Noumenon
17th Feb 2007, 1:46
Twelve pages hand writ parchment, found rolled within a steel baton itself within a masked compartment of an antique Vargueño desk of fine design and craftsmanship.My good, beloved friend.
I wonder who shall actually read my words. I write in the hope that it be you, even against all chance, unless as I die chance will once again side with me and change my life anew. How long it will be before you, whoever you are, see these pages again!
I was never an historian. My brother showed something of an interest in his youth but life in the present proved the more interesting and, as one might say, he never looked back. I have always had a love of literature and yet had never read the classics, nor works of historical fiction, but returned time and again to those products of fantastical imaginations who spent their own lives always looking forward in speculation.
Thus it was not in my character to dally over tattered pages found in antique draws, but on discovering exactly such a thing something in the sight slowed my hand. I took them into my jacket before the ancient piece was consigned to hammer and flames and gave them some study that very evening, putting aside several promising reads-in-progress to do so. That, perhaps, is my one true regret. (Hah! No man lies to himself so well as an old one. Except perhaps a young one!)
In any case I at first found myself rewarded – it seemed this message from the past was more to my usual tastes than I should have expected. Such things it claimed no man in his right mind could credit as fact, but there was a passion to the words which held my eye despite the torturous and archaic language and the poor condition of the page. Indeed, each one seemed to decay noticeably as I put them aside, the edges flaking and ink receding into the yellowed parchment; I ceased to stack them for fear of crushing the bottommost and by the time I reached the signature on the final page the several sheets lay arranged around me on my bedspread like the cards of some obscure game. My mind was a whirl of chaotic thought, stirred by what I had read.
It was as I lay in contemplation of those words that all reality was wiped away and I found myself falling in blackness, with all the stars of the universe shining above me. I gasped at their beauty, when my breath was struck from me by my landing and in pain and shock I remember no more. My next recollection has me standing on the bank of the Thames – the grass bank, mind you, London’s lights no more than a failing amber haze, and distant! I had lived on its borders for years but now the clear starlight picked out only fields, hills and trees framing the silver thread of our great river. No sound broke the stillness and a strange flavour filled the air that I no longer retain the distinction of, having lived without its predecessor now for so many years.
Of course at first I took it for a dream. But when truly faced with the inconceivable one’s sense of reality is undeniable and in taking stock of myself in this place I was overcome with a terrible depression. Not only my family, my friends, my possessions, but my entire world was gone. Why, I had evidently left my very home into mid-air itself! The coldness of the breeze awoke me from this pitiable state of mind; in only undershirt and johns – hah! see what time and circumstance will do to a man? “Track trousers” and a short-sleeved shirt left my arms and feet bare and quite chill. I did not fear for my life from the elements, but my heart surely raced at my predicament.
Need I, indeed should I render it into bold clarity for you? What will be the result if you straightforwardly dismiss my words too as those of a madman and put aside this page unfinished? Why, at that instant had I not minutes before considered the same of another, who wrote a letter now abandoned to an existence wholly lost to me; what would I be, and where, had I done as much? No; I shall come to that in time.
First, I resolved to find London again and hope against my private certainty that I was merely victim of some cunning prank at the hands of friends (regretfully now largely forgotten). I set off along the bank glad of the soft grass under my bare feet, but when dawn broke some hours later I found myself still some considerable distance from my destination; indeed I had less idea of its position than I had when darkness framed its glow clearly. Instead I was drawn by the sight and sound of what seemed to me so uncommon then and so familiar now: a horse-drawn cart, driven by its master along a roughly rutted carriageway. I hailed him from a distance and reached ahead of his course. He was rightly suspicious and found my speech and indecent dress most odd, but at my claim to be victim of beating, robbery, kidnap and escape he was somewhat satisfied – all this done on my part at the prompting of my “literary benefactor”.
