Here's the second part of chapter two!
If you need a refresher on the last part, follow this link.
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Chapter 2 (part 2)
Walter returned daily, and we continued to partake in simple discussion. My name was the first topic we discussed, and upon the hearing of Jason Peterson, he mused over it for a while. After he had concluded that he knew of no Petersons within the area, he decided that I must be far from home. As we spoke, I began to understand that he had no knowledge of my incident. It was as if I was I was a patient in an asylum. He was especially cautious regarding my mental faculties and never gave me more information than I could safely comprehend. I continued to ask him questions, and even asked him where the nearest police station was. This conversation was an interesting one, and gave me greater insight into the world around me.
“Toward the center of the city,” he said, “at the junction between Dillard and Eaton.”
“Can I have a phone to call them?” I asked.
“A phone?” he scoffed. He smiled as if I had made a joke, but seeing that I had been sincere, lowered his brow. “Dear man, you have had a most serious injury to believe that such a prehistoric achievement exists here!”
“Prehistoric?” I asked.
“I swear you have amnesia!” he exclaimed. And then, doubling down, asked, “you do know what year it is, do you not?”
“twenty-twenty,” I replied.
There was a long and most uncomfortable silence. Walter’s face grew dark and grim, while my own grew pale. After he had stared at the floor for nearly a full minute, he continued.
“You truly believe that this year is two-thousand-and-twenty?” he asked.
“I haven’t slept that long, have I?” I asked, suddenly startled and worried that months had gone by since that fateful night.
“I certainly hope you have not slept for a thousand years,” he exclaimed.
I froze. Seeing that I was unable to speak, he continued with a gentler tone.
“It seems there are a great many things you have misplaced,” he concluded. “One such detail being that you are living in the year three-thousand-and-thirty-nine.”
The words struck me violently, but were not accepted.
“You’re kidding,” I said with a weak smile. “This is all some kind of joke.”
“I can assure you that Living Ernest is no joke,” he scoffed. And then, staring intently at me, continued. “I do admit that your person, your appearance and speech, do impress upon me the history of the twenty-first century.”
“That’s because we’re in it,” I insisted. He leaned back and took a grim note.
“You must have suffered a delusional spree. One in which you took it upon yourself to assume you were from another time,” he mused. “This does incite a remarkable detail, however. For one so educated regarding history that he can match it in clothing and speech must be either from a proper family or a wondrous tutor.” He leaned forward. “Which is it, Jason?”
“I’m from twenty-twenty!” I persisted, still unable to accept the fact that I had been whisked away to such a foreign future. “If this is the future, why is everything so backward?!” I probed angrily. Walter listened patiently. “Why is there a feather pen over there instead of a laptop? Why does everyone wear old-fashioned clothes? Why do you talk so weird? Why hasn’t technology advanced?” I was growing quite heated in my lack of understanding, to the point that Walter submitted and held up his hands.
“Alright, Mr. Peterson,” he said. “Let us pretend for the moment that this is two-thousand-and-twenty. That you and I are not in the year three-thousand-and-thirty-nine.” He paused, and after I had calmed down, continued. “But while we are doing so, I would ask you to do one thing.” He waited for me to respond. I did so with a nod. “I will bring in a collection of history books tomorrow,” he continued, “I want you to read them. All the while, you may continue in the vein that you—we, are in two-thousand-and-twenty. But, you must read what I present you with and consider it carefully. Do we have an agreement?”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding.
“Excellent,” he said, and then remarked, “the connection, or knowledge you have to the year you claim to be from is quite impressive. I am curious to see what conclusion you come to.”
I didn’t answer, and he left. After he did, I turned my head to the window. I argued that the future could not possibly be so backward. It was farcical to believe that a thousand years past twenty-twenty would bring humanity to such a regression. I remained firm in my doubt, and waited eagerly for the books he was to bring me.
When the time came, Walter carried in an assortment of books great and small. They were all ancient-looking, much like the revered sets in an expensive collection, and convinced me that this could not be the future. I furthered my doubt by reminding myself that even early into the twenty-first-century reading had taken a much more advanced form. Where books had once been, surely a thousand years would have entirely removed them. Apart from holding a place in museums, perhaps.
“Here you are,” Walter said, proudly looking over the collection. “A detailed collection of the events covering well over the past thousand years. Granted, history is a difficult thing to capture perfectly. Therefore some of it is a bit vague,” he concluded. “But, these are the books you must read, Mr. Peterson. On the honor of your word I shall hold you to it!”
I nodded, immediately overwhelmed by the stacks of information before me. It all seemed far too excessive for a hoax, and I began to consider my surroundings with much more fear as I picked up the first and earliest entry.
It began at the turning of the century, the bold entry to the year two-thousand. One of the historic events listed was one I recalled. It was the fear that technology would encounter a destructive bug initiating the shut down of the modern world. I had been merely five at the time, so I did not remember it of course. But, when I developed an interest in technology, this event fascinated me in my youth. Seeing it in what appeared to be an old history book filled with proper English dialogue unsettled me. I at first concluded that it was a fictitious history book, a strange retelling of time as if it was recorded by nineteenth-century historians. But it seemed much too real, and I continued through the years, growing more and more interested by what I read.
