[Bakaare]

The past…

Randy Quike stared at the watch in his hand. To Randy, my love, read the inscription on the back. “Why, Helen, I…I don’t know what to say,” he stuttered.

Helen smiled. “Just say ‘Thank you,’ then,” she said.

Randy looked up. “Thank you, Helen.” He kissed her cheek. “I’ll cherish it forever.”

“I got it from a very special place, so take good care of it.”

Randy opened the watch and looked at the picture inside. It showed Randy and Helen when they were younger. “Hey, this is the picture from our honeymoon cruise!”

“You remember!”

“Of course! How could I forget?” After a short silence, Randy suddenly remembered something. “Oh! But I did forget this.” He pulled out a small jewelry box. “This is for you, Helen.” Opening the lid, Randy revealed two sparkling diamond earrings.

Helen gasped. “Oh, Randy! You shouldn’t have,” she cried, taking the box from Randy. “They’re beautiful. I’ll cherish them forever.” They laughed.

Tyler, Randy’s son, entered the room. “Am I interrupting anything?”

“No, Son. What do you need?”

Tyler took a breath. “Well, I though I’d just better remind you that it’s 4:00, and the wedding starts in an hour. So if there’s anything you need to do, you’d better do it.”

“Thanks.”

Tyler paused for a moment, then left.

Helen took a deep breath. “Well, I guess we’d better finish getting ready.” She got up, smiled at Randy, and walked out, leaving him alone in the room.

Randy stood up and stretched. Pausing before he left, he looked at the pocket watch in his hand, thinking. The craftsmanship of the watch was quite exquisite, but he couldn’t recognize any of the fantastic creatures that adorned its surface. Randy read the inscription again. To Randy, my love. Simple, but meaningful. He flipped the watch open to examine the clock face. I wonder what Helen meant when she said that she got it from a “very special place”?
Before Randy could think of an answer, his surroundings began to change. “What the—” he cried, as the room’s walls faded and were replaced by tall buildings and wide roads.
Randy was no longer standing in the back room of the church, but in the middle of downtown — but what downtown? It was like no place that he had ever seen — the buildings had strange curves to them, and the streets had names like “Grert” and “Rendo.”

Maybe this is what Helen meant by “a special place”…

[Bakaare]

The two skyscrapers stood before her, towering high into the sky. She looked around.

Janet was surrounded by buildings – buildings that looked like nothing she had ever seen before. She was standing next to a road. Strange vehicles with no wheels sped by, and crowds of people were walking everywhere.

Janet turned around again and looked up, gaping at the twin skyscrapers. A woman walking by stopped and said, “They are pretty amazing, aren’t they?” The woman paused for a moment, looking at the two towers, and then continued on her way.

The two skyscrapers were of an odd shape. Come to think of it, all of the buildings had odd shapes: they were not rectangular, like most structures that Janet had seen, but had strange curves to them.

Janet was completely at a loss. She obviously wasn’t anyplace on earth, at least not anyplace that she had heard of.

“Hey, need a ride?”

Janet jumped. She turned around and saw that a man had pulled one of the strange vehicles to the side of the road.

“You look lost,” the man said. “Can I take you somewhere?”

Janet realized that this vehicle must be some sort of taxi. Still, Janet didn’t know what to say. She did want to go somewhere, but how could she say that she wanted to go back to earth? Did this guy even know where, or what, earth is?

“Well, um, I…”

The man glanced at the pocket watch that Janet held in her hand. A strange look crossed his face.

“Oh,” he said.

There was a moment of awkward silence.

“What?” Janet finally stuttered.

The man’s expression softened. “I think I understand your problem.”

“You do? But, I, uh…”

The man pointed to a round building across the street. “See that building there across the street? That’s the office of the Bakaare Guard. I’m sure they’ll be able to help you somehow.”

There was another moment of silence.

“Uh, thanks,”

“No problem.” The man paused for a second and said, “Good luck.” Then he drove away.

Janet was totally confused. Bakaare Guard? she thought. What on earth, or wherever I am, is that? She looked at the building across the street. Above the doors was a picture of a shield with strange symbols on it. Well, there’s nothing else I can really do, so I guess it’s worth a shot.