Forgive my sourness, but though the many details of that fateful letter have fallen from my memory since that day, some things remain and the awareness of advice given to facilitate my immediate survival is one such. In that moment would I have preferred no advice and no damned letter; indeed! Nevertheless those words kept me alive that day and no doubt saw me through many more, so I should give thanks for what resources I had at my disposal. For: what if this experience had been always to happen and was not the cursed effect of that letter? Would I have died that very day and not lived to write my own words here?
Instead of a quick death I found instead relief for tired legs and bruised feet. The cart driver was the man of a local farmer and willing to aid me to his destination, a small market township some ten miles further down this path. He found my spectacles most noteworthy and presumed me to be a scholar, too due to my less than robust physique. This I failed to confirm, claiming instead ignorance of my situation due to a blow on the head and that I had been wandering some days without food or direction – more advice followed. This he found quite exciting and at my prompting was good enough to reveal much information concerning my new environment. On our arrival several hours later he was proud to be the literal barer of news to the town and I was much observed and remarked upon as I helped him unload his goods by way of payment.
To blazes – I tire of my secret. I resided in The Past. Some many, many years before my own birth, perhaps five times my own age at that time! Even as I write this now, at the end of my life, I could likely be born and die again before the date of my true birth came to pass; but some details I shall not share here, for reasons still to be revealed.
I spent the day working alongside my rescuer, whose name I recall was Thomas; it had been some years since my last labouring work but I had always enjoyed profitable exercise and he furnished me with much information, far more valuable to me then than coins. As dusk came on he offered me still more: transportation to his master’s properties and an introduction, which I accepted gratefully. It was fully dark when our journey was done and his master not to be disturbed, so I was put up in the hayloft of the barn above my other companion of that most uncommon day – the carthorse.
I did sleep sound, but not before pursuing thoughts equally deep. With no knowledge of the mechanism by which my circumstance came to pass (for such was absent from the letter) I had no means by which to reverse my fate. What then? It seemed to me there were two paths. Firstly, to hide myself from history in the hope that all those events of my natural past should occur again untampered with, though success would certainly ensure a repeat of that which saw me itching and horse-smelling but most gratefully warm. Secondly, but more questionable, to live my life, wherever it took me, as I had in my now distant future and for which I had evidently reaped a reward.
My decision rang clear in my mind: to Live. It has not been my nature to duck down my head when troubled by thought or adversity and I would sooner be damned than to see this change. Of course I had read of many speculations upon the subject of time travel – the pollution of one’s own future by action taken in the past one “presently” occupies; the possibility of one’s own erasure; all manner of paradoxical happenings which might ensue. Still, my mind was made – come the dawn I would act with all the freedom I had ever, and if to do so meant my certain death then I was in no worse a situation than any other human being born before or yet to be. I conceived that should any act in my life to come result in the nullification of my own birth, my retrospective disappearance would be immediate in any case, so I closed my eyes in the knowledge that dawn would be my judge and could rule on the matter of my continued existence without further testimony. If dreams came that night I was never less aware of them.
The next morning I attended Thomas’s master and secured rude work as his man, putting to bed once and for all any concerns I may have harboured over the slow vanishing of my hands. My first objective, to craft a healthy form with which to face the challenges set me by the universe at large. I offered myself to any physical task felt appropriate for no more than food and board, with the proviso that should a full year pass to the master’s satisfaction I be given the opportunity to prove a greater worth to him; he accepted, and so I found myself in the employ of a landed gentleman (who shall remain nameless within these pages). Thomas I named truly, for gratitude; and in the knowledge that he died well liked and loved but childless; and that, in frank fairness, he was a man of small desires, small needs and small effect upon the world.
My first year, according to any chronology but that of my own body, was a hard but most rewarding one. The softness of my former life was carved from me ruthlessly, starting at the palms but swiftly reshaping the rest of me similarly. In that time too my knowledge of much of the nature of that world was gained, from the working and care of livestock, to the labour of the field, household and workshop. When the calendar completed its cycle no thing but my spectacles, most treasured possession, remained as it had been on my arrival. My body was strong and lean, while my clothes – had they the robustness of those manufactured locally – would have hung from me like the sail from the mast; in fact their remains had long since passed through the pigs and now fertilised some corner of my master’s fields. I was in many ways a new man.
