The Ascension of Joseph Cutter

By Rob Harrand

Joseph Cutter's day had been one of complete normality, a spinning of the Earth that had revealed nothing beyond all the ones that had preceded it. When he wakes to find himself thirty years in the past and confronted by a man who claims not to be human, his world is shaken apart, leaving nothing behind but a desire to find out the truth.

Follow Joseph on a journey through both space and time, science-fiction and science-fact. Encounter the extremes of the Universe, the development of life on Earth, what it means to be human, and how lucky we are to exist.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781291116991

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The Ascension of Joseph CutterBLUE cover eBook small.jpg

The Ascension of Joseph Cutter

ISBN 978-1-291-11699-1

Copyright 2012 Rob Harrand. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in any retrieval system of any nature, without the written permission of the copyright holder and the publisher.

To Fiona

Preface

This book is a secular guide to basics of the Universe. It is, at its core, a non-fiction book enveloped in a fictional story, in that it deals with scientific and historical facts, is completely linear in structure, and involves a single topic per chapter. Its aim is to educate and make the reader question the world around them, and it should be approached in this way, rather than like that of a conventional novel.

The topics chosen in the book largely follow my own journey from confusion and belief in more-or-less everything, to clarity and understanding of what is and what isn’t true. That journey took me over ten years. It is my hope that this book will help someone out there make a similar transition in much less time.

Many thanks to Fiona and Tracy who helped proof-read the early drafts of this book, and to Darren Barnett for illustrating the front-cover.

This is my first book, written purely as a hobby. I am very much an amateur. But I know that I would have enjoyed reading this book at the start of my journey, aged around fifteen. Perhaps you will, too.

Rob Harrand, September 2012

Chapter 1 - Awakening

"Know thyself" - inscription at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi

"Look around you. What do you see?" - Nagas.

Joseph woke suddenly with a sharp gasp.  He froze, his face staring down at a picture of a small English seaside town.  It was a placemat, sat on a large table which was draped with a thin, dark-brown cloth.  He lifted his head and found himself gazing at an open plan kitchen and dining room.  He frowned, struggling to understand.

At first there was apparent silence. Then the faint ticking of a clock nudged itself into focus, followed by bird song and the dull drone of a passing car. Finally, he became aware of his breathing; rapid, in time with his racing heart.

He recognised where he was. It was his parent’s house, but the decor was strange, outdated.  The kitchen cupboards were pale brown with small white plastic handles, the curtains a hideous bright orange and the television was an enormous plastic bulk.  The house hadn’t looked like this in years; decades even. He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers against his brow, trying to block everything out. He focused on his breathing and tried in vain to slow its pace.  Was this a dream? He knew it must be. But his thoughts were clear, lucid.  He opened his eyes again and sat staring at the room for several minutes. Nothing happened. He wondered if he’d ever had such an uneventful dream before. Perhaps, but by their very nature they were forgettable.

He searched his thoughts. The last thing he could remember was heading to bed in his house, over fifty miles away.  He’d worked late and driven home, had dinner, watched some television and then headed to bed. Had he been sleep-walking? He’d heard tales of people who walked miles in their sleep, but why was he here? This simply wasn’t possible. After his parents had retired several years ago, they’d moved out of the family home.

He recalled everything from the previous day with a clarity he’d never experienced in a dream before, and he began to feel a sense of renewed panic as he failed to find an explanation.

‘Hello?’ he called out, not quite knowing whether he wanted a response or not. If he was trespassing, then he needed to get out as quickly as possible, but something told him that that wasn’t the case.

He stood and wandered slowly around the room.  He called out again, but still no-one answered. The whole house was perfectly still. He walked over to the sink and filled a glass with water from the tap. The water was ice cold, making his teeth ache, the sensation as real as any waking feeling.

Then something moved in the corner of his eye, and he quickly realised that it was his own reflection in the glass of the oven door. The image that stared back was faint, but clearly recognisable. He looked just as he should, and wondered again if he’d ever actually seen his own reflection in a dream before.

Outside, he saw that the garden was bathed in the warmth and light of a summer’s day.  A brick-wall surrounded a well-kept area of grass and bright flowers, with a large pond and an old, weathered shed occupying one corner, just as he remembered.  As he moved closer, he spotted bird-feeders hanging from one of the trees and he could see dozens of small birds dancing around a pile of food that had fallen onto the ground.  An old memory appeared suddenly in his thoughts and the sensation of familiarity hit him, making him feel sure that he knew why the food was scattered across the garden. Images flooded through his mind, until a smile crept across his face, the vision of a squirrel removing the top of the feeder clear to him.  He hadn’t thought of that since he was a boy, but now the memory was vivid, as if it had occurred weeks rather than years ago.

