The Secret Manuscript (Complete)

Chapter Twenty-One

"So what do you make of all this?" Ben asked.  

Kyle was dumbfounded. He just stood there with a perplexed look on his face, shaking his head in disbelief. After careful deliberation, he offered a hypothesis. 

"So, you found this in Gringer's house, right? So the logical conclusions to draw are one of two: either Gringer is clairvoyant and can predict the future, or he happened to write a story that ended up coming true." 

"Oh, by the way," Ben added, "according to the story, Charles Gringer was my grandfather." 

"Interesting, that explains a lot actually." 

"It does?" 

"Sure. Charles Gringer knew details of your past and wrote them down. He then made predictions about your future and perhaps even helped to orchestrate some of the events in your life, such as giving you a house, which undoubtedly influenced your decision to move to Calgary." 

"Do you think Gringer burned down my apartment?" 

"Who knows?" 

"But Kyle, even you have to admit, if Charles Gringer was somehow pulling certain strings and manipulating events in my life like some evil puppet master, he was very specific. How did he get me and you to bump into each other, and how did he know about the woman in the green coat?" 

"Maybe she's a plant," he suggested. "He could've hired her to walk by at that moment just to mess with you. I mean, he definitely has the money now to pull off a prank like that." 

"Why would he do that? And if so, does that mean you're a plant too." 

"I can assure you I am not a plant. As far as why he would do something like this, I mean, either he is really twisted and gets enjoyment out of manipulating events in people's lives, or he is testing you in some way. Or maybe he's just old and senile and this is what passes for amusement for bored rich people." 

"Let's go back to the clairvoyant hypothesis for a minute. Explain that to me." 

"It's the idea that some people have senses beyond the ordinary human senses of smell, sight, hearing, touch, and taste. A clairvoyant is thought to have the special ability to know information about a person or a physical event through some extrasensory perception." 

"Like a psychic?" 

"Yes, exactly," Kyle said. "But I think the simplest explanation is the most likely one." 

"Which is?" 

"I think you may have told someone these events, forgot you told them, and they wrote them down." 

"Believe me, I didn't tell anyone." 

"Perhaps at some point in your past, you went to a hypnotist or a therapist... or a hypnotherapist." 

"Okay, but I haven't been to a hypnotherapist." 

"That's just it, if you were hypnotised, you may not be able to recall that experience." 

"Like amnesia." 

"Sure, that's one way, but people have selective memory. The science is not fully understood. Basically, there are a number of ways a person can forget. Sometimes people just have too many memories and their brain pushes out old memories to make room for new ones."  

"But I'm only twenty-four, I should have lots of room." 

"Well, people's brains work differently." 

Ben did not feel like they were making progress. He exhaled a deep breath and clasped his fingers behind his head.  

"Okay, what else?" 

"Perhaps you abused some sort of substance that damaged certain memory banks in your brain." 

"Do you really believe that?" 

"Who knows? All these possibilities are on the table at this point. Besides, that is better than my next suggestion." 

"What's that?" 

"Have you ever considered the possibility you have a split personality disorder? Think about it, you didn't write this, Larry did!" 

"Shut up." 

"I'm just saying, sometimes people develop these kinds of disorders to block out bad memories, and you've said so yourself you've had a lot of bad memories." 

"Anything else?"  

"Sometimes a traumatic experience can make a person forget. It's another coping mechanism. The brain deletes the memory in order to protect itself." 

"But I still remember terrible events," Ben rebutted. 

"Again, the science is not fully understood yet." 

"Kyle, all your theories so far revolve around me telling someone my story, or me writing the story myself and then forgetting about it. What about you, did you tell my story to anyone? After all, I found this manuscript in Calgary, a city in which you spent a lot of time in." 

"Definitely not." 

"How do you know, maybe one of your other personalities did... or maybe your just forgot about it!" 

"Very funny." 

"So far, none of our theories satisfactorily answer the question about the author of this manuscript seemingly knowing future events." 

"Yeah, that is a bit puzzling," Kyle said. "There is one really farfetched idea that we have yet to consider." 

"What is it?" 

"Some scientists are studying the possibility of something called remote viewing." 

"Remote viewing? What's that?" 

"It's basically when you hijack a person's brain and view their memories." 

"Is that possible... in theory?" 

"Well, in scientific terms, there's a process. Something first becomes a hypothesis, then a model, then a theory, then a law." 

"And where does remote viewing fall?" 

"It's not even in the theoretical stage yet."  

"Okay then, so hypothetically, how would remote viewing be possible?" 

"I suppose it would work the same way a computer hacker would hack into someone's computer and access all their files. Obviously, it wouldn't be through a computer, but the idea would work the same way." 

"Is it possible?" 

"I guess. Anything's possible, right? However, I wouldn't even begin to come up with a plausible scenario where someone could do that with today's technology. Scientists have been able to hijack the brains of insects and animals, but they first have to implant a chip into their brains. And they have to be in close proximity to their subject. But we're talking about remote controlling the basic movements in primitive species, not reading people's thoughts and memories. Even if that were possible, why would anyone want to hijack your memory bank? No offence." 

"None taken." 

"But even still," Kyle continued, "how could they know future events?"