Prologue
Without knowing setback, one can never completely understand the value of happiness. Once one has seen the pinnacle of his or her perceived perfection, it’s rather difficult going back to the mundane. For someone to find perceived love so soon, and so young, and in such strong emotion, it’s very difficult to recreate that moment in time. The person, the place, the emotions will hardly ever be the same, nor will they even be remotely similar. Every moment is singular. It can be similar, but never identical. Our memory is the greatest gift we have when we wish to relive these moments that were so prominent.
The boy who didn’t have the precise words to say to the right girl at that one moment, will find the rest of his time creating a world of sentiments that will more than make up the lost words from his youth, but in his heart the phrases he chooses will be never enough and perpetually untimely. The little girl, who was overlooked as a child for a more popular or prettier classmate, will fight tirelessly to never be overlooked again for the rest of her life. The old man who is patient in his later years, is only this way because he understood as his days grew shorter that he missed the beauty of life due to his impatience during his youth.
We forever change because certain events in our lives are the opposite of what we wish would have happened, and some of these occurrences are so profound that we will work tirelessly to make sure these happenings will never unfold again. It is pain and loss that motivates. It is broken dreams and broken hearts that give souls passion. It is when the old die that new life can be born. And when all possibilities are thought to have been exhausted, fear of failure is no longer a concern.
He read these words one final time, folded the paper in half, and inserted the single sheet of paper inside the tablet with the rest of his written musings. This was the last of his writings, but far from his concluding thoughts. The tablet was complete, and then placed in its carrying case. While looking down at his old, worn, black leather satchel, he realized this was it. His work was over and just like all that he had truly loved, he knew that he too would be gone in a matter of time. Nothing amazed him. Nothing surprised him. He felt callous and felt he was nothing more than a shell of the human being he once was.
At eighty years old, he knew he was on borrowed time. The love of his life had been gone for fifty years now. His only son had perished almost twenty three years ago, and his life long quest was complete. The information he now held was something that few had the nerve to seek or the open-mindedness to try to understand. The innermost workings of his mind and all that he held sacred were perpetually buried deep in his soul. What he planned on passing onto mankind was neatly placed inside the worn, leather case resting in his lap.
He may have been up in age, but his mind was sharp. His imagination fueled his will to live and most importantly, it also fueled his quest to piece together the secrets of mankind. His mind often wandered in times of solitude, but when he was in the company of strangers, he may have well been alone.
“Bewildering place, isn’t it, Mr. Fox?” the English stage coach captain asked him as he motioned to his right.
Joseph Fox was startled at the question and quickly looked up. He then looked to the pasture in question and saw the megaliths he had become familiar with over the past few years. After a moment of contemplation, he replied, “To the untrained eye, it appears that way.”
“Well… it looks a might mysterious to me,” the stage coach pilot remarked.
Mr. Fox smirked and engaged in no more idle conversation with the cockney driver. In their silence, Mr. Fox looked down at the worn, black leather satchel lying in his lap, and wondered if anyone in the history of mankind had ever placed his or her entire life’s work into one solitary carrying case. Even if they had, would their work be as monumental as his?
His life’s work was his treasure. Many men would not have made it past the grieving process after losing a wife in childbirth, much less the horrors that he witnessed in the War Between the States, and years later, losing his only son. One may say that what Mr. Fox discovered through his work was the Creator’s gift to him for enduring so much pain and numerous hardships. His wife, his son, and all that he ever loved had always somehow managed to leave this world before he did. He treasured his life and he treasured what he knew. His work was his treasure. It was what he held sacred, but more importantly it could not be taken from him. His work was his life’s story. It was what made him, him. The information inside his leather satchel was what would live on after his death. It was his testament. It was his history.
In his mind, Mr. Fox viewed this wintry trip across the English countryside of Wiltshire County, his own one-carriage funeral procession. Despite his losses, he felt as though his adventures had played out better than if he had never left his home state of South Carolina. As a boy, he never dreamed of being thousands of miles away from the picturesque banks of the Edisto River in Orangeburg County, nor did he imagine that the prehistoric monument known as Stonehenge, that the English stage coach driver asked him about would be one of the many missing pieces to his search to find his Creator and the origin of mankind. He knew that his work was not done in vain as long as there are children who look up at the sky and wonder. As long as there are dreamers, he felt that someone would value his written musings, and provided his satchel made it to its next resting place; he felt he could peaceably go to his.
