The Man Who Folded Himself

I’ve seen the Chicago fire and the San Francisco earthquake.

I was at the signing of the Declaration of Independence. (How far we have come since then… )

I saw the burning of Atlanta.

And I’ve seen the original uncut versions of D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance and Merian C. Cooper’s King Kong and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I was there the day the Liberty Bell cracked.

And I saw the fall of the Alamo.

I witnessed the battle of the Monitor and the Merrimack.

I attended a band concert conducted by John Philip Sousa.

I heard Lincoln deliver his Gettysburg Address. I recorded it on tape.

I’ve seen Paul Revere’s midnight ride and the Boston Tea Party.

I’ve met George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

And I watched Columbus come ashore.

I saw Ben Franklin flying a kite on a rainy day.

I was there when Bell tested his first telephone. “Mr. Watson, come here. I want you.”

I witnessed Galileo’s experiment — when he dropped two lead balls of different weights from the tower of Pisa.

I have seen performances of plays by William Shakespeare. At the Globe Theater in London.

I watched Leonardo da Vinci as he painted La Jaconde, the Mona Lisa. (I will not tell you why she smiles.) And I watched as his rival, Michelangelo, painted the Sistine Chapel.

I’ve heard Strauss waltzes, conducted by Strauss himself.

I saw the disastrous premiere of Stravinsky’s Rites of Spring. And Ravel’s Bolero too.

I’ve heard Beethoven’s symphonies — as conducted by Beethoven himself.

And Mozart. And Bach. (I’ve seen the Beatles too.)

And the beheading of Ann Boleyn and Thomas More.

I’ve seen the signing of the Magna Carta.

I have visited Imperial Rome. Nero and Tiberius and Julius Caesar himself. Cleopatra was ugly.

And ancient Greece. The sacking of Troy was more than a myth.

I have witnessed performances of plays by Sophocles and watched as Plato taught Aristotle and Aristotle taught Alexander. I saw Socrates drink the cup of hemlock.

I have witnessed the crucifixion of one Jesus of Nazareth. He looked so sad.

And more.

I have seen dinosaurs. I have seen the thunder lizards walk the Earth. The Brontosaurus, the Stegosaurus, and Triceratops — and the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the most fearsome monster ever to stalk the world.

I have seen the eruption of Vesuvius and the death of Pompeii.

I have seen the explosion of Krakatoa.

I watched an asteroid plunge from the sky and shatter a giant crater in what would someday be Arizona.

I’ve witnessed the death of Hiroshima by atomic fire.

I’ve timeskimmed from the far distant past and watched as the Colorado River carved out the Grand Canyon — a living, twisting snake of water cutting away the rock.

And more.

I’ve been to the year 2001 and beyond. I’ve been to the moon.

I’ve walked its surface in a flimsy spacesuit and held its dust in my hands. I’ve seen the Earth rise above the Lunar Apennines.

I’ve visited Tranquillity Base — and flashing back to the past, I watched the Eagle land. I saw Neil Armstrong come ashore.

And more.

I’ve been to Mars. I’ve been to the great hotels that orbit Jupiter and I’ve seen the rings of Saturn.

I’ve timeskimmed from the far past to the far future.

I have seen Creation.

I have seen how Entropy ravages everything.

From Great Bang to Great Bang — the existence of the Earth is less than a blink; the death of the sun by nova, almost unnoticeable.

I’ve seen the future of mankind—

I like to think I understand, but I know that I don’t. The future of the human race is as alien and incomprehensible to me as the year 1975 would be to a man of Charlemagne’s era. But wondrous it is indeed, and filled with marvelous things.

There is nothing that I cannot witness—

—but there is little that I can participate in.

I am limited. By my language, by my appearance, by my skin color, and my height.

I am limited to life in a span of history maybe two hundred years in each direction. Beyond that, the languages are difficult: the meanings have altered, the pronunciations and usages too complex to decipher. With effort, perhaps, I can communicate; but the farther I go from 1975, the harder it is to make myself understood.

And there are other differences. In the past, I am too tall. The farther back I travel, the shorter everybody becomes. And the farther forward I go, the taller. In the not-too-distant future, I am too short — humanity’s evolution is upward.

And there are still other differences. Disturbing ones.

There are places where my skin is the wrong color, or my eyes the wrong shape. And there is one time in the future when I am the wrong sex.

There are places where people’s faces are — different.

I can witness.

I cannot participate.

But witnessing is enough: I have seen more of history than any other human being. I have timeskimmed and timestopped and my journeys have been voyages of mystery and adventure.

There is much that I don’t understand. There are things that are incomprehensible to one who is not of the era and the culture.

But still — the proper study of humanity is humanity itself.

History is not just old news.

It’s people. It’s the ebb and flow of life. It’s the sound of bells and horns, the stamp of boots in the street, the flapping of banners in the wind, the smell of smoke and flowers. It’s bread and trains and newspapers. It’s the acrid smell of the herd, and the press of the crowd. It’s surprise and glory and fear. It’s confusion, panic, and disaster—

—and above all, history is triumph!

It is the triumph of individuals creating, designing, building, changing, challenging — never quitting. It is the continual victory of the intellect over the animal; the unquenchable vitality of life! Passion overwhelms despair and humanity goes on; sometimes seething, sometimes dirty, sometimes even unspeakably evil.

But always — despite the setbacks — the direction is always upward.

If I must taste the bitterness, it is worth it; because I have also shared the dreams.

And the promise.

I have seen its fulfillment.

I know the truth and the destiny of the human race.

It is a proud and lonely thing to be a man.

* * *

This part, I think, may be the hardest to record.

It was inevitable, I suppose, that it happen, but it has caused me to do some serious thinking. About myself. About Dan. About Don.

When Uncle Jim died, I thought my life would be changed, and I worried about the directions it might take. When I thought I had eliminated myself by a timebelt paradox, I realized how much I feared dying — I realized how much I needed to be Dan to my Don and Don to my Dan.

But this—

—this makes me question the shape of my whole life.

What am I? Who am I?

What am I doing to myself?

Have I made a wrong decision? Am I moving in a strange and terrible direction?

I wish I knew.

It started — when? Yesterday evening? Time is funny when you don’t live it linearly. When I get tired, I sleep, I flip forward or backward to the nearest nighttime and climb into bed.

If I’m not tired, and it’s night, I flash to day and go to the beach. Or I jump to winter and go skiing. I stay as long as I want, or as short as I want. I stay for weeks or only a few minutes. I’m not a slave to the clock — nor even to the seasons.

What I mean is, I’m no longer living in a straight line.

I bounce back and forth through the days like a temporal Ping-Pong ball. I don’t even know how old I am anymore. I think I’ve passed my twentieth birthday, but I’m not sure.