Crossing Over Into The Twilight Zone

"There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone."

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"You're traveling through another dimension -- a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's a signpost up ahead: your next stop: the Twilight Zone!"

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"You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into... the Twilight Zone."

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My hand has not yet recovered from my stroke seven weeks ago, so I've been seeing a physical therapist who has given me exercises to do. This week I latched on to a new routine. While doing my finger exercises I've been watching episodes of The Twilight Zone, the original black and white show that began airing in October 1959. I was seven years old at that time and when I reached episode 4 the other day I was surprised that I remembered it. Perhaps it was the subject matter, a man who was somewhat obsessed about books and reading.

I have also been surprised at how dark these stories are. The mood conveyed by the narrator is one of impending doom or heartbreak of some kind. And like O. Henry's famous twist endings, Rod Serling's tales likewise end with a startling twist. 

More than 150 episodes, 80 of them written by Rod Serling, creator of the series.

One episode that I watched this past week was titled "Time Enough at Last." Here's the opening: 

"Witness Mr. Henry Bemis, a charter member in the fraternity of dreamers. A bookish little man whose passion is the printed page, but who is conspired against by a bank president and a wife and a world full of tongue-cluckers and the unrelenting hands of a clock. But in just a moment, Mr. Bemis will enter a world without bank presidents or wives or clocks or anything else. He'll have a world all to himself... without anyone."

It turns out that Mr. Bemis decides to take his coffee break in the bank's vault where he be alone with his book. Unexpectedly, his world is shaken by a nuclear war outbreak. When he emerges from the vault, most of the town's buildings have been destroyed. He is the lone survivor.

To his delight he finds the public library still standing and he proceeds to stack piles of books to be read during the months ahead. And no one will ever again criticize his love of reading.

SPOILER ALERT

Besides his passion for reading, one other detail from the opening scene stands out. He wear glasses with coke-bottle lenses. The twist at the end? As he bends over to pick up his first book, with all the tme in the world now available for reading, his glasses slip off and shatter on the concrete sidewalk. His "heaven" suddenly turns to hell.

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Here are a couple other episodes that offer viewers the flavor of this show.

"The Silence" In this episode, a wealthy man bets a poor man a million dollars that he cannot keep silent for one year. It turns out that the rich man was not rich at all and did not have a million dollars, while the poor man had cut his own vocal cords in order to win the bet.  {I hear an echo of Chekov's "The Bet" here.}

"To Serve Man" Nine foot creatures from space descend on the UN and leave a book. The title is decoded to read, "To Serve Man". Thinking that this title illustrated the creatures' noble goals, Earthlings begin migrating to their planet. They soon find out that the book was a cookbook.

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There's a sense in which this year's presidential election circus feels a bit like an episode from The Twilight Zone. We'll soon see what kind of twist ending has been written into the script.