Hazards of Time Travel

by Joyce Carol Oates

  “Please don’t cry.”

  I hadn’t known that I was crying.

  Why, when I was so happy?

  The Bat

  We set our faces forward. We did not look back.

  Soon we were out of sight of the university campus and ever more faintly came the chapel bell like something heard undersea.

  The trail ascended. The trail was soft with pine needles yet there were outcroppings of rock that mimicked steps, you had to be careful not to turn your ankle as you climbed.

  The trail was steep enough yet would have been steeper, near-vertical, were it not for numerous switchbacks.

  These switchbacks cast us back upon ourselves, it almost seemed. Our progress was slow for the trail was shaped like a great snake with a rippling body. If Wolfman plunged ahead, the switchbacked trail cast him not so very distant from me, approaching and then passing me, as I followed trying not to stagger beneath the weight of my backpack.

  Wolfman had said—A backpack can mean the difference between death and survival. A backpack can save your life.

  High overhead in the trees, quarrelsome birds.

  The trail became fainter. The trail was lost in the pine forest.

  Yet, Wolfman pressed forward. And I followed.

  Miles of forest. Climbing what must have been the side of a mountain. And then, beginning a sharp descent that was as difficult as the ascent.

  Small avalanches were loosed by our feet.

  We were panting, from the ascent. We were wary of the descent for descents are always dangerous.

  The sun had shifted in the sky. The sun had been blinding, our eyes filled with tears.

  We were very happy! Soon, we would be free of Wainscotia.

  Yet, after six hours of hiking Wolfman cried out in surprise and disappointment—“My God!”

  At first, I didn’t understand.

  Then, I saw.

  Though we’d been walking for six hours, following the trail that Wolfman had carefully chosen for us, to lead us to St. Cloud, it seemed that the trail had looped back upon itself, and had brought us again to the entrance of the arboretum, close by the university campus. The tolling sound we’d been hearing was the chapel bell.

  Wolfman said, “This isn’t possible . . .”

  I could not believe that we’d returned to the campus, yet it appeared to be so—the trail had betrayed us, leading us in a large looping circle. We had climbed up the side of a mountain and we had descended the side of a mountain. We had believed that we were miles from Wainscotia and yet—we had covered less than a quarter mile.

  Somehow, the trail with its many tortuous switchbacks had turned us around, though on the maps it led out of the arboretum, unmistakably.

  Wolfman was staring at the map, trying to determine where he’d made a mistake. But I could see that Wolfman hadn’t made a mistake, except in his conviction that we could leave Wainscotia.

  “We’re trapped, Ira. We can’t leave. I knew this.”

  “Go back, then! Go back alone. I’m not coming back with you.”

  Wolfman’s voice shook with fury.

  Wolfman pushed away my hand. He’d turned and was half-running, panting, back along the trail.

  A roaring rose in my ears. I wanted to follow him, to stop him. But I could not move any farther, I was so very tired.

  Six hours and more I had been hiking in this accursed place. Six hours and more, and the trail had brought us back to our beginning.

  I called after Wolfman, who ignored me. Wolfman, my love!

  Overhead, birds were fluttering in the trees. Was it dusk, so soon? A nervous chattering of birds, a flurry of wings.

  In pine branches overhead a small bird, possibly a bat, was circling strangely, as if rabid. Then, as I stared, the thing—black, swift, unerring—swooped down to rush at Wolfman, struck him on the side of the head and entered his head, suddenly aflame, engulfing him in flames, within seconds turning the man to vapor only a few feet from me.

  There had been time for only a brief high-pitched cry of horror and loss—I think it must have been mine.

  For in that instant Wolfman fell, Wolfman died, Wolfman vanished from Zone 9.

  III

  Wainscotia Falls

  HIKER STRUCK BY LIGHTNING, WAINSCOTIA ARBORETUM

  18-YEAR-OLD WAINSCOTIA STUDENT HOSPITALIZED

  Found Unconscious on Trail by Hiker, Dog

  Wainscotia Falls Journal-American, May 20, 1960

  Saved

  A warm soft muzzle against my face that had gone stiff with cold.

