Josh: The Orchard

Deep breaths, Yoshida. Deep breaths. I never thought I'd be able to say this, but you've done a good job. If I had said before I read your last post that I was entirely sure of my mom's mental state I would have been lying. Now... well it's a big relief, not only to me but I'm certain also to her. The fact that the two of you agree that somehow, someway two very important historical dates have been changed is a lot easier to live with than if it was just her. Oh, and even though us mere, pathetic, knuckle-dragging ape-creatures could never hope to comprehend your precious math, send it along privately anyway, I want to see it. God, even when you have me feeling sorry for you, you still manage to go out of your way to be a douchebag.

I wish I could say where Mary and I are, but if we did Agent Pierce would just rat us out again, so we'll have to go with "an undisclosed location". We decided that we'd had enough of motels and now that I'm rolling in dough we rented a couple of rooms at a bed & breakfast in a rural setting. After all the madness and violence of the past couple of weeks, I can't tell you how good it felt just to get out of bed this morning and wander through the apple orchard that abuts the b&b property.

Of course, with my attention span my little walk lasted all of five minutes before I felt the biological urge to play a video game, but it was pleasant all the same. While Mary slept in I dashed out to a nearby small town, miraculously found a Radio Shack and went on a spending spree picking up two laptops and every possible accessory for them. I then spent the rest of the day reading up on the Napoleonic wars, Belgium, Abba and whether or not Georgia has the death penalty (they do. Ouch).

That night Mary and I took a walk behind the bed & breakfast up to the top of the hill overlooking the orchard. A gentle breeze drifted through the trees below, wafting the sweet scent of rotting apples over us. From a tall oak tree at the top of the hill someone had suspended a bench swing from a low branch, and Mary and I sat and rocked, my side arcing out farther and tilting us a bit sideways before she'd had enough and pulled her feet up to rest on the wooden seat next to her, leaving the pushing to me. Occasionally I'd get a whiff of her hair. It smelled like hotel shampoo: a combination of cheap chemicals and adventure. With all we'd been through, it was a lovely, peaceful moment and I succeeded in not ruining it by talking, at least for a good thirty seconds or so.

"It was nice when we were in the car that time with your head on my shoulder."

Mary recoiled and stared at me with a combination of amazement and disgust. "When I was sobbing and covered in blood and centipede guts? That time?"

I shrugged. "We were in our underwear. As a guy you do whatever mental editing is necessary to make a moment like that a good memory. Never mind, forget I said anything." I tried to keep my gaze on the trees below in a vain attempt to recapture the quiet mood, but I could feel her disbelieving stare bore into the side of my head.

"We had just had the most horrifying night of our lives, we were bitten and terrified and running like hell, and that was 'nice'?" She looked at me like I was a failed science experiment.

I ran my hand through my hair, remembered that we had just cut almost all of it off as part of my disguise and let my hand drop to my lap. "No one ever leaned on my like that before. No one..." I sighed, for once unable to find the right word. "No one ever needed me like that before. Can we just forget it? I know it's weird." I turned away, just wanting to not be stared at like that. I planted my hands on the bench, getting ready to push up and go back to my room, but then I felt Mary rest her head gently on my shoulder. We swung there silently for a long time, just staring out into the night at the few tiny stars not obscured by the evening's clouds.

For the first time she spoke before I did, her voice just above a whisper. "What other 'mental editing' have you done from that night?"

"Well, there was no blood, of course. And we weren't on the side of a highway, we were at a drive-in movie, like the one they used to have in Hales Corners back in Wisconsin." I carefully moved my arm, draping it softly over her shoulder. She didn't lean into me, but she didn't pull away, either. "We sat and watched a romantic comedy, probably something with Hugh Grant, but made in Britain, not here. We had a big tub of popcorn with extra butter, Dove bars, large soda and we were in our underwear."

She sighed. "It's been forever since I had a Dove bar."

"Your bra and panties were pink instead of white."

"Oh, my. Go on. What else?"

"I was Wolverine."

She slapped her forehead dramatically. "You can stop talking now."

