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

“Some other day,” he says, “we’ll be able to see things that interest you and matter to you more. Today we came without any notice and they are displaying things you are already familiar with. What would you like to see?”

For now it didn’t really matter to me what I saw, as long as I saw something. I told him to go inside anyway because I couldn’t wait any longer; my impatience was killing me!

They led us to one of the small doors along the corridor. We opened it and entered…

Oh my God! The feeling of entering a place with a secret expectation of joy, the feeling of hearing the door closing behind you— as if forever separated from the world—and suddenly facing the void is breath-taking! It wasn’t pitch-black darkness that we stood before: I wasn’t afraid of the dark. Something frighteningly endless spread out around us that gave me a crystal clear impression of a colourless abyss surrounding us from everywhere… Shaken and sputtering, I grabbed Stefan who, however, appeared reassuringly calm.

“You have no reason to be afraid,” he told me. “Keep walking.”

I took a tentative first step. Indeed, one could stand and walk very securely in this chaos. Stefan patiently walked me through the small room and made me spread my hand and touch the walls until my mistaken first impression—this terrible optical illusion—had been corrected. I realised that we were simply inside a room like any other, with a ceiling, a solid floor and walls of a colourless metal. I also observed that two steps away from the walls were sufficient to re-give you the impression of absolute chaos.

Somewhere in the middle of the room there were some comfortable seats, which we sank into.

“Now listen,” he whispered to me. “Don’t be scared, because from now on we won’t be able to keep talking to each other. Here…” he grasped my hand, “I’ll be right next to you… I’ll hold your hand…”

And then with my own eyes I saw things which seemed incredible. I suddenly found myself with Stefan in the countryside and a soft light began to rise out of the distant horizon, an ambiguous light that increasingly grew brighter. At first I couldn’t clearly see the shapes of things, but gradually everything started taking shape and form, like a new creation! And finally everything came to life: the countryside and the meadows, the grazing herds and the watermill, the storks hovering above the surrounding mountains.

In a blink of an eye a whole world had been created around us. Without moving a finger, we became spectators not from the outside, but from inside that world! Stefan and I found ourselves sitting on a rock on a hill, when in reality we were still nestled in our seats.

Beside us and before us, the village: streets, fountains, the typical cross-beamed framed houses with the old triangular roofs and the square to the right. On the other side of the square they were changing the horses of the mail coaches. On another side there was a gathering of farmers in the characteristic outfits of the French villages of the 8th century. The farmers were gathered around someone who, standing up on a table, was speaking while animatedly gesticulating.

That was not a mere spectacle then! That was life! Real life of the past, drawn out of history pages!

What I was seeing and experiencing was so plausible that it had made me forget where I really was. It looked so real that it kept your interest undiminished at all times and to an incredible extent! If you tried to speak, your voice would not be heard, no matter how hard you tried or how loud your scream was. If you tried to stand up and walk, then this whole miracle would instantly disappear and you’d be caught in the darkness once again. If after that you returned to your seat, then you’d start seeing again, but you’d have lost a part of the story.

There! A man was now coming panting from afar. He was heading directly to the city hall. Shortly after, big news was announced in the square. That man was the postman Droue and he had seen a carriage outside the town coming this way. He was very surprised by the incredible resemblance of the passenger of the carriage to the man depicted on the banknote that he happened to be holding in his hands. Now I understood!

“We were in Waren! Isn’t that right, Stefan? We’re in Waren during the great French Revolution! It’s the day when the king fled and they caught him! There! The citizens are now running to get their weapons! Oh God, everything’s so real! So, so real…”

On the way home I did nothing else than talk to Stefan with great enthusiasm about my impressions. My mind was working incessantly. I knew that for others all this was very common, but for me it was the first time. I knew that on the Reigen-Swages one could virtually go back in time and see the events of bygone eras unfold before their eyes like a giant dramatic spectacle, but I never thought that it could look so perfectly real!