Free Somewhere in Time by Richard Matheson Page B

feel; the tranquillity of absolute assurance.
    Lying on the bed those forty-five minutes, I don't know whether I eventually slept or went into a hypnotic state or what. All I know is I believed what I was hearing. After a while, it was as though some voice other than my own was speaking to me. Some disembodied personality instructing me from some spaceless, timeless zone. I believed that voice without question.
    What was the phrase I read so many years ago? The one I was so impressed with that, at one point, I considered having it printed on a piece of wood and hanging it on my office wall.
    I remember. What you believe becomes your world.
    Lying here before, I believed that the voice I heard was telling me the truth and that I was lying on this bed, with my eyes closed, not in 1971 but in 1896.
    I'll do this again and again until that belief has so completely overwhelmed me that I'll literally be there and rise and leave this room and reach Elise.
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    Three thirty-nine p.m. End of another session. Similar results. Conviction; peace; assurance. At one point, I actually considered opening my eyes and looking around to see if I were there yet.
    A bizarre thought just occurred to me.
    What if, when I open my eyes in 1896, it is to see somebody in the room with me, gaping at me in shock? Could I cope with that? What if - Good God!-some married couple had just begun to experience "nupital conjugation" as I suddenly appear in bed with them, most likely under or on top? Grotesque. Yet how can I avoid it? I have to lie on the bed. I suppose I could lie under it, just in case, but the discomfort would undo my mental concentration.
    I'll have to risk it, that's all. I can't see any other way. My hope is that-recalling Babcock's letter to Elise-the winter season bringing fewer guests, this room will be unoccupied.
    Regardless, the risk must be taken. I'm certainly not going to let that problem undo the project.
    A brief time-out, then back to it again.
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    Four thirty-seven p.m. A problem; two in fact, one irremediable, the other with a hoped-for solution.
    First problem: The sound of my voice, during this third session, began to lose its abstract quality and become more identifiable. Why is that? It should be drifting further from recognition each time I hear it, shouldn't it?
    Maybe not, though. Maybe problem two ties in with it, said problem being this: Although the conviction remained as I listened, it began to fade because I was hearing the same words over and over-which was valuable hypnotically but not of value to the portion of my mind that still supports logic as its king. That mental portion finally asked the question openly: Is that all you know about this day in November 1896?
    Got it! Will run downstairs and buy a copy of Marcie Buckley's book in the Smoke Shop, give it a quick reading, and pick up facts pertinent to 1896, then record a different forty-five minute instruction and enlarge upon the evidence that I am here in November 19, 1896; set the stage with more detail, as it were. Elise would approve of that.
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    Later. An interesting book. Well, not a book actually; she's working on a full-length version now. This is more an oversize pamphlet, sixty-four pages in length with sketches, chapters on the building of the hotel, some on its history and the history of Coronado, photographs of its present appearance and a few of its past, photographs of celebrities who've visited the hotel (the Prince of Wales, no less), plus notes and drawings re the contemplated future of the hotel. I've compiled enough items to enrich my next instruction, which I'll start in a few minutes.
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    It's Thursday, November 19, 1896. You're lying on your bed in Room 527, eyes closed. The sun has gone down and it's dark now. Night is falling on this Thursday at the Hotel del Coronado; Thursday, November 19, 1896. The lights are being turned on in the hotel now. The light fixtures are for both gas and