Glorious Times in the Spessart

Anneliese, heiress of a hotel in the Spessart mountains, is preparing to marry Frank. He is unexpectedly ordered back to the USA due to an espionage matter, threatening to derail their wedding and their future together. The looming separation casts a pall over the celebration and sets the story in motion.

The robbers of Spessart Inn mutate into ghosts and have spent years traveling in space in a landing capsule with a jammed nozzle. They manage to repair the malfunction, restoring the capsule’s function. They then appear on the inn roof and meet Anneliese, offering to take her to her fiancé in America.

Grateful for the chance to leave their trapped existence, the ghosts try to fly Anneliese overseas, but their lack of control sends the capsule spiraling through time. They are hurled through eras instead of across the ocean, forcing Anneliese to confront ages she never imagined. The journey marks the start of a long, disorienting odyssey.

The capsule lands in the time of early Germanic peoples. Anneliese encounters a Frank-like figure among the locals, but he is torn away by warfare and she loses him to the military’s violence. The encounter redefines her relationship with the memory of Frank across time.

Next the journey brings her to a medieval scene with roaming minstrels. She meets another man resembling Frank, yet he disappears amid the intrigues and dangers of the period. Each era tests her hope of being reunited with a Frank-like figure.

The capsule returns her to the chaos of the Thirty Years’ War. Here again, a Frank-like partner slips away into the violence of the conflict. The pattern repeats: romantic possibility fades into the brutality of war.

In a distant future, they encounter Anneliese and Frank, now aged and with three sons, who have truly forged a life together. The elderly couple has succeeded in their wedding dream despite the time jumps. They offer guidance and hope to the younger Anneliese as the capsule continues its voyage.

During a test run in the space capsule, time begins to turn back on itself. Frank starts to age backward, growing younger with each passing moment and slipping toward childhood. The crew’s attempt to resume their original timeline collapses into a scrambled chronology.

As time regresses, Frank’s memories of the long life after the wedding fade away. He can no longer recall Anneliese’s years of marriage or their shared future. The emotional distance grows as memories unspool into fragments.

Anneliese keeps her memories intact and continues to tell Frank about their life together, including their three sons. She remains optimistic and affectionate, even as Frank’s memory slips away. Her memory anchors the story’s emotional core amid the time distortions.

The ghosts realize they have fulfilled their mission and help redeem the broken timeline. Their intervention enables the living to sustain love across time, culminating in a measure of peace for Anneliese and Frank. The spirits fade as the family remains tied together by shared history.