Chapter 1
1900 was a common year that began on a Monday and ended on a Monday. The United States turned one hundred and twenty-four years old, and William McKinley was its twenty-ninth president. The country was healing after being removed thirty-five years from a bloody civil war, and there were forty-five stars on the American flag. These numbers may be arbitrary, but the year 1900 was unique, if nothing else. It was the beginning of a new century, but unlike most other years that are divisible by four, it was not a leap year. The country was not at war. The president had no vice president during this twelve month stretch, and February had its usual twenty-eight days. By all conventional thought, nothing of any significant historical importance took place in the year that happened in between those two Mondays. However, not many, if any at all, know the rather intriguing tale of Marcus Fox.
Being lonesome never seemed to bother Marcus, but on this unusually cold New Year’s Day of 1900, it seemed to burden his soul like never before. While stopped at a clay road intersection, all he could see ahead of him was a desolate, meandering orange clay road that seemed endless. He knew exactly where the road would take him, but he felt there was no rhyme or reason to advance.
After a moment of deep contemplation, he placed his old worn cowboy hat over his light brown unkempt hair and took one last look around the crossroads. The wind was brisk and the trees were bare. Just like the massive barren pecan trees stationed to his right, he felt fruitless, but yet strong. He knew he had to go forward. It was the only way to get to where he was going.
When one of his horses started to grow restless, he momentarily snapped out of his daze and proceeded with his horse drawn wagon. As he continued down the road, the memory of his late mother seemed to permeate his thoughts until he started wondering why his father had the inconvenience to leave this world a month before he was born. He had no answer to any of the questions that seemed to bombard his soul. When he woke up this morning, he had no idea that his mind would pose so many answerless questions during his trek to the post office situated in the county seat.
Yet, when his destination was in sight, his melancholy thoughts subsided, and by the time he directed his horses to come to a halt, these notions completely escaped him. After making the necessary motions of attaching his pair of Appaloosas to the hitching post just outside the post office, he entered the building oblivious that what he was about to receive would forever change the rest of his life.
“Good mornin’,” he said in his relaxed South Carolinian brogue as he approached the counter.
On the other side of the counter was Postmaster Anderson, a middle-aged, grey-haired, pot-bellied man. At the sound of Mr. Fox's voice, Anderson immediately looked up from his periodical to greet the younger man.
“Good mornin’ to you, too, sir. Is there anything that I could help you with?”
Before Mr. Fox replied to the grey haired postal worker, he gently took an envelope from his left coat pocket.
“Yes sir, my name is Marcus Fox, and I understand from this letter, there’s a package here for me.”
The postmaster removed himself from his chair and replied, “Do you mind if I take a gander at that, son?”
Marcus handed him the notification.
After quickly scanning the document, he returned it to Marcus and then went to retrieve the package. A minute later, the postmaster returned with a bulky wooden crate in a wheelbarrow.
“I believe this is yours, Mr. Fox,” the postmaster stated as he maneuvered the wheelbarrow to where Marcus was standing.
“That’s awfully strange,” Marcus commented.
“Is this bigger than what you were expecting?” he wondered.
Marcus shook his head and replied, “Sir, I don’t know what it is, and I certainly didn’t order anything, but I reckon, if it’s got my name on it, I better go ahead and take it.”
“Well, before you go, I’m goin’ to need you to sign this,” the postmaster then took a pen and a piece of paper from the counter and pointed to the line that was marked for the recipient’s signature.
Without hesitation, Marcus submitted his autograph.
“Thank you, sir… and nice doing business with you,” the postmaster added, before extended his right hand for a gentleman‘s handshake.
After Marcus shook Anderson’s hand, he left the post office with the mysterious wooden crate. Despite its bulky size of an approximate two foot cube, the crate was inexplicably lighter than what Marcus thought it might weigh. Instead of letting his inquisitive side get the best of him, as it rarely did, he placed the crate in the rear of his wagon and proceeded to the feed store. After acquiring the necessary supplies he needed while in the county seat, he was back on the clay road to his home near the Canaan crossroads which was situated due south of Orangeburg.
