Phillip Lenfield, known to his friends as Pip, sat at a wooden table opposite James Trevithick, formerly a professor of philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, and now quite definitely retired.
The little table was surrounded by potted plants and upon the wall hung numerous old illustrations from long-since obsolescent popular science magazines.
The cafe was supposed to have closed hours ago, but apparently, for Trevithick, it was always open.
More than twenty years had passed since Pip had sat in Trevithick’s lectures, and Pip had once been one of Trevithick’s most promising graduate students, until financial necessity borne out of the appearance of three small additions to his family had compelled him to seek out more lucrative climes.
“Well?” said Trevithick, as Pip continued to leaf through the old children’s chemistry book.
“Yes, I agree.” said Pip. “It’s quite a startling change.”
“What do you notice?”
“The 1950s book was a lot more dangerous, for a start. This is sanitised by comparison. This one —” he clapped his left hand over the older of the two books lying on the table “— has firework recipes in it. It freely used explosive chlorates, toxic metal salts and all kinds of things that definitely wouldn’t be considered suitable for children today. This one —” he laid his right hand over the 1960s book “—has none of that, and what’s more, every chapter ends with exam questions.”
“You see,” said Trevithick, “the culture of the children’s chemistry book has fundamentally shifted. In the 1950s, we see that the aim of the book is to feed eager minds with scientific information, even at the expense of perfect safety. By the 1960s, the aim is to enable them to pass exams. The subject material is assumed to be boring in their eyes, which is why it’s all broken down into coloured rectangles and digestible bullet points and what-have-you.”
“What are you driving at with this?” said Pip, an amused half-smile on his face.
“This is just one small example.” said the old man, gravely. “I believe a fundamental shift took place in society. The shift was brought about by the events of the two world wars. The question was posed: why were the wars even possible? The answer was that, if one goes back to around 1900, the people of the European Continent were driven by deep and serious-minded concepts. They believed in God, Queen and country, honour, courage, sacrifice, the sanctity of the family, and so on and so forth. They expected to obtain their reward in the afterlife.
“That had to be done away with, in order to bring about lasting peace. People’s lives had to be ruled by only material considerations. Exam results, income, gross domestic product. The search for knowledge was no longer a kind of holy quest for truth; all activities had to be justified via their immediate material benefits.
“Thus, we find that vast quantities of transcendent thought, freely indulged in by practically every major scientist prior to 1950, were simply suppressed. Cast aside as mere pseudoscientific speculations, at odds with the new religion of materialism. And at this point —” Trevithick stared into Pip’s eyes and jabbed the table with his forefinger “—progress in fundamental physics essentially ceased.”
“Ceased?” said Pip. “How can you say that? What about the transistor, the computer, the laser and so on?”
“Oh, technology marched on. But technology isn’t fundamental. Technology is only an elaboration and refinement of ideas that were discovered long before, at the end of the golden era of science. The first practical semiconductor diode was invented by Pickard in 1906. Stimulated emission was predicted by Einstein in 1916. The later refinements and new uses of these developments were new feats of engineering, not of fundamental physics.”
“You’re rejecting the low-hanging fruit explanation for why progress in fundamental physics has slowed?”
“Exactly. It’s not that scientists took the low-hanging fruit and then progress stopped. It’s that progress was deliberately halted by the promotion of an ideology that never made any real sense. Any alternative point of view was ridiculed in order to suppress it.”
“All this is a bit rich coming from a man who told me to avoid, at all costs, involving myself in debates over materialism, dualism, monism and idealism. You’ve always maintained that moral philosophy was the only kind of philosophy worthy of the name.”
“I was wrong.”
“And what exactly do you propose has been suppressed?”
“Consider this, Pip. Let us take materialism seriously for a moment, in order to expose its flaws, in the same way that Einstein took Galilean universal time seriously in order to expose its contradictions.
“According to materialism then, all thoughts and concepts are assembled in the brain. This means your concept of space and time must be assembled in the brain, otherwise how could you perceive space and time? But then the brain itself is only an object in this space and time, which we are saying the brain has conjured up. In what sense, then, is the brain real?”
“You’re questioning the existence of matter, on the ground that our perception of matter is all assembled in our minds?”
“Matter as a concept makes no real sense.” said Trevithick. “It’s riddled with contradictions. We cannot conceive of space as infinite in extent, yet we can’t imagine an end to it either. We say that everything is made up of something smaller than itself, but we can’t imagine an infinite regress of smaller and smaller things. We say that particles in space must have exact positions at a given moment, but we can’t specify an exact position without an infinite string of digits, and the very concept of a moment in time relies upon being able to slice time into infinitely small segments, which we also can’t imagine.
“No, Pip, the whole thing is a nonsense. I realised several years ago that I had to rebuild the whole of physics on the basis of human perception, not on materialism. The heart of science is not physical matter; the heart of science is the experiment, and the results it yields.”
Pip was beginning to wonder if Trevithick hadn’t lost his mind. He was a little young to be suffering from senile dementia, but cases do occur in younger people all too frequently, even in people with as formerly sharp a mind as Trevithick.
“I’d be very surprised if you can actually get anywhere with this.” said Pip. “For one thing, you’re not a scientist, Professor, with respect. You’re a philosopher, who has almost entirely focused on moral philosophy. On top of that, one could argue that monistic idealism held Continental scientists back, while British scientists, being more practically-minded, forged ahead.”
Trevithick smiled, and proceeded to close the children’s chemistry books and put them away in the leather satchel he carried around with him. Then he brought out a strange device. The device consisted of a small black box, with a sliding switch at one side. In the middle was a large round button, covered with a transparent plastic shield.
“What’s that?” said Pip, warily.
“This,” said Trevithick, “is the most powerful weapon ever devised. So far I’ve tested the principle only on gerbils, and a dog, and myself and a few others, but I should now like to propose a more exhaustive test.”
“Gerbils? Dogs? Aren’t you a strict vegetarian?”
“Oh no, I gave that up several years ago, Pip. The fact is, death is hardly ever pleasant, so I can’t see what difference it makes if animals die swiftly so that I can eat them, rather that enduring drawn-out deaths from old age or in the jaws of other animals.”
Pip found his anxiety rising rapidly. The man with whom he had been conversing clearly wasn’t quite the same man he had known for the past two decades. This version of Trevithick had apparently undergone numerous significant changes and was now, therefore, something of an unknown quantity.
“Oh, you needn’t worry.” said Trevithick pleasantly. “They didn’t suffer. It’s an entirely new form of weapon. It is based not on dissolution, but on temporary reconstitution.”
“What is it, a bomb?”
“Good Heavens, no. Nothing like that. My work led me to profound contemplation of one of life’s greatest mysteries: namely, the mystery of why you are you and I am me. One must start from the point of view I’ve already outlined, that the physical world is a construction of the mind.”
“But it isn’t a construction of the mind.” Pip objected, eyeing the device nervously, while inwardly wondering if this wasn’t some kind of psychological experiment devised by Trevithick just to see what he’d do. “If the physical world were a construction of the mind, we’d be able to walk through walls.”
“Not at all.” said Trevithick. “I didn’t claim that the world is a construction of our conscious minds. It is not; at least not in the sense you’re imagining. Consider mathematics, for instance. It is quite clearly a construction of the mind. In fact, it is a construction of the conscious mind. The history of its construction is well-documented. But you can’t break the rules of mathematics at will. Or rather, you can, but then the entire edifice no longer stands. It collapses under the weight of the slightest contradiction. So it is with the material universe. You may imagine that you are able to walk through walls, but then nothing else will make sense to you, and you will be declared insane by the rest of us.”
“Just tell me what it does.” said Pip.
Trevithick smiled again, mysteriously.
From outside the window came the sound of shouting; almost screaming.
“Look out of the window.” said Trevithick.
Pip peered out at the street below. Two policemen were beating a man viciously with truncheons.
“What do you suppose he did wrong, Pip, my boy?”
“Must have said something he shouldn’t have.” said Pip.
“And do you think it’s right that a man should be beaten to within an inch of death just for his words?”
“If you’re going to get political, I’m going to have to leave.” said Pip.
“That’s always been our problem, Pip. Lack of courage. Do you think either of us would have enjoyed conventional reasonably-well-paid careers if we’d said what we actually think?”
“I’d like to continue enjoying a reasonably-well-paid career.” said Pip.
“No.” said Trevithick. “Now is the time to take a stand.”
“I’m not taking any stands. They’re probably listening to us.”
“I’m quite sure they’re listening to us.” said Trevithick. “Every single word we utter is processed by powerful machines and scanned for signs of sedition.”
“Then why not reign it in, old man? It’s all right for you. You might not be long for this world, but I’ve probably got to carry on living for another three or four decades yet, and perhaps more.”
“Do me a favour, will you?”
Pip had already stood up and was on the verge of leaving. He was shaking slightly, and the owner of the cafe, who flitted about behind the counter at the other side of the room, polishing glasses and wiping down surfaces, was looking at him curiously.
“What?”
“Put this on.”
Trevithick took a white headband from his satchel and held it out.
“Whatever for?”
“Well, I’ll have this one.” said Trevithick, and he put it on himself, then rummaged about in his satchel and produced another one for Pip.
“Professor,” said Pip, “I’ve always respected you. And respectfully, I think you might have lost the plot. What about if I walk you home and you try to rest yourself in bed a bit?”
“Put the headband on, Pip.” said Trevithick. “You wouldn’t want me to get agitated, now, would you? A dangerous lunatic like me?”
“Then you’ll allow me to take you home?”
“We’ll leave as soon as you put it on.”
Pip snatched the headband and fitted it on his head.
“There.” said Trevithick. “And now, I intend to activate this device outside the Houses of Parliament.”
“What?” said Pip.
“You heard me. I will create a power vacuum into which some bunch of more moral leaders will flow, and if not, I shall scupper them as well.”
Pip had turned pale.
“Don’t look so scared.” said Trevithick, and he slid the switch at the side of the device, causing the round button in the middle to light up red. Then he flipped back the transparent lid.
Then, he rose till he was half-standing, slid the window of the café open and shouted at the police below, “What are you waiting for? I’m about to overthrow the government.”
The three policemen were still standing around the fallen body of the man they had beaten, occasionally kicking him. A policewoman stood off to the side, arms folded, laughing and joking with the three men. When they heard Trevithick shouting from the third-floor window of the cafe, they looked up and immediately made for the entrance of the building.
Trevithick watched as the beaten man began to crawl and hop away, his face covered in blood, but still mercifully alive.
“What have you done?” said Pip, tearing at his hair.
“The question is not what I have done, but what you will do.” said Trevithick, calmly. “I assure you, these so-called police will not harm a hair on our heads. But I cannot say the same of any police you may encounter in the street, if you run. Undoubtedly a bunch of them are already on their way here.”
“Oh God.” groaned Pip, and he sat down heavily on the wooden seat where he’d spent the last hour.
The barista was staring at these unfolding events with his mouth wide open. A young woman appeared from a doorway behind the counter, perhaps intending to assist with cleaning the machines before closing up for the evening. The man muttered something to her hastily and they both shot a frightened glance at Pip and Trevithick, then disappeared with enormous haste.
The entrance door burst open quite suddenly, and the four police officers appeared.
“You’re both under arrest.” shouted the woman, and the men advanced menacingly, batons drawn.
Trevithick hit the glowing red button with the palm of his hand. The button flashed green before returning to red. The expressions on the police officers’ faces abruptly changed. At first they appeared confused and bewildered, then one of the men began to laugh, another wandered wide-eyed to the window to look outside, the third sat down in the middle of the floor, and the woman began to perform a kind of dance reminiscent of a slow ballet, whirling around and singing, quietly at first, but with increasing vigour, and with an appearance of ecstasy.
“What’ve you done to them?” said Pip, so consumed with fear that he was hardly able to breathe.
“Absolutely nothing.” said Trevithick. “I merely temporarily displaced their consciousnesses. They are all that they were before, and more besides. I daresay they’ll wander home after they’ve got over the shock.”
He slid the button at the side of the box back, and the red light of the circular button in the middle of the device went out. Then he flipped the transparent plastic lid back into place.
Pip surveyed the confused officers. He went to the one who was staring out the window and said, “Are you all right?”
The officer jumped, as if startled out of his thoughts, but then half-turned towards Pip and said, “Yeah, fine.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be arresting people or something?” said Pip, his heart in his mouth, all too aware that the officers could at any moment recall the task at hand and commence beating the living daylights out of himself and Trevithick.
The policeman gave a hollow laugh.
“That’s a waste of time.” he said, still staring vacantly out of the window. “I think I’d like to go and live in the hills. Maybe I’ll become a farmer or something.”
“A minute ago you were going to arrest us, weren’t you?”
Pip was so scared he barely managed to get the words out, but he was determined to get to the bottom of the matter.
“A lot’s happened since then, mate.” said the officer.
“Like what?”
The officer paused, thinking about something.
“I don’t know.” he said finally.
Then the officer turned to fully face Pip and he laid a hand on Pip’s shoulder.
“Go in peace, friend.” he said.
Trevithick was watching with an amused grin.
“Right,” he said, “I think a visit to the Parliament.”
And he set off towards the door, carrying the satchel into which he’d now replaced the device.
Pip hurried after him.
“I don’t know what you’ve done to them but you can’t just wipe the minds of the entire government.” he said.
“I’m not wiping anyone’s minds.” said Trevithick.
“Revolutions are dangerous!” Pip persisted. “They hardly ever work out well. Look at the Russian Revolution for example—seemed like it was going OK at first, then the Bolsheviks took over and they ended up with seventy years of suffering and hardship.”
“That won’t happen in this case.”
They emerged onto the street. The People’s Tower was visible in the distance, broadcasting a variety of supposedly spiritual and uplifting messages every hour on the hour.
“What does the device actually do?”
“I haven’t time to explain just at the moment.” said Trevithick.
“Let’s stop and talk it over, Professor.”
“No, thank you. I’ve had quite enough of these people scaring everyone and telling us all what to think.”
For half an hour they debated the matter, Pip periodically having to lower his voice for fear of attracting unwanted attention, but Trevithick refused to be drawn into outright argument, and only calmly asserted that he was going ahead as planned.
When they had very nearly reached the Parliament building, Pip got in front of Trevithick, forcing him to stop.
“I can’t let you do this.” he said.
“You can’t stop me.” said Trevithick.
“Yes, I can.” said Pip, and he pulled the absurd white headband that Trevithick was wearing directly off his head. Then he removed the headband from his own head.
“Are you willing to sacrifice both of our lives for your dangerous experiment?” he said.
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic.” said Trevithick, taking the device from his bag and sliding the switch.
“You’re surely not going to do it?” said Pip. “You’ll scramble your own brains. And mine!”
He looked nervously behind Trevithick. Two armed security guards were approaching with determined expressions on their faces.
Trevithick flipped back the protective plastic cover.
“Prepare to be amazed.” he said, and he pressed the glowing red button.
The next thing of which Pip was definitely aware was that he had an enormous mouth and was attempting to open it as widely as possible so that his mother, a blackbird, might drop a worm into it.
This struck him as entirely normal, since he had no recollection of his previous existence as a human being. However, it was still the entity known as Pip which was experiencing life as a nestling, and not someone or something else, in-keeping with Trevithick’s theories.
A little later on that year he learned to fly, after hopping around on the ground for a few days.
The winter was hard, but the next year, after vigorously defending a tree with loud whistling, he produced a brood of his own, helping to feed both his partner as she sat on their eggs, and later, their nestlings.
