Tomorrow. That’s the big day I’m so convinced of it I’d bet—
No need for betting. It’s not a gamble.
Tomorrow, I’ll be with her.
November 19, 1971
Five oh two a.m. Getting up now. Temptation not to move. Have to move, though, have to rise and—
—shine? Not bloody likely Getting up though. Even if I fall down. Get my clothes on … get downstairs and to the beach, the air. Walk this headache into the ground.
Because today’s the day.
You can’t win, head. Today’s the day.
Eight forty-three a.m. On my way to San Diego. For the last time. I keep saying that. Well, it’s true this time. No need to come again.
Headache’s not exactly gone but not bad enough to prevent me from driving.
Odd how removed I feel from everything I see around me. Is it possible that part of me’s already in 1896, waiting for the rest of me to show up? Like the part of me that stayed at the hotel the other day while the rest drove to San Diego?
Sure, it’s possible. Who am I to deny anything at this point?
Nine twenty-seven a.m. Good luck all around. There weren’t a lot of choices to make but one suit in the costume house might have been made for me. It’s on the seat beside me now, nestled in tissue paper in its box. I hope Elise likes it.
It’s black. The coat is what they call a frock coat. Awfully long, goes down to the knees, for God’s sake. The man tried to tout me on what he called a morning coat, but the way it was cut, sloping away from the front to broad tails behind, it seemed a little limited as far as use.
The pants—the trousers, sir—are rather narrow with braided side seams. I also have a high-collared white shirt, a single-breasted, beige-colored waistcoat with lapels, and an octagon tie which suspends from a band fastened behind the neck. I’ll really look like a dude. I trust it’s all appropriate. It looked good in the mirror. Right down to the short boots, also black.
A rather strange experience talking to the man at the costume house. Strange because I felt only partially there. He asked me why I wanted the costume. I told him I was going to an 1890s party tomorrow night—not entirely untrue now that I think about it. I told him I wanted to look as authentic as possible.
How long did I plan to rent it? I was tempted to answer: seventy-five years. Over the weekend, I told him.
I was on the verge of leaving San Diego when it dawned on me that going back to 1896 well dressed wouldn’t buy me a cup of coffee. It’s incredible that I had also overlooked so elementary an item as enough cash to tide me over until I can find employment. I can’t imagine what I had in mind. Asking Elise for money? The vision makes me cringe. Hello, I love you, may I borrow twenty dollars? Godamighty
Again, good luck. The first coin and stamp shop I went to had a twenty-dollar gold certificate in good condition. It cost me sixty dollars but I felt extremely fortunate to find it. The man in the shop knew of an available twenty-dollar gold certificate that had never been circulated and I was tempted to buy it until he told me it would cost about six hundred dollars.
It’s a pretty-looking note with a portrait of President Garfield on its front, a colorful red seal, and the words Twenty Dollars / in / Gold Coin / repayable to the bearer on demand . On its back is a bright orange picture of an eagle holding arrows in its talons.
For insurance, I also bought a ten-dollar silver certificate in reasonable condition (cost forty-five dollars) with a portrait of Thomas A. Hendricks on its front, whoever he may have been. Both it and the twenty-dollar note are considerably larger in size than bills of today and will, of course, be considerably larger in value to me. So I should be in good condition, moneywise.
Moneywise. Yuck. How un-Victorian.
I suppose I should have spent more time looking for money—especially since whatever I leave behind will be worthless to me—but I was anxious to get back to the hotel and begin. Time is running out.
I had a good idea as I was driving back. There’s no need to wear the headphones. I’ll listen to the phonograph as I sit on the bed in my 1890s outfit, writing my instructions, and waiting for the journey to begin.
Ten oh two a.m. Ready to go.
So anxious to get started that I parked the car behind the hotel to save time. Now I’ve showered and shaved, combed my hair. I presume the length of it will be appropriate; nothing I can do about it if it isn’t.
I’ve cut the labels from the frock coat, waistcoat, shirt, and tie. Two reasons. One; I wouldn’t want anyone to see them in 1896; impossible to explain. More importantly, I don’t want to see them myself. Once there, I intend to thrust all memories of 1971 from my mind. I’ve even scraped away the printing inside the boots; as little a thing as that might undo everything. No socks, no underwear; too contemporary in appearance.
All set then. Nothing of the present left to go with me; nothing noticeable, I mean. I’ll write my instructions beside me on the bed instead of on my lap as before. I’m sure I’ll drop the pencil when it happens. No headphones to impede me. I’m prepared for instant change.
Except in my brain, of course. That I’ll have to deal with when I get there.
Of course! I’ll continue writing instructions when I’m there! Reinforcing my position in 1896. Removing myself mentally from 1971 until—I can foresee it clearly—I will forget where I came from and be exclusively, body and soul, a resident of 1896. I’ll get rid of the clothes and—
Good God! I almost overlooked my wristwatch!
That shook me. I’d better wait until the impression of the band wears off. I’m putting it in the drawer of the bedside table so I won’t see it. I’ve put the telephone under the bed, put the lamp from the bedside table in the closet, removed the bedspread so all I’ll see on the edges of vision will be white sheet.
