Mark sat at the kitchen table, coffee in hand, staring into space, completely zoned out. He wasn’t thinking of anything at all.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
Mark slowly turned toward the voice. Terri was leaning into the doorway from the dining room dressed in her gardening outfit of white sleeveless blouse, blue jean shorts and old straw hat. She smiled at him.
“Hi honey,” Mark said. “I am thinking of nothing at all.”
“Oh, as usual, huh?” she teased as she walked into the room and bent down and kissed him.
Mark smiled at her. She smiled back then stood up and started back toward the doorway. “I will be outside. Oh, Matthew called. He wants you to call him back.”
“Okay,” Mark said as he turned back to his coffee. He glanced at his watch. It was still early. Terri’s youngest brother, Matt, lives in Candlelight, Missouri near Columbia. He is a mailman and his busiest time was in the morning. He liked Matt. Matt had told him a long time ago his routine as a mailman. The letters were presorted and were ready for him when he got to work but he had to get the any flats, large envelopes, and parcels, packages, himself. After that, he had to separate the flats and parcels into the addresses of his route and pack it into trays in the order of his route, grab the circulars, and then organize and load his truck. Just doing that took up most of his morning and he had orders that we were not allowed to contact him before 10:00. The delivering of the mail, even though Matt walked most of it, was the easy time. Mark looked at his watch. It was only 8:30 so this was in Matt’s busy time.
Mark rose to his feet and followed his wife outside. He stood on the deck and called down to her. “Honey? When did Matt call?”
“Oh, a little while ago,” Terri turned to look up at him.
“Did he say what he wanted?”
“Nope,” she said and turned away from him and toward her garden.
Mark went back to the kitchen table and placed his phone in front of him. He picked up his cup of coffee and took another drink as he wondered what Matt wanted to tell him. He placed the cup on the table, accessed the phone number for his wife’s brother and pressed it. He put it to his ear and listened to it ring, once, twice, three times and then the click and the voice of Matt .
“Sorry I missed your call. Leave your name at the beep and if I fell like it, I’ll call back.”
After the forewarned beep, Mark said, “it’s me. Your sister said you called. Call me back.”
Mark pressed the disconnect button and placed the phone back on the table in front of him and reached for the cup. His phone lit up and rang at the same time. He hit the accept button and held it to his ear.
“Hi, Matt.”
“Hey bro. Listen, I only got it a second so I will call you a little later, but I was wondering if you know what IDAN means?”
Mark froze.
“Mark? Are you there?”
“Yeah, I am here. Why do you want to know?”
“I can’t get into it now. We will talk about that later. Do you know what it means?”
“It is a Native American, an Indian term, Fox Indians to be specific, and it means time.”
“Time?”
“Yes, time.” Mark repeated.
“Hmmm,” Matt said on the other end of the phone, “I’ll have to call you later. Bye.”
Mark held the phone to his ear for a few seconds after the disconnection and slowly put the phone on the table. What a strange phone call that was and is it a coincidence that he was asking about IDAN? IDAN. Time. The word that is inscribed around the window upstairs in his office. The window that allows him to time travel to events in his past. Just when he was deciding to let his investigation to figure out the origin of it, go, something is reeling him back into it. But where to go? He had nothing to go on. Nothing. He had to wait for Matt to call back to see why he wanted to know what IDAN meant. He stood up and went to the coffeemaker and poured another cup. He leaned against the counter and sipped the hot brew.
Mark had returned to the table. Terri had finished gardening and had left the house to go to the grocery store. His phone lit up and rang again causing him to jump. It rang a second time. He picked it up and held it to his ear.
“Hello.”
“Hi Mark. I am walking now so we can talk. You know the morning is my busiest time and the time all the bosses are watching us. I have been doing this job for a while now and you would think they knew the kind of a worker I am. Anyway, how are you guys?”
“Fine, Matthew. I had my gang over the other day for a barbeque. It was fun and your sister is fine, too. So what’s up with IDAN?”
“Good to hear everyone is good. Tell them all hi for me.”
“You’re stalling.”
“Yes, I am”, Matt agreed. “This is so weird but when you told me it was an Indian word; it made more sense. I received a postcard yesterday. The picture on it was in Montana of a buffalo herd and the message said, Ask Mark about IDAN?”
“Did it have a return address on it?”
“No. Weird, huh?”
“Yes but why does it make sense to you?”
“An Indian word, a picture of buffaloes. They kind of go together, right?”
“I guess but it is a Fox Indian word. The Fox lived more in the northeast and the farthest south and west they went was around Spanish Lake. They didn’t see buffalo.”
“Maybe it is word used by more than one tribe. That doesn’t matter. Why do they want me to ask you about it?”
Mark hesitated before he answered. It was obvious that Matt didn’t know about the window, but someone seemed to want him to know. Why?
“Mark?”
“Sorry, I have no idea why they wanted me to tell you that it means time.”
“How did you know that it is a Fox Indian word means time?”
“I don’t know. I must have read about it somewhere.”
“Really, Mark?”
“Yes,” Mark lied to his brother-in-law. “Really. I’ll try to figure out where and let you know what I find out.”
“Okay. Well, I got to get back at it. I will talk to you soon.”
“Okay. Talk to you later,” Mark said and disconnected. He set the phone down, placed his face into his hands and let out a big sigh.
The phone sounded again causing him to jump. He looked at the phone’s screen and read, Michael. He reached out and hit the button and placed it to his ear.
“Hi, Michael.”
“Hi, Dad. I just got a postcard in the mail and it is telling me to ask you what IDAN means? What is this?”
To be continued…
My First Stories 