In total he lived for three years, before being eaten by a fox.
He then found himself a horse on the plains of Mongolia, although, being a horse, he had little idea that he was actually a horse or that it was possible to be anything else. He knew only that he was concerned with eating grass and relations between himself and the other horses. This went on for 22 years.
He experienced a number of spells as various insects and undefinable creatures perhaps unknown to science, before his consciousness abruptly reconstituted the human form known as Pip Lenfield, standing outside the British Parliament building.
All memories of his intervening lives were immediately lost, due to the lack of any mechanism for transferring memories from one life to the next, but he felt distinctly different, his mind irrevocably altered by his many new experiences.
“What do you think?” said Trevithick.
Pip’s mouth worked itself open and closed repeatedly, but no sound came out.
“Exactly.” said Trevithick. “I’ve done this five times and it’s always surprising.”
“What just happened to me?” said Pip, regaining control of his vocal chords.
“There isn’t really the vocabulary to describe it, in modern science as it stands at the moment. Let’s just say, your soul went for a walkabout.”
Remembering the approaching security guards, Pip turned to look for them, but one of them was sitting on the pavement, smiling, while the other was gazing at his own hands, turning them around at the wrists.
“The people in the parliament …” said Pip.
“Yes, they’ve had their own little voyages.” said Trevithick.
Soon the politicians began to wander out, laughing and chatting animatedly.
“What exactly do you mean?” said Pip. “Explain it to me. I’m begging you.”
“You’ve just spent somewhere between ten and two hundred years living life as a succession of different creatures. You see, Pip, our memories aren’t what make us who we are, neither our bodies, nor even our personalities as such. Each of us has their own unique point of view from which we construct our reality. The thing that’s unique to each of us is the ‘I’, the thing that experiences. I’ve found a way of temporarily shifting consciousness out of the human form and into other forms, which I suppose would ordinarily only happen after death, although I’ve been unable to prove that.”
“You mean, I might have spent a century as a cat or an elephant or something?”
“Precisely.” said Trevithick. “And so has everyone within a radius of nearly half a mile. I’ve found this tends to make people rather more mellow in their outlook. Gives them a certain perspective.”
“But what if someone spent two hundred years being a succession of violent predators? What then?” said Pip wildly.
“Very unlikely that would ever happen.” said Trevithick, but at that moment they were disturbed by the sound of smashing glass and an unearthly scream from a window at the top of the parliament building.
They turned to see the Prime Minister, Quentin Pomelroy, leaning out of the window.
“I will eat you all!” he roared.
“Good Heavens!” said Trevithick.
“He’s lost his mind.” said Pip. “This is your fault.”
As they watched he jumped, landing below with a loud smack, but then staggered to his feet and ran directly towards them.
“Now listen here, my good fellow.” said Trevithick. “You’re confused and of course you want answers.”
Pomelroy leapt at him and sank his teeth into Trevithick’s neck before either of them had time to process their thoughts.
“Professor!” shouted Pip, but it was clearly too late to help Trevithick. Blood was spurting from his neck, and Pomelroy was now covered in it.
Pip grabbed the device from Trevithick’s dying hands, then leapt back as Pomelroy fell to the floor, a policeman apparently having hit him hard over the head with a truncheon.
The policeman watched him fall, then smiled affably.
“Looks like we’re going to need a new Prime Minister, then.” he said.
Politicians continued to emerge from the building, but gradually the laughter and chatter was replaced by screaming and inhuman roars. They, along with people from the surrounding area, including a good number of tourists, had divided themselves into predators and prey.
Pip watched in horror as the Home Secretary devoured the face of the Minister of Public Health.
He slid the switch on the box, flipped back the plastic cover and placed his hand flat over the button, ready to press it.
Although he couldn’t remember any of the lives he had experienced the last time it was pressed, he had a strong feeling he had endured something very long and arduous.
After some moments of hesitation, during which time the violence unfolding in front of him only worsened, he placed the machine carefully down on the ground, and he turned and ran.