The book included acts of terrorism, the introduction of well-known technology, the development of social media, and government leaders I was familiar with. All told as if they were ancient happenings. All written in elegant prose and antique tongue. The most fascinating reading began after the year two-thousand-and-twenty. At the time I considered it to be either an educated guess at the future or actually plausible, for it played out many of the persons and countries I knew in a most believable way. Indeed, I soon began to consider it possible.
“No,” I said once, when I found myself becoming pulled in. “It’s impossible. Time travel doesn’t exist.”
But I continued to wonder as I read. After all, time travel may not have been invented in twenty-twenty, but if it ever would be invented it would be hundreds if not thousands of years in the future. Yet I stumbled again at this point, for such a technologically backward era could in no way produce a machine capable of scaling the wall of time. I had a recollection then of my daughter’s kidnapper. He too had worn the antique clothing I saw on Walter and on the men and women out my window. Thus, it had to be possible.
“No!” I quickly reminded myself. For if it was so, my blessed wife was gone in a way that surpassed physical distance. Such I could have overcome by running, walking, and even crawling if required, but time was a much more impassible barrier. Thus I wrote it off for the time being, and set to convincing Walter that he was living a delusion.
“Have you finished the history books?” he would ask whenever I sought to argue. I would answer truthfully and he would promptly reply, “do so first, then we may hold debate.” And so I would return to the books, all the while doubting every word.
But as I drew further past the year twenty-twenty I began to see a change in the course of humanity. For where technological bliss and prosperity were predicted, I began to see a horrid chain of events. It was these events that led me to believe such a backwards future possible.
It began with war, one that reshaped continents and scattered the peoples of the earth. I was not able to gather the specific cause of conflict, but came upon the vague conclusion that it was the greed of common man, spread through all countries like the plague it is. The entire world was nuclear in that time, to the point that harnessing such a weapon was a necessity, it seemed, to be seen as a great country. And much as dominoes, one nuclear weapon set off hundreds, until the planet was ravaged and there was no victor. Unprecedented radiation poisoned much of the earth, and nationality was forgotten amidst humanity’s new objective, that being to survive.
Walter had provided other books that added to the historical volumes, some of which relayed survival transitions made by humanity. These were not strictly historical, but contained mentions of why things were now done differently. One of these stated that due to a loss of sophisticated machinery, twenty-first-century farming was lost and nearly everyone took up gardening and livestock. Naturally, there was a shortage here as well. The earth only contained so much seed and animals, therefore colonies of people divided them as equally as possible.
“Technology regressed to a point unprecedented, nigh that prior to the Industrial Revolution,” I read after turning to the history books. I observed hand-drawn images of technology now preserved in museums or only in memory. “But why the obsession with old-fashioned things?” I mused. “It’s gotta be much harder to make such fancy clothes than it is to make gym shorts.” The next time Walter visited me I asked him such.
“Well,” he began, pulling up his chair. “After the decline, man was without nearly all they had once possessed. The loss of entertainment was a heavy blow for an age so fixated upon it,” he explained. “Thus, they returned to a source of entertainment that had been present for nearly all of history. This source required no technology apart from a printing press.”
“Books?” I interrupted.
“Exactly so!” he said with a smile.
“That doesn’t explain why everyone is so old fashioned,” I persisted.
“You have not read all I have provided you with,” he scolded. “If you had, you would not persist in such lunacy.” He then continued, seeing that the books required aid in persuading me. “As long as they have been printed, books have shaped culture. What people read sticks with them, both subconsciously and unconsciously. When they read novels of other cultures, the ideas expressed within the pages are often the perceptions they carry of such a culture.”
“So you’re saying that people just decided to act like characters from a book because they didn’t have anything else to do?” I asked, still having difficulty grasping what Walter was really saying.
“Not so willy-nilly as you put it!” Walter scoffed in frustration. “But yes, in a very gradual slope, people took on the most popular form of entertainment, that being literature.”
“But why so old?” I said, shaking my head. “In twenty-twenty, new books came out everyday. Half of them were about magic and spaceships and all sorts of ridiculous things. And half of the people didn’t even read.”
“The history books I provided explain that—”
“Just tell me already!” I said, becoming quite upset at his constant persistence on the books. “I won’t read the stupid books any—”
“I say!” Walter interrupted, “it is no wonder you speak with such simplicity and behave as an uncouth child! A man who does not read has rejected higher thinking!” He shook his head and then added, “as well as common sense for that matter! And patience,” he scoffed at the closed books.