My status as novelty served to keep me in the master’s occasional company through this period, an opportunity to demonstrate the strength and range of my mind which, without flattery, was considerably greater than that of any typical man of the time. When the end of our arrangement came we spoke candidly, and I took the opportunity to share with him the plans which I had spent the intervening period formulating. Though I was prepared to take them with me onto the road as I resumed my belated course for the capital, it had not escaped me that to begin them with sponsorship in place would lend swiftness to the enterprise, and as I fully intended to secure a rare fortune for myself there would be profits to share. I am proud to say that, after a lesser delay of several weeks, I was sent on my way by carriage as a partner in business, well dressed, with a purse of moneys and a veritable sheaf of letters of introduction to colleagues and acquaintances of high standing in society. I was given use of the good man’s town house – he was my master no longer – and permission to register such companies as I saw fit to the address. We shook hands warmly on my departure.
I wonder if I shall appear in the histories of the future; certainly, as I write this I am known by many of importance for my achievements, and though I never aspired to a position of government I have had a hand in remedying many maladies of our society – perhaps because I did not! I did not keep my given name, though my reprehensible lack of interest in the past meant that any I picked would have gone unrecognised by my younger self. Nor shall I share here that which I selected in its stead – however, I will briefly summarise those achievements made in the years which followed.
Though I initiated several concerns in those fledgling days, like many others I made my fortune through trade, first via the fleets of others and in time though purchasing my own from those with less foresight or good fortune than myself. With my partner in mind, I purchased many varieties of crop with which to seed his lands, including Hemp – with the division of Britain from the Americas this marvellous materials plant made my second fortune as a rival for the cotton trade, generating much revenue for country and crown, thus earning me my knighthood. Having arrived in the past with no small interest in the genus myself I took the liberty of experimenting, generating many unusual breeds; following an encounter with an insular but earnest gentleman named Darwin I invited him to view these strains and I flatter myself his interest was quite piqued.
If you will allow me an aside – let me assure you that I have not remained celibate. Given even the lesser multitude of the earth’s peoples by comparison to those of my original time, the possibility of fathering my own line is statistically too remote to consider, despite the many questions which might stand answered regarding my appearance. In any case, a discrete withdrawal at the correct juncture has always prevailed; indeed, a brief “fountaining” proved a popular and entertaining alternative to nine months of discomfort amongst those willing ladies fortunate enough to make my acquaintance, as well as many years of blissful penury for myself. To continue.
As the years caught up with him my partner’s sons took over his involvement with our businesses and upon his passing I found he had made allowance for me in his will, bolstering my fortune significantly with his own. I began to provide financial aid for public education and health also lending my support to the nationalisation of various industries and services. I sponsored a wide range of scientific and other endeavours and was the founding chair of the Royal Society for Secular Ethics, a seat I retained until my own retirement to the country and the gentleman’s club these three years past. I departed public life confident I had worked many a positive change upon it.
There have been few things which I turned my hand to that I considered to have failed and I have had the liberty to try many. Though I did not enter the past with plans and desires concerning it, I was a child of my time and finding myself cast adrift did not erase the marks which my prior life had made upon my thoughts. It was only two evenings past when I began to pen this which you now hold, prompted by a night of conversation in the club with several friends and some former rivals of my heyday.
I found myself looking around at the weathered faces of that room and seeing my own in them, drawn in the smoke curling from pipe and cigar and reflected in each glass of wine or brandy swirled and supped upon. We are all old men, I considered, no longer that which we were in our distant youth, and the world too is a place much changed. Now, for the first time in many years a memory from my lost, so unreal life struck me and I coughed loudly to mask laughter, of course attracting the attention of all present.
