The Man Who Lived Too Much: A Wondrous Tale of the End of Days

By Shand Stringham

History is a slippery thing. While it pretends to provide a somewhat clear picture of past events, the veracity of written and oral histories is suspect as not being entirely complete nor true and faithful in reporting what actually transpired in the past. The reality of the phrase, “History is written by the victor,” frequently skews what ends up being recorded.
Thus, although it has exceptional, rare shining moments, what passes for history throughout the ages is more or less an artificial exposition on warfare, human bloodshed and savagery written by those who survived to tell their version of what happened.
This book is a novel of science fiction and fantasy overlaid on the rich tapestry of an historical reality. It examines the fragility and duplicitous nature of what passes for history today. It suggests a unique remedy for laying bare the elusiveness of truth provided by a group of unbiased, immortal Watchers, who observe and record the unvarnished and undistorted doings of mankind throughout the ages with all its warts, thorns, and imperfections.
The words of the venerable old church hymn provide a context for the narrative presented here: “Angels above us are silent notes taking, of ev’ry action; then do what is right.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9781663253057

Shand Stringham

Shand Stringham served twenty-six years in the US Army and retired as a colonel. His final assignment on active duty was on the faculty of the US Army War College, where he taught national security and strategy. He lives with his family in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Book preview

cover.jpg

THE MAN WHO

LIVED TOO MUCH

A Wondrous Tale of the End of Days

SHAND STRINGHAM

THE MAN WHOLIVED TOO MUCH

A WONDROUS TALE OF THE END OF DAYS

Copyright © 2023 Shand Stringham.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,

graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by

any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author

except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Certain characters in this work are historical figures, and certain events portrayed

did take place. However, this is a work of fiction. All of the other characters, names,

and events as well as all places, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel

are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

844-349-9409

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in

this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views

expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6632-5304-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-5306-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-5305-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023908456

iUniverse rev. date:  05/09/2023

CONTENTS

In Appreciation

Author’s Note

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

IN APPRECIATION

I had the assistance and technical support of several people in the preparation of this novel manuscript whom I want to acknowledge and thank: Janine Weyers, Karen Westergard Gill, Linda Gareh-Applegate, Shellie Stringham Harris, Don and Nancy Schoeps, and Carson Briant Stringham. I am also grateful for Casey Stringham’s professional efforts in doing the photography work for the book cover, and Keith Eisenstein who served as the model for the cover illustration.

As always, I express my continuing gratitude to my wife, Quin, who spent many hours discussing with me various ideas, concepts, and insights that emerged in the writing of the manuscript. Her additional editing has been of inestimable value. Thank you for your loving support and understanding.

Shand Stringham

Carlisle Pennsylvania

April 2023

AUTHOR’S NOTE

History is a slippery thing. While it may attempt to provide a somewhat clear picture of past events, the veracity of written and oral histories is simply suspect for being incomplete and not particularly faithful and true in reporting what actually transpired in the past.

Henry Ford is famously quoted and misquoted as saying, History is more or less bunk, and All history is a myth. There is a plethora of Henry Ford sayings on the matter precisely because he said it so many times and in so many different ways. In a similar vein, Georg Hegel sarcastically remarked, The only thing that we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.

History is written by the victor, was not originally said by Churchill as many observers suppose. It was an oft-repeated assertion a full hundred years prior to Churchill’s day throughout the nineteenth century. However, Churchill is actually quoted as saying something to that effect in a 1948 speech before the House of Commons following the end of World War II: For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

Although it has its rare shining moments, what passes for history throughout the ages is more or less an artificial exposition on warfare, human bloodshed, and savagery written by those who survived to tell their version of what happened. If we were truly able to learn the lessons of history, we ought to pursue strategies to avoid warfare altogether. Unfortunately, we haven’t learned those lessons very well. Santayana is quoted as fatalistically asserting, Only the dead have seen the end of war.

Modern information technologies that have emerged in the past half century provide the means of moving information around the globe almost instantaneously and storing vast amounts of historical information in huge data server farms that we euphemistically refer to as the cloud. This extraordinary computational power and storage capacity offered the promise of great transparency in recording history factually as it occurs. Unfortunately, these new technologies have resulted in quite the opposite effect. A significant portion of mankind today leverages our newfound informational power to underwrite biased personal and national agendas to distort and obfuscate history before the ink has even dried on the printed page. And that, perhaps, may be at the root of the problem. We no long rely quite like we have in the past on published histories. Instead, today many have turned from books and other printed matter to digitally-generated histories. These can be changed to suit the author with the push of the delete key. History is no longer stabilized with printers’ ink. It is as ephemeral as the whims of those folks who pretend to document and communicate the news.

