Plot synopsis
Jack gets committed to a top-security mental asylum for a murder he did not commit. Dr Becker then conducts illegal experiments on him that involve Jack being drugged, constrained in a straitjacket, and then placed in a basement morgue drawer for hours on end.
During this time, Jack is able to travel forward 15 years to 2007. This allows him to bring back valuable information to people in the present that need help. On his first trip to the future, he meets a girl called Jackie. He also learns that he will die four days after returning to the asylum.
On one of his trips, he visits the now retired Dr Becker, who denies killing Jack. He says the last time Jack came out of the drawer, he mentioned three names: the men he had previously tried to help. They ask him what the names were, and he tells them. Jack laughs and says, “I came out of that thing and I told you those names, well who do you think told me about them? You did! I am in that drawer right now … you are haunting yourself old man.”
While in the future, Jack is able to get a note to Jackie’s mother, which he hopes will prevent her from dying.
When back at the asylum, Jack slips on some ice and splits his head open. He asks to be put in the jacket before he dies.
He goes back to the future one more time and meets Jackie at the point he first met her; but she seems different. He finds out that her mother is still alive, so it seems he was able to cause the timeline to diverge. Jack remains in the future with Jackie because he cannot go back.
My comments
Jack has no live body to return to at the asylum, as he was unable to prevent his own death, so he has to remain in the future. The predestination paradox is at play here because the information Jack brings back is helping to create the events that he is observing in the future.
The conversation he has with Dr Becker in the future sets up a causal loop. This is because he brings back information that allows something to take place in the present that has already taken place. But it could not have done so without this information.
Summary of time travel
Jack makes several return trips to the future and all of the changes he makes when he comes back to his present turn out to be causal loops, so he is not actually changing the timeline at all.
It is only when he is able to save the life of Jackie’s mother that the timeline diverges. Just before he dies, he is able to travel to the future and see that the timeline has continued to diverge.
Category of time travel
Psychological: drug induced.
Model of time
Undefined past, open future with a double-well timeline and causal loops.
Jack’s first trips caused the existing future to unfold:
Jack’s last trip created a different future:
