What was going on?
Let me digress for a moment and talk about dental floss. Yep, dental floss.
I once bought a package of dental floss. My usual kind. A package of dental floss would usually last me about a month. Sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more. This particular brand had a little plastic window build into the container so you could see how much floss was left. But, for some unknown reason, they made the window dark blue, so you (or at least I) couldn’t actually see how much floss was left. But all this was normal. I opened the floss and used it, just like usual, day after day.
Then one day, I thought, “that’s weird, I’ve been using this floss for a long time now. More than a month, much more.” So, I started to pay attention, how long would it last? What if it never ran out? This went on for months. I started to think it was a violation of the law against creation of matter and energy.
Here is the important point: If it was a violation of the laws of physics, even just the never-ending dental floss, it would change everything. I would have to reevaluate everything I thought I knew. When faced with undeniable facts that seems to violate the laws of nature, we don’t have any choice but to accept them. Or I might have been crazy.
Of course, the dental floss eventually DID run out. They probably just accidentally spooled extra floss on the spool. No need to reevaluate anything and my sanity seemed safe.
At least until I found myself at the foot of the Acropolis looking up at a newly constructed Parthenon.
I was in daze. Trying to make sense of the situation. What were the options?
1) I had been in an accident. It was more than possible I was in a coma or on drugs and this was a dream. It didn’t feel like a dream, too sequential, nothing changing form or location. But what did I know? I had never been in a coma before, maybe coma dreams are different.
2) The insanity option. This seemed unlikely. I had no history of any mental problems. And if this was a hallucination, it was a very orderly hallucination. The same reasons it was unlikely to be a dream argued against it being a hallucination.
In favor of it being a hallucination were my interactions with other people. They seemed confused by my behavior, they found me odd, and we had difficulty communicating. Kind of what I imagine people in the midst of a psychotic break must experience. So, crazy? Maybe.
3) The dental floss never ends. This was real. I was back in time or in a parallel universe. How? Who knows? Everything we think we know is wrong.
Are there other options? Maybe. Maybe I was dead and this was some kind of afterlife. I don’t really believe in that kind of thing, but I didn’t believe in THIS kind of thing either.
In the end I decided it didn’t matter. If I was dreaming, I was in the dream and had to live the dream until it ended. If I was crazy, I was in the crazy and had to live the crazy until it ended. And if I was in a real weird place, I was in a real weird place and had to live in the weird place until it ended.
I’m a lawyer and making pragmatic, what is obtainable, decisions in difficult situations is part of my makeup.
But, it made no sense! How had I gotten here? If it was some kind of time travel/multiverse hopping thing, aside from the impossible physics, why was I in Athens and not Megara? The last place I had been was Megara. This argues in favor of the dream/coma/crazy explanations. I didn’t know Megara well and it might have been easier for my unconscious to imagine ancient Athens (which I also didn’t know well…). And what about the cabdriver and Dorothea? This seemed to argue in favor of it being a real experience. I probably would have brought them with me into a dream/hallucination, at least the pretty Dorothea. But as I said, it didn’t matter.
Try as I might to remember that the explanation was irrelevant, I never could stop myself from occasionally getting lost trying to figure it out. It makes no sense. The dental floss never runs out…
After a few minutes, the man from the house (Isodemos, I later found out, was his name) came forward and placed his hand on my elbow and I let him guide me back to the house.
Suddenly my phone sounded! It’s hard to express my excitement. I must have wandered into an area with service and (of course) someone from the bank team was trying to call me!
I excitedly pulled out my phone, and checked, but no, it was just a calendar reminder. My brother’s birthday was in a week. Of course, my calendar alert sounds nothing like my ringtone, but wishful thinking… I started to laugh almost hysterically.
Isodemos, who had jumped away at the sound and appearance of the cell, mastered his fear, and gently guided me along the road back.
When we reached the house again, I gave him a weak smile of thanks. And he again jumped back in fear.
Despite my decision to act as if everything I saw was real and not worry about how or why, I basically spent the next few days catatonic. But each morning when I failed to wake up in my hotel room or a hospital, my decision to accept my situation (for now) became more real.
Also by David Schenck:
A New York Lawyer in the Court of Pericles Series
A modern man trapped in ancient Greece.
If you were suddenly thrown 2500 years back in time would you be a king or a slave? Would any of your modern knowledge be useful? When Robert Kakos, a lawyer for a New York bank, in Athens as part of a team working on the Greek financial crisis, suddenly finds himself in the Athens of the 5th Century BCE, he must struggle to find value in his modern knowledge. Along the way he meets a host of colorful characters, slaves and merchants, Pericles and Socrates, and finally finds love and a home.
Malthake's Tail: A New York Lawyer in the Court of Pericles, Book 1
The Great God Einstein: A New York Lawyer in the Court of Pericles Book 2
A New York Lawyer in the Court of Pericles, Omnibus Edition
Let Slip The Princesses of War Page 16