The Presonic Man

By Ahmed A Kahn © 2001


Ahmed A. Khan is an IT professional, infected with the writing bug. He was born and educated in India and currently lives in Canada. His works (both fact and fiction) have appeared in magazines of India (e.g. Science Today, Femina), Kuwait (e.g. Kuwait Times, Arab Times), USA (Murderous Intent), Canada (e.g. Realms, Imelod) and webzines like Anotherealm, AlienQ, Pif, Cyber Oasis, GateWay S-F, Jackhammer, Millennium SF, Strange Horizons, The Phone Book, etc. He is married, and a father of four (three sons and a daughter). In his spare time (???) he also manages the "Index of Online Fiction" (http://www.angelfire.com/zine2/fictiononline). Ahmed may be contacted at the following e-mail address: moula12@yahoo.com

It happened suddenly. One night, James Bright went to sleep, a normal man. The next morning he got up, a thoroughly abnormal individual.

James was a moderately well-to-do writer. He had no living relatives and lived alone in an apartment.

He became aware of his abnormality that morning when he switched on the TV. A cartoon played but the sound he heard was not the sound of a cartoon but of news being read. Was something wrong with the TV? Had two channels somehow got mixed up? Then he heard the newsreader announce the date. He sat up -- bolt-upright.

How could it be the 25th of May, today? Yesterday, when he went to sleep, it had been the 20th. Had he slept for four days?

James ran outside, retrieved the newspaper lying on his doorstep and looked at the date. May twenty-first. So -- after all -- he had not slept for four days.

But the oddness had not ended. All day, he heard voices: voices of friends, neighbours, Jenny, and his own voice. But how? Was he going mad?

Perhaps, but no insanity could be fathomed in the voices he heard. They were fully coherent, fully plausible conversations -- the sort of conversations that might really take place between him and his friends, between him and Jenny.

James thought hard, struggling against a rising sense of panic. Slowly, almost shyly, a tiny idea raised its head. He formed a hypothesis. It was fantastic. Nevertheless, he decided to test it.

Next morning, he switched on the television. Once again, the picture on the tube didn't match the sounds. He heard the date being announced, and it was May twenty sixth. Hypothesis proved!

No matter how fantastic, it rang true. His sense of hearing had extended four days into the future.

First, he went into panic. Then, recovering, he quietly sat at his writing table for hours, mentally working out the ramifications of his condition. There were various things, big and small, to take care of. For instance, if someone rang the doorbell, he wouldn't hear it. He had to have some kind of visual indication for it. Then there was the phone. This was one instrument that would become almost totally useless to him. And what about conversation with people? He could talk to them and they would hear him but when they talked, he would have heard it four days ago. How then to have a coherent conversation? The only solution was to tell everyone that he had gone totally deaf. Let them communicate with him via writing.

Once James had diagnosed his problem, he turned it to his advantage.

James made it a habit to listen to the business news bulletins on the TV, and armed with advance knowledge of the market, he started playing the stocks. Inevitably he got rich, became quite a philanthropist, and had no end of fun.

No one else knew about his abnormality till he heard himself telling Jenny about it, and heard Jenny believing him and not thinking him crazy, and they continued to be friends. Of course, it all actually came to pass four days later.

Then, one day, he heard himself ask Jenny to marry him, and heard Jenny accept. So naturally, four days later, he did ask Jenny to marry him and Jenny did accept, and they did become man and wife and lived happily for quite some time...

...till the time he heard Jenny crying with grief. And the grief was over his death.

James immediately got busy straightening out his things, preparing his will, loving and cherishing Jenny.

The next day, he heard his friends come to bury him. And then his world went dead silent for some time.

And then he heard a terrible voice say: "Who is your God?"

James had three days to find the correct answer to that single question...

 


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