The Secret Manuscript (11 page)

“Ben, what are
you doing here?” Kyle asked.

Ben was
completely out of breath and was panting. “I have to speak with
you, now,” he replied with a sense of urgency.

“Is everything
okay?”

“Everything is
great!” Ben said loudly.

“Okay, take it
easy. Calm yourself,” Kyle said. “How did you find me?”

“I’ll explain
later. Is there a place where we can go that’s private?”

Kyle led the
way down an empty hallway to a locked supply room in which he had
access. There was a numbered panel just below the doorknob. As Kyle
pressed his thumb against the buttons to enter his code, Ben
couldn’t help but look. When they entered the room, Ben shut the
door behind him.

“So what’s
going on?” Kyle asked.

“Kyle, I’m
going to tell you something incredible and you’re not going to
believe me.”

“Okay, but
make it quick, I have a lot of work to do.”

“Last night, I
was poking around in the basement and found a secret door in the
fireplace.”

“Let me guess,
you found twenty-two million dollars?”

“No… something
better.”

Kyle crossed
his arms and focused intently on what Ben was saying. He restrained
himself from interrupting, allowing Ben to speak freely.

“I flipped a
switch and one of the side walls retracted to reveal a hidden
doorway. I crawled through and discovered a long corridor that
wrapped around the house and eventually led to a steel door. The
door was locked, but I was able to gain access by entering a ten
digit code… and guess where I got the code from?”

“Tell me.”

“From one of
the notes I had received in Cold Lake. It was still in my back
pocket.”

“You haven’t
washed those pants since Cold Lake?”

“I don’t like
to wash my jeans often because… you know, that’s not
important.”

Kyle continued
to listen in a state of suspended disbelief. A part of him did not
want to believe the fantastic tale of his mischievous friend, who
was known to concoct stories to get a rouse out of people. However,
what Ben had said so far was certainly plausible given that the
house was old and its origins were still a mystery. The entire
time, the scientist in Kyle looked for holes in his friend’s story
and empirical evidence that could be verified. If in fact Ben was
lying about his account, it should be fairly easy to prove him
wrong once they both went down into the basement and inspected the
fireplace together.

“So I entered
the code and the door opened. On the other side of the door was a
room that looked like something out of a Sherlock Holmes novel. It
was filled with shelves of books, a desk, and a couch,” Ben paused
a brief moment to catch his breath.

“As it turns
out, I found something of great interest down there,” Ben said,
reaching into his backpack and pulling out the secret
manuscript.

Kyle was not
really sure what to say. He took the manuscript from Ben’s hands,
flipped through it and read a few bits at random, then handed it
back. “Okay, so what is this?” he asked.

“This here…”
Ben said, stalling for dramatic effect, “is a manuscript of my
entire life.”

The words hit
Kyle’s ear, but did not induce the expected result.

“What do you
mean?” Kyle said, sounding confused and unimpressed.

“Kyle, don’t
you realize what I just said? I found a story about my life — every
major moment from past, present, and even future — buried behind
some secret door, which I just happened to have the code for in my
pocket.”

“Look Ben, I’m
not sure what inspired you to come all this way to tell me this
nonsense, but I have a hectic schedule and a lot of work to do. So
if you don’t mind…”

Ben
repositioned himself in front of the door, blocking the only exit.
“Kyle, you don’t understand. Read this.” Ben shoved the papers in
his face and he began reading. It described Ben coming to the
university to look for Kyle. In an effort to save time, Kyle
skimmed the rest of the text. The last part he read described the
preceding events, which led to the precise moment they were in.
This definitely caught Kyle’s attention. Even though he had yet to
say a word, the intrigue was written on his face. His eyebrows
furrowed as his logical mind tried to make sense of it.

“You see now?”
Ben asked. “How did I know you would lead me into this back
room?”

“Is this your
idea of a joke, Ben? Is this the story you’ve been working on?”

“No, I swear
on anything. I’m telling the truth.” Ben shouted.

“Okay, okay,
calm down.”