Marcus was a level headed young man who rarely gave into folly or anything of the sort, yet growing up without a father took quite a toll on the lad. In his adolescence, his mother relied on him to do exactly the same work as the rest of the help on the family farm. However, when she became ill when he was eighteen, he took on the responsibility of making all the executive decisions for the farm while he continued to labor as normal. Even though others his age were seeking employment in the growing textile industry, Marcus had no intention of leaving the fields.
He rarely entertained any thoughts that were not concerned with farming. Everything he did was carefully planned, and even when things didn’t go as expected, he made the necessary adjustments so his labor would not be all for naught. He was a genuine fellow who never made an enemy, but his reserved demeanor didn’t help him garner many friends either.
When he was born on Groundhog Day in 1877, Marcus had no living father to welcome him into the world, and to make matters worse, he was forced to say farewell to his mother exactly two months prior to this New Year’s Day. When his mother passed away on All Saints Day of 1899, there was only one remaining member of his family, his grandfather, Joseph Franklin Fox, Sr.
As a railroad architect, his job carried him all over the world. However, he never once ventured to the United States to meet his only grandson. He was a much different soul than Marcus. The elder Fox was an adventure seeker, a wanderer, a self-educated man who always welcomed a challenge, and most importantly a dreamer. Young Marcus kept in contact with his grandfather once a year on average through letters. He never met the man in person, but he felt in his heart that he knew his spirit.
The mysterious wooden crate that he picked up at the post office came from his elusive grandfather. But despite their infrequent communication, Marcus didn’t particularly care what he had to say or what was located inside. If one of the farmhands had not noticed the crate in the back of the carriage when he returned to the farm, no one knows when or if Mr. Fox would have ever discovered it‘s mysterious contents.
In a slow southern drawl, Zeke, one of the many uneducated farmhands asked his employer, “Mahcus…Whah you want me to do wid dis box?”
Marcus had no idea what Zeke was asking about. Without questioning his help, Marcus walked to the carriage. When he saw the crate, he also spotted a hammer in the back of the carriage and then commenced to tear open the crate. Zeke watched silently as Marcus removed a worn, black leather satchel and a manila envelope from the remnants of the crate. He gently placed the satchel on the ground and started reading a letter that was previously stored in the manila envelope.
When Marcus started reading the letter, Zeke walked away, because he knew from his silent yet abrasive attitude, his boss was in no mood for idle banter. Marcus had never heard his grandfather’s voice, but as he read his words, he imagined the slow southern speech of a man two generations older.
My dearest Marcus,
I am deeply saddened to hear of your mother’s passing. She was a handsome and strong willed woman who I am sure will forever be in your thoughts. When I heard of her death, I knew then that I should write you this letter and send you this package before it’s too late.
It is the value of life and death, and where we come from that has fascinated me for the majority of my now eight decades. Even when I was a young child, I often contemplated the value of my own mortality, and as soon as I received word of your birth almost twenty three years ago, on that morn of the second day of the second month of 1877, I decided then to one day leave you, my only grandson, the secrets of humanity that I have been searching for the last thirty-three years of my life. This is information that I did not have the pleasure to pass on to your father before his untimely death almost two months before you entered this callous world. I find it most unsatisfactory that our Lord took my son and your father before he could lay his eyes upon yours.
Now to be quite frank with you, I am not entirely certain whether or not you will understand all that I will try to convey to you in this epistle or in the volume of work I have enclosed in the locked satchel, but I hope that you will find it fascinating. I have reason to believe that you will understand much of your history by understanding what lead to mine.
There are some mysteries that will easily fascinate a man. One would undoubtedly be that of the fairer sex, but any observer of the human condition will know that understanding the differences between male and female are not secret, but lessons that come in time. However, the subject matter that I am referring to, are the things that are perpetually held secret. Now, with any secret there needs to be a certain amount of trust in order for it to be passed on. Even though I have been abroad since you were just a newborn baby, you are the flesh of my flesh and we share a last name. And despite the fellowship we may not have experienced, a man’s word is his bond, and a father’s love will forever endure, and so this alone is enough for me to leave you what has taken my entire life to discover.
