of law...”
    “Yes! Yes!” I shouted. Suddenly, I was jumping with excitement, and the old man, with eyes alight, was holding my arms and jumping with me. We laughed like children, both of us. We must have been quite a spectacle, but we didn’t care. And the people walking past us there on the square—I don’t think they even noticed.

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