weather-beaten. When he moved he shuffled like a bear.
‘You must be Daniels,’ he said. ‘Yes, I see you must be. I had you on my
calendar for three o’clock. So glad you could come,”
His great paw engulfed Daniel’s hand. He pointed to a chair beside the
desk, sat down and retrieved his pipe from the overflowing tray, began
packing it from a large canister that stood on the desk.
‘Your letter said you wanted to see me about something important,’ he
said. ‘But then that’s what they all say. But there must have been something
about your letter — an urgency, a sincerity. I haven’t the time, you
understand, to see everyone who writes. All of them have found something,
you see. What is it, Mr. Daniels, that you have found?’
Daniels said, ‘Doctor, I don’t quite know how to start what I have to
say. Perhaps it would be best to tell you first that something had happened
to my brain.’
Thorne was lighting his pipe. He talked around the stem. ‘In such a
case, perhaps I am not the man you should be talking to. There are other
people — ‘
‘No, that’s not what I mean,’ said Daniels. ‘I’m not seeking help. I am
quite all right physically and mentally, too. About five years ago I was in
a highway accident. My wife and daughter were killed and I was badly hurt
and — ‘
‘I am sorry, Mr. Daniels.’
‘Thank you — but that is all in the past. It was rough for a time but I
muddled through it. That’s not what I’m here for. I told you I was badly
hurt — ‘
‘Brain damage?’
‘Only minor. Or so far as the medical findings are concerned. Very minor
damage that seemed to clear up rather soon. The bad part was the crushed
chest and punctured lung.’
‘But you’re all right now?’
‘As good as new,’ said Daniels. ‘But since the accident my brain’s been
different. As if I had new senses. I see things, understand things that seem
impossible.’
‘You mean you have hallucinations?’
‘Not hallucinations. I am sure of that. I can see the past.’
‘How do you mean — see the past?’
‘Let me try to tell you,’ Daniels said. ‘exactly how it started. Several
years ago I bought an abandoned farm in south-western Wisconsin. A place to
hole up in, a place to hide away. With my wife and daughter gone I still was
recoiling from the world. I had got through the first brutal shock but I
needed a place where I could lick my wounds. If this sounds like self-pity
— I don’t mean it that way. I am trying to be objective about why I acted
as I did, why I bought the farm.’
‘Yes. I understand,’ said Thorne. ‘But I’m not entirely sure hiding was
the wisest thing to do.’
‘Perhaps not, but it seemed to me the answer. It has worked out rather
well. I fell in love with the country. That part of Wisconsin is ancient
land. It has stood uncovered by the sea for four hundred million years. For
some reason it was not overridden by the Pleistocene glaciers. It has
changed, of course, but only as the result of weathering. There have been no
great geologic upheavals, no massive erosions — nothing to disturb it.’
‘Mr. Daniels,’ said Thorne, somewhat testily, ‘I don’t quite see what
this has to do — ‘
‘I’m sorry. I am just trying to lay the background for what I came to
tell you. It came on rather slowly at first and I thought that I was crazy,
that I was seeing things, that there had been more brain damage than had
been apparent — or that I was finally cracking up. I did a lot of walking
in the hills, you see. The country is wild and rugged and beautiful — a
good place to be out in. The walking made me tired and I could sleep at
night. But at times the hills changed. Only a little at first. Later on they
changed more and finally they became places I had never seen before, that no
one had ever seen before.’
Thorne scowled. ‘You are trying to tell me they changed into the past.’
Daniels nodded. ‘Strange vegetation, funny-looking trees. In the earlier
times, of course, no grass at all. Underbrush of ferns and scouring rushes.
Strange animals, strange things in the sky. Saber-tooth cats and mastodons,
pterosaurs and uintatheres and — ‘
‘All at the same time?’ Thorne asked, interrupting. ‘All mixed up?’
‘Not at all. The time periods I see seem to be true time periods.
Nothing out of place. I didn’t know at first — but when I was able to
convince myself that I was not hallucinating I sent away for books. I
studied. I’ll never be an expert, of course — never a geologist or
paleontologist — but I learned enough to distinguish one period from
another, to have some idea of what I was looking at.’
Thorne took his pipe out of his mouth and perched it in the ashtray. He
ran a massive hand through his wild hair.
‘It’s unbelievable,’ he said. ‘It simply couldn’t happen. You said all
this business came on rather slowly?’
‘To begin with it was hazy, the past foggily imposed upon the present,
then the present would slowly fade and the past came in, real and solid. But
it’s different now. Once in a while there’s a bit of flickering as the
present gives way to the past — but mostly it simply changes, as if at the
snap of a finger. The present goes away and I’m standing in the past. The
past is all around me. Nothing of the present is left.’
‘But you aren’t really in the past? Physically, I mean.’
‘There are times when I’m not in it at all. I stand in the present and
the distant hills or the river valley changes. But ordinarily it changes all
around me, although the funny thing about it is that, as you say, I’m not
really in it. I can see it and it seems real enough for me to walk around in
it. I can walk over to a tree and put my hand out to feel it and the tree is
there, But I seem to make no impact on the past. It’s as if I were not there
at all. The animals do not see me. I’ve walked up to within a few feet of
dinosaurs. They can’t see me or hear or smell me. If they had I’d have been
dead a dozen times. It’s as if I were walking through a three-dimensional
movie. At first I worried a lot about the surface differences that might
exist. I’d wake up dreaming of going into the past and being buried up to my
waist in a rise of ground that since has eroded away. But it doesn’t work
that way. I’m walking along in the present and then I’m walking in the past.
It’s as if a door were there and I stepped through it. I told you I don’t
really seem to be in the past — but I’m not in the present, either. I tried
to get some proof. I took a camera with me and shot a lot of pictures. When
the films were developed there was nothing on them. Not the past — but what
is more important, not the present, either. If I had been hallucinating, the
camera should have caught pictures of the present. But apparently there was
nothing there for the camera to take. I thought maybe the camera failed or I
had the wrong kind of film. So I tried several cameras and different types
of film and nothing happened. I got no pictures. I tried bringing something
back. I picked flowers, after there were flowers. I had no trouble picking
them but when I came back to the present I was empty-handed. I tried to
bring back other things as well. I thought maybe it was only live things,
like flowers, that I couldn’t bring, so I tried inorganic things — like
rocks — but I never was able to bring anything back.’
‘How about a sketch pad?’
‘I thought of that but I never used one. I’m no good at sketching —
besides, I figured, what was the use? The pad would come back blank.’
‘But you never tried.’
‘No,’ said Daniels. ‘I never tried. Occasionally I do make sketches
after I get back to the present. Not every time but sometimes. From memory.
But, as I said, I’m not very good at sketching.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Thorne. ‘I don’t really know. This all sounds
incredible. But if there should be something to it — Tell me, were you ever
frightened? You seem quite calm and matter-of-fact about it now, but at
first you must have been frightened.’