I am a scientist. I want to make that clear. I teach at a famous university. My research has been published in the most cutting-edge scientific journals. I am, in fact, regarded as one of the leading minds in my field.

You ask why I am telling you all this, why I feel the compulsion to present myself as a voice of reason and professional skepticism. I’ll tell you why. It is because, after a year of sleepless nights and indecision, I have decided to make the following events known. The emphatic self-justification is due to the fact that said events are so extraordinary, so – paranormal, that I must give you every possible reason to believe my story. I am fully aware that this account, heard from the lips of another would certainly result in your dismissal of that other, be he friend or brother, as a madman. I, however, am not a madman. I am a scientist. I think I have made myself clear.

I have always had an inquiring mind. As a child I would constantly ask questions of my long-suffering parents. They did their best to answer them and at first they succeeded. But when the questions moved beyond “Where does rain come from?” and “How are babies really made?” to the more esoteric “Do cats sweat?” my parents invested in lessons with a private tutor.

As a result, I learned the answers to these questions and many more. Soon I found myself seeking truth in all things, only being satisfied when I found an answer that was clear as a sheet of glass, unmalleable as a block of concrete and as pure as a vacuum. I wanted hard, crystalline answers to my questions. I didn’t always get them but I knew that just beyond my reach, in some inner chamber of the temple of reason, accessible only to the most dedicated and single-minded, lay my golden fleece: Ultimate Truth. Definite, constant, unchanging. This was my godhead and this is what I have been working towards, devotedly, my whole life. Wait. Let me stop myself there. Because when I say ‘my whole life’, what I actually mean is ‘my whole life up until a year ago’. The events that took place last April changed everything.

I expect that now you’re thinking that my search ended because I found what I was looking for. How could such a calculated, dedicated search end any other way? But perhaps you are mocking me. The fact is, my search ended the day I realized that I would never find what I was looking for. At least, that’s what I thought at the time. Now I believe that truth is exactly what I did find, although when I did, it was infinitely more multi-dimensional than the one I had envisioned.

One night last April I awoke suddenly to hear knocking at the kitchen window upstairs. For half a minute I lay there, remnants of dreams fluttering like broken birds in my head. I tried to shake away both the dreams and my growing apprehension and listen carefully to identify what I was hearing. Could it be a branch of the eucalyptus tree tapping on the glass? But the night was still and besides, the branches were too slender and young to create such a noise. This was no gentle tapping. This was a real knocking, the sound of a fist on glass, controlled but urgent and growing louder as the minutes passed.

Fear began to knock at my brain with a similar urgency and I realized that I was completely unprepared for this. My adventures had always been within the realms of thought or within the confines of a sterile laboratory. I was unacquainted with the flesh and viscera of life, but it was too late for thoughts of the past as an especially hard knock was followed by the sound of the window breaking and footsteps coming down the stairs. My mind shifted and flickered like a kaleidoscope and I felt helpless. Childishly, I pulled the bedcovers over my head and hid under their muting tent. Tottering on the edge of complicity. Though my body was as tense as a drumskin, I jumped at the abrupt opening of the door and (I am ashamed to say it) fainted cold away.

I returned to consciousness shortly afterward. It was like falling out of a black hole. I found myself lying on my front on my bedroom floor, one arm and one leg folded beneath me, my head facing sideways. The recovery position. Rolling painfully over onto my back I saw a figure sitting on the end of my bed. I blinked and tried to sit up but my head reeled and I fell back again.

“Don’t try to sit up yet,” said a pleasant voice.

I watched blearily as the owner of the voice stood up and crouched down next to me. It was a man, handsome, with shoulder-length brown hair and a sparse beard. It was hard to place his age but he looked to be in his early or mid twenties. Lifting my wrist, he took my pulse, then turned his face to me and smiled.

“You’ll be alright,” he said. “Do you want me to help you to the bed?”