“Want to know
something even stranger?” Ben asked as he frantically flipped to
the part in the story where he met Vanessa. “Okay, here. In this
version, it says I met a beautiful woman in a green coat moments
before I found you. I said hello, she said hello back,
blah-blah-blah, right? Listen to this,” Ben said as he began to
read:

‘
The moment
Vanessa walked away, Ben kicked himself for not getting her number.
But that was not Ben’s style. Throughout his life, he had never
once asked out a woman because he had always lacked the
courage.’”

“This actually
happened,” Ben said. “I was outside looking for you and then by
chance decided to enter this building. Of all the buildings, I
chose this one. I did that because it looked like it was going to
rain. So I entered the building, sat down, and started to read the
manuscript. I wanted to find you and so I figured the story might
have a part in it where I find you. I read the part that I just
read to you, except instead of being a coward and not asking for
her number, I asked for it and she gave it to me,” Ben said, still
with an overly excited tone. He reached into his pocket and pulled
out a piece of paper with the name and number of the alleged woman
in the green coat.

Kyle wanted to
doubt Ben so badly, but Ben was actually quite convincing. He had
never seen Ben so excited in all his life. In addition to that,
many other aspects of Ben’s story seemed to be cohesive — the fact
he found Kyle, the scene where they talked in the storage room, and
the phone number from the woman.

“Ben, if what
you’re saying is true, then it’s beyond comprehension.”

“I know.
Believe me, I am just as perplexed as you are.”

Kyle struggled
to find the right words to say since the manuscript had so many
implications that challenged his core beliefs. It seemed to imply
the concept of fatalism — the idea that there are some events that
inevitably happen regardless of the agent’s choosing. Since Ben was
still free to choose to act contrary to what was in the story, the
concept of free will was not completely challenged. Nevertheless,
it was a major breakthrough in human history. The next obvious
question was, where did it come from?

“So what do
you make of all this?” Ben asked.

Kyle was
dumbfounded. He just stood there with a perplexed look on his face,
shaking his head in disbelief. After careful deliberation, he
offered a hypothesis.

“So, you found
this in Gringer’s house, right? So the logical conclusions to draw
are one of two: either Gringer is clairvoyant and can predict the
future, or he happened to write a story that ended up coming
true.”

“Oh, by the
way,” Ben added, “according to the story, Charles Gringer was my
grandfather.”

“Interesting,
that explains a lot actually.”

“It does?”

“Sure. Charles
Gringer knew details of your past and wrote them down. He then made
predictions about your future and perhaps even helped to
orchestrate some of the events in your life, such as giving you a
house, which undoubtedly influenced your decision to move to
Calgary.”

“Do you think
Gringer burned down my apartment?”

“Who
knows?”

“But Kyle,
even you have to admit, if Charles Gringer was somehow pulling
certain strings and manipulating events in my life like some evil
puppet master, he was very specific. How did he get me and you to
bump into each other, and how did he know about the woman in the
green coat?”

“Maybe she’s a
plant,” he suggested. “He could’ve hired her to walk by at that
moment just to mess with you. I mean, he definitely has the money
now to pull off a prank like that.”

“Why would he
do that? And if so, does that mean you’re a plant too.”

“I can assure
you I am not a plant. As far as why he would do something like
this, I mean, either he is really twisted and gets enjoyment out of
manipulating events in people’s lives, or he is testing you in some
way. Or maybe he’s just old and senile and this is what passes for
amusement for bored rich people.”

“Let’s go back
to the clairvoyant hypothesis for a minute. Explain that to
me.”

“It’s the idea
that some people have senses beyond the ordinary human senses of
smell, sight, hearing, touch, and taste. A clairvoyant is thought
to have the special ability to know information about a person or a
physical event through some extrasensory perception.”

“Like a
psychic?”

“Yes,
exactly,” Kyle said. “But I think the simplest explanation is the
most likely one.”

“Which
is?”

“I think you
may have told someone these events, forgot you told them, and they
wrote them down.”

“Believe me, I
didn’t tell anyone.”