“Who would have thought thirty years ago we would all be sitting here… drinking the finest wine and spirit and smoking such as this, eh?” This I asked the room. “Aye,” came the unified reply. Shortly, one of my fellows in some concern had a boy call for me a cab and I was conveyed to my residence in the town, still short of breath as I was escorted to the door and thence to my chambers. I found myself unable to sleep however, indeed I have not rested well since; I have been instead confined myself to my home, writing this document, while also thinking as well as I am able on that other which I read so many years ago, so many years ahead of that in which I now reside.
Perhaps the reason for my distress is unclear. I confessed openly that I would act in denial of any notions of temporal responsibility, a decision I considered upheld by my continued existence; but what is the implication? Have I changed the nature of my own future, which is to say my own past? Have my decisions altered the society I was born into for good or ill; greatly, slightly, or not even at all? Perhaps, no, almost certainly that which caused me such discomfort will mean nothing to you! The things I have done, the changes I can only guess at making – perhaps I have slain the Python before it ever slithered into the light! Defeated Hinkle before he was even conceived! And myself – though I live to write this, what chance that I will ever be born into my own future? That you will be the one to read this?
I recall not the name of he who heralded me to my strange existence, but I do assert that he too addressed himself in that terrible, fateful correspondence. Yet it was I who received it and received that same fate. Are he and I the same? Are we forever to spin around ourselves and not progress with the rest of humanity, or are we merely links in a chain of souls, to be either torn from or thrust into their rightful places?
Or, an alternative; maybe I did not depart into my own past but into some other world entirely, some place where wholly different paths shall be followed by all people, and the person I am was never to live at all! If the truth of reality is the infinite multitude, a space where all things and no things may come to pass equally, then as I edge towards death I do so satisfied that I have spread my wings and lived to the fullest extent.
All I can say with certainty is this: I have striven to work for the betterment of this world; and, should by reading these words your turn upon the same wheel come to pass, may you find in these pages some meagre degree of preparation for the trails which lie in store.
Yours, in the hope of a sweet future for all mankind, and a rich, full life for you,
...The Author's Name
I wonder who shall actually read my words. I write in the hope that it be you, even against all chance, unless as I die chance will once again side with me and change my life anew. How long it will be before you, whoever you are, see these pages again!
I was never an historian. My brother showed something of an interest in his youth but life in the present proved the more interesting and, as one might say, he never looked back. I have always had a love of literature and yet had never read the classics, nor works of historical fiction, but returned time and again to those products of fantastical imaginations who spent their own lives always looking forward in speculation.
Thus it was not in my character to dally over tattered pages found in antique draws, but on discovering exactly such a thing something in the sight slowed my hand. I took them into my jacket before the ancient piece was consigned to hammer and flames and gave them some study that very evening, putting aside several promising reads-in-progress to do so. That, perhaps, is my one true regret. (Hah! No man lies to himself so well as an old one. Except perhaps a young one!)
In any case I at first found myself rewarded – it seemed this message from the past was more to my usual tastes than I should have expected. Such things it claimed no man in his right mind could credit as fact, but there was a passion to the words which held my eye despite the torturous and archaic language and the poor condition of the page. Indeed, each one seemed to decay noticeably as I put them aside, the edges flaking and ink receding into the yellowed parchment; I ceased to stack them for fear of crushing the bottommost and by the time I reached the signature on the final page the several sheets lay arranged around me on my bedspread like the cards of some obscure game. My mind was a whirl of chaotic thought, stirred by what I had read.
It was as I lay in contemplation of those words that all reality was wiped away and I found myself falling in blackness, with all the stars of the universe shining above me. I gasped at their beauty, when my breath was struck from me by my landing and in pain and shock I remember no more. My next recollection has me standing on the bank of the Thames – the grass bank, mind you, London’s lights no more than a failing amber haze, and distant! I had lived on its borders for years but now the clear starlight picked out only fields, hills and trees framing the silver thread of our great river. No sound broke the stillness and a strange flavour filled the air that I no longer retain the distinction of, having lived without its predecessor now for so many years.
