No one believed me until I brought back the antlers.
Then, it was question after question. I just smiled and nodded and said what I’d been saying all along: “My tool shed is a doorway to another world.”
It all started when I bought an old mower at an estate sale down in Humphries. When I brought it home, I dropped the tailgate and backed my truck up to unload it at the tool shed back of my house. I didn’t gauge the distance right and put my tail gate right in themiddle of the shed door. It split right open. Well, after I got the mower situated, I did a quick fix with some scrap wood I had in the junk pile. It didn’t look pretty, but it would do to keep out the elements. Satisfied, I went on and did a few more things that needed doing around the property, so it wasn’t until the next day that I came back to the shed to try out the mower.
Now, I don’t know exactly why or how, but when I opened up that patched shed door, my tool shed was gone. The insides anyway. The roof and walls were still there. I remember stepping back to check. The work bench, the shelving, the mowers, the tools – everything I had squirreled away in that 8 x 10 shed was gone. And in their place? A forest. An actual forest with all the noises and smells and everything that told my senses that I wasn’t having a stroke or falling for some buddy’s practical joke. This was the real deal.
Well, I’d read all those books when I was a kid. You know the ones about magical doors to other worlds? I didn’t remember anything about toolsheds, but I remembered something about wolves and witches, so I ran up to the house to grab my hunting rifle and some supplies. My wife thought I had gone crazy and called 9-1-1 on the phone. She followed me down to shed, the whole way calling our kids and everyone on the cell phone. I kept laughing and telling her to wait and see, but wouldn’t you know it though, when I got back to the shed and opened it up, everything was back to normal. There sat my new mower, right next to my old one. Work bench, tool racks, weed eater – everything was back. I was so upset that I had a hard time convincing the paramedics that I was okay. They actually made me go in to the hospital and get hooked up to all kinds of machines for some “observation.”
I wasn’t too happy about all of that, especially when the observation turned into a few days. Turns out my blood pressure was too high and I had some blockage. The doctors fixed it all though, and once I stopped talking about the forest in my tool shed, everything started to quieten down. I checked the shed first thing when I got home, even though my wife fussed about me pushing myself too hard. To my disappointment, the inside was just a shed.
Nothing magical happened for several weeks. First chance I got, I hid my rifle and some hunting supplies in a storage bin down by the shed without my wife knowing. I was going to be ready the next time. But the shed stayed what it was supposed to be, and things slowly got back to normal. I kept busy with the yard and the garden. My wife started canning and putting up vegetables. Then, one day, right after I’d finished weedeating along the fence row, I slid that patched shed door open and saw that forest again. I could smell the pine and the musky moss smell of the deep woods just as thick as though I were up on a trail in the Smokies.
I didn’t waste any time. I snatched my gear, popped in the shed fast as I could, and slid the door closed behind me. When I got back, I was filthy and dog-tired, but my wife wasn’t none the wiser. I knew that next time, I needed more gear, maybe even a tent, so I snuck some more stuff down to the shed and waited for chance.
It came again in a few days, and this time I stayed in my forest for over a week. I came back, scared a little of who my wife might have called, but everything was fine. It was still the evening that I’d left. Time just didn’t act the same once I was through the shed, just like in those stories I remembered as a kid.
I moved more stuff down by the shed. I even built a little garage of sorts next to it, so I could keep my four-wheeler handy. My wife and even my kids came down to see what I was doing but didn’t see any harm in it, I guess. They just shook their heads and asked why I hadn’t bothered to fix that shed door yet. I told them it was on my list but I had bigger fish to fry just yet. They laughed and left me alone then.
They didn’t laugh though when I showed up one evening a few minutes late to family dinner with three of the biggest rabbits they’d ever seen, four giant wild turkeys, and a whole mess of trout. I’d been gone for over a month and smelled to high heaven, but they said that they’d just seen me in the garden not half an hour earlier. They dialed 9-1-1, of course, once I started in on the forest, but they couldn’t explain where all the game came from. They even called the police – guess they thought some hunter was poaching on our land, and I found his secret cache.
The doctors gave me a good bill of health. They even praised me, they said, because I must have exercising and eating healthy to get my pressure and cholesterol so much better. My wife and kids just couldn’t understand what was going on. All their watching meant that I couldn’t get all the gear together the next time the shed opened up, but I still came back with a huge raccoon, the biggest, according to the taxidermist, ever found in these parts. I just laughed and put it in a place of honor in our living room.