My fascination of what I am sending you came to me when I first set sail across the Atlantic, ten years before you were born. I have come across very few who have understood my findings, and even fewer who are willing to share my beliefs. The information that I have discovered is being kept secret, and in my mind, should be common knowledge for every man regardless of his race, creed, color or affiliation. And with this being stated, I write you this epistle so that you can carry on these secrets, once you fully comprehend the magnitude of what these secrets mean to mankind. This peculiar information and how those in my boyhood home may view my findings are some of the reasons I have stayed across the pond all these years.
By this time in my life, my presence in the states has become nothing more than a footnote in history. Yet, what I have to tell you is the most important piece of history that has surprisingly not been passed on from generation to generation.
Now, if you are molded in my image or that of your inquisitive late father, you will be a curious lad who will not be willing to be held in suspense any longer. Therefore, the secret I wish to reveal is one that may be quite startling. We are not alone. When I refer to ‘we’, I mean we in the collective sense, as in the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve.
I hope that your mother raised you in a strict manner that you have read and studied the good book known as the Holy Bible. However it has come to my attention that an Englishman by the name of Charles Darwin has penned a novel of sorts that states that man has descended from apes. I believe his thesis is not entirely correct as I am willing to prove. Although, I do respect a man who devotes his life to understanding the ‘to’s’ and ‘fro’s’ of the glorious creatures our Creator has hosted in this hallowed world.
Mr. Darwin’s evolution theory is along a similar path that somewhat mirrors the correct genealogy of the human race, yet, his argument does not dare inject the idea that we are the product of creatures not of this planetary system. Our Creator lies in the heavens as the good book says, however His place of rest is south of the seven sisters, east of the hunter, but on the back of the bull, and just as the Good Book says the three magi in fact do point the way to the beginnings of the Son of Man. The key to understanding what I am telling you is something that has taken me across the globe, one book at a time, one map at a time and many starry nights.
If you wish to further explore the ideas of the preceding paragraph, I ask that you do so quietly. Inside the locked case is my lifelong work and mankind’s history. When trying to decipher the combination, I ask that you start with your beginning.
Sincerely,
Joseph Franklin Fox, Sr.
After reading the words of his grandfather, Marcus grew frustrated with the ideas his grandfather seemed to hold so important, and equally perturbed with the locked satchel that held the supposed secrets of mankind.
“That old man and his cockamamie stories!” he exclaimed.
“Whas da mattah, Mahcus?” Zeke asked after hearing Marcus’ exclamation.
“My granddaddy done sent me this leather satchel, and I cain’t get into it.”
“I wondah why he done dat?” Zeke asked, as he removed it from the ground.
Marcus shook his head from side to side.
“Granddaddy said to start at my beginnin’ to open it. Now, I don‘t know what he meant by that.”
Zeke looked a little puzzled, but after a moment, he made a suggestion.
“Maybe he means somethin’ about yo birfday?”
Marcus took the satchel from Zeke without saying anything and inspected the four digit rolling combination lock on the front flap. While Zeke watched, Marcus put the numbers two, two, seven and seven in the corresponding spots on the combination lock. These numbers were in fact his beginning, the very date of his birth, February second, 1877. But when these numbers were in place, surprisingly, the lock did not open.
“Hmm….” Marcus sounded. “Lemme try just 1877.”
Marcus dialed the number 1877, but this number was not the correct code.
Zeke had another suggestion, “Well, lemme see. Seventy-seven is a numbah, and February is a word…but maybe yo granddaddy meant to try the numbah of the day… the numbah thirty-three?”
“Why’s that, Zeke?” Marcus was puzzled.
“February second is the thirty-third day of the year. Try dat an’ see what happens.”
“You’re awfully smart, all of a sudden, ain’t ya?”
Zeke looked dumbfounded and responded, “We’ll just hafta try it, an’ see what happens.”
Marcus did as his hired help suggested, and when the numbers were in place, the lock no longer served its purpose. The satchel was opened, and so too were the secrets of mankind.