Of course at first I took it for a dream. But when truly faced with the inconceivable one’s sense of reality is undeniable and in taking stock of myself in this place I was overcome with a terrible depression. Not only my family, my friends, my possessions, but my entire world was gone. Why, I had evidently left my very home into mid-air itself! The coldness of the breeze awoke me from this pitiable state of mind; in only undershirt and johns – hah! see what time and circumstance will do to a man? “Track trousers” and a short-sleeved shirt left my arms and feet bare and quite chill. I did not fear for my life from the elements, but my heart surely raced at my predicament.
Need I, indeed should I render it into bold clarity for you? What will be the result if you straightforwardly dismiss my words too as those of a madman and put aside this page unfinished? Why, at that instant had I not minutes before considered the same of another, who wrote a letter now abandoned to an existence wholly lost to me; what would I be, and where, had I done as much? No; I shall come to that in time.
First, I resolved to find London again and hope against my private certainty that I was merely victim of some cunning prank at the hands of friends (regretfully now largely forgotten). I set off along the bank glad of the soft grass under my bare feet, but when dawn broke some hours later I found myself still some considerable distance from my destination; indeed I had less idea of its position than I had when darkness framed its glow clearly. Instead I was drawn by the sight and sound of what seemed to me so uncommon then and so familiar now: a horse-drawn cart, driven by its master along a roughly rutted carriageway. I hailed him from a distance and reached ahead of his course. He was rightly suspicious and found my speech and indecent dress most odd, but at my claim to be victim of beating, robbery, kidnap and escape he was somewhat satisfied – all this done on my part at the prompting of my “literary benefactor”.
Forgive my sourness, but though the many details of that fateful letter have fallen from my memory since that day, some things remain and the awareness of advice given to facilitate my immediate survival is one such. In that moment would I have preferred no advice and no damned letter; indeed! Nevertheless those words kept me alive that day and no doubt saw me through many more, so I should give thanks for what resources I had at my disposal. For: what if this experience had been always to happen and was not the cursed effect of that letter? Would I have died that very day and not lived to write my own words here?
Instead of a quick death I found instead relief for tired legs and bruised feet. The cart driver was the man of a local farmer and willing to aid me to his destination, a small market township some ten miles further down this path. He found my spectacles most noteworthy and presumed me to be a scholar, too due to my less than robust physique. This I failed to confirm, claiming instead ignorance of my situation due to a blow on the head and that I had been wandering some days without food or direction – more advice followed. This he found quite exciting and at my prompting was good enough to reveal much information concerning my new environment. On our arrival several hours later he was proud to be the literal barer of news to the town and I was much observed and remarked upon as I helped him unload his goods by way of payment.
To blazes – I tire of my secret. I resided in The Past. Some many, many years before my own birth, perhaps five times my own age at that time! Even as I write this now, at the end of my life, I could likely be born and die again before the date of my true birth came to pass; but some details I shall not share here, for reasons still to be revealed.
I spent the day working alongside my rescuer, whose name I recall was Thomas; it had been some years since my last labouring work but I had always enjoyed profitable exercise and he furnished me with much information, far more valuable to me then than coins. As dusk came on he offered me still more: transportation to his master’s properties and an introduction, which I accepted gratefully. It was fully dark when our journey was done and his master not to be disturbed, so I was put up in the hayloft of the barn above my other companion of that most uncommon day – the carthorse.
I did sleep sound, but not before pursuing thoughts equally deep. With no knowledge of the mechanism by which my circumstance came to pass (for such was absent from the letter) I had no means by which to reverse my fate. What then? It seemed to me there were two paths. Firstly, to hide myself from history in the hope that all those events of my natural past should occur again untampered with, though success would certainly ensure a repeat of that which saw me itching and horse-smelling but most gratefully warm. Secondly, but more questionable, to live my life, wherever it took me, as I had in my now distant future and for which I had evidently reaped a reward.
