Night Time Story: A Letter to the Future

On his tenth birthday, Sam’s grandfather gave him a wooden box with a brass lock.

“For your most important thoughts,” Grandpa said with a wink.

That night, as rain tapped against his window, Sam wrote his first important thought – a letter.

“Dear Future Person,” he wrote. “My name is Sam, and today I turned ten. I wonder what the future is like? Do cars fly? Have we met aliens? Did they ever make another sequel to my favorite movie?”

Sam wrote about his family, his dreams of becoming an astronaut, and his dog Rocket, who could catch any ball no matter how far Sam threw it.

At the bottom, Sam added: “If you find this letter, please write back and bury your letter in the same spot. I know that sounds impossible, but Grandpa says nothing really is.”

The next day, Sam dug a hole under the big oak tree in the backyard. He placed his letter, sealed in a plastic bag, inside the wooden box and buried it. He marked the spot with a circle of smooth stones.

“Now we wait,” he told Rocket, who wagged his tail without understanding.

Days passed, then weeks, then months. Sometimes Sam checked the spot, but the stones remained undisturbed. Eventually, he forgot about the letter as life filled with school, friends, and growing up.

Fifteen years later, Sam returned to his childhood home. His parents had moved to a smaller house, and he had come to help pack the last boxes. The house looked smaller than he remembered, the hallways narrower, the ceilings lower.

In the backyard, the old oak tree still stood strong. Something tugged at Sam’s memory – a circle of stones, a buried box.

“No way,” he murmured, finding the spot exactly as he had left it so many years ago.

Sam dug with his hands until his fingers struck something solid. He pulled out the mud-covered box, surprised the brass lock still held.

Inside was not only his old letter – wrinkled but readable inside its plastic bag – but also a second letter he had never seen before.

With shaking hands, Sam unfolded it.

“Dear Sam,” it began. “You don’t know me, but I know you now. My name is Ellie, and I’m 12 years old. I found your letter when my family moved into this house.”

Sam sat under the oak tree, reading how Ellie had discovered his box while planting flowers with her mother. How she had been lonely and scared about moving to a new town until she found his letter. How knowing that someone else had lived in her room and had the same worries somehow made things better.

At the end of her letter, Ellie had written: “I’m writing this in 2020. By the time you read this, I’ll be grown up too. I wonder if we’ll ever meet? Maybe we already have and don’t even know it. Isn’t that a strange thought?”

Sam checked the date on Ellie’s letter. She had written it five years ago. He tried to remember if he knew anyone named Ellie, but no one came to mind.

As Sam folded the letter, a small note fell out – added recently, in different handwriting.

“P.S. – The oak tree is dying. They’re cutting it down next month. I saved your letter just in time. If you want to meet the grown-up Ellie, she runs the bookstore on Main Street. She still believes in impossible things. – E’s mom”

The next day, Sam found himself standing outside a small bookstore with a blue door. Through the window, he could see a young woman arranging books on a shelf, a streak of blue in her dark hair.

Sam took a deep breath and pushed open the door, the bell jingling above him.

“Welcome to Turning Pages,” the woman said, turning around. “How can I help you?”

Sam smiled and pulled out two letters from his pocket.

“I’m Sam,” he said. “And I think we have some catching up to do.”

By Penelope Timewell