Without knowing setback, one can never completely understand the value of happiness. Once one has seen the pinnacle of his or her perceived perfection, it’s rather difficult going back to the mundane. For someone to find perceived love so soon, and so young, and in such strong emotion, it’s very difficult to recreate that moment in time. The person, the place, the emotions will hardly ever be the same, nor will they even be remotely similar. Every moment is singular. It can be similar, but never identical. Our memory is the greatest gift we have when we wish to relive these moments that were so prominent.
The boy who didn’t have the precise words to say to the right girl at that one moment, will find the rest of his time creating a world of sentiments that will more than make up the lost words from his youth, but in his heart the phrases he chooses will be never enough and perpetually untimely. The little girl, who was overlooked as a child for a more popular or prettier classmate, will fight tirelessly to never be overlooked again for the rest of her life. The old man who is patient in his later years, is only this way because he understood as his days grew shorter that he missed the beauty of life due to his impatience during his youth.
We forever change because certain events in our lives are the opposite of what we wish would have happened, and some of these occurrences are so profound that we will work tirelessly to make sure these happenings will never unfold again. It is pain and loss that motivates. It is broken dreams and broken hearts that give souls passion. It is when the old die that new life can be born. And when all possibilities are thought to have been exhausted, fear of failure is no longer a concern.
He read these words one final time, folded the paper in half, and inserted the single sheet of paper inside the tablet with the rest of his written musings. This was the last of his writings, but far from his concluding thoughts. The tablet was complete, and then placed in its carrying case. While looking down at his old, worn, black leather satchel, he realized this was it. His work was over and just like all that he had truly loved, he knew that he too would be gone in a matter of time. Nothing amazed him. Nothing surprised him. He felt callous and felt he was nothing more than a shell of the human being he once was.
At eighty years old, he knew he was on borrowed time. The love of his life had been gone for fifty years now. His only son had perished almost twenty three years ago, and his life long quest was complete. The information he now held was something that few had the nerve to seek or the open-mindedness to try to understand. The innermost workings of his mind and all that he held sacred were perpetually buried deep in his soul. What he planned on passing onto mankind was neatly placed inside the worn, leather case resting in his lap.
He may have been up in age, but his mind was sharp. His imagination fueled his will to live and most importantly, it also fueled his quest to piece together the secrets of mankind. His mind often wandered in times of solitude, but when he was in the company of strangers, he may have well been alone.
“Bewildering place, isn’t it, Mr. Fox?” the English stage coach captain asked him as he motioned to his right.
Joseph Fox was startled at the question and quickly looked up. He then looked to the pasture in question and saw the megaliths he had become familiar with over the past few years. After a moment of contemplation, he replied, “To the untrained eye, it appears that way.”
“Well… it looks a might mysterious to me,” the stage coach pilot remarked.
Mr. Fox smirked and engaged in no more idle conversation with the cockney driver. In their silence, Mr. Fox looked down at the worn, black leather satchel lying in his lap, and wondered if anyone in the history of mankind had ever placed his or her entire life’s work into one solitary carrying case. Even if they had, would their work be as monumental as his?
His life’s work was his treasure. Many men would not have made it past the grieving process after losing a wife in childbirth, much less the horrors that he witnessed in the War Between the States, and years later, losing his only son. One may say that what Mr. Fox discovered through his work was the Creator’s gift to him for enduring so much pain and numerous hardships. His wife, his son, and all that he ever loved had always somehow managed to leave this world before he did. He treasured his life and he treasured what he knew. His work was his treasure. It was what he held sacred, but more importantly it could not be taken from him. His work was his life’s story. It was what made him, him. The information inside his leather satchel was what would live on after his death. It was his testament. It was his history.
In his mind, Mr. Fox viewed this wintry trip across the English countryside of Wiltshire County, his own one-carriage funeral procession. Despite his losses, he felt as though his adventures had played out better than if he had never left his home state of South Carolina. As a boy, he never dreamed of being thousands of miles away from the picturesque banks of the Edisto River in Orangeburg County, nor did he imagine that the prehistoric monument known as Stonehenge, that the English stage coach driver asked him about would be one of the many missing pieces to his search to find his Creator and the origin of mankind. He knew that his work was not done in vain as long as there are children who look up at the sky and wonder. As long as there are dreamers, he felt that someone would value his written musings, and provided his satchel made it to its next resting place; he felt he could peaceably go to his.
