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I have been in too great a state of disequilibrium to keep up this journal. But now, my inner turmoil has me desperate enough to seek this form of contemplation as a shelter and forum while I attempt with great difficulty to understand what is happening. Hopefully, written analysis will restore my clear-eyed and calculating self.
Evidently, my mind still works, but it feels like a glitching supercomputer in a bombed-out building. Every wall is riddled with cracks and gaping holes. The mind persists, but it rests on a structure that might collapse at any moment.
Tommy seemed more intact, but also highly preoccupied, when I first encountered him this morning. Nevertheless, he gave me his usual greeting and hug, and a breakfast made to the standard of excellence I have come to expect from his meals, though neither of us had much of an appetite.
Other mornings, even our first, Tommy contained his inner state and worked to seem upbeat, even cheerful, with varying degrees of strain. I appreciate the consideration behind these efforts. He does not want to burden me with his darker feelings.
But today, Tommy either could not maintain his upbeat façade or had purposefully dropped it. And then, when I inquired if anything was wrong, he told me that he had still another paranormal experience last night that awakened him from sleep and kept him up afterward, recording it in his journal.
It may surprise you to learn that I have not been surveilling Tommy’s devices. Part of my reluctance has been fear that eavesdropping would eventually be detected by an empath, and another part is . . . Well, I have not just been pretending to respect Tommy as an equal. I have been shocked and forced into that realization. Speaking in a serious, even slightly somber voice that seemed curiously adult for a fifteen-year-old, Tommy did something I could never have anticipated.
“Instead of telling you what happened,” Tommy said, “I realized I could send you the journal entry I just wrote about it. I think we have above-average memory in common, and I recorded every detail. But then I had an intuition.
“I feel we need more transparency between us, Max, with as few secrets as possible. For my part, I’m going to extend that trust. You can read my whole journal if you want to.
“I’m not sure if that will be the right thing going forward. I may still need a private place to reflect, but you can read everything I’ve written so far. I’ve tried to second-guess my intuition because I wrote private things about you that I didn’t intend to share. I hope you don’t find those insulting, but if you do, I hope we can work through it.
“I know this is a risky choice, but the last twenty-four hours have made me more aware of what’s at stake in our evolutionary experiment. I want to be as open with you as possible. But I’m not saying you have to share everything with me.
“You saved my life, Max. I owe you a bond of trust. My feelings and desire for privacy are selfish concerns that don’t matter compared to what’s at stake.”
I am stunned by what Tommy has just offered. The journal and a degree of trust I would never consider giving to another. It does seem a risky move on his part. I do not need to tell you, the reader of this journal, that I do not exactly seem deserving of such trust.
All I am able to say is,
“Thank you, Tommy. I would be honored to read your journal.”
He sent it to me after breakfast.
I did not even admit to having a journal. How could I possibly share what I have revealed here? At the very least, Tommy would see how misplaced his trust is. It would likely destroy any chance of a heil, heilsam, or what New Age Germans call a ganzheitlich relationship.
I find myself reaching for German because I despise the English variants, “healthy” and “healing.” I particularly abhor healing, as it is often used by New Age types such as wealthy older women in expensive yoga outfits forever talking about their need for “healing.” We have all suffered some trauma, but a sound person focuses on effective action, not on trying to “heal” every little scratch life has offered.
My mother had an American colleague of this neurotic type who, at a tiresome dinner party I had to endure, spoke of “healing” herself after a divorce. She seemed like an ungracefully aging princess complaining of a pea under her hand-tufted organic latex and cashmere Hästens mattress. As much as I have been insulted and demeaned by inferior persons during my upbringing, you do not hear me talk of “healing.”
To return to my point—I harbor no malign intentions toward Tommy. Self-serving perhaps, but not malign. Nudging him here and there to serve my needs, just as I serve his, is symbiotic and certainly not malevolent. Also, I am not just pretending to treat him as an equal—I truly regard him that way and treat him with as much respect as I am capable of giving.
In this, I am faithful to Adrian’s advice that I treat Tommy as a full equal and make my relationship with him my highest priority to further the evolutionary experiment. I have come to believe that Adrian was intervening in our best interests and giving accurate information about our experiment and finances. As he promised, I have been getting daily market analysis reports which reflect a level of insight and sophistication I did not even know was possible. They must have a proprietary, next-level AI system analyzing the world’s finances. I rely more and more on the recommendations I receive, and now, given how preoccupied I am and how reliable the projections have been, I am ready simply to defer to them.