The man gently aided me, letting me lean on him. He propped my head up with pillows and I drew the bedcovers up to my chin. He handed me a glass of water. I sipped and returned it to my bedside table.

“What happened?” I asked.

“You fainted,” the stranger replied. “At first I thought you were asleep but then I realized no-one sleeps that deeply.” He grinned.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I’m a little confused. How did you get in? What are you doing here?” All of a sudden I was scared.

“Is there anything else I can get you? A cup of tea?”

My uneasiness grew. Why was he being so friendly? Why wasn’t he answering my questions?

“No, I don’t want a cup of tea. What are you doing here?” My voice trembled. I hoped the man wouldn’t notice.

“I came to help you. You were out cold. Are you sure you don’t want some tea?”

I glanced up at the stranger but as my eyes met his I was forced to look away as a peculiar dizziness came over me.

“No. Thank you, I’ll be fine,” I replied, puzzled. Something didn’t make sense. He seemed a kind young man and it was nice of him to have helped me, but… probably my anxiety was due to having just fainted.

“I’m Nat,” said the stranger. He held out his hand for me to shake.

“I’m Professor—”

“Yeah, I know,” he interrupted.

I looked at him suspiciously. I had never seen him before in my life and although I enjoy a certain amount of prestige in my field, I’m not exactly a famous face. Was he a student at the university? He looked like one. This reassured me.

There was a moment of silence. My gaze strayed to the bed where my legs formed hills and bumps under the duvet and I was abruptly overcome with self-disgust. How pathetic I must appear to this young man standing so calmly over me. I saw myself through his eyes, not as the eminent professor I knew myself to be but as a thin pale lonely middle-aged man in striped pajamas. A coward who would faint at the slightest bump in the night.

Looking up, I was overwhelmed once more by the strangeness in his eyes. He looked away at once and I sank back into the pillows, my head pounding.

“Here, drink some water.” Nat thrust the glass into my hand.

I swallowed some.

“How are you feeling?” Nat asked.

“A little better.” It was true. I felt more settled and, I must confess, quite gratified by what seemed to be Nat’s genuine concern. I was also ready to go to sleep.

“You don’t have to stay any longer. Thank you for your help,” I said.

“It was nothing,” Nat replied. He stood easily next to the bed. He didn’t appear to be going.

I waited a moment and then said:

“I appreciate your help. I think I’d like to go to sleep now.”

Nat nodded and then surprised me by adding:

“I wanted your opinion on something actually. Can I show you quickly? Outside.” He gestured towards the french windows. Beyond them was the garden.

I was reluctant. The garden was a dark and eerie place at this time of night. On the other hand, as well as being flattered by Nat’s interest in me, I felt compelled to reassert my manliness after my earlier display of fragility.

“Alright,” I said, “show me and then I’d like to go to sleep.”

Nat went to the french windows and turned the key. He opened the doors and I experienced a sense of vulnerability again as a draft seeped into the room. I shivered under my duvet. Nat stepped out onto the patio and called from over the threshold:

“Alright. You’ll be alright. Better put your dressing gown on, though. It’s a bit chilly.”

I reached for my dressing gown and the slippers from under the chair next to my bed and put them on.

“This won’t take long, will it?” I asked Nat as I joined him outside. The night was inky but just then the moon came out from behind a cloud and imbued the garden with silver and shadow.

I closed the doors behind me and tightened the cord on my dressing gown.

Nat smiled gently and his eyes caught the moonlight.

“It won’t take long,” he said.

I followed him over the lawn towards the stream that trickled along at the back of the garden where a coppice separated my property from the recreation ground beyond. As we walked, blades of grass scratched my ankles and the cuffs of my pajama bottoms grew wet.

When we reached the stream Nat stopped and sat down on a slab of rock at the water’s edge. I stayed standing, not in any hurry to suffer icy stone through the thin fabric of my pajamas. The moon’s reflection shifted in the water’s ripples and I heard unsettling rustling noises coming from between the trees.

