Illusions Of Time

"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once."–Albert Einstein

15 March, 1926

I do not know for how much longer I shall be able to resist the surreal illusions of time, for they are the haunting reflection of an irresistible guise of a conspicuous reality that I cannot confirm to be the actual form of my existential world. I have made the meticulous decision to write down in my journal every significant detail or event that has occurred to me, ever since I first discovered this anomalous force of nature.

It has been over a week since I began experimenting with the topic of time and its correlation to the material reality of which we form a part of its construed composition. As a physicist, I have followed in the conscientious steps of others who have adopted the study of physics—such as Einstein, Bohr, and Heisenberg, amongst others—as the compass to my research.

What I have learnt has filled my mind entirely with episodes of sudden terror and frisson that no man should experience without consequence. My name is Antoine Duval, a Frenchman by birth and descent. I have always considered myself an adventurous man of science, but the unnatural phenomenon I am confronting is something whose derivation is beyond the scope of human comprehension.

For some unknown reason, it has corresponded with my present reality. I have still not been able to determine, with precise acumen and assiduity, the thing that triggered the insoluble consequences of the events that ensued thereafter. All that I have managed to construct in the elaboration of my thoughts have been approximations of reality, but I am strongly convinced that I am on the verge of discovering the quintessential element that will prove my theory on time, as it relates to the common notions established in physics.

I have come too far to relinquish that which I have already entered—the inusitate realm of the universe. Science should never be presumed superannuated.

20 March, 1926

Whilst at my residence in Paris, conducting an experiment, I began to perceive the perplexing intervals of time as they materialised. According to some of the more opined physicists, while we experience time as being real, time is not fundamentally real in its absolute essence.

At the profound foundations of nature, time is not an arcane, irreducible element required to construct the concept of reality. The idea that time is not real is counterintuitive in its supposition. In 1905, Einstein proved that time, as it had been previously understood by physics, was merely fiction. He realised that it was abstracted from our experience with palpable phenomena and contingencies.

If time is a progression of events from the past to the future, it must manifest in some capacity. It must be integral to the manner in which humans perceive the present world. If time moves only in a singular direction and does not reverse its sequence, then how did I return to the past?

Several scientists hold the belief that time is not a fixed and objective reality, but rather a subjective and human-made illusion. I was well informed about how time functioned in different places in the world and with differing perceptions and observations. If I could only determine the space that permits time to connect with our operative reality...

Is it possible to imagine that one day we could advance in time enough to regress to the past somehow? What if time were construed to be as real as space and presumed to be the fourth dimension in the cosmos? Is time an emergent property developed by the course of action? Could time, in fact, be rendered as an imminent paradox? The theory of relativity and quantum mechanics have recently emerged in the early twentieth century.

I had grown up with Newton's laws of motion, which required time to have many specific features elaborated. As true observers in principle, we must agree on the sequence in which certain events occur and are dictated. Regardless of when or where the events occur, we can know whether they happen before, after, or simultaneously with any other relatable event or cause in the universe that has manifested as coetaneous.

Thus, time provides a complete order of all the demonstrative events in the world, in its chronology. Time must be continual in order for us to define the property of velocity. It must also include the elements of duration and acceleration.

25 March, 1926

I awoke from the most horrendous nightmare, and I have felt a pricking anxiety billow like a raging surf ever since. The indelible images conjured in my mind have persisted with a regularity that would compel me to believe that what I had seen were actual moments in time developed.

It has been impossible to extract the supernumerary thoughts I have perceived, and not assume their ultimate horrors. I have documented every occasion that has presented me with an ambiguous situation, which has left a ponderous impression upon my psyche.

If I could only determine the intermittent level of the intervals at the interface between reality and time, I would be capable of establishing the pertinent connection that binds them to the world of mortals. According to Einstein’s theory of time travel, if a person were to travel at the speed of light, time on Earth would appear to slow down. What if cosmic time coincided with reality in the greater scheme?