“I’ve been through a lot!” I suddenly shouted, feeling that I was the one who deserved to be angry. Here I had been torn from my home and had my daughter taken from me, yet some uppity tutor was rebuking me for not reading. I had not taken to reading for entertainment in my youth and did not intend to start enjoying it at said tutor's insisting. “I don’t know where I am,” I continued, “or what’s going on. If you don’t give me answers I don’t have any reason to stay here!” I shouted.
He was silent a moment, and I saw he was torn between an angered response and a calm and sympathetic one. He chose the latter, being of a sounder mind than I was at the moment.
“I apologize,” he began, “for you have truly undergone stress, and it was wrong of me to aggravate you so.” He then leaned slightly toward the prior response, “but, I am only trying to point you toward the answers you seek!” He picked up a book, “here, these history volumes explain all that you need to bypass your troubled state!”
I was silent then, as I contemplated whether I should continue learning or simply set off as soon as I was well.
“I ask only that you be patient,” Walter concluded. “And I shall be patient in return. One cannot surmise the entirety of a thousand years of history in as short a time as you seem to expect!”
“Fine,” I yielded. “But I need help,” I admitted.
“There you are in luck,” he said with a smile. “For I am a tutor, the most educated for miles!” And so we began a much closer study.
We picked up where our conversation had derailed, on the topic of literature. Walter explained that only that which had been deemed necessary was preserved due to the shortage of resources. This applied to literature, meaning only works that had great value were preserved and reprinted.
“The majority of these came from a more civilized period,” Walter explained, “one that encouraged and inspired humanity rather than drag it down.”
I mused on his comment regarding earlier literature and the more 'civilized period.' It had never occurred to me that entertainment had become degrading and negative in twenty-twenty. I suppose I had never known much different, seeing as I had stuck mainly to television. But upon Walter's explanation I saw that through the scope of time literature had decreased in value. Of course, I understood that this was not entirely true for all works created within any era, as all time periods had their flaws. But there was an outstanding decrease as the modern world had moved on. Thus, it began to make sense as to why society turned toward older ways. If the entertainment preserved was largely dominated by a set of standards and lifestyles, then it seemed logical that over time society would adopt such.
“Isn’t literature written now?” I asked, contemplating that the continuing of creativity would surely push humanity forward, possibly even to the same height I had seen in twenty-twenty.
“Some find the time and possess the funds to do so,” Walter explained, “but the majority are more focused on life.”
“Sounds like a drag,” I commented.
“A drag?” Walter scoffed. “I have never heard such an expression,” he mused, before realizing the rudeness I had exhibited. “And I beg your pardon!” he then exclaimed. “Now there is a pot calling the kettle black! The life you stumbled in from seems much more a drag than that of even the least fortunate Doverman!”
“Whatever, I’m sorry,” I quickly said. “I just meant that it sounds hard,” I explained.
“Life bears difficulties,” Walter scolded. “Best to focus on our own than point out others’.”
We then continued with history for nearly a week. As we did so, my legs slowly recovered and I felt steady enough to move about again. This was most encouraging and gave me the opportunity to look out the window more. I was not yet let out of the room, the door being locked after anyone entered or left. Thus I was unable to get a very wide grasp on my surroundings. I took an interest in Walter’s explanations, but much more in how I might leave and find my daughter. Walter was little help in the topic of our location, for he told me that I was simply in Dover. When I asked him more specifically where I was, he would comment “the world is not as twenty-twenty. It is reshaped, remade, and divided. No country remains, humanity is simply humanity.” And then he would sigh and add, “apparently it will take a great deal yet to ease the troubled confusion of your mind.” Thus I ceased asking him in the understanding that it would only increase his apprehension toward treating me normally. And this was something I began to desire greatly. For once I was normal, I believed he would lend me more freedom.
I began to craft a plan then, one that would give me my desired freedom and set me on a path of restoring my daughter. It seemed to me that Dovermen and Doverwomen had freedom to enter and leave the city, something I coveted greatly. Thus, I began with a simple request, one that I believed was expected and would be accepted.
“You request my tutelage?” Walter replied after I had asked. “To become a member of Living Ernest?” He seemed surprised, even though he had quite obviously hinted at the arrangement for quite some time.
“Yeah,” I nodded, and then corrected myself, “—indeed.”
Walter smiled, a proud and enthusiastic smile.
“We shall have a great deal of work cut out for us,” he admitted, “but never has Walter Ernest turned down a student desiring to learn!” He then stretched out his hand for a firm shake.
This part of the plan being successful, I committed to the next piece. This was much more difficult, as it required patience and a wary eye. I would have to submit entirely to learning under Walter and becoming a member of his world, whether it was fantasy or actual. In doing this, I would gain the freedom to interact with others around me and thus gain more knowledge on my situation. It would be gradual, of course, and I had very little time to spare. But I knew that there was no better step to take in pursuing Emily. Therefore, I decided to press earnestly toward success in tutelage.
That's it for this week! I'm getting pretty close to finishing up the details for this book, so this might be one of the last pieces I share (with Thanksgiving next week, I probably won't be sharing a piece until the week after).
Enjoy the weekend!
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