The administrator was frowning. The orderly spoke nervously saying, “I don’t know where he’s gone. But wherever he is, he is no longer on the premises”. “I don’t think he’s dangerous though, just a little strange, that’s all. He’s got these weird ideas. For instance, he says everybody who ever lived is still with us … at least that’s what I think he’s saying. He says there is only space and that time doesn’t really exist … that time is just an idea people use to help keep track of the way things move around and change in space. He says it comes from the fact that with every beat of our hearts people change and the world changes too. With every heartbeat there is a new arrangement of cells and molecules in our bodies. Things move around … blood … air … and the universe takes on a new configuration. He says time is just a kind of shorthand that we invented because we can hear our hearts beating. We feel the changes flowing through us and call it ‘time’. But really, its just things moving around in space … you know “space” like Einstein or Euclid talked about … not necessarily, like … you know …’astronaut type space’”. 

 

The administrator growled impatiently, “Yes, yes Mr. Goodman I know what space is. Get to the point” and the orderly looked even more uncomfortable and continued, “He says we live in the same moment with Genghis Khan, and Adolph Hitler and Jesus Christ and Adam and Eve and everybody and everything that ever was. Actually, I’ve talked with him a lot. Well actually, I mostly just listened. He’s pretty interesting but a little … I dunno … a little bit, you know … abstract … sometimes. For instance, I start to get a little lost when he starts talking about how you’ve got to be really careful what you say or do or even think because it can’t help but change things … maybe everything … for everyone even the unborn. Remember! According to him, they’re going to be living with us in that moment too.”

 

“He says that even though we may think our thoughts are small and unimportant, they are actually very powerful because they create patterns … sometimes completely new patterns or sometimes they just reinforce older patterns.  As soon as we think them he says they create … like … vibrations, or ripples or some kind of field the way moving electrons make a magnetic field like we studied in high school. Anyway, it’s like that. And the ripples ... they change space and set a pattern for some of the changes coming after. He says it’s very mysterious but very powerful. Imagine! Just thinking! Not even writing it down or anything! Weird! But it’d be kind of cool if it only it were true. Of course, he says that writing your thoughts down is even more powerful because a bigger effort goes into it and you create more ripples … or, at least, bigger ripples. Ink needs to be made and spread around. Paper too. You need to think the thought over and over and (these are his words) ‘amplify and multiply the complexity of the patterns the neurons and electrical impulses make in your brain’. He says it’s the same with music too. Musicians make patterns that directly rearrange matter and stimulate emotional responses and brain activity and change the world forever … well not forever, exactly, because according to him there is no forever, there is only now". 

 

"Anyway …” said the orderly who had begun to visibly perspire because he knew he was babbling and had resolved to push on with his explanation regardless, “never mind the things you think!  Every breath you take changes things! When you breathe it changes the air … causes oxygen to be processed into carbon dioxide … makes heat … creates cells while other cells die and so on. He says that because we live in the same moment, if we could just rearrange all the matter in space in the exact same pattern as it had occupied as Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa … if we could get the sun and the moon and the stars into the same place and state as they were … and all Da Vinci’s molecules occupying the same area of space … we could be with him and see him make the painting. Except (and here the orderly paused) for that to happen our molecules would have to be somewhere else so we couldn’t be there after all … but you get the general idea”.

 

“Well I must say Goodman, you seem to have been spending a lot of time together with this resident and paying a lot of attention to him too given that he spends almost every waking minute under medication. I hope you don’t believe in this stuff! I hope you haven’t been encouraging him!” the administrator said accusingly.

 

The orderly blinked and reddened, realizing that perhaps he had been getting carried away with his explanation. Actually, he enjoyed thinking about the speculations of his patient and thought to himself, “Even with all the drugs this patient thinks more clearly has more imagination than you’ll ever have even on your best days, you overstuffed sausage.”

 

Goodman was well aware that delusions often exhibit an internal logic and consistency. He knew this was what made it impossible to reason with someone suffering from a delusion. The delusion insistently suggested an answer for every objection. He leaned back in his chair and tugged at the collar of his scrubs, ran his hand through his thick hair and looked at his white running shoes, saying, “Yeah I guess … but let me assure you I don’t doubt that he’s nuts. He just seems so convinced. I guess that’s what gets my attention. Take a look at this”, the orderly said, holding out a piece of paper. “Before he left, he wrote it. Looks like he left it for us to find. I came in on him when he was writing it. He was very intent. I kind of surprised him and he almost jumped off his chair when I came up and spoke to him. He said he was correcting a passage from the bible. He said that when the time was right he’d give it to me so that I could show it to the ‘proper authorities’ to have the passage changed. He said I had to do it for him because he had discovered he was living in the same moment described in the passage.   I didn’t know what he meant but that’s what he said and he assured me that, as a result, he was absolutely sure about the truth of the correction he was writing. He seems to have left it behind on his table like a little goodbye note.”

 

“What was the passage about?”, the administrator asked. The orderly hesitated momentarily, seemingly out of embarrassment but mostly just for effect, and then continued, saying, “Uh, sir … it was about … uh … Creation. … You know … Adam and Eve.”

 

The administrator reached out for the piece of paper, crooked a meaty forefinger and beckoned for it to be delivered   Goodman gingerly handed over the single sheet of paper. Putting on his heavy black-rimmed glasses the administrator, with mock solemnity, began reading as though he were the lector in a Sunday service.