  For in shock the blood had drained from my brain.

  My breathing had ceased. Like a living creature that has been pinched cruelly in two, and its life snuffed out.

  Where I’d fallen heavily on the trail. Outcropping of shale sharp against my stunned face which bled from abrasions I could not see and could scarcely feel.

  Could not move not even to cast my eyes into the place where Wolfman had died.

  What had been Wolfman, destroyed.

  Shock like icy water into which I’d been flung. The shock of an arrested heartbeat. Eyes blinded by light.

  Then came a sudden warmth against my face. The panting-hot breath, a dog’s quick damp astonishingly soft tongue.

  There came a cry—Rufus! Where are you?

  A hiker on the trail. Running up behind us where we’d fallen.

  Then—Hello? Are you hurt? What has happened . . .

  Through the haze riddled with pain came a dog to lick my face to revive me. Eagerly, anxiously. Emitting sharp-distressed cries so close to human, I wept to hear and to know that I had been saved.

  The Miracle

  For a long time then I was sick.

  It might have been weeks. Months.

  For there were intervals of “wakefulness”—followed by periods of “forgetfulness.”

  For there was not what could be called a steady recovery. There was not a steady progress.

  More like switchbacks on a trail. With painful slowness you make your way forward—only to find yourself switched-back, facing the direction you’d come from.

  In such a way time turns back upon itself. You believe that you are making progress, but it is an illusion.

  Yet, this is progress of a kind.

  At first I wasn’t sure where I was. These (austere, white-walled) rooms to which I was taken (gurney, wheelchair) were different places serving different functions, purposes. Different medical workers, in different uniforms. Often I would open my eyes—(my aching eyes with their blurred vision)—to find myself in a place that was new to me.

  Possibly, this was a hospital. Or a rehabilitation clinic.

  Some place in which there are degrees of “hospitalization” relating to degrees of physical injury, psychological deficit.

  Do you know your name?

  Do you know where you are?

  Do you know the date?

  Do you know who is president of the United States?

  Like a small child who is eager to talk but doesn’t yet have the power of speech I was eager to give the correct answers to these questions but I did not feel confident that I knew the correct answers. I understood that it was wiser to give no answer than to give an incorrect answer, that might be held against me.

  For I was remembering an elaborate examination I’d once taken—when I’d been a student—(I think this was recent, since I’ve been told that I am a student at the present time, at Wainscotia State University in Wainscotia Falls, Wisconsin)—in which it hadn’t been enough to know the correct answers to questions, you had to know which “correct” answer was the “most correct” choice of multiple choices.

  Your name is “Mary Ellen Enright”—do you remember your name?

  And do you know where you are, Mary Ellen?

  Do you know why?

  SOMETIMES I WOKE, and the voice(s) continued.

  As if there’d been no interruption, the voice(s) continued.

  Do you know what
happened to you, Mary Ellen?

  The doctors believe you were STRUCK BY LIGHTNING.

  And, you survived!

  It’s very amazing, Mary Ellen! It’s considered a “miracle.”

  Your picture has been in the newspapers, Mary Ellen! At least, in Wisconsin papers and on local, Wisconsin TV.

  You will be a sophomore at Wainscotia State in the fall. Do you remember your freshman year?

  Do you remember—you are an honor student? You are the recipient of a University Scholarship?

  You are recovering, Mary Ellen. Dr. Fenner—your neurologist—says the prognosis is GOOD.

  All of your doctors say the prognosis is GOOD.

  You were found on a trail in the arboretum—a hiker found you—in fact his dog found you.

  You were unconscious. You did not seem to have a pulse nor did you appear to be breathing.

  The hiker’s dog led him to you. By his quick actions he saved your life.

  Mary Ellen, you are a very lucky young woman.

  You were in an acute state of shock but—you are recovering.

  Your blood pressure had plummeted. Your left eardrum was perforated.