Several other old memories then came to him, released from some forgotten vault by this scene from his early life, a scene that hadn’t existed for over thirty years.  He recalled when he’d raced around the garden on a small toy tractor, and the seemingly endless childhood white Christmases when he’d built snowmen with his family. A strange sense of calm overcame him as the sights and sounds took him back to a happy childhood.  His thoughts slowly began to settle and he took a few deep breaths.

‘What on Earth is going on?’ he slowly said out-loud, suddenly transfixed by a large dove that was perched on the edge of a small stone pot, its eyes darting around, looking almost as lost and confused as he was.

‘Don’t you recognise it?’ a voice behind him replied.

Joseph turned around, almost dropping the glass that he was holding.  In the corner of the room stood a stranger, a man of average height, almost completely bald and with his hands held behind his back in a formal manner.  His clothes were smart, a well fitted dark shirt and a pair of grey trousers that looked like they’d never been worn before.

He stood staring at the man, his heart thumping in his chest. The stranger looked back, half smiling, seemingly waiting for a reply.

‘Who are you? What the hell’s going on?’ he blurted out. It was the best he could think of.  Perhaps this was the current owner of the house, a man with an interest in retro-decor?

‘My name is Nagas, I’m a friend, you’re in no danger.’  The man’s smile became broader. ‘Shall we sit?’ he said, with a gesture towards the table.

‘No,’ Joseph snapped, not convinced by his own explanation as to the identity of the man. ‘What are you doing here? Do you live here?’

A disheartened look appeared on the man’s face; one of instant rejection, but somehow he didn’t seem surprised, like he’d heard the reaction a million times before.  Joseph turned his head to the window. ‘This must be a dream,’ he whispered.

‘This is no dream Joe, this is all very real. Well, sort of,’ he replied.

A strange wave of inevitability overcame Joseph, and after a few moments of hesitation, he sighed and sat down at the table.  Nagas did the same.

‘Joe, please listen to me. This is very important.’

Nagas clasped his hands in front of his chin and frowned, his tone suddenly very serious.

‘Everything I am about to say will seem utterly ludicrous, you won’t believe a word of it. But in time, you will come to see that it’s all true.’

Joseph sat and looked across at him, taking in the details of his appearance. What hair he had left was completely grey, and he guessed that the man was at least sixty years old. Joseph didn’t feel threatened in the slightest, just completely mystified by the whole situation. In the end he leaned back in his chair, half smiled and gave up trying to decide if it was all a dream or not.

‘Go on,’ he said, eager to hear what possible explanation this man could give.

Nagas gave a deep sigh and lowered his hands from his chin.

‘You are no longer on Earth. We’re in a ship, travelling through space.’

Joseph sat in silence, his brow raised and eyes wide.

‘Well, that explains it,’ he replied, his arms half raised in mock acceptance.

‘Everything you see around you is a simulation, kind of a super advanced virtual reality. You’re actually sat in a completely empty room.’

Nagas waited for a reply, but none came. He continued, ‘And I don’t look like this, nor am I really here. I’m in another part of the ship.’

The explanation was met with silence. The ticking of the clock had suddenly become apparently much louder and Joseph almost burst into laughter.

‘Look,’ he firmly replied. ‘I might not be as educated as some people I know, I’ve not been to university, I don’t know the first thing about virtual reality or anything like that, but I’m not stupid. I can’t explain what’s going on here, but, well, it’s obviously a dream.’

Nagas leaned forward a little. ‘Does it feel like a dream, Joe?’

Joseph laughed. ‘I can’t believe I’m having an argument in a dream about being in a dream.’

‘You didn’t answer my question, does this feel like a dream?’

‘Well, no but...’

‘Look around you. What do you see?’ Nagas leaned back and swept his arm across the room.

Joseph glanced around for a few seconds.

‘Well, we’re in my parent’s house, but it hasn’t looked like this for a long time. Look at that television!’ he said, nodding towards the block of glass and plastic which sat dominating the corner of the room. ‘My parents haven’t lived here for years.’

He glanced again out of the window, and recalled how the old wooden shed had been taken away long before his parents had moved out.

‘Take a look at this,’ said Nagas, passing over a newspaper that Joseph hadn’t noticed before.  He looked at the date: March 19th, 1982.

‘My birthday, my ninth birthday.’ Joseph scanned the front cover.