I have found myself, at times, within a revolving matrix or vortex that has allowed me to enter the surreptitious dimensions of time and reality—universal in their composition, but accessible to me through the advent of a vintage clock that I had built, which permitted the influx of light and the recording of time.

It was not my interest to emphasise the time of the clock. What I was more concerned with achieving was the probability of effecting reality with the time not recorded by the clock. In other words, the motion of time and its manifestation, which were existential and universal.

What is meant by that analogy is that time in the cosmos is infinitely incomparable to the time we record with our clocks and watches. If it is true that the contrast between the two types of time is variable, then that would suggest that time from the past and future could be altered by some incredible mechanism of transitiveness. The question I had pondered was: could they meet for a brief period at a door of a revolving nature? How fascinating that notion was to me.

30 March, 1926

The eerie sounds of Parisian life reach my ears day and night, causing me many sleepless nights and discomforts. My acute senses are those of heightened awareness, and they have allowed me to hear and perceive things that ordinary people could not—things beyond the threshold of typical sentience. I know there is no rational explanation that could elucidate these unusual occurrences and their unpredictable nature.

However, within the entries of my journal, I acknowledge that I have begun to find myself immersed in a particular process of change. I discovered that I had left the front door open the previous night, though I clearly remembered locking it. I found myself sleeping on the canapé the following morning, despite having gone to bed in my room. Pieces of furniture had vanished and were replaced by other indeterminate objects, unrecognised by me—or so I believed in my keen assumption. It was a telling moment of déjà vu.

A music box had been playing music. I had seen this music box before in the window display of an antique shop near the Marché aux Puces de la Porte de Vanves. The strange thing was that I had no recollection of purchasing the item. Had I inadvertently travelled to the past a day earlier, or had my memory failed me?

There was a phonograph that appeared to be from the late 19th century. Yet something even more disturbing appeared in my room—a peculiar device I had never seen before. It resembled some kind of radio, with no wires attached, and its design was futuristic, bearing the date 2026.

Was this solid proof that I had somehow travelled into both the past and the future, or was it simply an anachronism? But how could that be feasible? There must be a contingent factor within the fabric of reality that allowed this phenomenon to materialise so abruptly.

2 April, 1926

I pondered incessantly during the day the intrinsic nature of how I was able to traverse time without full awareness of its consequence or coherence. These constant thoughts and speculations had begun to dull my senses, prompting me to seek the discipline of retrospection to resolve this abnormality.

There was something elusive in the contrast between the conscious and subconscious realms, something beyond the rationale of my judicious comprehension. If time permitted me to traverse its boundless dimension, then how could I attempt to describe, with precision, the probability of such an occurrence—unless it involved an intricate portal?

If so, this could explain the unusual nature of the dichotomy between universal time and our constructed, elaborated time. The mere contemplation of such a thing is complex in its depth. There must be an irrefutable pattern in the appearance of these inexplicable events, which I suspect are all interconnected. I am determined to study this supposed pattern in depth and also examine the indubitable clues left behind, the vestiges of these occurrences.

As a devoted man of science, I depend on observation and knowledge to form my interpretations. One thing I am certain of is the recurring effects of the passage of time. What remains uncertain is how I initiated these travels. The more I cogitate, the more restless I become. Objects are appearing that I cannot trace to any particular date of purchase or gift.

5 April, 1926

Today, I spent hours attempting to interpret my calculations and theories on time travel. The laborious thoughts I deduced triggered a reaction in me that was perhaps more analytical than speculative. They lent credence to the idea that time is relegated to our construct of its essence and remains an abstraction we are compelled to reduce to the framework of our existence.

This is, evidently, nothing more than a reflection of our limited accuracy in projecting the materialisation of time. The pattern of time’s course could only be explicated through the emerging principles of 20th-century physics.

Not even a man with encyclopaedic knowledge could ascertain, with mathematical precision, the ultimate answers to the mystery of time. Despite the evolution of physics—and science, for that matter—many aspects remain indistinct, hindering progress. I have read countless books on the subject of time travel, yet none have resolved the enigma.

