I Am Robert Langdon |5| Temporality
In February 2000 I emerged from my underground bunker, a converted passage tomb near The Hill of Tara, to discover that the world had not ended and the dreaded Y2K bug had failed to wipe out our species. I was relieved but lost. Months later I discovered a novel called Angels and Demons by Dan Brown and consumed it numerous times because the lead character, Robert Langdon, shares my name, Robert Langdon. It changed my life and gave me a purpose. I have followed Robert and Dan on their adventures ever since and have penned several stories featuring my hero, my companion, my teacher…Robert Langdon. These are my stories. I am Robert Langdon.
The pitch of the darkness was of course…black.
Robert Langdon had been wandering for what seemed like eons through the darkest tunnels known to mankind. He’d killed The Deuce here at some time, here in Siberia. The Deuce had killed Penelope, destroyed Langdon’s reputation and pushed him to the brink of madness. He’d also succeeded in toppling every government in the world. The old bastard had taken everything. Langdon had to kill the geriatric maniac. And so he did…kill him, The Deuce.
The darkness was pooling all around him, it was thick and oleaginous with vague ripples of prismatic colours filtering past his retinas in a bastard sequence he could not decode. All was silent apart from the sound of snow crunching under his feet. But how could there be snow this deep underground?
Langdon’s balance failed him and suddenly he was without location and hurtling motionlessly through some trapezoidal aperture.
Then came the blinding light.
Langdon was sick all over the shop.
Then came the voices. The shouting voices, the green uniforms, the sirens, the fear and the power hose cleaning his weak body of all the puke.
Hours passed into days and still Robert Langdon was unable to piece anything together until this moment, until this moment in this room staring at this cup of coffee. The steam rose from the dark blend and this pleased him somehow, this calmed him enough to look at the woman sitting across from him. She wore a military uniform, her expression was neutral (almost caring) and she was speaking to him.
Langdon fixed her gaze and she stopped speaking.
“My name is Robert Langdon. I am the world’s foremost authority on symbology. For the past twenty years I have been at the centre of ninety per cent of the world’s conspiracies. I have saved humanity on numerous occasions. A few days ago I killed a man known as…”
Langdon stopped talking.The words obliterated in his throat as he looked at the other person in the room.
It was a man. A handsome man of around thirty years old. He smiled knowingly at Langdon and Robert could feel the tears spilling from his eyes as he recognised this young man as…The Deuce.
“Good morning Robert. How are things?”
Langdon was consumed by terror. Nothing made sense. He looked around the room: a typewriter, a wireless radio, a picture on the wall of Lyndon B. Johnson…his mind reeled.
“You look scared Robert. Are you scared?”
“What…what is happening?”
“It’s very simple Robert. You’ve been travelling. You’ve travelled a long way.”
“I can’t…understand.”
“You were about to say you killed me in Siberia, were you not? And yet here I sit, youthful, powerful and ready to do it all again. I know what I will do, I know when I will die, I know when your sweet Penelope died and I know when you are going to die.”
“This is insanity.”
“No Robert, this is intelligent temporality!”
Robert stood up and lurched back from The Deuce, or whoever it was, and crumpled himself into a corner.
The Deuce opened up a folder on the table in front of him. The lady to his left stared at Robert, her eyes widened and Robert could feel something moving inside his mind.
“Pay no attention to Ms. Euclid she is just figuring out some problems for me. Now!!”
The Deuce read from the sheets in the folder.
“Robert Langdon, born twenty second of August 1966. Why Robert…you’re barely two years old.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“The year Robert, what year is it? I told you, you’ve been travelling and you’ve travelled to the exact location I knew you would: Camp Hero, Montauk,Long Island, 23rd of May in the fine year of 1968.”
“What?”
“I know! It’s fucking nuts isn’t it Robert? And now we are going to take a little drive, we’re gonna go visit little baby Bobby. You grew up on the other side of the island did you not? Daddy works here doesn’t he baby Bobby? Mommy is at home baking pumpkin pie and nursing little baby Bobby is she not Robert!!!”
The Deuce stood and flipped the table while Ms. Euclid sat motionless staring at Langdon staring at herself, using his eyes, using hislegs, using his arms she made him stand.
“Thank you Ms. Euclid. Now baby Bobby…let’s start another adventure.”
The Deuce put his arm around Langdon’s shivering shoulders and the trio made their way to the nearest elevator.
Robert had no control as they ascended the fifty stories to the earth’s surface, Robert had nothing, Robert was nothing and The Deuce just smiled into his face.
Langdon had never and could never forget this date. This was the date, the day, that his parents had been murdered.
Robert Langdon is a neo-transcendentalist, a Sadhu of Samhain, an historic detective and a conspiracy factualist. He lives in Drogheda with his husband, wife and a dule of red eared slider turtles.
