Greetings Dear Reader! Now that the 2014th year has started so my blog, and here's the first tale as well, I hope you'll enjoy it!  Let it begin then:

Changing past

      It was an enjoyably warm and happy afternoon. It was that kind of calm and sleepy Sunday-like afternoon where the odour of summer floats and mixes with the smell of sweating asphalt. And on this asphalt rode a mocha-bronze Buick. The air conditioner was on, as well as the onboard computer, which projected various data onto the windshield: internal and external temperatures, speed, fuel consumption, position and destination. There was no need for these last two though. The car’s proprietor knew well the way and the environment. He was completely aware that he was driving on the Columbine Pike of Arlington County in the State of Virginia, in the United States of America. His destination was none other than the home of the country’s Ministry of Defence: the Pentagon.

      George Tennessee Baker was the owner of the car; he was fifty years old and the father of two daughters, Georgia and Carolina. He firmly grasped the antiperspirant-coated wheel, and when he saw his destination from afar, a slight relief became visible on his face. Yet the wrinkles on his face still didn’t smooth. These furrows were not due to his hard life. The truth was far from that, for he was raised in a normal family, amongst loving parents and siblings. George T. Baker had been working in the “foreign affairs service” since he was in his twenties. When his performance on the routine physical tests had begun to decline, the position of advisor was offered to him. He had gladly accepted it as it would allow him to spend more time with his family. He had never belonged amongst his adrenalin-addict colleagues; his fosterage focussed rather on his family. He had learned this from his parents in Tennessee; it was an integral part of the traditional southern mentality.

      George somehow had always been different than the average American of Dixie. He spoke an erudite English with a so-called southern gentleman accent–an accent savoury and pleasant to the human ear. But the essence of his talk was often not so pleasant, especially to those who didn’t come from a southern state. He made many uneasy with his behaviour and his views; most just couldn’t label Mr. Baker. For couched within his otherwise progressive set of views was a certain nostalgia for ‘the way things used to be.’ It often happened that those who listened to him would have liked to thrash him to within an inch of his life; but almost in the same moment these same listeners would have gladly clasped him in their arms. This duality, these opposing attributes, characterized a paradoxical personality that verged on impossibility. He could be as headstrong and conceited as a tyrant and at the same time yielding and humble like a good king. In many matters he was severely conservative, almost Prussian–he had even named his daughters after southern states. But at the same time he bore many liberal thoughts, and in many cases adhered to these. If he had caused trouble, perhaps damage, he apologized not—never; he hadn’t been taught that way. But he had been taught how to remedy, how to make amends.

      Not only did George himself embody a complexity of contraries, but the external conditions of his life often mirrored this as well. For example, his workplace: everyone says that it is in Washington, although in theory it belongs to Virginia, for it is on the other side of the Potomac.

      Baker’s first order of business upon arrival that day was to attend a critical meeting in which would be decided the fate of several covert military installations of certain anti-American countries. There were some that would be destroyed, almost in the moment of decision, by stealth-fighters that deluded completely the enemy’s air defence. The airplanes were ready. There were other complexes which would be disabled by local agents. In the second half of the meeting they tried to discern, with the help of air and ground photos, the purpose of other installations. The discussion went on for hours; when it finally finished, everybody set off for home–with the exception of George T. Baker, who went back to his office.

      He had furnished his office such that its every nook inspired him to work. Filing cabinets, a cupboard and his desktop were characterized by a simple, utilitarian Shaker style. All these fittings were made of golden maple, and were very well maintained such that the oil varnish on them shone. He had inherited this furniture from his great-grandfather who had been an officer of General Robert Edward Lee.

      He entered and walked to his desk and at once began to glance through some files. He opened a window, which exceptionally didn’t face the pentagon-shaped central plaza, also known as “ground zero”, but rather looked out at the river and the roads. The soft whirring of cars gently interrupted the office’s tranquility. As George sat down he saw an unfamiliar package lying on top of the files that he had earlier arranged on his desktop. To Uncle George it read in a childish hand. The sender was not indicated on the package. Baker opened the package thinking that there weren’t any children in his family that he knew of besides his daughters. Inside the first envelope was another. Stamped on the second, brown envelope were the words Top Secret and a warning that any unauthorized person looking at it would risk five years in prison.

      Baker opened it, surprised that somebody would have sent him a report in this way when it could easily have been done electronically. What is more, an untouched wax seal secured the internal envelope. He lifted the seal and took out a thick bundle of documents. As he cycled through them, there was a knock on the door. With a brief “Come in!” and an uneasy feeling he let the visitor in.

      A disheveled almond-eyed young man rushed in. He threw himself immediately into the chair in front of Baker’s desk. Baker could see that his man was very agitated; he expected some serious news from the young Gannon Wong. (His real name was Wong Gan but his parents had Anglicized it to help him integrate into American society. His parents had taken a lot of time to find a name for him; they were looking for something similar to Gan, which in Chinese means "adventure". They settled on Gannon, a Gaelic name which means "fair-skinned," but at least sounded like Gan.)

'Sir, let’s go to the meeting at once! This case…' he pointed at the thick bundle of documents in Baker’s hand '…it brooks no delay'

'Sorry Gannon, but the meeting finished half an hour ago. And I don’t think that…'

'Then sound the alarm and tell them to send that lousy installation to kingdom come!'

'Relax, Gannon!'

'Don’t you understand? We don’t have time! Maybe we’re already too late!'

'We don’t have time for what?'

'You didn’t read my report?'

'No.'

'Shit… sir!' Gannon jumped at the desk. 'If we don’t act, we’re done!'

'Calm down and tell me what this is all about.'

'Sir, call the others and tell them…' Gannon grabbed the phone but Baker suddenly slapped his face so hard that the agent fell back into his chair.