The encroachment of time upon reality has prompted scientists to devise theories that approximate the difference between real time and abstract time to allow time travel. If I could pinpoint the exact moment where cosmic time and reality converge, I could demonstrate its complexity with tangible proof—evidence that is not only incontrovertible but measured by the standards of existence.

Existence, indeed, is the key to analysing this process more effectively. I remain intrigued by the driving force of time behind the supposed portal and its potential dilation.

8 April, 1926

I invited my good friend and fellow physicist, Professor Laurent Moreau, to my residence to discuss the subject troubling me: time travel. Upon his arrival, I immediately commenced our conversation, eager to share my thoughts. It is vital to me to trust the minds of other intellectual men of science and to exchange ideas.

He would ultimately be the one to make me see the distinction between reality and surreality. We were both firm advocates of physics and its advancement, yet we diverged in our theories of time. I believed time consists of both our constructed time and a broader cosmic time. Professor Moreau believed time to be merely abstract, a creation of our adaptation to the cosmos. He raised the issue of temporal paradoxes.

I did not dispute time as an abstraction; my contention lay in its possible intersection with present reality. The professor could not accept time travel as a probability, but I attempted to convince him. I boldly showed him the objects in my possession.

At first, my demonstration did not persuade him. It would take more extraordinary evidence to validate my claims and earn his scientific trust. These anonymous oddities remained unexplained.

I needed more time to elaborate and apply my innovative concepts. The crucial point I emphasised was the convergence of recorded time with the undiscovered dimensions of the cosmos.

I explained to him that if time were a single dimension but congruous with spatial dimensions, then the laws of nature would differentiate between time and the others—perhaps even between multiple timelike and spacelike dimensions.

Thus, time would remain one-dimensional, as no two timelike dimensions are ever orthogonal in structure. This would suggest that time is perceived as different when, in reality, it is only different in our perception. In the end, Professor Moreau was as intrigued as I, captivated by the mysterious nature of time and its surreptitious origin.

12 April, 1926

After another week had passed, I remained enthralled by recent occurrences. The resemblance between these episodes and the events I had previously experienced left me increasingly unnerved and consternated. I visited the office of Dr Bernard Charbonnier, as he had been recommended to me for his knowledge concerning the boundaries of the mind and its limitations. I was increasingly troubled by doubts about my rationality.

It was not that I believed I was losing my mind entirely—rather, I wondered if it was possible that my mind was conjuring images or suffering from lapses in memory, thereby misrepresenting the events unfolding around me. I needed certainty about whether what I was experiencing was factual. Following the consultation, nothing of extreme relevance was determined, aside from the recommendation of rest and medication to alleviate my anxious flights of fancy. Dr. Charbonnier appeared puzzled by my condition and suggested I consider hypnosis—a procedure I was hesitant to undertake.

That night, I fell asleep after returning home and again found myself asleep on the canapé, rather than in my bed. I awoke drenched in sweat, but more unsettling was the shocking realisation that my clothing, including my shoes, was completely soaked. It had not been raining when I had left my home nor when I returned. I began to undress, and a folded newspaper fell from the pocket of a trench coat I had no memory of wearing.

Upon retrieving it, I discovered the date printed on the newspaper: 1945. The sheer implausibility of this discovery stunned me. Had I travelled—somehow—to the year 1945? Or was this merely a misprint? The difference between past, present, and future was becoming increasingly obfuscated. How was I to make sense of this unusual discovery and its cruel irony?

15 April, 1926

I have begun attempting to define the perimeters of my mind and verify my thoughts through the study of physics. If I am capable of transcending the physical realm, am I also surpassing the boundaries of my subconscious and conscious mind? How could such a thing be proven, without becoming ensnared in the matrix of cosmic time?