‘This ship’s pretty clever, Joe. It’s looked inside your mind, inside your memories, and it’s chosen for this simulation an environment that would put you at ease.  I can only assume that you had a very happy childhood and that you enjoyed being in this part of your parent’s house.’

He sat staring at the paper.

‘True, I used to really like this room, I still do,’ he finally replied, looking up at Nagas. ‘Every family meal was spent around this table. A lot of good memories.’

He was lost for a moment in this scene from the past, his thoughts suddenly spilling out into the rest of the house.  The room that they were in had three doors, which between them led to every other room on the ground floor, and the large windows overlooked the garden where his parents had spent most of their spare time during the final years of living here. His first bedroom was a tiny boxroom at the top of the stairs. It had been just large enough for his cot and a few other small bits of furniture, and the earliest memory he could conjure was of being placed into the bed as an infant.

‘There we go, that’s why we’re here,’ Nagas flatly stated, as if clearing up the whole matter.

Joseph snapped out of his daydream. He looked again at Nagas and tried to assess him, attempting without success to fathom the thoughts behind the calm, relaxed expression upon his face. After a short while he decided that if this was a dream, then no possible harm could come to him and he may as well see where the situation would lead.  He’d had a few lucid dreams over the years, but nothing like this.  He wondered just how far and for how long it would continue.

‘So,’ Joseph said, ‘...we’re on a spaceship.  I suppose you’re an alien.’

Nagas’ expression didn’t change, despite the sarcasm.

‘Yes, that’s true, but please don’t let that alarm you.’

‘And I’m guessing you’re from...Mars?’

Nagas laughed.

‘Joe, Mars is mostly a dead planet.  There are a few microbes here and there, but they’re all descended from Terrestrial life, carried over from Earth inside meteorites from time to time.  They can’t build ships.’

He spoke with a look of genuine amusement, but not at Joseph’s comments.  He seemed to light up with the talk of planets and life. He continued. ‘I’m from a planet tens of thousands of light years away. Do you know what a light year is?’

‘I’ve heard of it.  I’m not that good at science.  It’s a distance, right?’

Joseph glanced back at the newspaper for a moment, only half concerned with the conversation.

‘Correct.  One light year is the distance travelled by light in one Earth year,’ said Nagas, waving a finger to the last three words. ‘It’s the equivalent to almost six trillion miles.’

Joseph frowned, not knowing what to say. If anything, he was becoming even more confused. Nagas smiled, looking much happier now that Joseph had apparently given up arguing.

‘I have a great deal of interesting things to tell you, Joe, and to teach you.’

‘Teach me? I think I’m a bit old for school,’ he replied, now looking out of the window.

‘This isn’t school as you remember it, Joe.  Imagine if you could relive famous historical events, not just sit and watch grainy footage on the television, but actually feel like you were there.’

‘That would be quite something,’ Joseph mumbled, reading an article about how the USA were to boycott the Moscow Olympics.

‘This ship has recordings of not just famous events, not just the D-day landings and the signing of Magna Carta, but every single event in Earth’s past. Every second and every centimetre of the planet are stored on this ship, and we have access to those recordings.  Every last millisecond.  I can show you any event, any person, any day, any night, any country, any town, anything that has ever happened on Earth in the last 4.5 billion years.’

Joseph looked up, his mind unintentionally making a list of all the historical events he’d like to see.

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘...so, you’ve got a movie of the history of the Earth. So what?’

‘The recordings are not taken from space, Joe.  We can view events from any angle or any position you can imagine.  You see, we have ways of extracting information from space which doesn’t rely on cameras or microphones.’

‘Who’s we?’ he said quickly, the thought of anyone else appearing putting him  on edge.

‘No-one, just us. By ‘we’ I mean my species,’ he replied. ‘I have so much to tell you about the Universe, Joe, it’s hard to know where to begin.  I need to tell you about life on Earth and life in the Universe, about the past, and about the future.  I’ve spent many years thinking of how to start.’

Joseph folded the newspaper.

‘Well, why don’t you start by telling me why I’m here?  I mean, I still don’t believe I am here, but I’m intrigued as to how far I can push this dream.  I can’t believe my brain is coming up with all this nonsense.’

Nagas tipped his head back slightly, as if to analyse something on the ceiling.

‘I’ve told you a lot already, you’ve got a lot to take in and if I tell you too much this early, there is a distinct risk you’ll be overwhelmed.  All in good time.’

He looked back at Joseph and again smiled.  ‘Before this journey is over I will explain absolutely everything and answer any questions you may have.  But for now, let me just say that I’ve taken you from Earth for a reason.  That’s all I can tell you.’

Joseph still didn’t believe a word of it, and Nagas could tell.