This book is a novel of science fiction and fantasy overlaid on the rich tapestry of an historical reality insofar as I have been able to research and fairly capture it. It exposes the fragility and duplicitous nature of what passes for history today and suggests a practical remedy for the elusiveness of truth provided by a group of unbiased, immortal Watchers who simply observe and record the unvarnished and undistorted doings of mankind throughout the ages with all its warts, thorns, and imperfections. The words of the venerable old church hymn provide a vision for the context of the narrative presented here: Angels above us are silent notes taking, of ev’ry action; then do what is right. The Watchers’ observations will one day become a treasured portion of the Book of Life, and what passes for history today will fall by the wayside as weak gruel.

There is a second problematic issue associated with history today. I often wonder how future generations of historians will one day record and interpret the doings of our present generation as so many folks work unceasingly to erase much of the history that has passed before them that they now find unpalatable today. I suspect that ultimately, this generation will be judged unfavorably for trying… and found wanting.

CHAPTER 1

T he old man hobbled down the sidewalk next to the stone wall in front of the Dickinson College campus. He paced back and forth as he observed the pedestrian traffic, mostly students hurrying along to get to class on time. He leaned on his cane for support as he turned his head from side to side, scanning the faces of the people passing by. He finally paused and leaned against a short stretch of the stone wall next to the arched entryway into the college quadrangle. The sun beat down upon him and, in spite of a slight chill in the early spring air, he unbuttoned his jacket and draped it over his arm, turning his attention to watch the afternoon traffic rush by on the street in front of him.

Carlisle was normally a quiet, almost sleepy little town on most days, but today, there was a ten-car pile-up out on a stretch of the nearby Interstate that encircled the town. The state police had closed all Interstate traffic lanes and redirected highway traffic down High Street right through the center of the historic downtown district.

An endless procession of 18-wheeler, semi-tractor rigs passed by in both directions. The big trucks made a terrific din and filled the downtown air with thick, acrid, diesel fumes. It was slow-going as the traffic semaphore system wasn’t particularly responsive to the emergency traffic situation. Many of the truckers had their windows rolled down and were shouting expletives at anyone they thought might be slowing down their progress in traffic through the little hamlet.

The old man stood leaning against the stone archway for almost half an hour, watching the gridlock traffic pass by and noting the bad humor displayed by so many of the big rig drivers. As he witnessed the distasteful behavior on the part of so many, he brought his hand up to his face and stroked his white beard in a gesture of disapprobation.

He was suddenly distracted by the sound of a disturbance behind him in the campus quadrangle on the other side of the stone wall. A young child was having a meltdown and an exasperated mother was having a shouting match with the little one. The old man listened sadly, without turning his head. Suddenly, there was the unmistakable sound of a loud slap as the woman apparently ran out of patience.

The surprised child broke down crying in loud sobs that finally subsided in quiet, almost inaudible, whispered tears. The old man shook his head in disappointment. Turning to focus his view on the woman and her child, he was mildly surprised to see how young the mother appeared to be… perhaps too young to have already started a family.

The old man resisted saying anything or otherwise intervening in the conflict. He quietly stared at the two for a few minutes, carefully recording in his mind the details of the scene that had just transpired. A tear formed in the corner of his eye and rolled down his wrinkled cheek.

With his jacket still draped across his arm and using his cane for support, he slowly turned back around to face the crowded street and walked haltingly over to the side of the curb. He leaned on a parked pickup truck as he stepped down from the sidewalk to the rain gutter at street level, and picked his way slowly between parked cars. He paused momentarily, and then, without warning, he stepped out into the street traffic directly into the path of an oncoming semi-truck that had speeded up to make the next light at the intersection before it changed.

When the trucker belatedly saw the old man in his path, he braked hard and attempted to swerve to avoid hitting him. But there was little maneuvering room in the cramped quarters of the crowded lanes of the busy downtown traffic, and the old man went under the wheels of the big rig. The truck came to an abrupt stop with the old man wedged on the asphalt between the tires of the rear two sets of the tractor’s double wheels.

