The Story of Num

“Who is that man?” a high-pitched childish voice sounded unusually loud behind me. “He looks so weird!”   

Curiosity took over and I turned around to check out the “weird man” but there was no one behind me. Instead, I met a pair of bright brown eyes that were looking at me with a mix of fear and inquisitiveness out of the window of a large station wagon. The car looked kind of retro but that wasn't what caught my attention. After all, perhaps these citizens were going to one of those antique car shows that were also a costume party… Like the Renaissance fairs where everyone dressed in the time period and rode real horses.  

I spun around again looking for what might have caught that child’s attention only to realize that the “weird man” he was pointing at was me.  

Now, other nuances started to come into my focus: the adults who were standing around the car were not only dressed in at least two-hundred-year-old fashion but one of them was holding what looked like a real cigarette with grayish smoke trailing into the air. I half-stiffened, expecting that the pollution alarm is going to blaze at any moment with a dozen or so eco-officers arriving at the crime scene. But all stayed quiet. Another look at the woman next to him confirmed that she had wires coming out of her ears. Old-style hearing aid? Or (unspeakable) wired headphones? Wow, that was a rarity! Where could she possibly find those? They were nearly priceless, but the young woman was twisting one of the ends so casually like she didn’t give a damn. Something altogether didn’t feel all right about this scenery. I spread my arms in a fake stretch attempting to look closer at my surroundings and stopped mid-stretch.   

I was standing in the middle of an old-fashioned gas station. That can’t be! Even if this was some freakish convention for the mid-twenties century, no one would allow organizers to place something like this in the middle of the road. Unless... maybe it’s a prop? My doubts ceased as soon as I saw another man come out of the structure next to those things that dispensed gas. I think they called them pumps. Or maybe pumps were shoes with heels? I can’t remember… but it didn’t matter. The guy confidently walked over to one of those crane-looking things before he pulled the top off and stuck it into the side of his car. The numbers in front of him started rolling increasingly and I felt like I was about to faint. I know this will sound like a fairytale or a fantasy, but I swear, I’m not lying. Or making this up! He was really pumping GAS into his car. I thought I went deaf when I saw how the guy casually shook the gas hose after spilling some on the ground. But what’s worse, no one tried to stop him when he finished and drove away. The small puddle was clearly visible on the dusty yellowish ground and my unspoiled nose distinctively recognized the smell of gas even though I sniffed it only once before in my father’s lab when I was little. That got me thinking – why was the ground yellow? And where did this dust (or sand) come from? Any organized convention would sterilize the area within a few square miles so there would be no room for dust.  

I walked a few steps to the left where the ground seemed to change color from grayish-yellow to almost white. As soon as I crossed the line, something hot and bright blinded me making me shamefully scream out loud. The effect of the unfiltered light made my knees buckle so I sank like an old compost box to the ground. A few hands quickly grabbed at me, dragging me backward.  

“Are you all right, man?” said a deep male voice with a strange dialect.  

“Maybe he got overheated? Or had sunstroke?” chimed in a soft female voice while something cool and soothing pressed to my forehead.  

I carefully opened my eyes to see that I was sitting on the step next to the building with a few concerned faces around me.  

“Do you need a doctor? Should we call an ambulance?” Asked the same female voice which turned out to belong to a tiny brunette with huge blue eyes surrounded by thick black lines. It looked so unusual that I couldn’t stop staring. It certainly made her eyes pop but why would she draw something on her face? Or was that a part of her costume? Never heard of anything like that before. “What’s your name, sir?”  

All I could do was bat my eyelashes at her. Was she asking me?  

“Sir, can you hear me? Do you speak English?”  

I slowly nodded and gave her, what I was sure, was the most stupid smile.  

“Can you tell us your name?” she comfortably settled next to me pressing the same cool wet napkin to my forehead. I closed my eyes with relief. That felt really good.  