If, by chance, my movement is connected to interstellar time travel, then perhaps I have briefly accessed a secret and unknown realm. Yet if cosmic time allows only forward progression, not regression, how have I managed to experience the past? My experiences seem to gravitate towards the future. I cannot say with certainty that I have travelled into the past in the strictest sense. What I do know is that I have passed through a portal of illimitable time—what I can only call cosmicity.

The very idea of such a thing is both frightening and exhilarating. I have tried to rationalise everything through science, but I am beginning to realise that science alone cannot resolve the delicate intricacies of what we call reality. I could spend innumerable hours drafting formulas to decipher the mechanics of time travel, yet none would yield absolute certainty—only assumption at best.

There exists no precedent, no comparative phenomenon, with which to equate my inusitate experience. That was, until I met Madame Camille Garnier.

18 April, 1926

This morning, as spring awakened the city, I received a peculiar knock on my door. A woman stood there, identifying herself with clarity, though I had never seen her before. I had no suspicion of the strange bond that would soon unite us in pursuit of an elusive truth.

I invited her inside, and we began to exchange our peculiar accounts. At first, she was cautious, but she grew more open as we spoke. The unnatural experiences she described bore striking resemblance to my own. Though our encounters were not identical, they were vivid and demonstrative.

There was a haunted look in her eyes—a terrifying lucidity in her expression. When I told her of my own unexplained experiences with time travel, her reaction was immediate and visceral. It became clear: we were both, in some inexplicable way, travellers of time. We concluded that whatever was occurring to us defied ordinary comprehension. I calmed her to ensure she could continue relaying details with precision; I needed coherence, not hysteria.

Eventually, she admitted that she feared what might ultimately become of her. Her lack of understanding was driving her towards despair. I offered her the best counsel I could. Yet what shook me to my core was her revelation: she had met me in the future. Her words chilled me to my very soul.

20 April, 1926

I have spent this entire morning pacing through my home, overwhelmed by the astonishing testimony of Madame Garnier. She confirmed she had experienced episodes strikingly similar to mine. There is so much about time yet to be understood—and so little time afforded to me to unravel this enigma.

How many others have shared this phenomenon? It is impossible to know the number with any degree of accuracy. All I can do is continue documenting these abnormal events, both in my life and, now, in the lives of others.

Despite my lingering doubts, I remain convinced that time is central to the fabric of existence. The human concept of time, though necessary for civilisation, is incomparable to the essence of cosmic time that governs the universe in its mysterious structure.

If I could isolate the sequence of events that permitted my traversal through time, I might be able to measure and understand its velocity and effects. But this requires further observation and deeper understanding.

If change is the qualitative difference between temporal parts of something, then its essence remains constant even as its form alters. Physics has guided me thus far, but it is insufficient in answering the greater questions I now face.

For the moment, I must accept that I am an unwilling participant in something unnatural, yet undeniably real. My perception continues to evolve—yet it still eludes a complete grasp of what time travel is. The ambiguity of time leaves me restless and unmoored.

25 April, 1926

The whole day it rained, and I could hear the distinct peal of thunder until it faded into a distant growl. I was forced to remain indoors, which afforded me time to collect my thoughts and conduct an experiment essential to my theory.

If what I was experiencing was mere coincidence rather than contingency, then what could trigger the portal of time travel? But if it was indeed contingent upon some unknown variable, this would imply that existential time must intersect with existential reality. How could I prove either of these suppositions in scientific terms?

I turned my attention to the giant clock in the corridor and began to count, observing how long it would take to notice any discrepancy in the elapsed time—something not in accordance with our conventional design of time. After an hour and a half had passed, something indeterminate began to occur.

I perceived a gradation of time. The large hand on the clock began to slow conspicuously, as did the smaller one. Everything around me, including my own movements, seemed to reduce into a state of lentitude—as if some external force had altered time itself.

It was a reciprocal of velocity, but it ultimately initiated the process of time travel. The next moment, I found myself in the middle of the streets of Paris—what appeared to be the year 1942. German soldiers, later identified to me as Nazis, patrolled the streets with rigid vigilance. It became immediately clear: the Germans had occupied the city. I had been transported to the historical period of the Second World War.