  You are recovering steadily—you are ALIVE!

  A MIRACLE—people have said.

  STRUCK BY LIGHTNING in the arboretum where you might not have been found for hours and already it was believed to be approximately ninety minutes you’d been unconscious, before you were found.

  Hiking alone in the arboretum. In the more distant parts of the arboretum, it can be dangerous.

  It is always recommended that no one hike alone. Even an experienced hiker should not hike alone.

  Fortunately, you were discovered. In time.

  Your lips were blue. You appeared to have ceased breathing. You appeared to have no pulse.

  Fortunately, the hiker knew CPR.

  Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He’d been trained in first aid as a Boy Scout.

  STRUCK BY LIGHTNING and survived—that’s very rare.

  That’s a “first” for Wainscotia Falls!—we are proud of you.

  If you had family, Mary Ellen—they would be so very grateful that you are ALIVE.

  MARY ELLEN—why are you crying?

  Are you in pain, Mary Ellen? Where is the pain?

  You can point, Mary Ellen, if that’s easier.

  Your heart? Your heart hurts?

  Or do you mean—your heart is broken?

  Grief

  Can you explain but I could not.

  Why you are crying as if your heart has been broken.

  SO MUCH TO BE grateful for! I knew.

  For slowly I was regaining the use of my legs. And the coordination of muscles that in normal people is taken for granted.

  If for instance you decide to stand, your legs will not meekly buckle and cast you to the ground.

  If you decide to lift a glass in your hand, your fingers will not release the glass to fall clattering onto the floor.

  If you open your mouth to speak, you will not begin shivering, shuddering, weeping inconsolably instead.

  Weeping as if I’d lost something—or someone—and could not remember what, or who.

  Nor could I remember who the person had been—Mary Ellen Enright—(the name on the hospital bracelet on my left wrist)—though I stared into a mirror at the unfamiliar face, shaping the unfamiliar name with numbed lips.

  Mary Ellen Enright. A riddle that, no matter how long I puzzled over it, I could not solve.

  For I knew—(but how could I know?)—that it was a false name.

  As I knew—(but how could I know?)—that I had not been alone on the trail when the lightning struck.

  As if I’d been flung down from a great height onto the needle-strewn trail. And the breath had been knocked from me. And when I shut my eyes there came rushing at me a mysterious object the size of a bat—in panic I ducked, cried out in terror, covered my head with my arms, tried to scream but could not.

  No no no no no.

  THEY BELIEVED: the patient was reliving the lightning-strike. The powerful charge of electricity that threw her to the ground, and the deafening thunder that followed, that perforated her eardrum.

  They believed: the patient was an orphan, had been an orphan since early childhood, and had lost her adoptive parents as well, in an automobile accident. These traumatic losses the patient was mourning in her weakened and semi-delirious state.

  OFTEN I WAS very happy! With each improvement in my “condition”—I tried to rejoice that I was very lucky.

  Yet in the midst of, for instance, physical therapy—(which included swimming)—the terrible tears came, and would not soon cease.

  Like a convulsion of the body, such grief.

  Like a great snake rippling inside me, that cannot be contained or controlled and whose outlet is tears.

  Why did I cry so helplessly, and bitterly—I did not know.

  (It was not pain. Or it was not solely pain. The many pains in my legs, my backbone and my neck, my head, my eyes—these I could bear without crying, for they were only physical symptoms.)

  Slowly my ability to think was returning. My ability to concentrate, and to remember.

  The neurologist explained to me that my “short-term” memory had been affected by the trauma of the lightning strike. There had been, he believed, some (temporary) brain damage, judging by my symptoms.

  Memories stored (temporarily) in the hippocampus before being stored (permanently) in the cerebral cortex had been lost, and could not be retrieved.

  It was a normal reaction to a traumatic brain injury, Dr. Fenner said. I had not lost my grasp of language—how to speak, read and write—and certain skills—like walking, climbing stairs, swimming—but it was evident that I’d forgotten much in my recent life.