Chapter 1
1900 was a common year that began on a Monday and ended on a Monday. The United States turned one hundred and twenty-four years old, and William McKinley was its twenty-ninth president. The country was healing after being removed thirty-five years from a bloody civil war, and there were forty-five stars on the American flag. These numbers may be arbitrary, but the year 1900 was unique, if nothing else. It was the beginning of a new century, but unlike most other years that are divisible by four, it was not a leap year. The country was not at war. The president had no vice president during this twelve month stretch, and February had its usual twenty-eight days. By all conventional thought, nothing of any significant historical importance took place in the year that happened in between those two Mondays. However, not many, if any at all, know the rather intriguing tale of Marcus Fox.
Being lonesome never seemed to bother Marcus, but on this unusually cold New Year’s Day of 1900, it seemed to burden his soul like never before. While stopped at a clay road intersection, all he could see ahead of him was a desolate, meandering orange clay road that seemed endless. He knew exactly where the road would take him, but he felt there was no rhyme or reason to advance.
After a moment of deep contemplation, he placed his old worn cowboy hat over his light brown unkempt hair and took one last look around the crossroads. The wind was brisk and the trees were bare. Just like the massive barren pecan trees stationed to his right, he felt fruitless, but yet strong. He knew he had to go forward. It was the only way to get to where he was going.
When one of his horses started to grow restless, he momentarily snapped out of his daze and proceeded with his horse drawn wagon. As he continued down the road, the memory of his late mother seemed to permeate his thoughts until he started wondering why his father had the inconvenience to leave this world a month before he was born. He had no answer to any of the questions that seemed to bombard his soul. When he woke up this morning, he had no idea that his mind would pose so many answerless questions during his trek to the post office situated in the county seat.
Yet, when his destination was in sight, his melancholy thoughts subsided, and by the time he directed his horses to come to a halt, these notions completely escaped him. After making the necessary motions of attaching his pair of Appaloosas to the hitching post just outside the post office, he entered the building oblivious that what he was about to receive would forever change the rest of his life.
“Good mornin’,” he said in his relaxed South Carolinian brogue as he approached the counter.
On the other side of the counter was Postmaster Anderson, a middle-aged, grey-haired, pot-bellied man. At the sound of Mr. Fox's voice, Anderson immediately looked up from his periodical to greet the younger man.
“Good mornin’ to you, too, sir. Is there anything that I could help you with?”
Before Mr. Fox replied to the grey haired postal worker, he gently took an envelope from his left coat pocket.
“Yes sir, my name is Marcus Fox, and I understand from this letter, there’s a package here for me.”
The postmaster removed himself from his chair and replied, “Do you mind if I take a gander at that, son?”
Marcus handed him the notification.
After quickly scanning the document, he returned it to Marcus and then went to retrieve the package. A minute later, the postmaster returned with a bulky wooden crate in a wheelbarrow.
“I believe this is yours, Mr. Fox,” the postmaster stated as he maneuvered the wheelbarrow to where Marcus was standing.
“That’s awfully strange,” Marcus commented.
“Is this bigger than what you were expecting?” he wondered.
Marcus shook his head and replied, “Sir, I don’t know what it is, and I certainly didn’t order anything, but I reckon, if it’s got my name on it, I better go ahead and take it.”
“Well, before you go, I’m goin’ to need you to sign this,” the postmaster then took a pen and a piece of paper from the counter and pointed to the line that was marked for the recipient’s signature.
Without hesitation, Marcus submitted his autograph.
“Thank you, sir… and nice doing business with you,” the postmaster added, before extended his right hand for a gentleman‘s handshake.
After Marcus shook Anderson’s hand, he left the post office with the mysterious wooden crate. Despite its bulky size of an approximate two foot cube, the crate was inexplicably lighter than what Marcus thought it might weigh. Instead of letting his inquisitive side get the best of him, as it rarely did, he placed the crate in the rear of his wagon and proceeded to the feed store. After acquiring the necessary supplies he needed while in the county seat, he was back on the clay road to his home near the Canaan crossroads which was situated due south of Orangeburg.