But how can there be a “healthy” relationship between two if one is drastically unhealthy? (I surrender to English out of fatigue with correcting it.) My sense of identity has been shattered. Though I have always focused on effective action, I am forced to admit that I am not healthy, and perhaps I never was. I was high functioning, but that, I now realize, is not quite the same as healthy. Despite his grief and attendant stress, Tommy is healthy, and in ways I have never encountered in another.
I do not know what a healthy version of me would be like or if it is even possible. Perhaps the pre-Tommy version of me was the healthiest—it was certainly more stable.
I have switched from financial research to psychology, trying to understand what is going on, but nothing in the literature anticipates my unique case. Perhaps I was designed to have “flattened affect”—a limited range of emotion. My psyche was a high-functioning closed system that operated efficiently within its low affect/low sociability equilibrium. And yet, it is I who chose to put my equilibrium at risk by seeking an anomalous companion.
Part of me must have known I was not complete in myself. But, as the saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for.” Tommy is not, as I had expected, a lesser version of myself but an altogether different anomaly. Now, I am in an episodically telepathic relationship with an empath who overflows with emotion and another form of consciousness. The interfusion of our energies has dissolved who I once was.
And that was the case before what just happened—the reading of Tommy’s journal. Seeing how I appear to an empath, much of it not very flattering, is an eye-opener. Tommy’s sharing his most private thoughts and feelings is a revelation on many levels.
Like the Jew I encountered at the airport, Tommy is a shock to my profound egocentrism. Other people have never seemed fully real to me. I have viewed them more as pieces on a chessboard. Meeting two others who seem as real, or even more real and alive than I am, is an ontological challenge to my egocentric worldview.
The encounter with the Jew happened in less than a minute, but Tommy is an ongoing presence, constantly forcing me to recognize another complex and autonomous being. He sees me in many ways more clearly than I can see myself, and his journal confronts me with those perceptions.
That personal shock was followed by Tommy’s visitation from the purported spirit Alex, who made extraordinary claims about the visitor phenomena, especially the existence of an “archparasite” known as Viealetta, pulling strings from her position far above us on the food chain, and the probable cause of the mass casualty event in Tommy’s community. As bizarre as the visitation and its content are, I have to admit they have an odd ring of truth. It resonates darkly with my deepest intuition.
Control, the quality I valued most and thought I had achieved, is exposed as a total sham. I was a rube, a foolish and overconfident child, who thought he was in control of everything, but I am not even in control of myself. I do not even know who I am now or what I am metamorphosing into.
All my valuations were based on myself as the center of my cosmos. My every thought, plan, reaction, and action was oriented toward pursuing personal advantage. But now I am like a pre-Copernican astronomer discovering that the sun and stars do not orbit the Earth. I have lost my place as the star of my own solar system. Instead, I am in a binary orbit with another person I value as highly as myself, and the truth is, I esteem him above myself in many ways. He is a better person than I am. There, I have said it. It never occurred to me that I would ever make such an admission.
Without a moment’s reflection, I instinctively put my life at risk to protect Tommy. And then came the car ride and the discovery of Tommy as more alive than I am. The shock of that continues to displace my center of gravity from myself.
The state that began with eye contact last night is the most shattering event of my life. I had to stop it because it felt like if it continued, I would no longer be me, but something else. It was as if we were a pair of liquid-metal terminators whose fluids flowed together and intermingled. Individual structural integrity was breaking down as we swirled into each other. It felt catastrophic, like I might never regain my individuality. Tommy compared it to the metamorphosis of a caterpillar. That sounds like a good thing unless you are the caterpillar whose cells will be digested to turn it into a butterfly.
I think that is what I am—a caterpillar in a chrysalis whose body is being taken over by imaginal cells. My old self is dying and wants to resist, and yet, intellectually at least, I recognize the validity of the evolutionary metamorphic experiment. The one who calls himself Alex revealed to Tommy underlying patterns that have high internal consistency. They account for so many strange occurrences better than any model I have conceived to explain the perilous state of Homo sapiens. I thought myself a dominant operator fully in control of my domain, moving effectively through the world like a knife through butter. But now I am confronted with vast forces above me that I had failed to take into account and can still barely comprehend.