Fortunately for me, my stay was brief. I hid behind a nearby building until I returned to my own time—1926—bearing more incertitude than ever.

30 April, 1926

Today I visited the home of Professor Moreau. I felt an urgent need to speak with him about what had transpired. I could not remain tranquil, knowing I had triggered a sequence I had consciously experienced—unlike previous occurrences, which had been more vague or dreamlike. This episode had engaged all my senses acutely. It was imperative that I describe it in scientific terms so as to formulate an account that was not only correlative, but also valid.

Before departing the scene in 1942 Paris, I had inadvertently brought back a beret lying on the ground—clearly from that era. I recall the sensation of touching its wool and crocheted cotton, a tangible sign from another time. At last, I had material evidence of my journey. But who would believe me?

When I showed the beret to Professor Moreau and explained my strange experience, he was bewildered and uncertain how to respond. When he finally did speak, his words were more questions than answers. The beret alone did not convince him, but he was intrigued by my account of the German occupation of Paris.

Regrettably, I could provide few concrete details beyond what I had gleaned during my brief and sudden encounter. We discussed the experiment with the clock, and he wondered whether the entire episode could have been a subconscious dream that had manifested vividly. I assured him it was no dream.

02 May, 1926

I decided to revisit Dr Charbonnier to see whether he could help solve the mystery that now consumed me. He had previously offered to hypnotise me, and this time I was willing to submit to the procedure. Once at his office, I explained my intention—to undergo hypnosis in hopes of shedding light on the phenomena.

Dr Charbonnier was a man of reason, possessing both a clinical mind and genuine skill in hypnotism. He concluded that whatever was affecting me stemmed from an imbalance within my mind, perhaps influenced by the nature of my surroundings. In my earlier visit, the limits of the mind’s threshold had not yet been explored.

Now, the challenge was to prove my theory of time travel, and he was willing to assist in that fascinating endeavour. I lay on a canapé, listening intently to his instructions as the session commenced. Gradually, I succumbed to the anodyne effect of his voice.

The session lasted more than half an hour. In the end, Dr Charbonnier confessed that I appeared to genuinely believe I had travelled to a distant—or near—future that felt vivid and tangible. According to him, I had so thoroughly convinced myself of these abnormalities that my mind had begun to manifest them as reality.

Furthermore, he suggested that I might be suffering from a tumour, one capable of causing such vivid and elaborate hallucinations. He recommended a reputable physician on the Rue de la Chaussée-d’Antin—a good friend of his, and an expert on tumours of the brain. I left his office not entirely shaken, but convinced I was not hallucinating.

08 May, 1926

There is no one I can fully convince of the truth—or what I hold to be the truth. Those to whom I have confided my accounts, with the exception of Madame Garnier, doubt whether these surreal occurrences are not merely the products of a disturbed mind.

This has only deepened my disquiet, for I am incapable of producing irrefutable proof of my time travels. Perhaps I am exhibiting more erratic behaviour than necessary. But are illusions merely figments of mental construction? No—I cannot resign myself to that conclusion. The things I have seen and begun to remember possess a realism that cannot be easily dismissed.

There is a feckless rage of insurmountability growing within me. Never have I felt so powerless and uncertain. I am a scientist—I have always prided myself on my acumen and my discoveries. Is it possible, then, that I am losing my mind?

But what of the evidence I have gathered? Surely that should suffice. And yet, what if it is convincing only to me? Could my mind be conjuring these dramatic images—distorting my perception and understanding of time? If so, then my mind is yielding to the ghastly fate of self-destruction. That is a daunting thought I can scarcely tolerate.

The matter cannot be resolved through physics alone. I need assistance, and the only one I can now trust is Madame Garnier.

10 May, 1926

I went to visit the home of Madame Garnier on Rue Saint-Germain-des-Prés. I had not been able to sleep for the past few days and was troubled by what Dr Charbonnier had related to me. I began to think that the reality we understood, in the mortal sense, was merely a constructed illusion of the true façade of time.