'Calm down now! And tell me clearly what happened!' Baker shouted. He was starting to become afraid of his own man.

'Alright. Sit down, sir! I’ll tell you at once,' said Wong, who realized that he wasn’t helping the case with his agitated and nervous behaviour. 'Excuse me, sir…'

'I… You know what? I’ll promote you as soon as you finish what you’ve started' said Baker, who wanted to remedy his slap. (He had already been considering Agent Wong for that promotion anyway.)

'Thank you, sir, but this is not important now. The point is that the Chinese have developed a special submarine.'

'Some nuclear watercraft that uses stealth technology…'

'No. Even worse. I know it because I was there last week. The purpose of this submarine is not ordinary destruction; its purpose is not to destroy the objective… because the objective has never existed!'

'What are you drivelling about here?'

'They’ve constructed a time-machine!'

'Wong, you are going too far!'

'I know, sir. I’m completely aware of that. But I was onboard when it happened. They’ve found a way to use seawater somehow to produce the enormous amount of energy that’s necessary for time travel. The first unit is in that secret submarine plant in Guangdong.'

'How can you prove this?'

'Everything is in the files, sir! I not only took photos of that Chinese junk from the seventeenth century but I also managed to photograph the submarine’s plans as well. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to read the documentation so I don’t know how the submarine works, but take a look at the images.'

'I see the photographs, but this… hmm… I think this is not enough yet.'

'Look, I posted it to you…'

'Post? You simply sent this by post? Are you insane? And I thought all these stamps and so on were simply a diversion of some sort.'

'It was so, sir. This seemed the safest way, sir. Don’t worry! Was the seal broken?'

'No.'

'Phew… Then they didn’t open it. Although I fear our whole security system is not even worth a dime. They could easily acquire the codes to be able to read our emails!'

'So, before I mailed this to you I took a book by Pu Songling that belonged to an English library in Hong Kong and tore a page out of it. This page proves that the Chinese were there with me too.'

'Who is this Pu Songling?'

'A Qing Dynasty writer. Seventeenth century.'

'And what can a…'

'Read it!'

      And here is the story of Pu Songling, to share a work of a peerless story-teller:

DAYLIGHT AT NIGHT

      Traveling merchants were sailing on the South Seas. Around midnight, at their ship such a light rose like that of the day. They got up to see what had happened. They saw a monster as it rose from the water, its upper body alone as enormous as a mountain. Its eyes were like two glowing suns shining beams of light all around that lit up the whole horizon.

      The merchants were filled with dread and asked the sailors what it was, but nobody could answer. They crept forth and watched it. A little later the monster went under the sea again and darkness fell on everything.  Later, when they moored, everyone on land was talking about the strange lights, for they had seen it too.

'That monster! That monster was the submarine! And those lights were its searchlights, as you can see in the photographs. And what the merchants took for a mountain was the submarine’s conning tower!'

'Astounding! I’ll call the members at once and inform them of the emergency. We can’t afford to lose any…'

      But George Tennessee Baker was not able to finish his sentence. Suddenly he experienced such a feeling, a strange feeling that will be difficult to describe. He found his body growing so heavy, his cognitive faculties becoming hazier, until he felt himself to be witnessing the destruction of each thought. In his brain, a strange prickling turned to numbness. Yet in this numbness he felt oddly conscious of every neural pathway in his body.

      Then suddenly he was gripped by the dread of death and felt that certain segments of his mind were falling screaming into the ever-nothing from which they had been created. Pain circulated in his body. It was not a pain that wanted to kill, to destroy, but one which wanted to change, to create, to rebirth. Perhaps an infant feels the same way when coming into this world. Then George Tennessee Baker found that his personality had split and that he, the American Baker, was giving place to someone else. Baker fought with all his strength but he could see that his hands were strangely changed. His thick workman-like fingers grew thinner and more delicate and his shortly cut nails turned into long, claw-like horns. His memories were dying out and being replaced by new ones. Although his eyes were open he couldn’t take in anything of the outside world; but it had changed as well.

      His office had grown larger, and in place of the wall-to-wall carpet was a polished wooden floor. The furniture had transformed into a refined and darkly polished early Beijing style. The pictures on the wall had become decorative scrolls, showing carefully rendered ideograms; the verdant panorama had become a loud and densely packed metropolis.

      Not only had the mind of Wong Gannon disappeared into oblivion but his body as well. It happened with the purpose of building another world from his atoms.

      After this strange metamorphosis-storm everything calmed down.

'…time.'

      This single word was uttered, not in English but in Mandarin Chinese, by a small wizened clerk who was fifty years old and the father of two daughters (Xiayou and Ziyi). He had just realized he was talking to himself. He shook his head and looked down at his desk. In front of him lay a giant family tree. He remembered that he had been examining it before… before something happened; but he didn’t know what. That strange feeling had happened. It seemed that everything had become reality from a dream. Yes! It was a very poetic drafting but it might be true; he had never considered before that he might be only a dream.

      He banished these thoughts from his mind and gazed again at the family tree. Ah, yes. He had been looking at the place on the tree that indicated that his ancestors had inter-bred with an immigrant family called Baker. This name reminded him of another one: Wong Gan. He didn’t know such a person. Maybe he had seen that name in an advertisement. He looked out the window and could see that the sun was about to set. He looked at his watch, then cast a glance at his car keys which rested on the edge of his desk. The little keychain boasted that it belonged to a Tun Changan (East Changan) make of car. Zhang Qian stood up from his desk and walked out of his office. He was hurrying, for that day they were celebrating their liberation from the communist yoke. Zhang Qian was a citizen of the Independent Chinese Republic. And this country was on the continent of Zheng-dalu, named after the great explorer Zhang He.