Marcus was a level headed young man who rarely gave into folly or anything of the sort, yet growing up without a father took quite a toll on the lad. In his adolescence, his mother relied on him to do exactly the same work as the rest of the help on the family farm. However, when she became ill when he was eighteen, he took on the responsibility of making all the executive decisions for the farm while he continued to labor as normal. Even though others his age were seeking employment in the growing textile industry, Marcus had no intention of leaving the fields.
He rarely entertained any thoughts that were not concerned with farming. Everything he did was carefully planned, and even when things didn’t go as expected, he made the necessary adjustments so his labor would not be all for naught. He was a genuine fellow who never made an enemy, but his reserved demeanor didn’t help him garner many friends either.
When he was born on Groundhog Day in 1877, Marcus had no living father to welcome him into the world, and to make matters worse, he was forced to say farewell to his mother exactly two months prior to this New Year’s Day. When his mother passed away on All Saints Day of 1899, there was only one remaining member of his family, his grandfather, Joseph Franklin Fox, Sr.
As a railroad architect, his job carried him all over the world. However, he never once ventured to the United States to meet his only grandson. He was a much different soul than Marcus. The elder Fox was an adventure seeker, a wanderer, a self-educated man who always welcomed a challenge, and most importantly a dreamer. Young Marcus kept in contact with his grandfather once a year on average through letters. He never met the man in person, but he felt in his heart that he knew his spirit.
The mysterious wooden crate that he picked up at the post office came from his elusive grandfather. But despite their infrequent communication, Marcus didn’t particularly care what he had to say or what was located inside. If one of the farmhands had not noticed the crate in the back of the carriage when he returned to the farm, no one knows when or if Mr. Fox would have ever discovered it‘s mysterious contents.
In a slow southern drawl, Zeke, one of the many uneducated farmhands asked his employer, “Mahcus…Whah you want me to do wid dis box?”
Marcus had no idea what Zeke was asking about. Without questioning his help, Marcus walked to the carriage. When he saw the crate, he also spotted a hammer in the back of the carriage and then commenced to tear open the crate. Zeke watched silently as Marcus removed a worn, black leather satchel and a manila envelope from the remnants of the crate. He gently placed the satchel on the ground and started reading a letter that was previously stored in the manila envelope.
When Marcus started reading the letter, Zeke walked away, because he knew from his silent yet abrasive attitude, his boss was in no mood for idle banter. Marcus had never heard his grandfather’s voice, but as he read his words, he imagined the slow southern speech of a man two generations older.
My dearest Marcus,
I am deeply saddened to hear of your mother’s passing. She was a handsome and strong willed woman who I am sure will forever be in your thoughts. When I heard of her death, I knew then that I should write you this letter and send you this package before it’s too late.
It is the value of life and death, and where we come from that has fascinated me for the majority of my now eight decades. Even when I was a young child, I often contemplated the value of my own mortality, and as soon as I received word of your birth almost twenty three years ago, on that morn of the second day of the second month of 1877, I decided then to one day leave you, my only grandson, the secrets of humanity that I have been searching for the last thirty-three years of my life. This is information that I did not have the pleasure to pass on to your father before his untimely death almost two months before you entered this callous world. I find it most unsatisfactory that our Lord took my son and your father before he could lay his eyes upon yours.
Now to be quite frank with you, I am not entirely certain whether or not you will understand all that I will try to convey to you in this epistle or in the volume of work I have enclosed in the locked satchel, but I hope that you will find it fascinating. I have reason to believe that you will understand much of your history by understanding what lead to mine.
There are some mysteries that will easily fascinate a man. One would undoubtedly be that of the fairer sex, but any observer of the human condition will know that understanding the differences between male and female are not secret, but lessons that come in time. However, the subject matter that I am referring to, are the things that are perpetually held secret. Now, with any secret there needs to be a certain amount of trust in order for it to be passed on. Even though I have been abroad since you were just a newborn baby, you are the flesh of my flesh and we share a last name. And despite the fellowship we may not have experienced, a man’s word is his bond, and a father’s love will forever endure, and so this alone is enough for me to leave you what has taken my entire life to discover.