Was it truly inconceivable to fathom such a detailed anomaly? If it did indeed exist, as the doctor had suggested, then this deception had been superbly fabricated by my mind. Madame Garnier was eager to speak to me when I knocked and entered her home.

When she spoke, I could see the sheer intensity in her eyes. She handed me a journal that she wished to give me personally. It was no ordinary journal—for it was my own, written in my original handwriting. I was shocked, and as I began to peruse it, I discovered that it was indeed my journal. Its last page had been torn. But how could that be remotely plausible? What Madame Garnier revealed to me was that in the near future, I had given her this journal with instructions to keep it safe.

She told me that this occurred on the 18th of May—some eight days from now. She offered little else in her revelation, save to confirm that we were destined to have this encounter. I had an intuitive sense that she knew more than she was willing to disclose, but she remained silent on further details.

Was what she knew too portentous or too damaging to my reputation? Was she seized with fear or intimidation? We agreed to remain in contact. My intention was to assist her in understanding the episodes of time travel.

13 May, 1926

I was plagued by horrid nightmares that caused me to question the state of my mind even more than before. I often wondered what exactly had been written on the last, now-torn, page of my private journal. It must have contained something hideous and chaotic—something Madame Garnier was reluctant to reveal overtly.

I found myself more surprised by what I had discovered than by what I understood. Were these nightmares somehow linked to the rudimentary essence of my subconscious? Had my subconscious prevailed over my conscious mind?

There was a queer feeling within me, as though I were treading across the boundary of reality. I could not accept that I had an expanding tumour in my brain. The ceaseless cracks of fear consumed me with a fitful irrationality. Professor Moreau advised me to visit my doctor to determine whether or not I did, in fact, have a tumour. He attempted to convince me, but I resisted.

Quite simply, I did not wish to know. I preferred to believe that I had been travelling through time rather than suffering from hallucinatory illusions. I knew that sooner or later, I would discover the ultimate truth, one way or the other. I began to feel my physical strength wane with each passing day, becoming more susceptible to the fragility of my body amid the turbulence of my torment.

Henceforth, my days were spent more in rest than in activity. I also grew increasingly annoyed and frustrated by the noise outside. I longed to live in absolute silence, but was unable to achieve that coveted desire.

It was impossible to live a normal life. I had been reduced to a pernicious shadow of myself and was rapidly descending into the dark abyss of deteriorating mental health. I no longer possessed coherent thoughts, but rather quasi-thoughts—disjointed and fragmented.

18 May, 1926

I contemplated, for a moment, the ineffaceable horror of my death in the succession of events yet to occur. It struck me that reality, when compared to existential time in the universe, was inevitable only through our perception. In other words, time could not be comprehended unless it interacted with my reality, which I could assume to be actual. This brought to mind Aristotle's theory regarding actuality and potentiality. If a thing that exists only potentially does not yet exist, the potentiality itself still exists—therefore, it remains existential.

According to Aristotle, this is connected to motion. What if time were encompassed by the existence of a revolving matrix in constant motion? Could such a thing exist and be the very instrument that enables my travel through time?

If time is conditioned solely by our perception, then it becomes futile. But if it forms the true shape of reality, then it manifests as an existing element of a universal force—coinciding with our concept of the real. The contrariety of that notion would be rendered illogical.

From that day onwards, my episodes of time travel became less frequent. Had the time warp which enabled me to traverse time begun to close? The thought alone drove me mad, as I considered the endless, unimaginable possibilities still unexplored. I experienced one final, memorable episode, exactly as Madame Garnier had once foretold.

This time, I found myself once more at her residence. When she greeted me, she instinctively understood the reason for my visit. She had seen the wretched pallor that had turned my countenance into a spectral shade of a man. I confessed immediately that I had come to give her my private journal for safekeeping.