I leaned back and looked up through the dark branches of the oak tree at the cloudy night sky, rocking the swing back and forth. I chuckled. "Now who's dreaming?"

Yoshida: 14

Everything about the date of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo is wrong.

There are massive archives complete with inventories of supplies, bills of lading, troop movements, munitions production, uniform manufacturing and so on, so it is not the same as examining whether the date of the beginning of Genghis Khan's conquests is accurate. I deemed such an investigation to be implausible with just a cursory inspection.

The Prussians were completely out of sorts in 1815, horribly positioned to support the British. Gebhard von Blucher's army was in chaos amid a tumultuous re-organization and could hardly be counted on to defeat anything or anyone, yet they were the deciding factor in the battle of Waterloo. If they had had a few more years to prepare I could see them mounting something formidable, but in 1815? Preposterous. (Below: Blucher)

The Duke of Wellington's forces were in similar straits. Even he, the leader of the army said of his own people that they were: "an infamous army, very weak and ill-equipped, and a very inexperienced Staff". Supply lines were fragile or nonexistent, morale was low, and I simply cannot see how it is possible that the coalition forces could respond so quickly to Napoleon's re-emergence after his brief exile.

According to the bills of lading, the rifles wouldn't be in the right hands at the right time. The gunpowder would still have been in Liverpool for the British and Prussia's entire supply of boots would have been in Berlin. What did Wellington's men shoot exactly? Did Blucher's infantry defeat Napoleon while barefoot?

Even the sociopolitical climate of the time gives every indication that this decisive of a battle could not have happened when it did and how it did. While these are far more subjective factors, the situation in Spain and Napoleon's relationship with Russia at this time both are indicative of something being drastically, dreadfully out of place.

It is wrong. Absolutely, totally wrong. I have never been confronted by an anomaly of this scope. I cannot sleep, I cannot eat. I tell people- even those few whose intellects I respect- about what I see, and they laugh at me. It is the sort of problem that if you are looking for it you cannot fail to see it, but if you are not asking the questions you could not hope to see the answers. How can this be? Does history mean nothing? I go over the numbers again and again, and they tell a consistent tale- one that has nothing to do with the final story in the history books. I have taken a leave of absence from my job. I cannot leave my apartment. It makes no sense. If they would only look at the numbers they could see that I'm right, but the date and the history of the event is so well established that no one will believe me. How could the Battle of Ligny have taken place then when the Prussians had no horse tack? Did their cavalry ride bareback? How could Napoleon not have registered the Prussians retreat from the battle when they were literally right in front of him? Even the personal journals of the men are nonsensical. There were no cannonballs prepared for the French artillery at that point as they had disarmed the year before, so what did Napoleon's men fire, cantaloupes? Nothing about it makes sense. Nothing about this makes sense. Nothing. If I had a hundred years to study it it would not be enough. When you know what to look for you cannot help but see it, but they will not look no matter how I beg them, deeming it absurd and beneath them. If one date is off the other must be. If only there was more raw data from the time of the Mongol expansion I could determine more, but it was too long ago and the difference in time was only one year, with the supposed date of conquest being 1206 while you believe it to be 1207. Being from a nomadic society, the Khan, while organized, still did not possess the same means or interest of recording information as in the Napoleonic years. If one is off then the other must be. Are there other dates that are wrong? Dates that have been accepted as being true for hundreds and possibly thousands of years? When is the earliest example? When is the latest example? Is there a date where history becomes firmer and more concrete? Have the dates changed only recently? To what possible purpose would this have been done, if it was done by someones will instead of as an act of nature? It is impossible. The date of the battle of Waterloo is wrong. I would send the raw mathematical data and the equations I used, but anyone capable of understanding them refuses to look at them. I am not insane. Why won't they even look at them? I know I am not insane.

