'Tell me: What is the fate of the universe?'
'Fate?'
'Is it going to collapse back on itself, or will it go on expanding forever?'
'You'll love this: both.'
'Both?'
'It will collapse, then expand again, then repeat and repeat and repeat.'
'I don't know whether to take any comfort in that or not.'
'Before you decide-there's more.'
'More?'
He guffawed, the first time I had ever heard him laugh. 'When the UNIVERSE expands again, everything will be as it was before!'
'You mean-'
'Exactly. Whatever mistakes you made this time around you will live through again on the next pass, over and over and over, forever and ever, amen!' His demeanor had suddenly changed. For a second I thought he was going to break into tears. But he quickly became himself again, smiling and confident.
'How do you know that? It's not possible to know that, is it?'
'It's not possible to test that hypothesis, no.'
'Then how can you be sure your hypothesis is right? Or any of your other theories?'
'I'm here, ain't I?'
An idea suddenly occurred to me. 'I'm glad you brought that up. There's one thing you could do for me that would erase any doubts I might have about your story. Do you know what I'm suggesting?'
'I was wondering when that would occur to you.' He scribbled something in his notebook.
'When could you give me a little demonstration?'
'How about right now?'
'That would be quite acceptable.'
'Shalom,' he said. 'Aloha.' But of course he just sat there grinning at me like a Cheshire cat.
'Well?'
'Well what?'
'When are you going?'
'I'm already back.'
I'd been taken in by the old 'fastest gun in the West' routine. 'I was hoping you would stay away long enough that I might notice your absence.'
'You will next week when I leave for canada, iceland, and greenland.'
'Next week? I see. And how long will you be gone?'
'A few days.' While I was jotting down the suggestion that we increase the surveillance on him, he exclaimed, 'Well, I see our time is up, and gunnar and roman are waiting!'
I was still writing, but I vaguely recalled that the clock was positioned in such a way that prot couldn't possibly have seen it. And who told him that Jensen and Kowalski were standing by? I mumbled, 'Shouldn't I decide that?' But when I looked up he was already gone.
I rewound the last part of the tape and switched it on. His assertion, in a thick, choked voice, that he was going to have to repeat his mistakes over and over for all time suddenly seemed very moving, and I wondered again: What in God's name had he done? Unless I could find some way to break through his amnesia armor it was going to be very difficult to find out. In the absence of some clue to his background I was literally working in the dark. Given enough time I might have been able to come up with such a lead, and I dearly wished I could increase the number of sessions to twice a week or even more, but I simply had no extra time. There just wasn't enough time.
A couple of days later, after returning from my Friday morning radio talk show where I answer general questions about mental health called in by the listening audience, I discovered that prot had assigned a second task to Howie. The assignment: to cure Ernie of his fear of death.
I could see what he was getting at with his 'program' for Howie, and perhaps I, as his staff doctor, should have thought of it myself. By encouraging him to focus on a single project, his attention was drawn away from the awesome multiplicity of life's possibilities. I still had mixed feelings about prot's assigning 'tasks' to his fellow patients, but as long as no harm came from these endeavors, I continued to allow it.
Howie approached the problem in a typically methodical manner. After scrutinizing his roommate for hours on end, to the point that Ernie finally ran screaming from the room, he asked me for texts on human anatomy and physiology, specifically on the subject of respiration. I assumed he was going to try to prove to him how unusual it is for someone to choke to death, or perhaps construct some sort of breathing apparatus for Ernie's use in case the worst happened. I could see no reason to refuse him on this and I allowed him access to the fourth-floor library. In retrospect I should have realized that these solutions would have been too simplistic for someone as brilliant as Howie. Perhaps my judgment was clouded by the unconscious hope that he might somehow succeed where I had failed, and that both might find a little peace at long last.
Ernie, in the meantime, was doing much the same thing for some of the other patients; that is, he was beginning to take an interest in their problems as well as his own. For example, he was reading poetry to blind old Mrs. Weathers, who cocked her snowy head with every word like a rapt chicken. He had always spent quite a bit of time with Russell, seeking solace primarily, but now he was chatting with the latter about a variety of secular matters-suggesting he get some exercise, for example.
He was spending a lot of time with prot also, as were most of his fellow patients, asking him about K-PAX and other supposedly inhabited regions of the galaxy. These talks seemed to raise their spirits enormously, or so I was informed by several of the nurses. I finally asked Ernie point-blank what it was about his discussions with prot that seemed to cheer him up so dramatically. His eyebrows lifted a mile high behind his surgical mask and he told me exactly what Whacky had said earlier, 'I'm hoping he'll take me with him when he goes back!' I realized then what was drawing the others to our 'alien' visitor: the promise of salvation. Not just in the hereafter, but in this life, and in the relatively near future. I made a note to talk to prot about this as soon as possible. It was one thing to make a sick person feel better. It was quite another to prop him up temporarily with false hopes, as he himself had asserted. But for the next few days I was unable to ask him anything. He had disappeared!
A search of the building and grounds was initiated immediately upon learning that prot had not shown up for lunch on Sunday, but no trace of him was found. No one had seen him leave the hospital, and none of the security tapes showed him passing through any locked doors or gates.
His room provided no clue as to where he might have gone. As always the bed was made and his desk and dresser were uncluttered. There wasn't even a scrap of paper in his wastebasket.
None of the patients would admit to having any knowledge of prot's whereabouts, yet none was particularly surprised that he was gone. When I asked Chuck about it he replied, 'Don't worry-he'll be back.'
'How do you know that?'
'Because he took his dark glasses with him.'
'What has that got to do with it?'
'When he returns to K-PAX he won't need them.'
Some days later a maintenance worker reported that some of the items in the storage tunnel had been shifted around. Whether prot had been hiding there, however, was never determined.
FOR his first twenty-seven years Russell never saw another human being except for his mother and father. His schooling consisted exclusively of Bible reading, four hours every morning and evening. There was no radio, and no one ever came up the long driveway because of the mud and the Doberman pinschers. In the afternoons he was expected to work in the garden or help with the chores. This isolated existence continued until a determined census worker, who also bred Dobermans, stumbled upon him accidentally while his father was at the hardware store and his mother in the back yard hanging out the wash. After he chased the astonished woman down the driveway shouting, 'Mary Magdelene, I forgive you!' she reported the matter to the authorities.
Psychotherapy was completely ineffective in Russell's case, and Metrazole shock therapy barely less so. Nevertheless, he was returned to his parents. The young delusional soon escaped from the farm, however, only to be arrested as a 'public nuisance.' After that he was in and out of jails and hospitals for several years until he was finally brought to MPI, where he has remained to this day.
