Goggles

Autumn leaves danced outside his grandfather's workbench, seemingly untouched for fifteen years. A cold soldering iron lay among resistors, electrical switches, circuit diagrams, and other engineering detritus that was still a mystery. An unfinished silver goblet stood off to one side waiting for polish and filigree. The cup felt like a piece of another time. It belonged here, but not now. He tried to figure out what it was and why it was sitting there. It felt so familiar, but something else caught his eye.

Those goggles, the likes of which he has never seen before or since, sat beckoning him off to his left. A welder's helmet only meant to cover the eyes, but not really for sparks. Gently, he put them on, tightening the head band for longer than he thought necessary to get it to sit right. He flipped the visor up and down watching everything scattered about the table grow and shrink.

"Hello?" The voice called out just behind him. He spun around on the stool he didn't realize he had sat down on and his grandfather's face filled his eyes slightly distended and out of focus.