THE WALKER

I am the walker. Hideki Morimoto, a Japanese-American man. I walk in the past and future. I have been to many places, from the Galapagos in Darwin's day to the land of the dinosaurs in the Cretaceous Period. And I witnessed the Battle of Saratoga during the Revolutionary War.

It is 1970. Earlier today, I was at a bar talking with my childhood friends from Oahu about World War II. Our friend Ike died during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and we all got sad when we thought about Ike; my friends' faces were stricken with grief and no one spoke for many minutes. Then I thought, maybe I could go back into the past and rescue Ike from the Japanese bombers - and I could also warn others of the attack. So I set my magic watch for December 6, 1941 …

I appeared on a beach in the early morning. I recognized it. I had played on that beach with Ike and my other friends many times, collecting shells, making sand castles, and playing wildly in the water. But no one was there now, just shades of my past.

But there was time to warn Ike and the rest of the Americans of the massive Japanese surprise attack that was in store for them. I rushed inside a hotel and the lady at the front desk asked what I wanted. "You've got to warn everyone, ma'am. The Japanese are attacking tomorrow morning!"

She looked at me as if I were crazy. "Whoa! Steady young man. Why would you say such a thing? We're not at war with Japan or anyone else."

"You've got to believe me, miss, the Japanese are going to attack Pearl Harbor tomorrow and thousands will die! And America will be at war! And thousands more will die!"

A man in a navy uniform greeted the lady and nodded at me.

"Good morning Mr. Jackson. And where are you going on this beautiful morning?"

"The base, Miss Thompson. I'm getting ready for exercises."

I thought I'd have better luck talking to a naval officer. "Sir," I told him, "you've got to warn your colleagues that tomorrow morning at around 5:30 a.m., the Japanese will attack Pearl Harbor and kill thousands of people!"

The officer looked as puzzled as Miss Thompson. She told him, "This gentleman has been wasting my time with his crazy talk."

Mr. Jackson looked at me suspiciously. "How do you know this? Are you a double agent or what?"

"If I told you where I was from and how I knew, you wouldn't believe me! I am not a double-agent either! I'm a real American. A loyal American."

Mr. Jackson put his hat on. "Enough jokes. You're wasting my time. The Japanese would never attack us." And then he seemed to have another thought. "I'd better take you to the admiral and maybe he'll get some sense out of you." He had a flash of sympathy in his eyes, as I was insane.

He took me to his car. As he drove he didn't say a thing because he probably feared I would talk more about the Japanese. As I approached the base I gulped because I was so nervous. I was taken past many armed guards to the Admiral's office. He and his trusted subordinate officers stared at me sternly.

When I told them about the Japanese surprise attack, his response made me flinch. "You lying Jap! You pathetic excuse for a human being!" He looked at his officers. "Does anyone want to stand up for this ignorant fool?" No one raised his hand. "I don't know whether you're a spy or crazy, but you're going into a jail cell until we figure that out. "Two guards grabbed me and threw me in a prison cell. One said "Bad luck, stupid man." He slammed the door and he laughed.

It seemed like forever, but then I suddenly heard the door open. A man wearing a navy uniform with many medallions and badges entered, the doors closed again. No way to reach Ike now. "I am Lloyd Collington, and why are you spreading lies of the Japanese? Of your own race?"

I became very frustrated and yelled "Why won't you all believe me? The Japanese are attacking tomorrow! What time is it?" He said 3A.M on December 7, only hours before the invasion starts, I was desperate to get out and search for Ike, but Collington wouldn't give me a choice.

"You shouldn't even do this stuff. I've heard they and others are at war, but I don't see why they would attack us? Even if they did what good would it do?" Did Collington know it already? I shuddered to think an American would turn over his country and serve the wrong side. "I've heard rumors about them trying to cause war here but-"he shook his head and pulled out some water and a cup. "Drink up" he said. I was so thirsty I had to give in to water. But I realized I would've made the stupidest decision of my life, I doubled over and clutched to my throat, as I gagged I realized what he fed me. "YOU DRUGGED ME!" I yelled. Collington chuckled.

"You imbecile, I knew this would happen, soon Hitler's going to rule this God-forsaken place and the Nazi Order will rule all of this land, ALL OF IT!" he left and slammed the door and I passed out.

BOOM! An explosion woke me up instantly, the door was blown open. "The invasion started!" I said to myself. A soldier ran over to me. I realized he was one of the admiral's loyal ones. "OH MY GOD! How did you-"he words were cut off by the loud peppering of machine guns and the soldier went down. I rushed out and suddenly remembered Ike. There he was, running around, "IKE!" I yelled. But he looked puzzled like he didn't know who I was and he ran straight into the path where he would die, I yelled his name again, he didn't stop and the plane swooped in and blasted Ike and some others. They all perished. "NO!" I wept as loudly as I had at the age of six. I also saw a beheaded woman, strewn body parts on the sand and a pool of blood. I was too late.

Then I saw Miss Thompson standing dumbfoundedly beneath a palm tree, frozen with fear. Mr. Jackson was racing towards the base to fight the Japanese, but he noticed her cowering there. A fighter plane swooped towards them. Mr. Jackson shoved her out of the way, into a nearby ditch. Bullets tore up the ground where she had been standing a moment before.

Suddenly Mr. Jackson and Miss Thompson rushed over and led me away.

"I can't believe you were right! How did you know?" Miss Thompson asked. "It is mayhem, we're going to die!" Mr. Jackson said. A bomb shook the world and I was back in the restroom at the bar, in cold sweat.

I walked out and my friends were laughing and chatting. "Hey Hideki! We were just talking about V.J. Day, when we celebrated the defeat of Japan by that atomic bomb-Hey, are you okay?" I simply nodded.

A guy then came over from the bartender's table, and he strangely looked like Mr. Jackson and Mrs. Thompson together, like he was their son, but he said "My pa said that during the Pearl Harbor bombing, like a day before a guy was shouting that Japanese were going to attack, my pa had no idea it would be true, but it left everyone puzzled. Everyone remembered him, Japanese-American too." He smiled like it was funny. Then I realized what happened.

What happened back there came true, I failed to save Ike and the Americans, but came out to be well known in the past, I certainly changed things for Mr. and Mrs. Jackson, learned more myself, and of course I traveled back in time.

Author's Notes: The character Hideki Morimoto, a Japanese man, was selected from the other "auditions" for main character because during world war 2, after the events of Pearl Harbor, the Americans hated the Japanese and soon declared war on them, etc. The name for the character Ms. Thompson was probably selected when I was looking through old piano books, some being arranged by John Thompson. Nonetheless, this is a parody of the Twilight Zone episode "Back There", which talked about a man who suddenly time-traveled to the past to try to prevent President Lincoln's death at the hands of John Wilkes Booth.