Mama told me so, that first night, when she came out to inspect my work. "You sure must love working out here," she said. "If you do it that way, you'll be out here stacking for twice as long. Well, you have your fun, but I still expect you to be getting your homework and regular chores done. Come in and clean up for supper now."
I jammed the pitchfork into a bale, and washed for supper.
The next afternoon, I resolved to do it right. I moved the bales I'd stacked up
by the door to a corner, and then started cleaning out the back. Before long,
I'd uncovered the door into 1975. "James," Mama called, from the house.
"Dinner!"
I took a long look at the door. The wood on the edges had aged to the silvery-brown of the rest of the barn-boards, and it looked like it had been there forever. I could hardly remember a time when it wasn't there.
I went in for supper.
The next morning, I picked up my lunch and my schoolbooks, kissed Mama good-bye, and walked out. I stood on our porch for a long time, staring at the horsebarn. I remembered the brave explorers in Verne's books. I looked over my shoulder, at the closed door of our house, then walked slowly to the horsebarn. I swung the door open, then walked to the back. The triple-bolts had rusted somewhat and took real shoving to slide back. One of them was stubborn, so I picked up the rake and pried it back with the handle, thinking of how ingenious that was.
I gave the door my shoulder and shoved, and it swung back, complaining on its hinges. On the other side was the still-familiar dark of our 1975 apartment. I stepped into it, and closed the door behind me.
"Lights," I said, and they came on.
The old place was just like the day we left it. It wasn't even dusty, and as I heard the familiar trundle of the robutler, I knew why. My Pa's easy chair sat in the parlour, with a print-out of the day's Salt Lake City Bugler folded on the side-table. I walked to one wall and laid my palm against it, the familiar cool glassy stuff it was made of. "Window," I said, and wiped a line across the wall. Wherever my hand wiped went transparent. It was a sunny day in 1975 — 1980, by then, but it would be 75 in my mind forever. Under the dome, Greater Salt Lake was warm and tranquil. I saw boys my age scooting around in jet-packs, dodging hover-traffic.
Pa liked to open a big, square window when he came home, and sit in his easy chair and smoke a stinky cigar and read the paper and cluck over it — "Well, well, well," he'd say, and "How about that?" Sometimes, he'd have a tumbler of whiskey. He'd given me some, once, and the stuff had burned like turpentine and I swore I wouldn't try it again for a long, long time.