“Everything looks different at night, doesn’t it?” said Nat.

I nodded.

“See that bush over there?” Nat pointed to a large shrub in the border nearby. “Don’t you think it looks like a woman?”

I looked at the shrub and then blinked as it took on the shape of a large voluptuous woman reclining in the flowerbed. The more I stared, the harder it was to see it as a plant, bearing, as it did, all the curves and grace of the feminine form. I shuddered and averted my eyes, seeking a more clearly identifiable object on which to fix my gaze. I was thwarted, however, as all the plants in the border had taken on the shapes of other objects: teapots, serpents, small grinning demons. I resorted to closing my eyes in order to make the illusion disappear and when I opened them again I was relieved to find the shrubs inanimate.

“Weird, isn’t it?” said Nat.

“A bit strange, yes,” I replied. “Just an illusion, though. Like seeing pictures in clouds.”

“Yeah. And then you blink and the image changes. It’s like your mind has the ability to give two different identities to one thing.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” I said. “I’ll admit that the shrub did look a little like a woman for a moment but of course I knew all along that it wasn’t.”

“Of course, of course,” said Nat, smiling at me. I looked away, disconcerted, and sneaked a glance at the shrub. Thankfully, it still looked like a shrub.

“It’s funny, though,” Nat continued. “How your senses can fool you sometimes. Like that sound just a minute ago.”

“What sound?” I hadn’t heard anything.

“Listen. It’ll come again.”

We listened and after thirty seconds I heard a baby’s cry coming from the woods. I jumped.

“There’s someone there!” I whispered, looking anxiously at Nat.

Nat motioned me to be quiet and after a short time we heard the cry. This time it was clearly a cat in heat. Again, my senses had fooled me. I scolded myself inwardly for my cowardice and loss of scientific objectivity. Trying to make light of my embarrassment, I put on a smile and said:

“I think my fainting has put me out of touch with reality.”

Nat looked interested.

“What did it feel like when you fainted?” he asked.

“Well, I lost consciousness,” I replied. “I didn’t feel anything.”

“Everything ceased to exist?”

I nodded.

“The end of a world.” Nat looked lost in thought while I flinched. What was it that bothered me about what he’d just said? In a flash it came to me. A world instead of the world. It reminded me of the so-called scientific theory of ‘many worlds’ which states that we inhabit one of an infinite number of universes existing in parallel dimensions to each other. I thought this theory had more in common with science fiction than science as I defined it, and Nat’s innocent comment irritated me, causing me to respond rather crossly:

“The world.”

“Sorry?”

“Not a world, the world.”

“Oh. I was talking about your world. You know, when you fainted, it was like your world ceased to exist for a while.”

Still out of temper I replied:

“Well, you’re not talking about a world, then. You’re talking about my consciousness.”

“But isn’t that what creates your world?”

I was perplexed. Then I pulled myself together. Undergraduate philosophy. Funny, I thought, musing on how I had feared Nat at first. Certainly, he was a little strange but then most young people behaved somewhat strangely in my opinion. This ‘dangerous intruder’ was most likely thrilled by the romance of discussing philosophy with one of the professors in the middle of the night.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m tired and cold and maybe my brain isn’t as sharp as usual. If there’s nothing else you’d like to show me, I’ll return to bed.”

“If you’re cold,” Nat answered, “why don’t we go inside for a bit? Warm up and talk some more?”

I was unwilling. I wasn’t accustomed to giving in to frivolous demands on my time. Not to mention the fact that it was barely dawn and I was standing in my garden talking philosophy and quantum mechanics with a complete stranger. The whole situation struck me as highly surreal. I turned to Nat to articulate my disinclination and give my apologies but the dark light in his eyes overwhelmed me. Raw, it was, almost painful. I stared back at him, transfixed for I don’t know how long, until suddenly everything shrank and I found myself back on the lawn, blinking and frowning.

