Meeting Dr. Stowel

Not long after the time traveler made me his accomplice, things began to change. I’m still not certain why he picked me, but when he approached me on the street outside of the baggage claim area at Memphis International Airport and offered me his notebook, I took it without question. He was a complete stranger, rather athletic looking despite the fact that he held his right arm in an odd manner. He was well dressed, with eyes that emoted kindness, wisdom and power—the kind of eyes that a retired general might have. As a business traveler, I had an instinctual suspicion of abandoned luggage and had heard many a warning to "not accept any packages from strangers." But I was already outside of the airport, heading away from the gates; a terrorist would have picked someone on their way in, wouldn’t they? And the notebook was obviously nothing more than a notebook. It had the ruffled perforated edges of several loose sheets sticking out at angles from here and there amidst a sheaf of spiral-bound, dog-eared pages. He held it out to me, and despite my better judgment I took it, and he walked away. I’m really not certain about any of his or my motives—but its history now. I’m involved.

I had no time to spare, and the stress of the day was burning through the back of eyes just as my acid reflux was burning my esophagus. Hastily, I threw the notebook into the car, followed it in, and drove away after a quick look into my tattered pocket road atlas. As I drove I glanced at the thing, lying there on the passenger seat of my rental car, and nearly missed the exit that would take me to my first meeting of the day. The last, actually; having flown in late in the afternoon, I had arranged for a dinner meeting in an attempt to squeeze just a little bit more value out of this trip. With the strange notebook imposing its will upon me from the cloth bucket set of a rented cavalier, I was regretting my diligence. I rushed through the dinner and back to my hotel room, where I settled nervously into a chair to inspect my peculiar prize. The lines of my forehead, pressed in deep by the anxieties of a long career on the road, turned up in a cocktail expression of anticipation and curiosity. The pages were almost illegible, filled with tightly packed words, equations and illustrations.

But, apart from the interesting circumstances concerning my possession of them, it was immediately clear that the notes held very little value. The problem was that the words, equations and illustrations were completely meaningless. The penmanship was poor, and if there was any organization to the contents it was beyond my grasp to see it. I can’t say it was Greek to me, for I would have at least recognized Greek letters. This was full of scientific theories and equations that simply didn’t make any sense at all. I was an engineer, familiar with mathematics to a moderate collegiate level, with a slightly more advanced knowledge of electrical and mechanical sciences, and I had never seen anything that was more nonsensical. Gibberish. Rubbish. I set it aside, and finished a week of meetings without giving it much more thought.

More weeks went by without giving it much more attention. I sent a few emails around, digging for some indication that the equations might have some value that was simply above me.