This was with my control at the weakest intensity of the current. There
are twenty subdivisions of power. I pushed the handle around from one
to the other of them quickly, pausing only an instant on each, and
stopping at the tenth. There was no change of sensation, except that the
humming seemed to grow, not louder exactly, but more powerful--more
penetrating. The interior of the cabin and my own body lost visible
density in appearance. You had switched off the electric lights outside,
but in the moonlight I could still see the board walls, not only through
the windows, but through the metallic sides of the cabin.
I was tingling all over, but the sensation, now that I was used to it,
was pleasant rather than the reverse; a feeling of lightness, buoyancy
and strength.
With the power increased tenfold, the acceleration of time-movement was
enormous. The movement of the rising moon became visible; the heavens
were turning over, the stars progressing from point to point with ever
increasing speed.
About ten minutes after ten by the clock, the moon was near the zenith,
and the sun rose an instant later. I was conscious of a flash of
twilight, and the sun's disk shot up from the horizon. The world was
plunged into daylight.
From my position inside the enclosure I could see nothing outside but
the sky and one or two of the tallest buildings near at hand. There was
no visible movement of anything but the sun. You can understand that, of
course. Had any of you come into the enclosure, or had an airplane
passed overhead, I would not have seen either one. The movement would
have been too rapid for my vision.
In perhaps a minute or two the sun was directly overhead, and in another
fraction of a minute it had set. Darkness was upon me. Then the moon
rose again and flashed across the heavens. Clouds formed and disappeared
so quickly I could hardly see them.
I glanced at the dial recording days. Its hand was moving. One day had
passed, and the hand was traveling toward the next.
For ten minutes or so I sat there, while day succeeded night and night
came again, only to be followed almost instantly by the day light. Soon
I could distinguish only thin streaks of light as the sun and moon
crossed above me--streaks that came closer together, merged into one,
and separated again as the month passed. And then the days became so
brief that they blurred with the nights. A grayness settled upon
everything; the mingled twilight of light and darkness.
The hand of the day dial was sweeping around swiftly. I looked at the
dial beside it, which recorded days in multiples of ten. Its pointer was
also moving. Forty odd days were recorded and the movement was
accelerating every instant.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account