The driver jumped down from his cab and rushed around the giant rig to check out the old man’s injuries. He fully expected that he would find the old man dead, but as he hurried up to where he lay, he saw that his eyes were wide open. He appeared to be fully conscious and alert. An odd smile spread across the old man’s weathered face.

A college campus crossing guard who was posted at the crosswalk down the street saw the accident and immediately called 911, but it took an emergency response team half an hour to maneuver around the crowded backstreets of town, and then through the High Street gridlock traffic to reach the accident site.

Using a large jack, the rescue team worked slowly and cautiously to raise the tires up and off the old man, but it took quite an effort to extricate him from under the truck’s double wheels. Finally, they succeeded in pulling the old man free. They loaded him onto a stretcher and lifted him into the rear of the EMT ambulance along with the old man’s cane and jacket. Then, with the emergency lights and siren blaring, the ambulance pulled away from the accident site and began the tortuous drive across town to the hospital.

After slowly wending its way back through the traffic boondoggle, the EMT ambulance finally delivered the old man to the hospital emergency room entrance. The paramedics maneuvered the stretcher out the back of the vehicle, carefully lowering it down to street level, and pushed it on through the ER entrance doors. They methodically transferred the old man onto a hospital gurney without waiting for assistance from any of the ER staff.

The emergency room was unusually busy that day, and the old man rested on the gurney in the foyer for several minutes before anyone from the ER could break away and get to him. Finally, when a harried ER tech came out into the foyer, the paramedic thrust a clipboard at him with the old man’s vital statistics recorded. He turned and rushed out the door pushing the EMT truck’s stretcher in front of him without exchanging much information verbally about his patient. He had just received a message on his radio transponder reporting another pileup on the Interstate. It was just that kind of day.

A moment later, the EMT rushed back in and handed the ER tech an ornately-carved walking stick cane and the old man’s jacket, and rushed back out the door. Over his shoulder, he shouted, Almost forgot the old guy’s cane. He would have missed that.

The ER tech followed the EMT’s rapid departure with his eyes, and then looked down at the heavy, wooden cane in his hands. It appeared to be quite old and bore carvings that suggested that it was probably of foreign manufacture. As he laid the cane on the gurney to the side of the old man, he remarked, That’s quite a handsome walking stick, sir. It looks very old. Where did you get it?

The old man just looked up at the tech and smiled. Yes, it is quite old. A friend of mine carved it for me many years ago. The relief carvings in the cane handle are reminiscent of early Celtic and Old Norse design. The young man in the ambulance was quite right. I would have been very distraught to have lost it. I have become more dependent on it in my old age, and it represents many fond memories of years gone by for me.

The ER tech was surprised by how lucid the old man seemed to be. He quickly gave him a superficial visual examination. He perfunctorily scanned the written report and vitals recorded by the EMT team while enroute to the hospital. Looking up from the clipboard, he surveyed the old man once again with his eyes from head to toe, but more carefully this time. The old man’s sunburned face was fair but had a swarthy leathery-looking quality about it. His long white hair covered his forehead in an unruly, tangled mess, merging with his beard down his chin. He was conscious, and his eyes were open, staring up at the ceiling.

The ER tech didn’t detect any immediate outward indications of trauma. Even more curious, there weren’t any apparent injuries or even blood. The patients they were assisting in the ER examination rooms right at that moment were in much worse condition from the multiple accidents out on the Interstate… broken bones and blood everywhere. The ER personnel had contacted nearby hospitals designated as trauma centers to evacuate some of the more seriously injured patients. Hershey Medical Center had already dispatched their Life Lion helicopter to evacuate one of the patients who had been critically injured and hovered on the brink of death.

By comparison with the carnage that the EMT ambulances had been delivering to the ER all afternoon, the old man lying here in front of him didn’t really seem to be that bad off. The technician lifted the old man’s wrist and felt for his pulse. His pulse was strong. He placed his hand briefly on the old man’s forehead. No apparent fever. He used a small flashlight to shine into his eyes to check for dilation. Everything seemed normal there too. Finally, he hooked up the sphygmomanometer and measured the old man’s blood pressure. 120 over 75. Not a bad readout for an elderly man. Not feeling a sense of urgency for the moment, the ER tech slowly and methodically went down the triage form on the clipboard to begin the patient’s inprocessing.

Four hundred, the old man muttered.

Huh? the tech looked up from the