These last few days I haven’t seen anybody else apart from the two doctors. The nurses were being kept away from me following the episode with the mirror, when I first saw my new face and lost it. The new doctor stood by me as a kind and skillful healer but also as a silent partner
who always avoided looking straight into my eyes whenever we were alone, and who always had a hint of agitation in his eyes.
The day before yesterday, the chief doctor, Professor Molsen, came unexpectedly to my chamber in the afternoon. He seemed more excited than usual. He told me to get up and, holding me by the arm, helped me walk to the adjoining living room. I realized at that moment that a whole world was opening up before me. Sometimes I find myself overpowered by a newfound infantile eagerness. I hadn’t felt so impatient since I was a little child!
I stood at the entrance for a while, looking at the living room. A strangely large room with all kinds of bizarre - for me – things and those tall transparent doors that offered a panoramic view of the lush countryside, the slopes of the mountains and beyond. Then I started walking again but not for long. Every two steps I stopped and peered about. At some point, I turned around and saw the doctor looking at me with a curious expression on his face, - I’ll never forget that look - but at that moment I didn’t care about anything.
It was neither gold nor gems, like in fairy tales, that amazed me. Everything there was made of a beautiful type of crystal dressed in perfect combinations of pastel colors; sky blue, green, white and red. Everything, from the tables and chairs to the stools and the frames, gave you the impression of a colorless metal on which a soft light flowed incessantly in harmonic waves. Everything was bright and clear; even the flower pots and the crystal blooming springs of the flowers. However, if you came too close, like a curious child, believing you would find something in that transparent panorama of colors, the touch would rectify that first impression and the surfaces of the seats would prove soft and warm.
The doctor didn’t rush me. Passing through the living room we found ourselves in a big hallway; that’s where I finally saw people again after the isolation of the past days. It was a spacious vestibule that led right to the enormous main terrace. It was afternoon and the place was filled with light. Doctors and nurses were quietly chatting to each other standing up. At the sight of the chief doctor they discreetly stood aside and made way for us to pass. While walking past them I heard them whisper that name again, the name that everyone kept repeating all these days when in my presence: “Andrew Northam.” I shivered. “Who is this Andrew Northam?” I wondered. The reality unfolds merciless before my eyes from all sides.
There only remains for me to admit, along with the doctors, this unprecedented thing happening to me, which exceeds even the wildest dreams of the most overactive imagination.
Chronicles from the Future: Meeting the
Leaders of the Future and Revealing his
True Identity
Across the hallway, in front of an extremely tall door, there were six boys and girls standing who, judging from their outfits, probably didn’t live in the institution. They had just arrived. I only saw them for a couple of seconds and I didn’t have the chance to meticulously observe them. They were teenagers, all of them with long hair à la page, with almost matching uniforms - in the same pastel color shades as the living room - and all of them with belts embroidered with silver thread and short silk shawls hanging from their waists. Although strangers, they were the ones to open the door for us to enter into the small living room.
Suddenly, the door shut behind us and, without anyone having told me anything, I foundmyself face to face with two Ilectors.
They looked at me in silence. Nobody else was there. To my surprise I saw Professor Molsenstanding opposite them in awe.
I felt my body failing me and I was unable to resist. I didn’t know if they were priests or kings but, these venerable figures, dressed in white, with their imposing appearance, impressed me
from the beginning. I saw them as a peaceful harbor for turbulent souls. I wanted to tell them everything right away.
I fell on my knees and in a quivering voice, I told them everything in between sobs. I was struggling to breathe every so often but my fervor and my yearning were so intense that I kept going. I had never felt like this, not even during confession. I was so shaken and upset that I couldn’t keep my narration in a chronological order but I managed to tell them the whole truth, little by little; and I think that the tone of clear sincerity in my voice, my nonlinear but otherwise coherent narration, my real thrill and the steadiness of my tearful gaze did not escape the grasp of the two elders.
While staring at me, their peaceful faces started to turn pale. No words could describe the expression of their eyes. I begged them to believe me. They gradually started asking me in broken German – the language I was speaking with them - a storm of questions concerning the place where I lived and my time. I explained everything straight up. I could see them getting more preoccupied by the minute by my foreign language speaking.
I remember that for a moment there I lost my courage and almost broke down, but then I resumed answering all their questions as precisely as possible. I kept reassuring them of the truth of my words, weeping in emotion but also in sorrow for not being able to provide them with tangible and concrete proof.
In the end, these wise men believed me! Oh my God, they believed me! They lifted me up, sat me next to them and with that inexplicable air of profound blessedness and utter benevolence, they looked at me and spoke to me as equals.
God bless them! Only He can repay them for the good they did me in those extremely difficult and bizarre moments.
I didn’t make out a lot from their insights on “the narrow limits of human cognition” or ‘’the relativity of time and the potential existence of simultaneous time intervals”. Neither did I completely understand the concept of “the great and unified reality lying beyond the human perception of the past, present and future”.
But the rest of what they told me on the divine and human matters calmed me down. They gave me such a profound serenity, such consolation that made me feel more in peace than ever before. They worked as medicine alleviating my troubled soul. Later, of course, I achieved a deeper understanding of their version. In their view, they had before them “one of the rarest metaphysical phenomena, a peculiar manifestation of a mental state, not entirely balanced - at some point they even called it pathological - but not something supernatural that escapes the confines of the laws of life and of the physical world.
Chronicles from the Future: The accident of
Andrew Northam
The two elders left. The time had passed without me realizing it and it was now dark outside.
Valleys and mountains surrounded me. I could hear the now familiar celestial melody (their evening prayer), sang by children’s voices as coming from far away, from another, extraterrestrial world. Truth be told, I never wanted it to stop.
August 18
(After midnight)
It’s two o’clock in the morning, there’s complete silence around me and I got out of bed to write. My day was painless and my nervous system free from the tension of the first three days. If they are telling me the truth, there’s still hope for me to recover from the shock.
Today was the thirteenth day of my new life, thirteen days full of newfound experiences and emotions. My thought is always with God, only he can show mercy even to the sinner.
Yesterday morning I went out to the terrace and enjoyed the sun. I spent a long time by myself. I sat down and re-read what I had written at night.
Later, Professor Molsen joined me and kept me company until noon. He was different with me today. He was talkative and we communicated quite well, except for the times when he tried to talk to me in his own German. Yearning to know more, I accused him of having experimented on Andrew Northam, without being sure that such a suspicion had any right to cross my mind. He vigorously denied that allegation and he did it with apparent sincerity.
The day before yesterday, Ilector Jaeger told me that they had brought Northam to Molsen, suffering fatal injuries on the head after a car crash. He died in Molsen’s arms and only after fifteen minutes and after having frozen him for a while did Molsen manage to bring him back to life. I didn’t mention any of this to the doctor. I asked Jaeger for the reason why they didn’t let me speak to everyone freely, like the rest of the patients did, and he assured me that this would only last for a few days. He also told me that my insomnia wouldn’t harm me, as long as I spent most of the night in bed.
