Back In A Few

My brother, Marv, was always the type to wade a bit too far out into the weeds. He’d fixate on things. His computer, ancient history, whatever his current obsession was, he’d let things take over his entire life. When he had a new project, he’d forget that the rest of the world existed.

Just before he disappeared, it was time travel. He was reading too much Asimov, watching too many obscure documentaries. He’d rant about the fallacy of the continuum something-or-other. He’d say things like, “Moments aren’t points on a line, they’re bodies with gravitational fields. If you remember hard enough, they can pull you back.” I didn’t understand any of it back then. He’d talk, I’d nod. We’d crack a joke about how, if he kept it up, he was going to wake up in the future someday.

It got weird in those last few weeks. He’d been living in my basement apartment at the time, and I’d see lights on at all hours of the night. He’d come up to raid my cupboards at 3 a.m. “Morning, Marv!” became “When did you last leave the house, Marv?”.

And then one morning, I found a note from him taped to my back door.

Sis,

Heading out for a day or two. Gonna try a thing. I don’t know how long I’ll be, but I’ll be back before you have time to worry.

If I remember, I will pop in and grab the Old Man a present from Buck’s—for tomorrow. Sorry, I’ve been so distracted lately.

Love ya, back in a few.

Marv

And that was it. Marv vanished.

***

A year later, 2023, on the same date of his disappearance, I found it again. I was heading to work, and there it was, written on a long grocery receipt, taped to the back door with a crooked strip of green painter’s tape. I stopped dead in my tracks, all my arm hair stood on end. Marv’s last note.

I went digging through the bedroom closet. I knew I’d kept that note in a box of Marv’s stuff. At first I thought I must have been sleep-walking in the night or something, that I’d dug it out and stuck it to the back door without remembering. People do strange things on the anniversaries of things like their brother disappearing. Memories get intense. Heightened emotions and all that…

The real shock came when I found the same note in that box in the closet. A duplicate; same receipt, same tape, same handwriting. I couldn’t have re-written this during a sleepwalk. I was standing there, holding one in each hand, re-reading to make sure they were the same.

Sis,

Heading out for a day or two. Gonna try a thing. I don’t know how long, but I’ll be back before you worry.

Remember, I will pop in and grab the Old Man a present from Buck’s. Sorry, I’ve been so distracted.

Love ya, back in a few.

Marv

It was shorter. There were words missing. The message was the same, but there were bits left out. Why?! At that time, I was mostly frightened. Who was doing this and how the hell did they get in my house? I hadn’t yet rented out the apartment. I lived alone. I locked the doors and had a little crash out. I remember calling in sick to work. I remember calling Dad.

The really salty part was that Marv had poofed into thin air the day before our dad’s birthday. Dad never got a present that year. In the midst of a missing person’s case, I felt so bad about having nothing for Dad to unwrap. Strange, the things you remember…

***

And so, another year later, on that same morning, I was half-expecting it when I found the third note stuck on my door. I dug the other two out of a pantry drawer and compared again.

Sis,

Out for two. I don’t know how, but I’ll be back for you. Have time.

If I remember, I pop in present. From tomorrow. Sorry I’ve been so late.

Love ya,

Marv

I spent that whole day staring at these notes. The original, the near-duplicate, and now a third version. Why rewrite this note every year? Why leave stuff out? Why would anyone but Marv be doing this?

Eventually, I just read the fresh note for what it was.

He’d been gone for two years, out for two. He wanted to come back, I’ll be back for you. The next bit was the part that Marv would have loved, and that I couldn’t believe I was thinking. The note looked like it was saying he could travel back, pop in present, from the future, from tomorrow, if he remembered.

If he could travel back, why not just stay and talk to me? Maybe he couldn’t. Why only come once a year? I wrestled with it for a long time. My brother had got himself stuck in the future and was time-travelling back to communicate with me by leaving out words he’d written on a crumpled old receipt. I called Dad again and rambled to him for an hour. His response was simply, “People do strange things on anniversaries…”

It took months, but I actually came to believe it. I even wrote Marv back. I asked him everything. It all poured out. Was he really stuck in the future? What was it like there? What was he doing? I went to Buck’s, the hardware store, and bought a weatherproof, fireproof, lifetime-warranty lockbox—something that could keep the notes safe for the foreseeable future, carry them to whatever future Marv had waded too far into. I put my notes in there and left it by the back door.

***

Last year, by the time Marv Day rolled around, I was completely on board with the whole time travel thing. Dad & I each had our theories about how we might get Marv back. The lockbox had grown full of additional questions we’d written out and left for him. Instead of answers, we got distance.

Sis,

Heading out. I long. I worry.

If I remember, I will. From tomorrow. Sorry, distracted.

Love,

Marv

Marv’s messages were getting shorter. He was losing his recall; and with it, his connection to us in the past.

Dad & I talked it over for days. He reminded me that Marv probably had a life wherever he was. There were 364 other days in his world, not just the one day of the year we’d hear from him. Dad mentioned Mom and how long he’d sat in the memory of their life together before letting his own life move forward. He said, memory fades, but we still love as it does. Marv was Marv; things took over. Marv fixated, but he’d write again.

I sat by the back door and wrote down everything I could in vivid detail. The green tape, the dim light, the hum of the fridge; I wrote it all down on one last note. Everything that might spark his memory. I stuffed it in the lockbox and left it for him. That’s all I could do.

I don’t know how far he might have gone, but Marv’ll be back in a few.