“Alright,” I said, “if you don’t mind me resting a little while we talk.”

We returned to the house. I opened the door and was revived by the warmth of the lamplight. Inside the bedroom I lit the coal fire and pulled two chairs closer to the blaze. I made myself comfortable in one of them and said:

“How about that cup of tea now?”

“Sounds good. How do you take it?”

“Milk. One sugar,” I replied. “The tea and sugar are in the cupboard to the right of the window. Do you want any help?”

“I’ll manage,” he said and went upstairs.

My head ached slightly and now that I was inside, I didn’t feel like moving an inch. I stared into the fire, hypnotized by the darting flames, remembering that when I was a child, my mother had told me that the small sparks were fairies. I heard cupboards opening and water boiling in the kitchen.

Shortly, Nat appeared with two mugs of tea. He handed me one and seated himself in the chair opposite me. The tea was soothing and restorative.

“With regard to our earlier conversation, you’re talking to the wrong person,” I said, smiling, “I’m a scientist. I like objective explanations of reality.”

“But there’s no such thing. I mean, all our explanations of reality are given to us by individuals. It’s impossible for someone to observe reality from the outside. Even a scientist can’t do that!”

I was piqued.

“I test my hypotheses without prejudice,” I asserted, “It’s a very rigorous procedure. I would have thought that was clear. My personal feelings have nothing to do with it.”

“So, what you’re saying,” Nat replied, “is that when you’re observing reality, you subtract yourself from it. Is that what you mean, you’re not part of reality? You’re not real?”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it. Your statements are irrelevant.”

I was getting upset and felt angry with myself for showing it. Why was he putting me in a position where I had to defend myself? Surely, scientific method was the only right and valid way by which to explain the world, to get to the truth of things? Surely, anybody could see that?

I tried to relax.

“Often,” I said, speaking as calmly as I could, “as scientists, we investigate things that have nothing to do with any individual. We are looking at discrete phenomena that are measurable, behaviour that is predictable, so that we can assign a law to it.”

“How do you know things behave the same way when you’re not observing them?”

I took a deep breath before answering:

“We assume that, to all intents and purposes, most things do. We have to have something to build a law on.”

“And what if other people disagree with your law? Maybe they’ve assumed something else.”

“They can disagree all they like but if they haven’t adhered to scientific method, they can’t expect to come to the truth.”

“Whose truth? Yours?”

“The Truth,” I said. What did he mean?

“And there’s only one, is there?”

I suddenly felt as if something had been taken away from me.

I fought to retrieve it:

“The Truth is the Truth. It doesn’t belong to any individual. It’s a grand and pure thing.”

Nat laughed, unkindly. I felt hurt. What gave him the right to come into my home and laugh at my work, at my opinions, my beliefs?

“And have you found it yet?” Nat asked.

“I’m looking. It’s my work. I’m working on it,” I said, agitatedly.

“How do you know when you’ve found it?” Nat continued, smiling sardonically.

“You know,” I said, my voice breaking. “It’s self-evident.”

“Right.”

He paused before saying:

“And what do you do for truth in the meantime? You know, before you find the real truth?”

“What?” I said faintly, glancing at him. But the gleam in his eyes made me feel sick and I looked away, into the fire.

“Just make do with what you’ve got, do you?” Nat asked. “Even though it’s not real, of course. Because it’s too subjective, isn’t it, to be the truth?”

Anguish pierced my brain. I shrank back into my chair. Nat’s words were annihilating me.

After a minute I dared to look up. Nat was gazing out the window.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I shrugged.

“I’d better be going,” Nat said. “I’ll go out the back.” He seemed to be in a hurry all of a sudden.

I stood up slowly and put my half-drunk cup of tea on the bedside table. Nat was already out the door and standing on the grass. I peered out at him, through the french windows. He was looking to the east where the sky glowed an angelic blue. The moon and stars were gradually dissolving. I stared too, momentarily hypnotized by the simple purity of day breaking.

