Sandbox 'SEE YOU MORNING' 084 Lübeck's Former Home

This final evacuation back to Europe happened to fall precisely in his own childhood. Lübeck wanted to visit that time in his life, and Ruth, who had always been by his side. The journey they had walked together had been too bitter—the scarcity in Germany after the First World War, and then the Second World War that followed. Every hardship along the way was vivid in his memory, yet Ruth had remained steadfastly beside him all along. Such loyal companionship always made Lübeck feel he owed her a debt, and he wanted to help her in any way he could, to ease the unease in his heart.
Though he had been warned not to do this—not to visit his past self—Lübeck still wanted to, because he remembered the difficult years they had walked through together, and he could not let go.
He just didn’t know what consequences in terms of time, space, or causality would come from disobeying the order. He also thought, if this world were a sandbox containing a cube and a sphere, and the sphere came back from the future, bumped the cube, and then returned to the future, then inside this sandbox there would be a cube with a mark from being bumped and a sphere. Perhaps it was that simple.
Lübeck hired a carriage and returned to the outskirts of the city where he was born. Felled trees, dilapidated houses, barren land—everything spoke of the destruction wrought by war. And it was in such desolation that he had been born and raised. For a living, how many times had he left, returned home, and rushed about everywhere.
Now, more than half his life gone, he had come back to the place where he had grown up as a child, and he was overwhelmed with emotion. Lübeck did not have the carriage drive up to the front door. He did not want to make a show of it, so he stopped the carriage on the main road, got down, and followed the small path to find the home he once had.
Over the earthen slope, he could see in the distance the low houses and the rundown barn. Cresting the slope, he saw what appeared to be himself—his childhood self—and Ruth. When he drew closer, he realized they were digging for potatoes in the field.
Noticing someone approaching, the two straightened up to face him. Little Erich did not recognize his future self and clenched his fists, ready to protect Ruth. It was Ruth, a bit older even then, who seemed to recognize the future him. She looked startled, her expression frozen.
Lübeck pulled out a bundle of Reichsmarks he had prepared, tied with string, and handed it to Ruth.
“Take this,” he said. “Use it when you need to.”
Ruth looked at Lübeck, as if searching his face for something, then reached out and took it.
A weight lifted from Lübeck’s heart. He had finally fulfilled this wish of his.
Just then, from the courtyard behind Ruth, a woman in a blue dress emerged from the barn, carrying a farming tool to mend it in the yard.
Lübeck immediately recognized the figure of his mother when she was young—he did not even remember what she had looked like in her youth. For an instant, he wanted to run over and call out “Mama,” to help her. But he held himself back. He was not sure what might happen that he could not handle.
He just gazed from a distance for a moment. Two unstoppable streams of tears were already trailing down Lübeck’s cheeks, falling onto the ground beneath his feet. With blurred, tearful eyes, he took one last look at Ruth. Lübeck turned, raised his hand to wipe away the tears, and walked away with long strides.
When he arrived once more at the shore where they were to depart, Holger and Paul’s lifeboat was waiting. Looking back, the coastal lights in the night receded into the distance, dissolving into faint threads of yellow that wound and vanished into the stillness of the dark, quiet sea, like the irretrievable days of the past.
Gathering the lingering thoughts from his childhood home, Lübeck returned to his submarine, back to his present as an adult who had weathered the years, to continue on his path. Following procedure, he received the coordinates and set the interstellar voyage home in motion.
This time, he arrived at his home in Zufluchtsland late at night. Every time he returned, Lübeck pushed open his front door with a troubled heart, because he was never certain he would come back to the family that was waiting for him. Though he could detect no change in location, the time elapsed since his last departure varied each time.
He slipped quietly into his home and relocked the door. The blue-green clouds of the night sky lit the earth, and through the small window they illuminated the furniture inside.
Lübeck made his way along the wall by the window to Emma’s room. By the pale blue light that spilled in as he pushed the door open, he saw his son in the cradle and Emma in the bed, both fast asleep—just as they had been when he left. Lübeck slipped quietly out of the room, then pushed open Ruth’s door. A sliver of light fell exactly across her waist, outlining her slender figure.
Lübeck lay down beside her in his clothes, recalling everything. He did not know how long this voyage had made them wait for him again. Until he once again felt that familiar presence of Ruth’s, no different from when he had left her, Lübeck finally found peace in his heart. He dozed off without knowing when.
When he opened his eyes again, the sky was already pale with dawn. Lübeck felt someone sitting in front of his face, blocking his view. But from the blurred outline alone, he knew it was Emma’s hips and thighs.
He wrapped his left arm around her waist, drew closer, and pressed his face against her thigh. Only then did he fully open his eyes and look up—right into Emma’s gaze, looking down at him over her chest.
“Did you worry while you were waiting?” Lübeck asked softly.
“Not too bad,” she said.
“How many days was I gone this time?”
“Twenty-three days.”
“Mm,” Lübeck replied, taking Emma’s hand and stroking it as he thought about how much more time had passed without him by their side.
After getting up and escorting Emma back to her room to check on the child, Lübeck went to the kitchen to be with Ruth.
“I went back and found you,” he told her the moment he saw her, unable to wait.
“Really? That’s wonderful,” Ruth said, pleased. Then she asked, “How did you find me?” After that, she looked into Lübeck’s eyes, waiting earnestly for his answer.
“I went back to our old home. I met you, and the me from back then.”
“How old was I then?”
“A teenager, thirteen or fourteen, I’d say.” Then Lübeck asked seriously, “I left you the money. Do you remember that?”
“No,” Ruth said, then smiled gently.
Seeing her reaction, Lübeck pulled her gently into his arms and whispered in her ear, “Even if it was just another version of you in another timeline, it was worth it.” As he spoke, he stroked her back, soothing her.
But in his heart, Lübeck was wondering: had his actions created another timeline? In that timeline, had he and Ruth not walked this same path? And where were they now? Was he still with her?