The Sound of a Tumult

When Graham wakes again, the strangers around him are not celebrating. They are frightened of what he may understand.

Attendants give him restorative fluids and watch every reaction. Their clothing, language and behaviour confirm that he is far from the world he remembers, but nobody volunteers an explanation.

Graham tries to begin with something familiar. He asks them to contact his cousin Warming in Chancery Lane.

The request produces confusion. The electric telegram belongs to their history, not their daily life. Even his way of counting and naming money is outdated.

The small misunderstandings gather into one conclusion before anyone states it aloud: Graham has not slept for days or even years. The awe in their faces tells him that the interval is enormous.

He asks directly how long.

The attendants evade him. A considerable time, they say. A very long time.

Graham guesses five or six years. Their expressions make the guess ridiculous.

One tries to answer in a numerical system based on dozens and grosses, then another finally gives the measure Graham understands.

More than two centuries.

The words create a gulf his imagination cannot cross. Graham repeats them, challenges them and asks whether this is a joke.

Someone remembers the historical Boscastle and confirms that a house associated with the Sleeper still exists there.

The private afternoon Graham remembers has become archaeology.

The exact figure is two hundred and three years.

Graham's mind turns immediately toward the people he knew. Every friend, opponent, relative and casual acquaintance is dead. The Queen, her ministers, the institutions and public arguments of his age have all passed into history.

He asks whether England still exists. Whether London still exists.

It does.

He is already in London.

The answer offers geography but no comfort. Graham weeps—not ceremonially, but with the helpless relief of someone whose mind has finally found a response large enough for the fact.

A thickset, commanding man enters and takes control. His name is Howard, and he is described as Graham's chief guardian.

The title is unsettling. Children and incapacitated people have guardians. The men around Graham also address him as Sire.

Howard is angry that the truth has been disclosed. He repeatedly warns the attendants not to confuse Graham, but his real fear seems to lie elsewhere. The awakening has created a crisis he did not expect to manage.

From beyond the room comes the sound of a vast crowd.

Graham can distinguish a repeated demand: show us the Sleeper.

Howard tries to turn the emergency into practical routine.

Graham needs clothes. A tailor arrives with a machine that measures his body using dozens of small contact points. Material is fed into the device, and a complete suit is produced within minutes.

A celebrated hair specialist—the future uses a grand new word for the profession—cuts Graham's hair and beard with the concentration of an artist.

The details are comic and destabilising at once. Clothing can be manufactured almost instantly; decimal counting has been replaced; old pounds have become historical curiosities.

Graham is being prepared for the future before anyone will tell him what position he occupies inside it.

Then a voice bursts from a communication apparatus.

The people know throughout the city. Work is stopping. Howard is ordered to act immediately.

The crowd's roar swells again through the archway.

Graham has been awake only a few hours. He has barely understood that everyone he knew is dead. Yet an entire metropolis is already demanding his appearance.

Howard turns toward the machinery, distracted by the crisis.

Graham follows the sound.

He crosses the passage and steps onto the balcony.

For the first time, he sees the world that has been waiting for him.