Something within me compelled me to confide in her. I had no one else with whom I could share these engrossing experiences. Nor could I explain the perplexity of this situation to anyone else—one for which there was no reasonable solution. I left her residence and returned home.

24 May, 1926

Professor Moreau visited Duval. He found him in a deplorable state of mind, lying on the floor. Duval’s consciousness had drifted into the timeless passage of no return. There was no one else in the home—only the two of them. For brief moments, Duval regained rationality. When Moreau attempted to question him persistently, Duval could only murmur that he felt himself slipping away into the recesses of the obscuration of his mind.

The remainder of his speech was incoherent—words Professor Moreau could not comprehend. What Duval described was analogous to electrical shockwaves bursting through the interstices of his brain. His memory had started to fade as well. The only constant in his mind was the realisation that he was gradually dying. The following excerpt is from Professor Moreau’s journal:

Professor Duval had become too unstable and intractable for treatment, whether through intellectual discourse or prescribed medication. He claimed that particles of myriad thoughts from his brain had consistently manifested within the fleeting passage of time’s flowing ripples, forming into seamless shapes of drear and forsaken isolation—mere illusions, it seemed.

He was a prisoner of the metallic, twirling circle of solid, oval despair dictated by the horrid clock in his corridor. He had plunged deeper into the chasm of madness, engraved into his very being. The haunting hands of the mechanical clock resounded a relentless tick-tock, tick-tock—reverberating in his torment-stricken head.

He heard the noise drown him in a mosaic pit of eternal echoes. In frantic desperation, his discomposed face contorted as he uttered, 'I am trapped inside the sloping outer walls of my pain and the broad barriers of my condemnation'.

He paused then continued, 'I can see surreal images of events floating through space, and I observe the visible faces of a daunting future. My silent screams burst through the frame of the clock, shattering the old glass and the curved edges of this dented prison—like the full force of a sonic bang of such deafening intensity, tumbling the cracked walls of my subconscious realm'.

He looked at me, “I shout to the world the clamour of my liberation. I am free at last—but the world outside is nothing more than the hollow and hoary guises of doom, Professor. I am trapped in the illusions of time. I am not dreaming, for I am a part of a revolving matrix that has not yet been recognised. Whatever my fate may be in regard to my existence, I shall either become a memory or a life form. I tell you—I am free at last.”

He kept on repeating the same phrase: “I am free at last!” That was the final, dramatic utterance he made before he ultimately succumbed to the hysteria of his excruciating death. He died with his eyes wide open and dilated.

His pallid skin was utterly blanched, revealing the debilitating effects of his dreadful illness. Never before had I witnessed a man die in such a vivid manner—consumed by broken delusions. As a personal friend and compeer of his, I was deeply disturbed by this shocking outcome. A pang of guilt overcame me, knowing I had not insisted he see his doctor sooner, to address the likely presence of a brain tumour.

I alerted the police by telephone.

Before I left the residence, I noticed something peculiar lying beside him—an object I had not initially seen at the moment of his death. It was a newspaper, dated from the year 1945, bearing the headline announcing the end of the Second World War. In the lower right-hand corner was an article featuring a photograph of a man—none other than Antoine Duval.

In the days that followed Duval’s death, the house at Rue Saint-Germain-des-Prés descended into an eerie stillness, as though it, too, had succumbed to a kind of mourning. The creak of the wooden floorboards, once familiar beneath hurried footsteps, now echoed with the hollow finality of absence. The authorities had concluded their brief investigation swiftly. There was no indication of foul play, only the predictable verdict of a deteriorating neurological condition, possibly a tumour of the brain. The man, they claimed, had simply been ill—delusional, perhaps brilliant, but ultimately another mortal undone by biology.

For those persons who had known Antoine Duval intimately, the official account was wholly insufficient. Something unexplainable had permeated the final days of his existence—something that defied science and conventional reason. That atmosphere lingered in every corner of the house, in the scent of old books, in the dust that collected on the writing desk, and most poignantly, in the still-broken clock that remained on the far wall of his study.

