The Shed!

On This Day In History
1877: Thomas Edison completes the building of his phonograph

Quote Of The Day
"Which do I consider my greatest invention? Well, my reply to that would be that I like the phonograph best. Doubtless this is because I love music. And then it has bought so much joy into millions of homes all over this country, and, indeed, all over the world. Music is so helpful to the human mind that it is naturally a source of satisfaction to me that I have helped in some way to make the very finest music available to millions who could not afford to pay the price and take the time necessary to hear the greatest artists sing and play."
(Thomas Edison)

I knew that when I blipped my latest read, Stephen King's thrilling page turner, Fairy Tale, I would link it to the fascinating story of the time traveller in property investment advisor Alec Schaal's shed because Fairy Tale contains a staircase inside a shed that leads to a magical world. If you are not familiar with Schaal's story, this video by Alec Schaal gives a very concise but thorough breakdown. Basically, a security camera on one of Schaal's properties caught a young man entering his shed. Schaal called the police but nobody was in the shed, even though the young man never left it. The next day, the security camera captures an old man, who could, perhaps, be a much older version of the young man who entered the shed, leaving the shed and then crossing the street, never to be seen again.

Somebody did a facial recognition search on the old man and what they found was a man named Steve, who died in 2018, who was a Harvard graduate fascinated by wave harmonics and time travel. There is also a strange R.I.P. post from someone posted in 2017, one year prior to his actual death which says, "See you soon."

I knew all this before I planned to link the Stephen King book with Alec Schaal's mystery. What I did not know until yesterday, when I watched the video linked above, is that several people have pointed out that the old man who exits the shed looks remarkably similar to Stephen King. At first, I was convinced that Alec Schaal is an innocent man who just happens to have become embroiled in a fascinating time travel mystery. Now I am wondering, could he be part of an elaborate skit engineered by the master story-teller himself, Stephen King? I noted that Schaal requested people not to reach out to the old man's family out of respect and concern for them; could the real reason be that this man does not actually exist and that searching for his family would reveal that this whole thing is fiction? I don't know. Whatever the truth, it's utterly compelling, just like all of Stephen King's books.

The Time Machine (Thank you, Mr. Edison)