For consistency’s sake I’m going to stay with November 19th in my instructions. The logic of it has an extra satisfaction now because today really is the 19th of November.
Let’s see now. Is there anything I’ve overlooked? Anything at all?
I don’t think so.
I’ll turn on the music.
Last look around. I’m leaving this.
Today.
Eleven fourteen a.m. Again!
The same thing—longer this time. Not just a flicker; more than just an instant between eye blinks. This lasted. Probably only seconds—maybe five or six—yet, under the circumstances, it was as meaningful to me as if it had been centuries.
The process is under way.
It happened on the third playing of the adagio. I was writing the instruction: I am in this room on November 19, 1896. I was in the middle of the thirty-seventh transcription of it when the change took place. The word November breaks off after the first four letters, a pencil trail descending from the e, then disappearing.
So I can estimate when it happened. The movement of the symphony was almost over when I emerged from the absorption. Therefore, it must have taken place approximately an hour after I began, the adagio being twenty-one minutes in length.
A good deal faster than the first absorption.
I call it absorption because that seems, to me, the best description of it now. It is as though—instantaneously—I am drawn inward. First, there’s a drifting sensation, one of mounting disorientation. I hear the music but it seems to have no meaning to me. I stare at the moving pencil point but it is a phenomenon apart from my self. It isn’t me writing those words appearing on the paper; they’re writing themselves. A mist begins to gather around me until my area of visibility is reduced to the pencil point. The music takes on a thick, distorted sound as though I’m going deaf. Then it stops entirely. No, that’s wrong. It’s not that the music stops but that, abruptly, I am no longer in its presence. I know the music is continuing. It’s just that I am elsewhere and it doesn’t reach my ears.
The elsewhere being 1896.
This time I was aware of my body being there as well. I felt the mattress—or a mattr
ess—under me. Which means that, where the first time was entirely a mental traveling to 1896, a momentary awareness of being there, this time I was there in the flesh. Physically, I was lying in this room in 1896. For five or six seconds, I was there completely, mind and body.
The sensation of returning was different too. The first time, it was rapid, somewhat jarring. I was, in a sense, yanked back; it was unpleasant to experience.
This time it was more like … slipping? Not exactly. Something like it, though. A physical sensation akin to sliding backward through a film, I think. Skip it, I can’t reduce it to words. I only know it happened. The point is that the zone of conjunction, whatever it may be—an entryway, an opening, a film—is something very close and very thin.
Very available too. I feel as though it surrounds me even as I sit here, ostensibly in 1971, commenting on it. Time 2 I’ll call it for lack of a better description. It is only a heartbeat away from us at all times. No, that’s wrong too. It’s not away from us at all. It’s with us. We are unaware of its presence, that’s all. With application, though, one can become aware of it and reach it.
I have to try again.
I feel so close now. I wonder if I should dispense with the pencil and paper. Those instructions, written hundreds of times, are etched on my mind. Why shouldn’t I just lie down and repeat them mentally to myself while I listen to the music?
Why not indeed?
One forty-three p.m. Must dictate this quickly before I forget the details.
The record had stopped when I returned from my absorption so I don’t know when it occurred.
I know it was fantastic, though.
It had to have lasted more than a minute. It seemed much longer than that but I don’t want to overestimate.
It happened this long, however: that I was able to see a painting on the wall that is not in this room as I sit here now.
When it happened, the conviction came first. That seems part and parcel of it each time. My eyes were closed but I was awake and knew I was in 1896. Perhaps I “felt” it around me; I don’t know. There was no doubt in my mind at any rate. And there was, in addition, tangible evidence before I opened my eyes.
As I lay there, I heard a peculiar, crackling noise. I didn’t open my eyes because I didn’t want to take a chance on losing the absorption. I lay on the mattress, motionless, feeling it beneath me, feeling my clothes, feeling breath go in and out of me, feeling the warmth of the room, and hearing that odd, crackling noise. I even reached up once, without thinking, to scratch my nose because it was itching. That doesn’t sound like much, I know, but consider the implication.
It was my first physical act in 1896.
I was there, my body lying in this room in 1896. So firmly entrenched that I was able to reach up my hand to scratch my nose and still remain. However banal the action, it was a portentous moment.
Clock time had not yet reestablished itself in my system though. That, too, is part of the process, it seems. To achieve Time 2, I have to leave Time 1 completely. But, once in 1896, I have to reestablish Time 1 in my system so I can function and remain there. Which could be an explanation of why I was yanked back the first time; because my consciousness was so totally in Time 2 that I had no anchor to hold me to 1896. That’s too clumsy a word. Let’s say connective tissue, that connective tissue being—initially at any rate—Time 1.
Well, this time I did establish enough Time 1 awareness in myself to analyze my surroundings. Because the crackling sound, which, for a while, was as far from being understood by me as Einstein’s most advanced theory, did become apparent finally.
It was the fireplace.
I was lying in the room in 1896, listening to the sound of a fire in the fireplace.
My heart beats heavily as I say it.
