The Disappearing Cave. 

By Mary McLoughlin. 

Jasmine's grandchildren Jenny and Alex, fourteen-year-old twins, had come to stay with her for the weekend. They had just finished their picnic on the beach and went exploring. After a while, they came running along the beach to where Jasmine was sitting, shouting, "We have found a time capsule, Nan. It is dated 1975, but when we looked inside, all the items in it belonged to 2025. How can that be?" they asked. 

“Oh dear,” thought Jasmine it has been found, and Henry is no longer with me, she thought back to that day when she and Henry buried the time capsule inside the Cave fifty years ago, they had done so as Jasmine did not want to keep the contents that she had brought from the future with her. She had been just twenty-one and had just finished her Art degree at University when her parents had been killed in a car accident, she was an only child and had taken the loss of her family very badly, she had come down to Cornwall to recuperate before deciding what she was going to do about her career she wanted to just be an artist and paint her landscapes however, she had thought about also becoming an Art teacher to earn her living, which she would have to do now being all alone.  

 On her arrival at Polperro she had booked into the Red Lion Inn then collected her art stuff and went down to the beach to paint, as she was leaving  the landlord said to her,  “Be careful of the cave located on the beach as it had been named the disappearing cave by locals, after some people who entered it had disappeared and never been found again.”  Jasmine thought that was just folklore and told him she would be back after sunset. 

Jasmine set up her easel and began to paint, she started to outline the cliff at the far end of the beach and then she noticed the cave shrouded in a mist just beneath it, her curiosity got the better of her she knew she would have to go and investigate the cave. 

She checked in her bag to see if she had her torch, which she then put in her jacket pocket and made her way to the cave, it was very dark inside a bit gloomy it was excessively big, she turned around and walked through the thick mist that enveloped her and made her way back to the entrance when she bumped into a man walking his dog, just outside of the cave. They apologised he asked if she was okay, she looked into his big deep brown eyes, and her heart skipped a beat.  The man introduced himself his name was Henry, and he was an art dealer who lived in the village.  Jasmine told him her name and he then asked her if she had been all the way into the cave, she told him It was like walking in a fog it was so misty.    

Henry said, “You are not afraid of the legend then about walking in the mist in the disappearing cave”. Jasmine laughed and said, “I am still here, I have not disappeared.” They walked together back to the spot where she had left her belongings, he saw the easel and asked if she was an artist she told him, about getting her degree and she then just told him everything that had happened about her parent's tragic accident he listened, then hugged her. 

Her mobile phone beeped, He asked, “What is that?” she replied, “It is my phone. " She went to answer it and saw it was a text to say; No signal available. Henry then asked her how she could have a phone on the beach,” it is mobile surely you have one,” she said. “No,” he replied, I have never heard of a mobile phone, “You are joking you have never heard of a mobile in 2025.”  

Henry looked at her and said, “It is not 2025 Jasmine it is 1975.” He then showed her the date on his watch, she asked him how it could be?” I do not know,” he replied. He was right she had somehow gone back to 1975 since she had walked through the mist in the disappearing cave. The Red Lion Inn was called the Smugglers Arms they had no record of her staying there, all she had was her easel and the belongings in her bag. 

Henry said you will have to wait and see when the mist returns to the cave, and you maybe then be able to go forward to 2025. She stayed with Henry, and they soon realised that they had feelings for each other, she decided she had nothing to go back to the future for, what she wanted was here with Henry, she did not need the technology the iPad and her headphones which was the contents of her bag along with the torch and Art magazine she had purchased to read on her train journey to Polperro.  

They married and had two children a boy who they named Matthew who now runs the Art dealing business and a girl Pippa who was a well-known photographer, who later had twins which made Jasmine and Henry so happy. Henry was fourteen years older than Jasmine; he sadly had passed away last year after forty-nine years together.   He would have been eighty-five years old now. Jasmine was now Seventy-one. She was so pleased that she had walked through the mist in the disappearing cave. Her life with Henry had been so content and now she had two teenage grandchildren whom she adored. 

The twins were so excited after finding the time capsule, but they did not understand how it had an iPad, a mobile phone, a pair of blue-tooth headphones, a torch, and an art magazine as its contents, they would not have been around fifty years ago. Then they found the note, this capsule was buried in 1975 hoping to return the contents to the year they came from 2025. They showed Jasmine and she asked them what date it was today. Jenny said it the first of April, Jasmine then said “You have your answer. “April Fool's Day.” 

 

The End.