May 11th, 2317 - 10:00 p.m.

To Dr. Erick Williamson, Peppercreek University

My name is Dr. Gina Lenore Kalkin, and I am currently working at Saint Jude’s hospital California, neurological psychiatric unit. I am aware of your background in astrophysics as well as your history in the study of mass extinctions. I feel it is necessary to bring to your attention a patient whose case is rather unnerving. The patient, a John Doe, was picked up by a research team in Antarctica, where he was found laying in an isolated area of ice wrapped in a blanket (the material of this blanket has yet to be determined). Due to Mr. Doe’s ‘severe condition’ the team had called for him to be helicoptered out.

On that busy morning, May 7th of this month, I was assigned to him upon his arrival to the emergency ward due to the lack of internal medicine doctors on duty. He was a tall, anorexic looking man who appeared to be in his twenties; he was delirious and suffering from the symptoms of sleep deprivation. Upon examining his body I found a slight green discoloration to his skin that entirely covered his body. There were also long straight scars on his face radiating outward from his nose. The internal medicine doctors have since informed me that these types of scars are formed by the skin being subject to pressurized air or fluid. I examined his pupils, and in finding that he had no irises to speak of ordered a CT scan of his brain.

I had ordered fluids for Mr. Doe as I had noticed signs of severe dehydration. Approximately five minutes after the IV drip had begun Mr. Doe was completely coherent and calm. He refused to give us his name or any other means of identification. However, he did ask very politely to have the shades pulled back and to be moved in front of the window. Due to his demeanor I was inclined to ask the nurses to comply with his request. Once he was deemed stabilized, he was allowed to rest under the watch of Nurse Gallian where he slept for twenty hours, and awoke at 11:00 a.m. the following day, May 8th. The internal medicine doctors had by then applied pharmaceuticals to his facial scars, and ran blood tests in hopes of diagnosing the discoloration of his skin. Every test we now know of has been run, and every test has come back negative.

I began my sessions with Mr. Doe the evening of the 8th. I was inclined to begin by asking him how he had come to the physical condition he was in, and more specifically how he had found himself in Antarctica. However, he began speaking without my prompting and came up with what I considered a very fanciful story. The following are fragments from the audio recordings of our sessions.

Mr. Doe: They were building it before it happened.
Dr. Kalkin: John, who is “they”?
Mr. Doe: Them, the government from America.
Dr. Kalkin: And what were they building?
(a pause from Mr. Doe)
Mr. Doe: The Space Dome, the Martian Port. It was completed only a week before the comet hit earth. Why don’t you know what I’m talking about?

I stop here to remind you Dr. Williamson that the mentioned Space Dome was completed and in working condition on the 4th of this month. Mr. Doe continues with his story:

Mr. Doe: I was born on the day it hit. My mother would cry when I was younger about her “home being destroyed”. My father is an exobiologist, so my family had been assigned to the Space Dome on top priority. I guess the general public knew about the comet a few days before, but were informed that the professionals were sure it would not hit them. We had to learn all this in school. How the sky went black, and blocked out the light. How the earthquakes had demolished the cities, and the outgassing of the volcanoes poisoned everyone. Those that survived the horrors of it, even the acid rain, they died a few days later from lack of fresh water. I never could fully comprehend the severity of their deaths.
Dr. Kalkin: John, do you realize that you are on Earth, and that the Space Dome was only finished a few days ago?

At this comment Mr. Doe’s eyes got wide and he began gasping for air and sporadically screaming. He also tried to jump out of his hospital bed, at that point he was restrained and given tranquilizers which allowed him to sleep until the following morning. That evening, while listening to the radio I learned of the Blake comet they have discovered, which I am sure you are aware of by now. On May 9th I visited Mr. Doe again, on arrival I observed him sitting upright in a chair staring out the window. I pulled a chair up beside him and he began to talk again.

Mr. Doe: I accept that I’ve traveled through time, okay? I just can’t tell you how, I don‘t know how I got these scars on my face either.
Dr. Kalkin: Do you really believe you have traveled through time John?
(a long pause from Mr. Doe)
Mr. Doe: They’re trying to force feed me you know?
Dr. Kalkin: You’re changing the subject John.
Mr. Doe: I don’t need to eat though.
Dr. Kalkin: John, do you consider yourself anorexic?
Mr. Doe: No Ma’am. I metabolize just fine.
Dr. Kalkin: How can you metabolize if you don’t eat?
Mr. Doe: That doctor on the Space Dome, he gave everyone in the dome some kind of serous fluid, that’s when we all turned green. He somehow triggered chlorophyll in our skin, if he hadn’t we all would have died when the supplies ran out. The exogeologists had found groundwater, and that helped us survive strictly by photosynthesizing since the greenhouse wasn’t producing like they hoped. The photosynthesis is why we all have underdeveloped guts.

I stop again to inform you Dr. Williamson that my colleague, Dr. Lasinski, has been working on such a theory as to provide animals with chlorophyll which he has thus been unable to test. Dr. Lasinski, a few days prior to today, wrote me a note telling me of his assignment to the Space Dome. Mr. Doe has also informed me that the same doctor that performed the miracle with the chlorophyll had removed his irises as well so that the pupils were able to expand further without the constriction of the iris, this made it easier for them to function at night since they had spent most of their days ‘eating’ during sunlight hours. At that time in our session Mr. Doe felt particularly weak and we concluded for the day. We continued the next day, the 10th, in the late evening.

Mr. Doe: It hit somewhere in Russia, late in the morning their time. We were told that everyone was in shock when it happened. Of course they had to tell us that. But at least a hundred of them arrived a month later on a cargo ship. Someone knew, I guess they just didn’t tell anyone so the could sneak off the planet. I never really spoke to any of them, and they never really spoke to any of us. They tried to install some kind of new political system in the Space Dome, but those of us actually assigned there outnumbered them, opting instead for the simplistic system that had been set up for us.
(a pause from Mr. Doe)
Most of the passengers on the cargo ship went insane within the first year and killed themselves. Living there is the only life I’ve known, so I can’t tell you if living there was ‘normal’ or not. I guess the Space Dome was lacking in the luxuries of Earth. Maybe because we didn’t have the blue sky you have here, or the expanse. Maybe those on the cargo ship just couldn’t cope with the death on earth.
Dr. Kalkin: John, what’s the last thing you remember before Antarctica?
(a long pause from Mr. Doe)
Mr. Doe: They had been talking about the black hole at the center of our galaxy pulsing. It hiccupped or something. We had seen that it was going to happen before it hit us because the speed of light is faster than the energy pulse was. There was talk of trying to escape it, but our technology couldn’t take us far enough. In the end, I stayed in my room under the sheets waiting for it. Some people watched it hit us, but I just couldn’t handle it. The ground shook, and that’s the last thing I can remember.

At this Mr. Doe began crying and asked for the session to be over. I did not refuse him, and we ended for the day. I am sorry to say that Mr. Doe passed away early this evening of unknown causes. However his story concerned me, and I felt the need to inform you considering your expertise. Please feel free to contact me at any time on this matter.

Sincerely,
Dr. Gina Lenore Kalkin

*~*

Dr.Kalkin folded her letter and slid it into the envelope, but as she opened her drawer to look for a stamp the first sonic boom shook her house and shattered her windows.