My decision rang clear in my mind: to Live. It has not been my nature to duck down my head when troubled by thought or adversity and I would sooner be damned than to see this change. Of course I had read of many speculations upon the subject of time travel – the pollution of one’s own future by action taken in the past one “presently” occupies; the possibility of one’s own erasure; all manner of paradoxical happenings which might ensue. Still, my mind was made – come the dawn I would act with all the freedom I had ever, and if to do so meant my certain death then I was in no worse a situation than any other human being born before or yet to be. I conceived that should any act in my life to come result in the nullification of my own birth, my retrospective disappearance would be immediate in any case, so I closed my eyes in the knowledge that dawn would be my judge and could rule on the matter of my continued existence without further testimony. If dreams came that night I was never less aware of them.
The next morning I attended Thomas’s master and secured rude work as his man, putting to bed once and for all any concerns I may have harboured over the slow vanishing of my hands. My first objective, to craft a healthy form with which to face the challenges set me by the universe at large. I offered myself to any physical task felt appropriate for no more than food and board, with the proviso that should a full year pass to the master’s satisfaction I be given the opportunity to prove a greater worth to him; he accepted, and so I found myself in the employ of a landed gentleman (who shall remain nameless within these pages). Thomas I named truly, for gratitude; and in the knowledge that he died well liked and loved but childless; and that, in frank fairness, he was a man of small desires, small needs and small effect upon the world.
My first year, according to any chronology but that of my own body, was a hard but most rewarding one. The softness of my former life was carved from me ruthlessly, starting at the palms but swiftly reshaping the rest of me similarly. In that time too my knowledge of much of the nature of that world was gained, from the working and care of livestock, to the labour of the field, household and workshop. When the calendar completed its cycle no thing but my spectacles, most treasured possession, remained as it had been on my arrival. My body was strong and lean, while my clothes – had they the robustness of those manufactured locally – would have hung from me like the sail from the mast; in fact their remains had long since passed through the pigs and now fertilised some corner of my master’s fields. I was in many ways a new man.
My status as novelty served to keep me in the master’s occasional company through this period, an opportunity to demonstrate the strength and range of my mind which, without flattery, was considerably greater than that of any typical man of the time. When the end of our arrangement came we spoke candidly, and I took the opportunity to share with him the plans which I had spent the intervening period formulating. Though I was prepared to take them with me onto the road as I resumed my belated course for the capital, it had not escaped me that to begin them with sponsorship in place would lend swiftness to the enterprise, and as I fully intended to secure a rare fortune for myself there would be profits to share. I am proud to say that, after a lesser delay of several weeks, I was sent on my way by carriage as a partner in business, well dressed, with a purse of moneys and a veritable sheaf of letters of introduction to colleagues and acquaintances of high standing in society. I was given use of the good man’s town house – he was my master no longer – and permission to register such companies as I saw fit to the address. We shook hands warmly on my departure.
I wonder if I shall appear in the histories of the future; certainly, as I write this I am known by many of importance for my achievements, and though I never aspired to a position of government I have had a hand in remedying many maladies of our society – perhaps because I did not! I did not keep my given name, though my reprehensible lack of interest in the past meant that any I picked would have gone unrecognised by my younger self. Nor shall I share here that which I selected in its stead – however, I will briefly summarise those achievements made in the years which followed.
Though I initiated several concerns in those fledgling days, like many others I made my fortune through trade, first via the fleets of others and in time though purchasing my own from those with less foresight or good fortune than myself. With my partner in mind, I purchased many varieties of crop with which to seed his lands, including Hemp – with the division of Britain from the Americas this marvellous materials plant made my second fortune as a rival for the cotton trade, generating much revenue for country and crown, thus earning me my knighthood. Having arrived in the past with no small interest in the genus myself I took the liberty of experimenting, generating many unusual breeds; following an encounter with an insular but earnest gentleman named Darwin I invited him to view these strains and I flatter myself his interest was quite piqued.
