Storage Room Log — Old Mike's Paint Story

I was staring at it again. The notebook. The crazy, impossible notebook supposedly from the future.

Larry, you’ve got work to do, remember?

I sighed, pushing away from the desk to pace the office.

A normal day in the IT department at a small middle school is a mix of monotonous and frustrating. A jammed printer here. A computer virus there. Teachers who can’t remember their email passwords. But this was a distraction I hadn’t planned for.

I looked down at the notebook again. Dated 2126. The handwriting, though, was eerily familiar. It was neat, precise, the kind of handwriting you’d expect from an English teacher.

My grandfather.

The same grandfather who vanished without a trace all those years ago.

And now his voice seemed to be reaching through the years from this impossible journal. It felt crazy, yet the more I read, the more I found myself drawn in. George’s entries were filled with musings on the nature of time and reality. It was fascinating, intimidating and, frankly, terrifying.

I found myself stopping at an entry: When one is out of time, does one also step out of space?

“God, George,” I muttered under my breath. “What the hell were you onto?”

Then came the inevitable interruption. The phone rang, its shrill tone grating on my already frayed nerves. I picked up on the second ring.

“Larry Weathers,” I said by rote, my eyes still on the notebook.

“Larry, it’s Terry. We’ve got a printer down in the admin office. Can you come?”

“Right,” I said, snapping back to reality. “On my way.”

I left the notebook on my desk and headed out. But even as I left, I found my mind still tethered to the room, to the notebook, to George.

I fixed the printer in a mechanical daze, my hands moving over familiar controls without really needing the input of my brain. It was strange how regular life just went on even as my mind teetered on the edge of a possible scientific impossibility.

As the printer hummed back to life, I found myself dragging my feet back to the office. But it wasn’t just the notebook that was haunting me. It was the room. That room. Hidden for fifty years behind drywall, the room seemed to defy the passage of time. No dust, no stale air. A desk, clean and uncluttered, and the notebook.

I took a deep breath and stepped back into my office. The notebook lay there, untouched, its cryptic entries a silent challenge.

I picked it up, flipping open to a new page. The entry was short, but the words were chilling.

Today, I lost four hours. I looked at my clock and it was noon. The next moment, it was afternoon. I don’t know where the time went. But I fear I’m starting to move without my body.

I felt a chill run down my spine.

“Larry,” I said aloud to myself. “This is starting to get real. Really real.”

I sat down heavily in my chair, my mind spinning. George had been onto something. Something big. And dangerous.

And now, it seemed, so was I.

My hand drifted to my wrist, feeling for the pulse ticking away the seconds. Each beat was a reminder of time slipping away, moving forward in a relentless march. But George… George had found a way to step outside of it, to move without his body.

I looked down at the notebook again, my heart pounding in time with the ticking of the clock on the wall.

The last line read: I hope, if anyone ever finds this, they won’t make the same mistake.

I swallowed hard.

Too late, George.

I fear I might have already started.