The Man Who Fell Through the Earth

But it was a sorry case. Apparently the man was of good education and accustomed to cultured surroundings. Moreover, he had a sense of humor which had not deserted him, along with his memory.

I sat by his bedside, and I remained rather longer than I had intended, for I became interested in his story, and the time slipped by.

“You see,” he said, fixing me with his queer-looking eyes, “I fell through the earth.”

“You what?”

“I did. I fell through the earth, and it was a long, long fall.”

“Well, yes, eight thousand miles, I’m told.”

“Oh, no,” and he was almost pettish, “I didn’t fall through the middle of it.”

“Oh,” and I paused for further enlightenment.

“It was this way. I remember it perfectly, you know. I was somewhere, – somewhere up North – ”

“Canada?”

“I don’t know – I don’t know.” He shook his head uncertainly. “But I know it was up North where it’s always cold.”

Perhaps the man had been an Arctic explorer.

“Iceland?” I said, “Greenland?”

“Maybe,” and he looked uninterested. “But,” here he brightened a little, “anyway, I fell through the earth. I fell in there, wherever it was, and came on down, down through the earth till I came out at the other end.”

“You mean, you fell through a section or segment of the globe? As if, say, you fell in at London and came out at the Cape of Good Hope!”

“That’s the idea! Only I fell out here in New York.”

“And you fell in?”

“That’s what I can’t remember, only it was ’way up North, – somewhere.”

“If you had a map, now, and looked at all the Northern countries, it might recall itself to you, – the place where you entered, – where you began your journey.”

“I thought so, but the nurse brought me an atlas and I couldn’t find the place. I wish I had a globe.”

Poor chap. I wondered what had given him this strange hallucination. But as he talked on, I became interested in his own personality.

He was as sane as I was in all respects, save his insistence that he had fallen through the earth.

As a child, an ambition of mine had been to dig down to China, and many times I had started the task. Perhaps his childhood had known a similar ambition, and now, his memory gone, his distorted mind harked back to that idea. I changed the subject, and found him remarkably well informed, fairly well educated, and of a curiously analytical temperament, but of his identity or his personality he had no knowledge.

He appreciated this, and it made the thing more pathetic.

“It will come back to me,” he said, cheerfully. “The doctors have explained all about this aphasic-amnesia, and though mine is the worst case they have ever seen, it will go away some time, and I’ll recover my memory and know who I am.”

“You can reason and understand everything said to you?”

“Oh, yes; I’m my own man in every respect except in a knowledge of who or what I was before that journey through the earth.”

“Then,” I tried plain common sense, “then, if you can reason, you must know that you didn’t fall through the earth. It would be impossible.”

“I know that. My reason tells me it’s impossible. But all I know about it is, that I did do it.”

“Through a long hole, – miles long?”

“Yes.”

“Who bored the hole?”

“It was there all the time. I suppose Nature made it.”

“Oh, a sort of rock fissure – ”

“No; more like a mine, – a – ”

“That’s it, old chap! You were a miner, and there was a cave-in, and it spoiled your thinker – temporarily.”

“But a mine doesn’t have an exit at the bottom of it. I tell you I was far away from where I fell in, and I came miles straight down through the solid earth – ”

“Could you see plainly?”

“Oh, no, it was dark, – how could it be otherwise, inside the earth?”

It was hopeless to dissuade him. We talked for some time, and outside his hallucination he was keen and quick-witted. But whatever gave him his idea of his strange adventure he thoroughly believed in it and nothing would shake that belief.

“What are you going to do when you get out of here?” I asked him.

“I don’t know, I’m sure. But I can’t help feeling that the world owes me a living – especially after I’ve fallen through it!”

I laughed, for his humor was infectious, and I felt pretty sure he would make good somehow. He was about thirty, I judged, and though not a brawny man, he seemed possessed of a wiry strength.

The doctors, he told me, assured him of speedily returning health but would give no definite promise regarding the return of his memory.

“So,” he said, cheerfully, “I’ll get along without it, and start out fresh. Why, I haven’t even a name!”

“You can acquire one at small expense,” I advised him.

“Yes; I’ve part of it now. I shall take Rivers as a surname, because they pulled me out of the East River, they say.”

“How were you dressed?”

“In Adam’s costume, I’m told. I regret the loss of a full suit of apparel, more especially as it might have proved my identity.”

“You mean you were entirely divested of clothing?”