  As if someone with a giant sponge had vigorously washed, scrubbed, wiped a part of my brain clean.

  I asked Dr. Fenner if there had been a CAT scan of my brain? Or—what was the term—“MRI”?

  Dr. Fenner smiled quizzically, cupping his hand to his ear.

  “What was that, dear? Something about a—cat?”

  “A CAT scan. Or an MRI.”

  “But—what are you saying, dear? ‘MIA’?”

  Dr. Fenner was an older gentleman, kind and solicitous to his patients but with a very limited patience for foolish questions; I had noticed that the nurses were careful in his presence, behaving more like servants than trained staff workers. He wore a stiff-starched white shirt and a necktie beneath his physician’s white coat, that bulged over his small high belly. Involuntarily I’d shrunk from his touch, as from the nurses’ touches, which were with bare hands, where I would have expected thin rubber gloves, when I’d first become conscious of my surroundings; but by this time, after several weeks in the hospital, and now in a rehabilitation wing adjacent to the hospital, I’d become accustomed to the hospital staff working with bare hands. I told myself—But they are probably washing their hands all the time. When they leave a patient’s room.

  Dr. Fenner’s necktie fascinated me also. For it was just perceptibly mottled with stains—(food stains?)—and when Dr. Fenner bent over me, it swung at my face.

  “‘MIA’—‘Missing in Action,’ I think?—why are you asking about that, Mary Ellen?”—Dr. Fenner was utterly bewildered.

  Rapidly I tried to think. But my thoughts came slow and halting, like my walking—sometimes with a spurt of strength, sometimes a flurry of weakness.

  “I—I don’t know. I guess I don’t know what I mean, Dr. Fenner.”

  It was so: I had no idea what I’d meant. The terms CAT scan, MRI were bewildering to me too, like the arcane Latin terms I’d typed in the dim-lit university building whose name I couldn’t quite recall—a museum of natural history with which I had an association both vague and exhilarating, like a tumultuous dream that has faded except for its emotional residue.

  “Well! You’ve had a brain trauma, my dear. But you’ll recover—I’ve seen miracul
ous recoveries in the past.”

  So often the word miracle was voiced in my presence, I was beginning to believe—miracle!

  (Yet I wondered what percent of the neurologist’s patients recovered. And what percent of the neurologist’s patients were untreatable.)

  Again, when Dr. Fenner left, I burst into tears.

  Out of nowhere a terrible sadness swept over me, and I began to cry helplessly, like an abandoned infant.

  One of the nurses asked what on earth was wrong?—Dr. Fenner had been so positive.

  Visitors

  Few visitors came to see me. And each was a surprise to me, as if stepping out of a pitch-black part of my brain.

  The first identified herself as Ardis Steadman, who’d been the resident adviser of Acrady Cottage, my freshman residence.

  Did I remember Miss Steadman? Did I remember my roommates? Did I remember Acrady Cottage—“Such a spirited group of freshman girls this year! And you, Mary Ellen, pulled our grade-point average ‘way up.’ We were all very grateful for you.”

  I told Miss Steadman that yes, I did remember her—of course.

  We’d gone to a music recital together, I thought. Or—we’d watched TV together in the sitting room of the residence.

  As Miss Steadman spoke, reminiscing of events I could not recall, and had no interest in recalling, I began to feel the sensation of terrible loss wash over me, and began to cry.

  “Oh, Mary Ellen! What’s wrong? Have I said something—?”

  I tried to think why.

  “It’s like—I’ve lost something. But I don’t know what it is.”

  “But when did you lose it, Mary Ellen?”

  “I—I don’t know . . . Maybe in the arboretum.”

  “From what I’ve read and heard, there was nothing on the trail that you’d left behind, evidently. You were hiking alone, and you were wearing a backpack—that was all.”

  “I remember the arboretum—from before. I’d gone there before. But the last time—” Quick sharp pains struck my eyes, from inside. My vision, that had been improving, became misty now, so that I could barely see Miss Steadman’s concerned face. “—the last time, I don’t remember.”