Tonight[2] there is no recall; I am to rest a while. I see it is almost
a month since I last wrote in this journal. My total recall began three
weeks ago, and already the first twenty-eight years of my life have
been saved.
[Footnote 2: At this point Dr. Bannerman's handwriting alters
curiously. From here on he used a soft pencil instead of a pen, and the
script shows signs of haste. In spite of this, however, it is actually
much clearer, steadier and easier to read than the earlier entries in
his normal hand.--BLAINE]
It was a week after I told the angel my decision before she was
prepared to start the recall. During that week she searched my present
mind more closely than I should have imagined was possible: she had to
be sure.
During that week, of hard questions, I dare say she learned more about
my kind than has ever gone on record even in a physician's office; I
hope she did. To any psychiatrist who might question that, I offer a
naturalist's suggestion. It is easy to imagine, after some laborious
time, that we have noticed everything a given patch of ground can show
us. But alter the view-point only a little--dig down a foot with a
spade, say, or climb a tree-branch and look downward--it's a whole new
world.
When the angel was not exploring me in this fashion, she took pains to
make me glimpse the satisfactions and million rewarding experiences I
might have if I chose the other way. I see how necessary that was; at
the time it seemed almost cruel. She had to do it, for my own sake, and
I am glad that I was somehow able to stand fast to my original choice.
So was she, in the end; she has even said she loves me for it. What
that troubling word means to her is not within my mind. I am satisfied
to take it in the human sense.
Since I no longer require normal sleep, the recall begins at night, as
soon as the lights begin to go out in the village and there is little
danger of interruption. Daytimes, I putter about in my usual fashion.
I have sold Steele my hens, and Judy's life was saved a week ago. That
practically winds up my affairs, except that I went to write a codicil
to my will. I might as well do that now, right here in this journal,
instead of bothering my lawyer. It should be legal.
To Whom It May Concern: I hereby bequeath to my friend Lester
Morse, M.D., of Augusta, Maine, the ring which will be found at my
death on the fifth finger of my left hand. I would urge Dr. Morse
to retain this ring in his private possession at all times, and to
make provision for its disposal, in the event of his own death, to
some person in whose character he places the utmost faith.
(Signed) David Bannerman[3]
[Footnote 3: In spite of superficial changes in the handwriting, this
signature has been certified genuine by an expert graphologist.--BLAINE]
Tonight she has gone away for a while, and I am to rest and do as I
please till she returns. I shall spend the time filling in some blanks
in this record, but I am afraid it will be a spotty job, because there
is so much I no longer care about.
* * * * *
Except for the lack of desire for sleep, and a bodily weariness which
is not at all unpleasant, I notice no physical effects thus far. I have
no faintest recollection of anything that happened earlier than my
twenty-eighth birthday. My deductive memory seems rather efficient, and
I am sure I could reconstruct most of the story if it were worth the
bother. This afternoon I grubbed around among some old letters of that
period, but they weren't very interesting.
My knowledge of English is unaffected; I can still read scientific
German and some French, because I had occasion to use those languages
fairly often after I was twenty-eight. The scraps of Latin dating
from high school are gone. So are algebra and all but the simplest
proposition of high school geometry: I never needed them.
* * * * *
I can remember thinking of my mother after twenty-eight, but I do not
know whether the image this provides really resembles her. My father
died when I was thirty-one, so I remember him as a sick old man. I
believe I had a younger brother, but he must have died in childhood.[4]
[Footnote 4: Dr. Bannerman's mother died in 1918 of influenza.
His brother (three years older, not younger) died of pneumonia,
1906.--BLAINE]
Judy's passing was tranquil--pleasant for her, I think. It took the
better part of a day. We went out to an abandoned field I know, and she
lay blinking in the sunshine with the angel sitting by her, while I dug
a grave and then rambled off after wild raspberries. Toward evening the
angel came and told me I could bury Judy--it was finished. And most
interesting, she said. I don't see how there can have been anything
distressing about it for Judy. After all, what hurts us worst is to
have our favorite self-deceptions stripped away, and I don't think Judy
had any.
I have not found the recall painful, at least not in retrospect. There
must have been sharp moments, mercifully forgotten along with their
causes, as if the process had gone on under anesthesia. Certainly there
were plenty of incidents in my first twenty-eight years which I should
not care to offer to the understanding of any but the angels. Quite
often I must have been mean, selfish, base in any number of ways, if
only to judge by the record since twenty-eight. Those old letters touch
on a few of these things. To me, they now matter only as material for a
record which is safely out of my hands.
However, to any person I may have harmed, I wish to say this: you were
hurt by aspects of my humanity which may not, in a few million years,
be quite so common among us. Against these darker elements I struggled,
in my human fashion, as you do yourselves. The effort is not wasted.
One evening--I think it was June 12--Lester dropped around for sherry
and chess. Hadn't seen him in quite a while, and haven't since. There
is a moderate polio scare this summer and it keeps him on the jump.
The angel retired behind some books on an upper shelf--I'm afraid it
was dusty--and had fun with our chess. She had a fair view of your
bald spot, Lester. Later she remarked that she liked your looks,
but can't you do something about that weight? She suggested an odd
expedient, which I believe has occurred to your medical self from time
to time--eating less.
Maybe she shouldn't have done what she did with those chess games.
Nothing more than my usual blundering happened until after my first ten
moves; by that time I suppose she had absorbed the principles, and she
took over. I was not fully aware of it until I saw you looking like a
boiled duck. I had imagined my astonishing moves were the result of my
own damn cleverness.
* * * * *
Seriously, Lester, think back to that evening. You've played in stiff
amateur tournaments; you know your own abilities and you know mine. Ask
yourself whether I could have done anything like that without help. I
tell you again I didn't study the game in the interval when you weren't
here. I've never even had a chess book in the library, and if I had, no
amount of study would take me into your class. I haven't that sort of
mentality; just your humble sparring partner, and I've enjoyed it on
that basis, as you might enjoy watching a prima donna surgeon pull off
some miracle you wouldn't dream of attempting yourself. Even if your
game had been away below par that evening, and I don't think it was,
I could never have pinned your ears back three times running, without
help. That evening you were a long way out of _your_ class, that's all.
I couldn't tell you anything about it at the time--she was clear on
that point--so I could only bumble and preen myself and leave you
mystified. But she wants me to write anything I choose in this journal,
and somehow, Lester, I think you may find the next few decades pretty
interesting. You're still young, some ten years younger than I. I think
you'll see many things that I wish I might see come to pass--or I would
so wish if I were not convinced that my choice was the right one.
Most of those new events will not be spectacular, I'd guess. Many of
the turns to a better way will hardly be recognized at the time for
what they are, by you or anyone else. Obviously, our nature being what
it is, we shall not change overnight. To hope for that would be as
absurd as it is to imagine that any formula, ideology, theory of social
pattern can bring us into Utopia. As I see it, Lester--and I think your
consulting room would have told you the same even if your own intuition
were not enough--there is only one battle of importance: Armageddon.
And Armageddon field is within each individual.
At the moment I believe I am the happiest man who ever lived.
* * * * *