If you will allow me an aside – let me assure you that I have not remained celibate. Given even the lesser multitude of the earth’s peoples by comparison to those of my original time, the possibility of fathering my own line is statistically too remote to consider, despite the many questions which might stand answered regarding my appearance. In any case, a discrete withdrawal at the correct juncture has always prevailed; indeed, a brief “fountaining” proved a popular and entertaining alternative to nine months of discomfort amongst those willing ladies fortunate enough to make my acquaintance, as well as many years of blissful penury for myself. To continue.
As the years caught up with him my partner’s sons took over his involvement with our businesses and upon his passing I found he had made allowance for me in his will, bolstering my fortune significantly with his own. I began to provide financial aid for public education and health also lending my support to the nationalisation of various industries and services. I sponsored a wide range of scientific and other endeavours and was the founding chair of the Royal Society for Secular Ethics, a seat I retained until my own retirement to the country and the gentleman’s club these three years past. I departed public life confident I had worked many a positive change upon it.
There have been few things which I turned my hand to that I considered to have failed and I have had the liberty to try many. Though I did not enter the past with plans and desires concerning it, I was a child of my time and finding myself cast adrift did not erase the marks which my prior life had made upon my thoughts. It was only two evenings past when I began to pen this which you now hold, prompted by a night of conversation in the club with several friends and some former rivals of my heyday.
I found myself looking around at the weathered faces of that room and seeing my own in them, drawn in the smoke curling from pipe and cigar and reflected in each glass of wine or brandy swirled and supped upon. We are all old men, I considered, no longer that which we were in our distant youth, and the world too is a place much changed. Now, for the first time in many years a memory from my lost, so unreal life struck me and I coughed loudly to mask laughter, of course attracting the attention of all present.
“Who would have thought thirty years ago we would all be sitting here… drinking the finest wine and spirit and smoking such as this, eh?” This I asked the room. “Aye,” came the unified reply. Shortly, one of my fellows in some concern had a boy call for me a cab and I was conveyed to my residence in the town, still short of breath as I was escorted to the door and thence to my chambers. I found myself unable to sleep however, indeed I have not rested well since; I have been instead confined myself to my home, writing this document, while also thinking as well as I am able on that other which I read so many years ago, so many years ahead of that in which I now reside.
Perhaps the reason for my distress is unclear. I confessed openly that I would act in denial of any notions of temporal responsibility, a decision I considered upheld by my continued existence; but what is the implication? Have I changed the nature of my own future, which is to say my own past? Have my decisions altered the society I was born into for good or ill; greatly, slightly, or not even at all? Perhaps, no, almost certainly that which caused me such discomfort will mean nothing to you! The things I have done, the changes I can only guess at making – perhaps I have slain the Python before it ever slithered into the light! Defeated Hinkle before he was even conceived! And myself – though I live to write this, what chance that I will ever be born into my own future? That you will be the one to read this?
I recall not the name of he who heralded me to my strange existence, but I do assert that he too addressed himself in that terrible, fateful correspondence. Yet it was I who received it and received that same fate. Are he and I the same? Are we forever to spin around ourselves and not progress with the rest of humanity, or are we merely links in a chain of souls, to be either torn from or thrust into their rightful places?
Or, an alternative; maybe I did not depart into my own past but into some other world entirely, some place where wholly different paths shall be followed by all people, and the person I am was never to live at all! If the truth of reality is the infinite multitude, a space where all things and no things may come to pass equally, then as I edge towards death I do so satisfied that I have spread my wings and lived to the fullest extent.
All I can say with certainty is this: I have striven to work for the betterment of this world; and, should by reading these words your turn upon the same wheel come to pass, may you find in these pages some meagre degree of preparation for the trails which lie in store.
Yours, in the hope of a sweet future for all mankind, and a rich, full life for you,
...The Author's Name