Well, I finally got my four-wheeler gassed up and plenty of supplies squirreled away in its trailer, so the next chance I got, I popped into the shed and was gone. From what I’ve heard, my wife and kids scoured the whole property and even had the neighbors out looking for me. After I’d been missing for a day, the police showed up, and then I popped out of the shed, right in the middle of all this hoopla, with a load of skins, fresh game, and a full beard to boot. To say they were floored would be an understatement!
They could explain away the meat and fish, even though they were bigger than anything ever found around here, but the beard almost cinched it. I just kept laughing and hooking my thumb back at the shed. The police called the gamewarden and walked all inside the shed, shaking their heads and taking pictures of everything. They opened and closed that shed door probably a million times. What really got them was the giant antlers. The police swore that it couldn’t be from any deer native to this state. They called in an expert, and he came all the way from the university once he saw the picture they sent him, said something about Ireland and Megalosasomething. If I could have bagged that big white stag that shed them, they would have passed out, I’m sure. I hit it once in the shoulder with my rifle, but it had just cussed at me and bounded away. I chased it all over the forest till my four-wheeler got low on fuel and made me head back. I found the antlers though and thought they’d make a nice trophy till I got the ones the stag was wearing.
I needed a bigger gun though, and more gasoline for the four-wheeler, and some powerful ammo. That’s why I came back so soon. Might be nice to get some building material, too – make something a little more permanent than the lean-to I’d put together over there. If only these policemen and wildlife agents would stop asking me questions. And the paramedics going on and on about how fit I was and my wife crying and looking at me all strange. It was all just too much of a distraction. I had to get back to the woods and get that stag. I’d seen some wolf tracks, too, on the other side of that river from where I caught the trout, and heard what I thought had to be some bears singing off in the distance one night. Their voices were much deeper than the raccoons and they were singing about berries and trout, so it had to be bears. What I wouldn’t give for a nice bearskin rug!
Now, if only these people would stop with their foolish questions and let me get my stuff together! Lord knows I don’t want to take too long and show up in the wood in the dead of winter. Maybe I could even talk one of my sons into going . . . but then again, they’ve got jobs and responsibilities. They wouldn’t be much fun…
Then, it was question after question. I just smiled and nodded and said what I’d been saying all along: “My tool shed is a doorway to another world.”
It all started when I bought an old mower at an estate sale down in Humphries. When I brought it home, I dropped the tailgate and backed my truck up to unload it at the tool shed back of my house. I didn’t gauge the distance right and put my tail gate right in themiddle of the shed door. It split right open. Well, after I got the mower situated, I did a quick fix with some scrap wood I had in the junk pile. It didn’t look pretty, but it would do to keep out the elements. Satisfied, I went on and did a few more things that needed doing around the property, so it wasn’t until the next day that I came back to the shed to try out the mower.
Now, I don’t know exactly why or how, but when I opened up that patched shed door, my tool shed was gone. The insides anyway. The roof and walls were still there. I remember stepping back to check. The work bench, the shelving, the mowers, the tools – everything I had squirreled away in that 8 x 10 shed was gone. And in their place? A forest. An actual forest with all the noises and smells and everything that told my senses that I wasn’t having a stroke or falling for some buddy’s practical joke. This was the real deal.
Well, I’d read all those books when I was a kid. You know the ones about magical doors to other worlds? I didn’t remember anything about toolsheds, but I remembered something about wolves and witches, so I ran up to the house to grab my hunting rifle and some supplies. My wife thought I had gone crazy and called 9-1-1 on the phone. She followed me down to shed, the whole way calling our kids and everyone on the cell phone. I kept laughing and telling her to wait and see, but wouldn’t you know it though, when I got back to the shed and opened it up, everything was back to normal. There sat my new mower, right next to my old one. Work bench, tool racks, weed eater – everything was back. I was so upset that I had a hard time convincing the paramedics that I was okay. They actually made me go in to the hospital and get hooked up to all kinds of machines for some “observation.”
I wasn’t too happy about all of that, especially when the observation turned into a few days. Turns out my blood pressure was too high and I had some blockage. The doctors fixed it all though, and once I stopped talking about the forest in my tool shed, everything started to quieten down. I checked the shed first thing when I got home, even though my wife fussed about me pushing myself too hard. To my disappointment, the inside was just a shed.
