Chronicles From The Future: The amazing story of Paul Amadeus Dienach

Today Jaeger remembered young Northam again. Then, looking straight into my eyes, he murmured, “I know Andreas is not with us anymore; but I will always call you by his name.”

Stefan told me the same thing the other day: “Let me call you Andreas…” And such was the tone of his voice that anybody would be jealous of Northam, of that rigid faith in the concept of friendship (so foreign to us) that was so strongly connected to his memory. August 30th

A few days were enough to change everything around me! The environment, the people, the circumstances; all so different! Who could have imagined…

NORTHAM’S CIRCLE AND THEIR SOCIAL CODE1-IX-MDIX (The dating system changes. It is our 3906 AD, but according to the future calendar it is 1509)

And once again, everything is crumbling inside me. A great part of the expectations and the dreams of recent days have proven futile. The famous environment of my new life, Andreas Northam’s social circle appears to be nothing more than a playful and carefree bevy of young people. I am, however, starting to enjoy this whole story. Who knows, it might be just another defence mechanism of my mind…

The plan for this morning was to take a walk along the nearby lake, where there were boats for hire. Youth, laughter, fuss, singing. Stefan struggled to marshal the group at every turn.

“Hilda! Hilda! Wait! We can’t catch up! Andreas can’t run!”

He looked somewhat annoyed by the fact that his sweetheart happened to be the one who was far ahead of everyone else and that she was the reason why the whole group had to speed up. Walking between him and Silvia, his other friend, it was difficult for me to keep pace.

“Forgive me, Andreas,” Hilda later said. “My mind was elsewhere…”

I felt that I had to say something nice to her as well. I looked at her. Truth be told, she was very pleasant to look at. With an awkward smile I said that it didn’t matter and that I was now feeling strong enough, which was not true. Stefan noticed my fatigue and suggested we took another break. Luckily, the rest of the road was downhill.

I sat next to Stefan on a stone bench and we listened to Axel and Eric, who were talking about the beauty of spring mornings while picking poppies. Silvia was chatting with Aria. Juliet and Hilda were chasing a couple of blue butterflies.

So this is the group of Andreas Northam’s friends then?

I pondered in disappointment. I think that no one could expect to learn very much from this bunch of overgrown children.

These two twenty-five-year-olds, along with the four young women and Stefan, had stormed into the institution three days ago as soon as the physicians allowed visitors. They surrounded me full of joy, whooping and laughing and asking me a thousand questions! They could hardly contain their excitement seeing me strong and healthy again—at seeing Andreas Northam, that is.

I was impressed by their manners that would be considered rather childish for their age. It seemed very strange for Northam to have such a circle of friends since I knew that, before the accident, he had been a respected young scientist, who had worked in some sector of applied physics—I don’t remember which exactly—and with quite good results for that matter. In fact, the institute for which he was working had called the Molsen Institute several times asking about his health.

Unintentionally, I looked towards the North, behind the high mountains, with a vague sense of nostalgia for my old homeland. I felt a tear trapped in the corner of my eye. I didn’t say anything to Stefan at that moment; he was pointing to some villas far in the distance, innumerable houses clustered together, almost like entire states. He told me that in many places they had kept the same archaic names like Waren, Cernobbio, Belano, Menaggio and others, names that now sound peculiar in a language that has changed so much.

Hilda had the idea of singing a song with the rest of the girls. It was a spring song that they sang all together, verse by verse. It was a cheerful song to sing amongst friends. Out of the blue, a window opened, a girl appeared and started accompanying the song on her violin. Right next to her, a painter, who, up until then, had been struggling with his palette and his brushes, pulled out a flute and, in turn, accompanied the melody.