I wonder, really, how long all this took. A good percentage of my consciousness, I feel, remained in Time 2; if it hadn’t, I’d still be in 1896. Accordingly, my interpretation of clock time in 1896 had to be inaccurate. I suspect I wasn’t there anywhere near as long as I recall.
Whatever the period of time, however, after a while I opened my eyes.
At first, I didn’t dare to move. True, I’d scratched my nose but it hadn’t been a deliberate move; it had succeeded, I believe, by the very nature of its unawareness. To make a conscious move, however—a volitional move—seemed more perilous to me, defying the situation I was in.
So I did nothing; lay there totally immobile, staring at the ceiling; tried to hear other things besides the crackling of the fire but couldn’t. Two possibilities there. Either the crackling of the fire drowned out other sounds, or I wasn’t there completely enough to hear those sounds.
The feeling I have is that I was, in fact, in a pocket of 1896. Perhaps this is the way it works. I certainly can’t prove it; probably never will be able to. But, at this moment, that seems to describe it: that, to travel in time, one begins at one’s core—one’s mind, of course—and radiates the feeling outward, first affecting the body, then making contact with immediate surroundings. The feeling of breaking through a film might well be the moment when one has radiated the inner conviction beyond the limits of the body.
In essence, then, if my theory is sound, I was lying on the bed in 1896 and heard the fireplace which was in 1896—but, beyond that point, 1971 was still in effect.
That sounds insane. Still, why do I feel it so strongly? Why, for instance, didn’t I hear the surf in 1896? I should have heard it far more clearly than I hear it now because the ocean was much closer to the hotel then. Yet, I didn’t hear it. I didn’t hear the sounds of 1971 either because I was cocooned in my shell of 1896. Beyond that shell, I heard nothing. Which indicates, to me, that my theory must have some validity.
Let it go. I keep getting sidetracked from the most important point.
Again, I don’t know how long I lay there staring at the ceiling. I only knew that I was in 1896, that the bed beneath me was in 1896, perhaps the entire room around me. The fireplace sound continued unabated and I saw the ceiling clearly and it wasn’t the same color as it is now.
Finally, I dared attempt a physical move. Nothing earth-shattering, granted, but, again, in implication, shattering to me. Because it was done by will. It was voluntary; calculated.
I turned my head on the pillow. (I forgot to mention the pillow but it was there too; in 1896, no doubt of that.) With infinite slowness, I might add; infinite trepidation. Frightened that I’d lose the moment and be taken back to 1971. The confidence I had (and have) about being able to reach 1896 was not evident in that moment. I knew very well that I was there but I lacked the assurance that I could control my remaining.
Odd to think, now, that all the time this was taking place, I didn’t once think of Elise and the fact that she was in the same place I was. Perhaps I didn’t because she really wasn’t at that moment. If my theory is true, she wasn’t there because I was in only a fragment of 1896, not in its entirety.
All right, to return—once more. I moved my head very slowly on the pillow.
And saw a painting on the wall.
Let me describe it. There were two central figures; that of a mother and son, I gathered. The woman was wearing a gray dress and a white apron. She didn’t look young. Her hair was pulled back. She was standing close to her son. She had her hands on his shoulders. I have to amend that. Her right hand was on his left shoulder. It was only my impression that she had her other hand on his other shoulder as well.
The boy was five inches or so taller than she. He wore a coat and was holding a hat in his left hand—which meant, I suppose, that he was leaving. He might have been arriving, for that matter. No, that wasn’t the feeling the painting conveyed; it was one of departure. Now I recall a black umbrella to the left of the mother. It was leaning on something; I don’t know what, I didn’t see that part of the painting clearly. There was a dog, too, near the umbrella. Sitting on the floor. Medium-sized. Presumably gazing at the boy who was leaving.
On the other side of the painting were figures. An old man or woman seated at a table; I forgot to mention that the mother and son were standing by this table and there was a chair behind the mother. The mother’s expression was not a happy one. The boy’s face was in profile. He didn’t seem to be looking at his mother. Maybe he was supposed to be fighting back emotion; I don’t know that either.
I was blinking my eyes to take a harder look when I was brought back.
This time it was even less distinct and rapid. As I blinked my eyes, the painting and the wall went blurry and I felt a drawing sensation all around my body, as though I were being exposed to suction. I knew I was going back; there was enough of a period for me to feel regret, I recall. So it was hardly eye-blink fast.
Then I guess I slept or passed out or—who knows? All I know is that when I opened my eyes, I was back again.
What brought me back, I wonder? Why, when I was there so strongly, did I return? Is it a matter of repetition? I must assume that. Just as I had to repeat—verbally and in writing and in thought—those instructions again and again, apparently I’m going to have to consolidate my position in 1896 again and again until it sticks. A little maddening that, now that I’ve been there so vividly. Still, I must accept it. The process has to be respected. I’ll do whatever is necessary to make it permanent.
I must return immediately, though; of that I’m positive. I feel as if I’ve now constricted my involvement with the present. I know I mustn’t—under any circumstances—venture from this spot and enlarge that involvement again.
I must break back through that film as soon as possible.
Later.