Nothing magical happened for several weeks. First chance I got, I hid my rifle and some hunting supplies in a storage bin down by the shed without my wife knowing. I was going to be ready the next time. But the shed stayed what it was supposed to be, and things slowly got back to normal. I kept busy with the yard and the garden. My wife started canning and putting up vegetables. Then, one day, right after I’d finished weedeating along the fence row, I slid that patched shed door open and saw that forest again. I could smell the pine and the musky moss smell of the deep woods just as thick as though I were up on a trail in the Smokies.
I didn’t waste any time. I snatched my gear, popped in the shed fast as I could, and slid the door closed behind me. When I got back, I was filthy and dog-tired, but my wife wasn’t none the wiser. I knew that next time, I needed more gear, maybe even a tent, so I snuck some more stuff down to the shed and waited for chance.
It came again in a few days, and this time I stayed in my forest for over a week. I came back, scared a little of who my wife might have called, but everything was fine. It was still the evening that I’d left. Time just didn’t act the same once I was through the shed, just like in those stories I remembered as a kid.
I moved more stuff down by the shed. I even built a little garage of sorts next to it, so I could keep my four-wheeler handy. My wife and even my kids came down to see what I was doing but didn’t see any harm in it, I guess. They just shook their heads and asked why I hadn’t bothered to fix that shed door yet. I told them it was on my list but I had bigger fish to fry just yet. They laughed and left me alone then.
They didn’t laugh though when I showed up one evening a few minutes late to family dinner with three of the biggest rabbits they’d ever seen, four giant wild turkeys, and a whole mess of trout. I’d been gone for over a month and smelled to high heaven, but they said that they’d just seen me in the garden not half an hour earlier. They dialed 9-1-1, of course, once I started in on the forest, but they couldn’t explain where all the game came from. They even called the police – guess they thought some hunter was poaching on our land, and I found his secret cache.
The doctors gave me a good bill of health. They even praised me, they said, because I must have exercising and eating healthy to get my pressure and cholesterol so much better. My wife and kids just couldn’t understand what was going on. All their watching meant that I couldn’t get all the gear together the next time the shed opened up, but I still came back with a huge raccoon, the biggest, according to the taxidermist, ever found in these parts. I just laughed and put it in a place of honor in our living room.
Well, I finally got my four-wheeler gassed up and plenty of supplies squirreled away in its trailer, so the next chance I got, I popped into the shed and was gone. From what I’ve heard, my wife and kids scoured the whole property and even had the neighbors out looking for me. After I’d been missing for a day, the police showed up, and then I popped out of the shed, right in the middle of all this hoopla, with a load of skins, fresh game, and a full beard to boot. To say they were floored would be an understatement!
They could explain away the meat and fish, even though they were bigger than anything ever found around here, but the beard almost cinched it. I just kept laughing and hooking my thumb back at the shed. The police called the gamewarden and walked all inside the shed, shaking their heads and taking pictures of everything. They opened and closed that shed door probably a million times. What really got them was the giant antlers. The police swore that it couldn’t be from any deer native to this state. They called in an expert, and he came all the way from the university once he saw the picture they sent him, said something about Ireland and Megalosasomething. If I could have bagged that big white stag that shed them, they would have passed out, I’m sure. I hit it once in the shoulder with my rifle, but it had just cussed at me and bounded away. I chased it all over the forest till my four-wheeler got low on fuel and made me head back. I found the antlers though and thought they’d make a nice trophy till I got the ones the stag was wearing.
I needed a bigger gun though, and more gasoline for the four-wheeler, and some powerful ammo. That’s why I came back so soon. Might be nice to get some building material, too – make something a little more permanent than the lean-to I’d put together over there. If only these policemen and wildlife agents would stop asking me questions. And the paramedics going on and on about how fit I was and my wife crying and looking at me all strange. It was all just too much of a distraction. I had to get back to the woods and get that stag. I’d seen some wolf tracks, too, on the other side of that river from where I caught the trout, and heard what I thought had to be some bears singing off in the distance one night. Their voices were much deeper than the raccoons and they were singing about berries and trout, so it had to be bears. What I wouldn’t give for a nice bearskin rug!
Now, if only these people would stop with their foolish questions and let me get my stuff together! Lord knows I don’t want to take too long and show up in the wood in the dead of winter. Maybe I could even talk one of my sons into going . . . but then again, they’ve got jobs and responsibilities. They wouldn’t be much fun…
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