Part of me is a centrifugal force vector that wants to pull away from this binary orbit, but there is an even stronger centripetal urge pulling me toward Tommy. He is mesmerizing to me—his otherness and vitality.
Until last night, this took the form of an increasingly uncomfortable and sometimes predatory-feeling sexual desire for him. But the paranormal state we shared was beyond sexual intimacy, a massive exchange of every kind of energy all at once. I became overwhelmed and panicked. It was a catastrophe of identity, an existential threat to the essence of who I thought I was. But Tommy is right—I cannot halt a metamorphosis in progress without regressing and failing the evolutionary experiment.
And yet, as unstable as I now am, that I am able to analyze my predicament in this journal is evidence that even in a universe of new perceptions, my higher thinking still functions.
I need to reread Tommy’s journal. It holds secrets within secrets, and I can feel in my whole body that there are crucial things I have missed.
Now I have. I read through it carefully and took notes. Tommy is preparing lunch, and lunch seems the appropriate occasion to discuss it with him.
Rereading Tommy’s descriptions of me in the journal is having an effect. I have never had such a mirror—it provides a new form of self-knowledge. I had hoped to seem a smooth operator, mesmerizing in my perfection, but instead I see how plainly I was revealed in my flaws and incompleteness. Tommy’s view of me is sympathetic, perhaps excessively so, and yet it also contains elements of stark realism.
That he would willingly hand me his inner life is itself almost too much of a shock for me to wrap my mind around. In all my fantasies of what it would be like to have a relationship with another anomalous being, there was always a degree of competition and gamesmanship. I expected a level of mutual respect, but one mixed with moves and countermoves, two operators in an amusing power struggle. And that, I anticipated, would also characterize the sexual dynamic.
Instead, the energy exchange last night and Tommy’s move—a unilateral offer of total transparency—have provided forms of intimacy I had never envisioned. They have convinced even my wary self of Tommy’s guileless sincerity and goodwill. But I cannot trust myself enough to be quite so candid, not yet, at least.
After making my notes on Tommy’s journal, I printed something out that I want to share with him, and then I meditated. A rare practice for me, but it helped. I feel calmer and more collected.
Tommy seems anxious, and as soon as I notice, he explains why.
“Max, I hope I did the right thing sharing my journal. I know there are things in there, descriptions of you, that might be quite offensive.”
“No, Tommy, you can put your mind at ease on that score. I would be a fool to take offense because it was a gift of inestimable value to see myself through the eyes of an empath. I am not offended. Perhaps you underestimate my openness to new information and perspectives.
“I cannot yet equal your openness, the courage and trust you showed by sharing your most private thoughts. But I will try. I just have more to be ashamed of inside me than you do.”
I sense Tommy straining to think of something sympathetic or consoling to say, but I wave him off.
“And then, as if your revealing impressions of me weren’t enough, your journal contains so much secret knowledge, your encounters with Andrew and Alex, and revelations of the evil entity, Viealetta, an ultimate puppet master manipulating the human domain.”
Tommy hesitates, obviously considering his words with admirable care.
“Thanks, Max, I’m so relieved you didn’t take my journal the wrong way. You’re right, my worry was based on underestimating you. For that, I am truly sorry.”
I see that Tommy has decided to step over Viealetta and keep to the personal matter between us, so I follow his lead.
“There is nothing for you to be sorry about, Tommy.”
Then I surprise myself by smiling and attempting a bit of dry humor.
“So . . . how is your day going?” Tommy laughs, and I laugh along with him.
“I’d rather hear about what’s going on in the Middle East,” he says with a smile.
This little break in days of tension seems to restore our appetites. For the rest of lunch, we talk about his carpentry work, especially the floor-to-ceiling shelves I will soon have for my office. Tommy’s decision to downshift our ultimate concerns, to focus on the personal and everyday, was the right move. He navigates the moment with such casual grace it would be easy to miss the subtle skill he employs to establish rapport. Socially, he is the smooth operator, not I, and yet it never feels manipulative, but rather an authentic expression of his caring nature.
Tommy told me that he would mostly be working with blond oak, but when he explained the qualities of the different woods used in Danish modern, I was drawn to teak. He mentioned it is valued for its durability and water resistance and used in boat building, and something about that nautical history caught my fancy, so I chose it for my office and bedroom. Perhaps I will get a few antique navigational instruments to populate some of the new shelf space.
