True Story!

 It’s Christmas Eve 2022 and no one has yet responded to my two thousand invitations to my Christmas dinner party. Not one! I’m feeling rather despondent about the holidays, and I can see my life up to this point has been somewhat of a failure. My 80-year-old adoptive father—who rarely, if ever, talks to me, perhaps because he doesn’t consider me his REAL son—suggests I attend the Christmas dinner at the local Salvation Army if I really want company. Compassion has never been his forte.

Even my choice of professions has been a disaster. Many years ago, I had been a mildly successful inventor, even appearing in the local town paper once. But during my sixth year of college, I met a lovely woman who told me she really dug morticians. She had an Italian accent and reminded me of Sophia Loren, so I quit divinity school and enrolled in the College of Morticians, which, I must say, took our relationship to a new level. That is, until she unfortunately passed away unexpectedly, three months into my first semester.

While sitting alone on Christmas Eve, I began to reminisce about my pre-mortician days. I decided to venture down into the basement where I kept all my old, mostly unsuccessful inventions.

Off in the corner and hidden under an old “Leave It To Beaver” blanket was one such project, my time-traveling Wayback Machine. My earlier frustrations about my failed Christmas party, mixed with my long forgotten disappointment in my non-functioning machine, led me to give it such a vicious kick that I broke my foot and crumpled to the floor in agony.

As I began to curse, red and green lights suddenly began to flash, dials started spinning out of control, and black smoke billowed up toward the ceiling. My once dormant machine began to rock back and forth.

Once I realized what was happening, I got up, limped over to the now humming machine, and threw myself onto the small velvet couch I had used for the control seat of my time machine.

The room spun faster and faster, the house lights flickered. Then there was darkness. Just as I reached for the settings, I passed out.

As I slowly began to regain consciousness, I heard a faint cry of a baby off in the distance. Climbing out of the Wayback Machine, I found myself in what seemed like an old deserted basement. While climbing up the creaky stairs to get out, I noticed that my foot was no longer broken. Again I heard the crying, coming from beyond the door at the top of the stairs. I slowly pushed the door open and cautiously peeked out. Where was I? What year was it?

It seemed I was in an old abandoned hospital, deathly still, except for the crying. I tiptoed down the hall, turned the corner, and came to the source of the crying. A solitary nurse wearing an old-time uniform was holding a baby. She looked me over and rolled her eyes, but said nothing.

Finally she spoke, in German, which I understood, though strange because I don’t speak German. She said, “Nobody wants him. Do you?” I looked at the baby, who looked oddly familiar, and I heard myself say in English, “Sure, I’ll take the baby!” She said, “Great, just sign this paper to complete the adoption and he’s all yours.” As I signed, she cursed the mother, who had just dropped him off at the hospital. A woman by the name of Liselotte.

After I finished signing the paper, she handed me the baby and began to walk away quickly, almost disappearing with every step she took. Just before she faded away, she yelled, “Congratulations! By the way, his name is Bruno.”

What?, I thought. You can’t be serious! ”Where am I? What year is this?” Her final words were, “Switzerland, 1955.” And then she was gone.  

I knew I had been born in Switzerland in 1955 and adopted as a baby, but how did the nurse know that? She WAS talking about the baby right? Standing there, now in an eerily silent, empty, old, dilapidated hospital, I looked down at the baby. Could this baby be me!? Our eyes met, he smiled, then began to cry, then he peed. Then I began to cry, then I peed.

I started to freak out! I had to get back. We rushed back down into the basement and I gave the machine a swift kick, carefully trying not to drop myself on the basement floor. Thankfully, the lights began to flash, the dials spun, the smoke bellowed, and I cradled myself in one arm and clutched the adoption paper in my other hand. Time raced forward as fast as the room was spinning, eventually coming to a rest, once again, back in my junk-filled basement.

As we exited the Wayback Machine, my elderly adoptive father was standing there wearing a Santa hat, trying to wave the smoke away. I then noticed I was in pain. My foot was killing me again. I tried to explain to him who the baby was, that it was in fact me, who was now my adopted son. And that we time-traveled back to Switzerland in the year 1955.

He calmly scratched his head, of course not believing a word of it. “Nonsense,” he said. “Nice story, though,” completely ignoring the baby, spinning dials, and smoke. 

Suddenly he paused and seemed to be lost in a distant memory. Then he added that many years ago, when he was in the service, he was stationed in Switzerland for a while, around 1954. He remembered because he had met this woman and they had spent a wonderful week together. Unfortunately, she had gotten pregnant, then disappeared, and he never saw her again, but remembered her name, Liselotte.

Once again, we began to cry, and pee, together.