Nat looked over his shoulder at me and smiled, warmly, with no trace of his earlier cynicism.

“I’ve got to go,” he said. “But I hope I was some help.”

Perplexed, I simply nodded.

“Well, take care. I’ll go back this way.” He gestured towards the west where I could still make out a few stars, pale above the horizon. He walked across the lawn, pausing when he reached the border of my property. He waved at me.

“See ya,” he said before strolling gracefully off through the trees. I lost him in the shadows.

I closed and locked the french windows and was taking off my dressing gown when I remembered the kitchen window. It had been broken, but by whom? I was muddled about the chronology of events. Had Nat smashed the window to get in? Or had he arrived on the scene after that? And if he hadn’t broken the window, who had?

All I wanted to do was get into bed and sleep and the thought of having to fix the window at this time of the morning, coupled with the idea of a second intruder on the loose, was almost more than my fatigued physiology could handle. However, an innate sense of responsibility won out and I plodded up the stairs. I went into the kitchen, which was washed in faint light from the sun spreading its rays like butter over the rooftops.

The first thing I noticed was that the floor was free of glass fragments. I was relieved. Maybe whoever had broken the window had only damaged it enough so that he could slip his hand through and unlatch it. From my spot near the door, I turned my attention to the window itself, expecting to see a significant hole. There was no hole.

However, that is not to say that the window was undamaged. The pane was still within the frame, but shattered. A maze of cracks dissembled the glass, creating a mosaic of diamond and snowflake patterns. Yet the window had stayed whole. It was locked from the inside just as it had been when I had switched out the light the evening before.

I was alarmed. I went out of the kitchen and down the hall where I examined the front door carefully. There was no sign of anyone having meddled with it. My nervousness grew. I returned to the kitchen, under the impression that I had just walked into a ghost story.

I’d known there was something odd about Nat. He’d impressed me as a decent, helpful chap and, despite my misgivings, I’d been swept along. But I had to face the facts. His oddness was more than the average student eccentricity. Students don’t just randomly turn up at their professors’ houses wanting to talk philosophy and quantum mechanics in the middle of the night. I’d seen something in his eyes but what it was I was too unnerved even to guess. Why hadn’t I just insisted that he leave? What had possessed me to welcome this Robin Goodfellow into my stable sane rational life? I felt vitiated, lost, separated from myself. I shuddered, my knees grew weak and I collapsed into a sitting position on the floor of the kitchen.

A ray of light from the climbing sun hit the shattered windowpane, throwing a crazy shadow onto the kitchen floor. As I looked up, I met the sun’s blaze and my eye fell on the window. It was beautiful. The light flashing through the eucalyptus leaves caught each fragment of glass and impregnated it with gold. I saw that each fragment acted as a miniature prism and that the whole effect was kaleidoscopic, flickering and changing with each second that passed.

I stared and stared at the stained-glass window in motion before me and as my consciousness was drawn further into the spectacle I gradually saw that each glittering shard held an aspect of my self. In one tiny fragment I saw a keen intellect, in another I saw vanity, in another I saw vulnerability. I saw dedication, hope and loneliness. And I saw England, masculinity and middle age. All of these fragments and many more combined together, shifting gracefully in relation to each other, new elements replacing old. This was the window to my truth. I had looked through it every day of my life.

I couldn’t tell you the length of time I sat there but after a while I was aware of the sounds of morning outside: car engines starting up, the voices of children on their way to school, the barking of a dog at the approach of the postman. Normal morning noises. Normal and unique to this morning. Heard in this precise way only by me.

Getting up from the floor, I almost sat down again, my legs numb and stiff. I found my balance, turned from the window and headed downstairs to bed where I lay under the covers and saw the sun shining through my closed eyelids, sinking into a different consciousness, dreams breaking on my mind like iridescent surf.