“Num. My name is Num,” I whispered, hoping that she would stay like that for a long time, next to me.  

“Num? That’s an unusual name. What does it mean?”  

Her question really surprised me – how could she not know how high of a rank it was? But she seemed to interpret my surprised look in her own way.  

“Oh, I’m sorry! The last thing you must want to do right now is talk! I’m Sofi, I live close by. Are you from here?”  

My head was spinning from that avalanche of information and emotions. What did she mean she lived close by? Where from here? And that is when a sudden thought almost knocked me over. I stood up slowly looking around again. I pinched my hand, then my face. I crouched carefully reaching out for the dust next to my shoes. I expected it to be rough and unpleasant and was already winching when my finger felt its surface, but it turned out to be soft and silky. I wasn’t sleeping. This was not a virtual time travel hub. Everything around me was unquestionably real. But the same question was beating in my head from one side to another.  

How did I get here? And where is “here”?  

“Num, is there someone we could call for you?” Sofie’s voice sounded unbelievably far away even though she was standing next to me with her arms spread as if she was ready to catch me if I fell. I wished she would stop talking, I needed to concentrate. What could I remember last? I woke up earlier than usual. I was determined to feed my traveling plants before they got into the neighbor's pool again. Only recently, they were released to the public to calculate the adaptation rate and to confirm if the plants will in fact continue to travel from place to place if they have adequate food. Not sure if it was me who was so unlucky but mine were always hungry! So, I caught up with my troublemakers when they were just waking up. Stop. I digressed. How did I get here?   

After I fed my plants, I changed into my outside attire. Nothing special – just a thermoregulated yellow jumpsuit with shortened leggings. This was last year’s model with the built-in washable communicator (I know it’s a shame, but I couldn’t afford the latest one yet). I was prescribed a mandatory thirty minutes of physical activity recently after they found about a 15% variation from the norm in my latest weekly blood work so I went for a quick walk. I distinctly remember how I left my unit and heard the gate lock behind me. After getting to the end of my block, I turned around the corner and… heard that kid calling me a weird man! I’m not weird! I’m absolutely normal. Just because my clothes are a bit aged, it doesn’t make me weird. I have a few friends that also don’t change their outfits every season and they are fine. I would like to go home now! You are a very nice person, doctor, so no offense, but I really would like to leave!  

I was listening tiredly in my chair to the patient who was repeating his story to me for the hundredth time. It was quite remarkable that he never skipped or got confused. His story was solid, well-thought-out, and never conflicting. At times, he remembered additional details or described smells that were unusual to him, but his consistency was impressive. I glanced again at his chart. The ambulance brought him to the clinic after he made a scene at one of the New Mexico gas stations almost three years ago. None of the drugs or treatments worked so my colleagues were at a loss for what to do with him. He didn’t fit the description of anyone who was missing, no one claimed him, so we kept listening to his blabber day after day. He had a very negative reaction every time someone wanted to light up a cigarette around him, so we tried to refrain ourselves from doing it in interviews with him. Trust me, it wasn't easy!   

Other than the obsession and insistence that he needs to go home to his walking plants, Num was friendly and peaceful. Happy to help others and surprisingly inventive. His knowledge in some of the sciences was equally impressive and a bit futuristic at times but he said that at home, all of that was common knowledge from a young age. Someone suggested that maybe he was a spy, but his English was nearly perfect. Overall, I liked the guy. He was relatively young, maybe in his early thirties. My wife at times even sent some homemade pie for him, feeling bad for the poor darling because he never had any visitors. To be honest, I think we all felt bad. He was a likable guy, but his schizophrenia was obviously progressing and despite the significant advances to current medicine in our field, there was no cure. The only unknown in his case was that so far, we were not able to identify the material that his original suit was made from. But we were inclined to believe that it might have been something of his personal creation given Num’s advanced skills. My recommendation would be to continue with the current treatment plan until January 1968 and reassess from there.