My fascination of what I am sending you came to me when I first set sail across the Atlantic, ten years before you were born. I have come across very few who have understood my findings, and even fewer who are willing to share my beliefs. The information that I have discovered is being kept secret, and in my mind, should be common knowledge for every man regardless of his race, creed, color or affiliation. And with this being stated, I write you this epistle so that you can carry on these secrets, once you fully comprehend the magnitude of what these secrets mean to mankind. This peculiar information and how those in my boyhood home may view my findings are some of the reasons I have stayed across the pond all these years.
By this time in my life, my presence in the states has become nothing more than a footnote in history. Yet, what I have to tell you is the most important piece of history that has surprisingly not been passed on from generation to generation.
Now, if you are molded in my image or that of your inquisitive late father, you will be a curious lad who will not be willing to be held in suspense any longer. Therefore, the secret I wish to reveal is one that may be quite startling. We are not alone. When I refer to ‘we’, I mean we in the collective sense, as in the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve.
I hope that your mother raised you in a strict manner that you have read and studied the good book known as the Holy Bible. However it has come to my attention that an Englishman by the name of Charles Darwin has penned a novel of sorts that states that man has descended from apes. I believe his thesis is not entirely correct as I am willing to prove. Although, I do respect a man who devotes his life to understanding the ‘to’s’ and ‘fro’s’ of the glorious creatures our Creator has hosted in this hallowed world.
Mr. Darwin’s evolution theory is along a similar path that somewhat mirrors the correct genealogy of the human race, yet, his argument does not dare inject the idea that we are the product of creatures not of this planetary system. Our Creator lies in the heavens as the good book says, however His place of rest is south of the seven sisters, east of the hunter, but on the back of the bull, and just as the Good Book says the three magi in fact do point the way to the beginnings of the Son of Man. The key to understanding what I am telling you is something that has taken me across the globe, one book at a time, one map at a time and many starry nights.
If you wish to further explore the ideas of the preceding paragraph, I ask that you do so quietly. Inside the locked case is my lifelong work and mankind’s history. When trying to decipher the combination, I ask that you start with your beginning.
Sincerely,
Joseph Franklin Fox, Sr.
After reading the words of his grandfather, Marcus grew frustrated with the ideas his grandfather seemed to hold so important, and equally perturbed with the locked satchel that held the supposed secrets of mankind.
“That old man and his cockamamie stories!” he exclaimed.
“Whas da mattah, Mahcus?” Zeke asked after hearing Marcus’ exclamation.
“My granddaddy done sent me this leather satchel, and I cain’t get into it.”
“I wondah why he done dat?” Zeke asked, as he removed it from the ground.
Marcus shook his head from side to side.
“Granddaddy said to start at my beginnin’ to open it. Now, I don‘t know what he meant by that.”
Zeke looked a little puzzled, but after a moment, he made a suggestion.
“Maybe he means somethin’ about yo birfday?”
Marcus took the satchel from Zeke without saying anything and inspected the four digit rolling combination lock on the front flap. While Zeke watched, Marcus put the numbers two, two, seven and seven in the corresponding spots on the combination lock. These numbers were in fact his beginning, the very date of his birth, February second, 1877. But when these numbers were in place, surprisingly, the lock did not open.
“Hmm….” Marcus sounded. “Lemme try just 1877.”
Marcus dialed the number 1877, but this number was not the correct code.
Zeke had another suggestion, “Well, lemme see. Seventy-seven is a numbah, and February is a word…but maybe yo granddaddy meant to try the numbah of the day… the numbah thirty-three?”
“Why’s that, Zeke?” Marcus was puzzled.
“February second is the thirty-third day of the year. Try dat an’ see what happens.”
“You’re awfully smart, all of a sudden, ain’t ya?”
Zeke looked dumbfounded and responded, “We’ll just hafta try it, an’ see what happens.”
Marcus did as his hired help suggested, and when the numbers were in place, the lock no longer served its purpose. The satchel was opened, and so too were the secrets of mankind.