Cyntha: Insania

I have been loathe to introduce a facet of my own existence to this journal of events as I was not only highly skeptical of its relevance but also was reluctant to expose what I perceived as psychological instability at best and utter madness at worst. Understand that while on these specific points obviously my opinion is open to scrutiny or even ridicule, but overall my psyche is intact, my mind is sound and my will endures. Based on the night's events and the undeniable fact that there are phenomena occurring beyond our capacity to comprehend, I can no longer justify withholding recent personal experiences despite the wound to pride or ego.

Two instances in your post on the most recent encounter with Mr. Hollis struck me as being relevant to some unnerving shifts in my memory. Firstly, the song he was whistling, and secondly his virtually incomprehensible screed on slavery, where he proclaimed:

"Why be beholden to the history of the industry when history could not have less meaning?"

This struck a chord with me, as I have been having tremendous difficulty of late with two separate dates in world events. Understand, throughout my entire classical education, the study of history was stressed most highly, and specifically on the timeline of world events. More modern teaching methods deemphasizing the committing of dates to memory have been put in play in recent years in the field of history, but in my formative years the stress was placed on memorization rather than the recounting of anecdotes. As Joshua can attest, my retention of information on this subject has been beyond reproach, at least until now.

If you remember back to the unfortunate interrogation of Miss Stroud, where I questioned her at some great length regarding history and world events, I was seeking to discover if a "layperson", if you will, would be confounded in a similar way with either the happenings I was concerned with or others I had not yet uncovered. She was not. Miss Stroud's thoughts were clear and her recollections accurate, at least as far as the reference material could verify.

The problem is- from my admittedly limited perspective- is that the reference material is wrong. Every online resource, every encyclopedia, every book on the subject says that Genghis Khan began his conquest of Asia in 1206 A.D. He did not. This is one of the most important dates in world history, and one that shaped the modern East as we know it. It is not I date I would ever forget. Temuchin took the title of Khan and begin his subjugation of the Eastern world in the year 1207 A.D.

Similarly, another date is incorrect, this one even more relevant to the modern world. The French Emperor Napoleon's domination of Europe rolled unabated until his eventual downfall at the hands of the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo. As any avid student of the past well knows, his defeat occurred in the year 1818 A.D., yet even cursory research into the matter reveals that every compendium of historical data nonsensically reveals the date of the Emperor's defeat to be 1815 A.D. Go now- if you doubt it- look it up and you will see the incorrect date on every web site; on every page of every tome regarded as the standards for historical fact.

I cannot comprehend how or why this was done, but cannot believe that Mr. Hollis' casual references were entirely coincidental to these events. I also am incapable of fathoming what possible use this information I've shared could have, but seeing as how even some of the most trivial matters have ballooned into larger developments, I felt I had to unburden myself. Also, though the thought is utterly terrifying to me, there is the distinct possibility that I am going mad. I have suffered the loss of both my husband and, essentially, myself. I understand that in such cases dementia can set in, and since my mind is all I have left obviously even the slightest chance that I may lose that as well is wholly agonizing.

I confided these thoughts to Jeffrey at the time I was having them, and he assures me that with the exception of the shifting dates he finds nothing else out of order as concerns my mental health. He has also assisted me in scouring the pages of history for other anomalies, and thus far we have found none. He assures me that should my thoughts or behaviour grow erratic that he will not hold back, communicating to me at once any issues.

Again, I cannot imagine what possible use this revelation could be to you, but as I began this endeavor and wish to see it continued to whatever end, I felt an obligation to report it.

Josh: Naming That Tune Correctly And Still Losing Big-Time

Ugh. Believe me, I don't want to admit to knowing this. If I hadn't already just had the worst two days of my life bar-none, this would qualify as one of my most uncomfortable moments.

It was Waterloo by Abba. There, I said it. God knows I'm not proud.

One other note: everything that happened after we met Hollis at the nursing home was entirely accurate. All the events before that... I don't know that Mary and I were even in the same time zone. I never looked at her like she wrote about. I was just basically terrified heading into that situation, and as it turns out I should have been preemptively freaked out about it. I may have hesitated before taking her hand and whatnot, but it wasn't for any reason other than I was focusing my efforts on not peeing my pants in front of her. Anyway, I never intended any offense, we just perceived what was happening totally differently.