She waited a few seconds until there were no vehicles coming down the road, and ran across, to the surprise of some passersby. She hesitated at the entrance of the building, took a deep breath, and pushed open the door.

Janet found herself in a large, open room with a high ceiling. Lights highlighted pictures on the wall – pictures of people holding strange weapons. “I don’t think I’m in Montana anymore,” she muttered to herself. She stopped at a picture of three men who had their arms around each other. Looking at the caption, Janet read:

These are the three who saved Bakaare from the threat of the Granwon. Striving against all hope, they cast the Granwon into the Great Crater, after which it was never seen again. From left to right, they are: Trefo Mando, Wek Rah, and Randy Quike.

Randy Quike?! Janet thought. That’s my grandpa!

[Bakaare]

Today was August 21, the anniversary of Janet’s parents’ marriage. It was also the anniversary of her late grandparents’ marriage.

Janet watched the boys as they had a water war in the lake. “C’mon, Janet!” cried Sam. “The water’s fine!”

“Yeah, right!” Janet yelled back. “I felt that water, it’s freezing cold!”

“Aw, c’mon, ya sissy!”

“No way! There is no way I am getting in that water!”

The boys gave up and continued their attempts at mutual destruction. Janet thought for a moment. Making her decision,

she got up and yelled to her brothers.

“Hey guys!”

“What?”

“When Mom and Dad come back, tell them I’m taking a walk in the woods!”

“Okay!”

Janet walked off in the direction she went the day before. She quickly found the little clearing from before. I don’t know what’s wrong with me that would make me try this, she muttered to herself. Taking a deep breath, she reached into her pocket, pulled out the pocket watch, and opened it. It looked normal.

Just goes to show what can happen to you when you let your imagination run away from you, Janet thought.

She looked at the pocket watch again to check the time. 4:12 P.M. Good, she thought. That gives me plenty of time to—

She stopped. The number eleven on the watch did look like a pair of skyscrapers! Hmm…that’s odd. All this time and I never noticed that until yesterday.

Janet held the watch closer to her face to inspect the eleven more closely. When she pulled it away, instead of more numbers, she saw ground beneath the skyscrapers and more buildings!

“What’s going on here?” she cried. Before she could say more, the skyscrapers seemed to grow, and the forest disappeared. Janet quickly closed her eyes tightly and covered her face with her hands.

When she looked again, she gasped.

[Bakaare]

Little did either of them know how true the old man spoke. A week later, Janet’s grandfather died in his sleep.

Janet thought for a moment, and then put the pocket watch back into her pocket. She got up and looked outside.

“I think I’ll go look around a bit, too,” she said to herself. She walked into the woods on the side where the tents were. She stopped after a bit and leaned against a tree. I’d better start heading back, she thought. I’m hope I’m not late.

Janet began walking back towards the clearing where she and her family were camped. She quickly realized she was going in the wrong direction. She stopped in a little clearing. She realized that it was probably close to 4:15, so she pulled out her grandfather’s pocket watch to check. When she opened it, the light in the clearing seemed to get a little bit brighter, but she assumed it was just the illusion of the sunlight shining through the leaves. 4:12, the time read. Janet began to close the pocket watch, but quickly opened it again. The number eleven looked like a pair of skyscrapers, she thought. The number looked normal now. I guess it was just my imagination running away and believing some of Grandpa’s stories. But how am I supposed to find the camp?

At that moment, Gary ran into the clearing and ran right into Janet. “Aagh!” he cried, and the two of them fell over.

As soon as they had untangled themselves, Gary said, “Mom and Dad are back, and we were wondering where you were, so Gary and I came looking for you.”

Sam walked into the clearing from the opposite direction of Gary. “I thought I heard voices over here,” he said. “C’mon, Mom and Dad are getting impatient.”

The three kids walked back to camp as the sun became lower in the sky.

[Bakaare]

The past…

Janet walked through the door of the nursing home. Her father, Tyler, stood beside her.

“Hey, son!” called a voice from the other side of the entry room.