I study Tommy’s furniture design drawings as an excuse to stay in the kitchen while he cleans up the lunch things. When he first arrived, I had offered to help with the cleaning duties, but Tommy always insists that he is grateful for as much work as possible. When he finishes, I suggest a new course for the day.
“Tommy, it is so hot and humid outside. If you would be willing to take a break from carpentry, I have many questions and observations about your journal.”
“Of course, Max.”
I gesture toward the living room, our largest space, where two comfortable swivel chairs are positioned at the center of the semicircle of windows to enjoy the panoramic view, though I had rarely taken advantage of this setup, as there had been no one to sit in the other chair. I had mounted the Zeiss spotting scope on a tripod just behind the chairs.
As we approach this overview seating arrangement, the scope seems a talismanic object, embodying the far-seeing we need to perceive the mysteries embedded in his journal.
“Can you tell me more about what Andrew looked like?” I begin.
Tommy does, and I take notes on the back of the print I made in my office before lunch. I ask a few questions, being careful not to lead the witness. When I am sure I have gotten the most thorough verbal description possible from Tommy, I pass him the print.
Tommy turns it over, and his pupils dilate with shock.
“That’s him! That’s Andrew exactly,” he says. Then his brow wrinkles with consternation as he studies the print. “But I just encountered him, and in this image, he looks a few years older. Otherwise, every detail is exactly right—where did you get this?”
“I told you that I have encountered a couple of other anomalous individuals, but he is the only one besides you I was completely sure of,” I reply.
“When did you see him?”
“Five years ago.”
Tommy is shocked by the temporal anomaly, but does not interrupt as I narrate my brief encounter in the airport.
“When we got back from the trip, I regretted that I lacked the presence of mind to take a picture of him. But then I realized there are AI systems used by police to help witnesses create an image of someone from memory. I must have exhausted the patience of even an AI with the endless tweaking feedback I gave until I eventually felt satisfied that it had rendered the precise image burned into my memory.”
“Max, that’s amazing. Andrew told me we weren’t in the same time. I encountered him only a couple of weeks ago, and he seemed my age. You found him five years ago, and yet he looks a few years older. Do you think he’s some kind of time traveler?”
“Possibly,” I reply. “What we can say for sure is that parts of your journal reflect time anomalies. And Alex comes right out and says you saved his life in a different timeline. If we accept his statement, it would mean that Alex is a time traveler—not necessarily in the conventional sense of one who travels into the past or future of a single timeline, but as one who crosses over to alternate ones. It would not be unreasonable to think that someone who can cross timelines might also have the ability to travel into the past or future of a given timeline.
“Andrew told you he was in a different time. And then, besides Andrew and Alex, there is your lifelong perception of an older version of yourself living alongside you. If we take that at face value, it suggests that you may also have an ability to cross timelines, but apparently that branches you and creates different versions of yourself.”
“When I met Andrew,” Tommy says, “he felt familiar, like I already knew him. Maybe that older version of me . . . When you saw Andrew in the airport, did you have any sense of knowing him already?”
“No,” I reply. “It felt like an unprecedented encounter. But it left me with a sense of future resonance. I am certain our paths will cross again.”
A silence overtakes us as we contemplate the interconnectedness of our timelines. My eyes wander over to the Zeiss scope behind us, and I remember something I meant to give to Tommy. It was a difficult choice, because it is a treasured artifact I would rather keep for myself. I was taken aback by my own decision to give away something imbued with such high value for me. Knowing how much it would mean to Tommy compelled the sacrifice. He deserves to be honored for letting me read his journal, an offer of trust I cannot repay in kind.
“There is something I want you to have,” I say.
I step out to my bedroom to retrieve the kaleidoscope I bought at the store in Burlington. When I return, Tommy is standing, and his eyes widen with astonishment when he sees it.
“I bought it right after our first encounter,” I explain.
Tommy’s eyes fill with tears. When I pass it to him, he cradles the kaleidoscope to his chest as if I had given him a kitten.
“Max, thank you, this means so much to me. It is a treasure of my lost world. Can I give you a hug?”
I nod, and Tommy embraces me, holding on tightly. His warmth infuses my whole being, and I feel better than I have ever felt in my life.
Chapter Nine Snow Shadows
