Somewhere in Time

Proof is in the Pudding ( or a guest book)

                                                          "Your eyes set fire to my soul, your hands set fire to my skin.
                                                                   Your words set fire to my mind, every part of me is
                                                                        Blushing and burning for you.....N.R.Hart

          With a flashlight in his hand , Richard snuck up to the hotels attic and slowly opened the door.  The hinges protested  the intrusion, squeaking loudly.   No one had been  in the attic for many , many years.

       He stumbled in the low light of the expansive room , coughing from the thick blanket of dust that he was kicking up.
It swirled around his head and body, as if to say ' why are you disturbing our slumber?  You belong in the present, not here in the past.
           The sound of crunching under his feet caused  him to stop and he turned his light on mouse droppings and dead spiders.
The sooner he found what he was looking for the better.
   He began to worry that he would be looking for  a proverbial needle in a haystack.
  There were mountains of boxes, faded broken furniture , dress mannequins  and old  out dated office equipment. 
       The smell of rot and decay  made Richard crinkle up his nose and  he covered his face with his hand.

             After searching for only thirty minutes ,he literally stumbled over a box with writing on the side that said 'guest registration 1910 thru 1915.

   His heart began to race as he read the dates.  He found it!

         His hands shook as he opened the box and ran his fingers down the spines of each volume  and paused when he found 1912.
               He pulled the book from its final resting place and quickly opened it . It was stiff with age and smelled  musty, but Richard was beginning to actually like the scent of old leather.
He scanned the date at the top of the page and flipped through from January to March then he got into the summer months.
                 August.... no, too far ahead. Back up to June.
    June 27, 1912...
              There it is .......tomorrow. 60 years ago.
He ran his fingers down the list of names and home state or country of that guest, the time they arrived and the room number assigned to them.

                     There she was , Elise McKenna.....room 310 and beneath her signature was her managers. William Robertson.  room 106

                Richard squeezed his eyes shut and turned the page.   'Please , please , please.' He muttered.
The opened them and skimmed the page looking for his name.

                         Richard Collier.  Chicago, Illinois.    9:18am.  Room 416

           I was there...... I was there.......  I was there!!!

He breathed  a sigh of relief, willing his heart to return to normal speed.
Now he had proof! His signature  was confirmation that he was there. 
   It was all the evidence he needed to begin again .

With his determination stronger than ever , he went back to his room and turned on the recorder and his voice once again told him it was 1912, Elise is in the  hotel. You will go down and find her ......

Then it dawned on him..... why this whole damn thing wasn't working . How could he be so stupid!

Right next to him , laying on the bed was the problem. The tape recorder. It was definitely a object of the present.

He shook his head at himself and his ignorance. How could he be so foolish?
He placed his last remaining connection to nineteen eighty two under the bed and began chanting over and over, 1912....... 1912...... 1912........ Elise.......Elise........ Elise........
Exhaustion over took him and his head sank into the pillow and his mind drifted into deep sleep.

      The changes began imperceptibly.
          The room gradually transformed itself around him from white walls and plain furniture to  heavy brocade curtains and  Queen Anne style furnishings.
The morning sun shown through the windows and illuminated Richards sleeping face.   The bedspread that he had been laying on transformed into a throw pillow under his head.
    His first  awareness was of the lack of noise around him.
  No cars, no air conditioning pumping through the room , no humming of a clock radio.
He had not yet opened his eyes, but he could hear birds chirping and  the clip clop of horses hoofs.

      He sat up slowly and opened his eyes...

         His heart nearly stoped and is eyes went wide as he took in his surroundings.  
       He was in a small sitting room . There was a table in the center of the room with a large bouquet of flowers . There was even a fireplace with a oval mirror  above it.

     The next sound he heard nearly scared him out of his wits.  
           He wasn't alone.
He heard a woman singing to herself. She was in the bedroom and thankfully had not noticed that there was an intruder in her room.
    Richard quickly and quietly tipped toed to the closet and hid behind the door.

        She came around the corner, dabbing perfume on her neck and wrists. 
Richard snuck a peek  at this woman from the past, and again his eyes went wide as he saw that she was only wearing her underclothes.
       He needed to get out of that room quickly. He continued to watch her walk around the room then mercifully went back into the bedroom.
         Now he could make his break for freedom.  But just as he reached for the brass door knob,  it began to jiggle as someone  on the other side of the door was unlocking it.
      He dashed back inside the room but this time hid behind a over stuffed arm chair.

             "Maude!"   A man in a top hat and tails bellowed  as he entered the sitting room.  Maude came around the corner for a second time and stoped in front of her husband.  "Aren't you ready yet?"  He said impatiently.
   "No I'm not, Rollo!" She spoke back  defiantly . The couple argued about something ridiculous, the pronouncing of some city in New York and how Maude saw Rollo  staring at the cleavage of another woman.
Richard didn't have time for this.    He needed to get out of there. 

              Luckily Rollo followed his wife back into the bedroom , but Richard only got as far as the closet as the  couple came back into the sitting room . Rollo crossed the room in three strides and threw open the closet door .

" If your not ready in ten minutes , I'm going without you!" Rollo bellowed.
Just then the door closed. Richard had just managed to escape unseen. He could only imagine what would have happened if he was discovered in a room with a married woman.

Rollo burst out of the room just as Richard turned and pretended to be walking down the hall.

"Did you see any one come through here?"He asked Richard .
"Oh yes , I just saw a boy , he ran that way." He pointed down the hallway.
"Well I'll be dammed!" Rollo exclaimed.
     "I would have reported it myself if I had only known............" Richard said helpfully.
Rollo turned and shut the door in Richards face. So much for his acting skills as a man from nineteen  twelve!

He let out a sigh of relief. Glad to be free from that mess. Now to find Elise.