The room appeared undisturbed, yet the air hung with a subtle electricity, as though time itself had paused out of respect—or uncertainty. The shattered face of the timepiece revealed its hands frozen at 3:41, the exact moment Duval had cried aloud that he was free. No one could say what that final exclamation had truly meant. But its echo seemed to stretch well beyond the confines of the room.

Professor Moreau, a longtime friend and confidant of Duval’s, had returned several times to the residence, unable to shake the sense that something vital remained unresolved. On his final visit, he had been accompanied by Madame Garnier, a woman with whom Duval had shared a private and intellectual kinship. She moved through the house with quiet familiarity, pausing in places where others would simply pass by. She seemed to trace the spirit of the man in her silent gestures, her eyes often lingering on objects long untouched.

In the study, she had stood before the broken clock for what seemed an eternity. Her gaze was fixed, not upon the time it displayed, but on the space around it—as though she perceived in its fracture a gateway, or a scar torn across the fabric of reality. Nothing was said. Nothing needed to be. For both visitors, the house no longer felt like a dwelling of the living, but a sanctum of the departed—perhaps not only of Duval, but of something greater, something untethered.

Amongst the remnants of Duval’s final days lay the journal he had written in feverishly, even during the collapse of his faculties. Its leather binding was worn, and the pages crackled beneath cautious fingers. The writing grew more chaotic towards the end—fragments of memory, sudden shifts in perspective, strange notations that referenced not only events from the past, but those seemingly yet to occur.

One passage stood out amidst the fevered script. It hinted at a consciousness unstuck from linear time—a perception that looped and spiralled across centuries, experiencing the fall of empires, the stirrings of life in unknown cities, and the intimate thoughts of others, not as a hallucination, but as a lived simultaneity. Duval appeared to believe that his death was not an ending, but an unravelling. That his mind, freed from the decaying vessel of the body, had returned to something eternal. His illness, in his own words, had become a catalyst—a terrible key that unlocked the borders of time itself.

Beneath the final entries lay the torn remains of what seemed to be one last revelation, carefully removed. No one could ascertain its contents. It was as though Duval had foreseen the danger of leaving it behind. Perhaps he feared it would unravel others, as it had unravelled him.

Beside his lifeless form, discovered days earlier, had lain a yellowed newspaper dated 1945. Its front page bore the headline announcing the end of the Second World War. In the lower corner, an article bore the unmistakable photograph of a young man resembling Duval, his name printed clearly beneath. There had been no explanation for the paper’s presence, nor the strange accuracy of the image. Moreau had turned the matter over countless times in his mind, but no rational explanation presented itself.

Following the funeral—an event marked by austere simplicity—Duval’s few remaining acquaintances drifted apart. The house was left unoccupied. Over time, ivy grew up the façade, and the windows darkened with the stain of rain and silence. Madame Garnier disappeared from public life not long after, her address no longer valid, her residence emptied of all possessions. No one ever heard from her again. Her departure felt less like a disappearance than a vanishing—a final act of retreat from the known world.

Professor Moreau returned to his academic obligations, yet the world he re-entered felt altered. He found himself drawn more frequently to moments of stillness, to the ticking of clocks, to the subtle shifts of light at dusk. The ticking, once a metronome of ordinary time, had taken on a different meaning—a reminder that time was not a linear flow, but a loop, an echo, perhaps even an illusion.

He kept Duval’s journal hidden in a drawer of his desk, too afraid to read it again, too reverent to destroy it. On certain evenings, when the air grew heavy and thought seemed to stretch beyond the immediate, he would sit before his own clock and observe the second hand complete its revolutions. It brought him neither comfort nor fear, only a silent contemplation of recurrence.

There were actual moments when he swore he heard a faint murmur—not within the house, but within his own consciousness. A voice, not external, but remembered. Not a memory exactly, but something that returned like breath or wave.

Not the voice of madness, but the echo of a final truth.

Not the declaration of a broken man, but the release of a soul unbound.

He is free at last.

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