Janet and her father walked over to the origin of the voice, Janet’s grandfather – Tyler’s dad.

“Hey Dad,” said Tyler softly, hugging his father. “Listen, Dad, I have some business to take care of here, and I’ll be back in a couple minutes, okay?”

“Sure,” came the reply. “Just don’t waste no time, ya hear?”

“Okay, Dad,” said Tyler, laughing. He walked off to another part of the building, leaving Janet with her grandfather.

“Come sit down, pretty girl,” said Janet’s grandfather. He moved his wheelchair next the couch that was against one wall, where Janet sat down. “So, have you married that cute boy, Jared, yet?”

Janet blushed. “No, Grandpa, of course not.” She gave her grandfather a friendly shove. “But we are going to the junior prom together.”

“That’s just a step away from marriage, you know.”

“Oh, you silly thing.”

There was a short silence as the two looked at each other.

“Oh, hey,” said Janet’s grandfather. “Did I ever tell you about the time I went to the land of Bakaare?”

“No, grandpa.”

“Well, I walked out into the woods one day, and there was the clearing shaped like a circle. I stopped there and looked around, wondering what had been there before. Well, I opened up my pocket watch, and looking at it, instead of the time, I saw buildings and skyscrapers, and people walking by! The next thing I knew, I was in the middle of a city that looked like nothing on this earth!”

At first, Janet had thought her grandfather was just pulling her leg, but the more he spoke, the more she realized that he was serious. “Your grandpa’s getting a little old,” Tyler had told her. “Sometimes he says things that don’t make sense. If he says something a little weird, just play along.” Janet decided to take her father’s advice.

“Really?”

“You betcha! I have some memories from there I’ll never forget. I’ll have to tell you about it sometime.”

“I hope you do,” said Janet.

There was another moment of silence. Janet’s grandfather spoke.

“Janet,” he said, and hesitated.

“What?”

“Janet, I want you to have this.” He pulled out an old, tarnished silver pocket watch. “My wife gave this to me on out thirtieth wedding anniversary. I value it very much, but I want you to have it.” He took Janet’s hand and put the pocket watch in her palm.

“Grandpa, I – I can’t take this,” she protested.

“No, no, I insist. I’m not going to be around much longer, so I want to give it to you while I still can.”

Janet stared at the watch in her hand. “Thank you, Grandpa.”

[Bakaare]

“C’mon guys, hurry up!”

16-year-old Janet looked back. “Hurry up!” She yelled again.

Gary and Sam looked up from the lizard they were trying to catch.

“C’mon, we’re going to be late!”

The two boys jumped up and ran to Janet, who had started walking again. The trees filtered the sunlight through a pattern of leaves. It was 4:00 PM, and the kids had to be back to camp by 4:15.

Janet’s black hair shone in the sunlight. Her brown eyes glared at her younger brothers. “You know Mom and Dad will kill us if we’re late,” Janet said. “I intend not to get in trouble.”

Gary rolled his eyes. “I don’t care what they do to me. I just don’t really care about ‘family game time,’” he said, making quotation marks with his fingers. “I’m not sure if I can stand another game of Parcheesi.”

“Ah, c’mon, it’s not that bad.”

Sam chimed in. “Oh yes it is! Every time Dad wins, he jumps around and does a…” he grimaced. “Victory dance.”

Janet laughed. “Oh, look, here we are!” The three kids walked into a clearing near a creek. Two tents were set up at one end, and a barbecue grill stood at the other end. Janet looked around. “I guess Mom and Dad aren’t back yet, so you two munchkins can run around for a bit.”

“All right!” “Yes!” The two boys cried before running off into the woods.

“But don’t go too far!” Janet yelled. She went into one of the tents and dug a book out of her suitcase. She sat down and began to read. After a couple of minutes, she sighed, set the book down, and laid back. “I wish roughing it didn’t involve so much…rough,” she muttered. She put her hand into her pocket and pulled out an old pocket watch. Opening it, she looked at the picture of the elderly couple inside. After a moment, she shut it and looked at the inscription on the back. To Randy, my love, it read. Janet stared at it. Her mind rewound back to when her grandfather had given her the watch…