The silence resumed, and Joseph tried to find some obvious sign to confirm that this was definitely a dream.  He was awake and alert, and could vividly remember heading to bed. He knew his work schedule for tomorrow, and he knew that he was picking his wife up from the airport in a couple of days time.  Had he ever thought like this in a dream before?

‘Okay Joe, I know you’re going to take a lot of convincing. I know I would if I were in your situation! So how about I show you what this ship can do?’

Joseph only half heard him, lost in thought.

‘Sorry, what?’

Nagas pushed back his chair and stood. ‘Do you want to see something different?  A different simulation?’

‘Sure, why not?’ Joseph said flatly after thinking for a moment.

‘Name a place and a time, absolutely anywhere on Earth and in Earth’s history. I’ll take you there.’

Joseph paused.  A mixture of fear and excitement entered his mind.  He seemed to be in complete control of his actions.  Was this dream going to answer his request?  Whatever he said next, would his sleeping brain do as he asked?  It seemed likely from the last half hour.  He thought for a while, with Nagas stood patiently waiting.

After searching his imagination for somewhere interesting, he’d been surprised to find how difficult it was when offered any place at any time in history.

‘Okay,’ he said, finally. ‘Ancient Rome.’

Nagas smiled. ‘Stand up,’ he asked. ‘That chair doesn’t exist where we’re going.’

He stood and took a deep breath.  Suddenly, in what seemed like less than a second, the room vanished into a bright white haze, and through instinct, he pressed his eyes closed tight.

When he opened them, he found himself standing on a dirt track. It was a warm summer’s evening with the sun low in the sky, casting huge, sprawling shadows across the land.  He could feel a gentle breeze against his skin, with a strong smell of smoke and cooking drifting through the air.  He looked all around.  There were mountains in the distance, and to the right was a large town, or perhaps a city, silhouetted against the sky and dotted with small fires around what appeared to be a high wall. He could feel each one of his senses working overtime to shift to this completely new environment, trying to cope with the unnatural transition.

On the left in the distance were hundreds of huge trees.  They looked almost ordered, aligned, like a disciplined Roman army.  He could hear faint voices coming from within the city walls, and once his eyes had adjusted to the dimming light, he noticed one or two stars appearing, along with a large bird soaring through the sky. It glided on some unseen blanket of air, slowly at first, then turned and shot towards the forest and out of view. His eyes settled to the new vision; an incredible panorama of red hues dotted with the greens and browns of the local flora.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Joseph said, half whispering.

‘Not yet,’ Nagas quickly replied, standing with arms folded and an expectant smile. ‘He won’t be born for another ninety-six years.  Welcome to ancient Rome.  It’s the year 100 BC. What do you think of the simulation?’

Joseph didn’t reply. He knelt down and scooped up a handful of dirt. It was warm and coarse, and as he allowed it to slip through his fingers, the large grains produced a fine cloud of dust as they struck the ground, making him cough as it reached his nose.

‘It’s so real,’ he said, wiping the remaining dust from his palm.

‘It is real, Joe, in many ways. After all, how do you define what’s real?’

Nagas had burst into animation, his arms waving with every word as if speaking in some sort of frantic sigh-language. ‘Reality to a human being is light, sound, heat, taste.  This ship is giving your sense organs the exact same signals as if you were really here.  There is no difference, really.’

Joseph stood and looked at Nagas.  He was beginning to get worried.  With each passing minute his conviction that this was all a dream was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. The fact that the whole thing felt incredibly real wasn’t the hardest thing to deal with; he was sure that he’d had dreams in the past where he’d been convinced they were real, only to wake moments later. The problem was that this person calling himself Nagas was saying things that Joseph knew nothing about. Microbes on Mars, signals and senses, definitions of reality.  If this was a dream and the whole thing was all some elaborate creation of his own mind, then why was this imaginary character talking like this?

‘Do you know anything about this time period, Joe?’ he asked in a casual tone, looking towards the horizon with an expression of complete calm.

Joseph looked across to the same point in the distance, as if trying to find the same source of serenity that Nagas seemed to possess in abundance. Then an idea struck him. He’d call his dream’s bluff. Surely if he asked a question on a subject that was completely unknown to him, then the reply would be nonsense and would perhaps be enough to end this whole bizarre situation.

‘Not really, no,’ he replied. ‘I said ancient Rome because I’ve always had a vague interest in history and it seemed like as good a test of your claims as any.  I’ve certainly never studied it or read any books on the subject.’

He paused for a second, hoping that in the next few moments he would finally find himself awake in bed, laughing to himself at how