“Perhaps at
some point in your past, you went to a hypnotist or a therapist… or
a hypnotherapist.”

“Okay, but I
haven’t been to a hypnotherapist.”

“That’s just
it, if you were hypnotised, you may not be able to recall that
experience.”

“Like
amnesia.”

“Sure, that’s
one way, but people have selective memory. The science is not fully
understood. Basically, there are a number of ways a person can
forget. Sometimes people just have too many memories and their
brain pushes out old memories to make room for new ones.”

“But I’m only
twenty-four, I should have lots of room.”

“Well,
people’s brains work differently.”

Ben did not
feel like they were making progress. He exhaled a deep breath and
clasped his fingers behind his head.

“Okay, what
else?”

“Perhaps you
abused some sort of substance that damaged certain memory banks in
your brain.”

“Do you really
believe that?”

“Who knows?
All these possibilities are on the table at this point. Besides,
that is better than my next suggestion.”

“What’s
that?”

“Have you ever
considered the possibility you have a split personality disorder?
Think about it, you didn’t write this, Larry did!”

“Shut up.”

“I’m just
saying, sometimes people develop these kinds of disorders to block
out bad memories, and you’ve said so yourself you’ve had a lot of
bad memories.”

“Anything
else?”

“Sometimes a
traumatic experience can make a person forget. It’s another coping
mechanism. The brain deletes the memory in order to protect
itself.”

“But I still
remember terrible events,” Ben rebutted.

“Again, the
science is not fully understood yet.”

“Kyle, all
your theories so far revolve around me telling someone my story, or
me writing the story myself and then forgetting about it. What
about you, did you tell my story to anyone? After all, I found this
manuscript in Calgary, a city in which you spent a lot of time
in.”

“Definitely
not.”

“How do you
know, maybe one of your other personalities did… or maybe your just
forgot about it!”

“Very
funny.”

“So far, none
of our theories satisfactorily answer the question about the author
of this manuscript seemingly knowing future events.”

“Yeah, that is
a bit puzzling,” Kyle said. “There is one really farfetched idea
that we have yet to consider.”

“What is
it?”

“Some
scientists are studying the possibility of something called remote
viewing.”

“Remote
viewing? What’s that?”

“It’s
basically when you hijack a person’s brain and view their
memories.”

“Is that
possible… in theory?”

“Well, in
scientific terms, there’s a process. Something first becomes a
hypothesis, then a model, then a theory, then a law.”

“And where
does remote viewing fall?”

“It’s not even
in the theoretical stage yet.”

“Okay then, so
hypothetically, how would remote viewing be possible?”

“I suppose it
would work the same way a computer hacker would hack into someone’s
computer and access all their files. Obviously, it wouldn’t be
through a computer, but the idea would work the same way.”

“Is it
possible?”

“I guess.
Anything’s possible, right? However, I wouldn’t even begin to come
up with a plausible scenario where someone could do that with
today’s technology. Scientists have been able to hijack the brains
of insects and animals, but they first have to implant a chip into
their brains. And they have to be in close proximity to their
subject. But we’re talking about remote controlling the basic
movements in primitive species, not reading people’s thoughts and
memories. Even if that were possible, why would anyone want to
hijack your memory bank? No offence.”

“None
taken.”

“But even
still,” Kyle continued, “how could they know future events?”

Ben took the
note out of his pocket and stared at the number. This time, it
would not be used to unlock a mysterious door to a secret room; he
had a much more common use for it. Standing in front of a payphone,
Ben inserted some coins and then dialed the number.

After a few
rings, a soft voice answered and Ben did his best not to sound
nervous. He had read a few more chapters in the manuscript and
there was no mention of her at all. For this conversation, he was
flying solo. In the original story of Ben’s life, he never got the
girl, so it was now up to him to keep her — a task that was easier
said than done. Any ongoing relationship that transpired between
him and Vanessa would rely solely on Ben’s wit and charm, which up
until that point in his life was non-existent. Ben mustered a few
cohesive sentences and attempted a few jokes. Eventually, he
convinced her to see him.