TW for brief mention of alcoholism
So, a lot was revealed in this chapter! I guess I’m about halfway into the book so I should expect to know something by now. Ted goes back to Christopher’s house where Christopher confides that he wasn’t always a destitute alcoholic, but was originally a mechanic. Ted is a bit disbelieving until Christopher takes out a bottle of wine and puts it near a machine he created called the Spell Remover (Not a very clever name). Suddenly, the bottle metamorphoses into a coffee grinder that Christopher says he once owned.
Apparently, the entirety of the original Millgate is still present, but an event (ominously referred to as The Change) occurred and seems to have suddenly altered the town and everything in it about eighteen years prior to the story. Christopher points out that there was some mistake, however, and that The Change didn’t manage to coat his memories, meaning that while he was physically altered by it, his mind remained the same. This has allowed Christopher to secretly work against whatever forces are maintaining this illusion (which Christopher refers to as The Haze) around the town.
Christopher shows Ted that he owns one of the town’s famous relics (a tire iron used to stop a bank robbery when Ted was a kid), but it’s stuck in the form of a brown piece of string at the moment. Ted becomes emboldened to help reverse The Change and set the town back to normal.
Maybe it’s just my pessimism here, but this all feels very similar to Winston in 1984 trusting O’Brien. I’m not sure if I trust Christopher, or whether whatever caused The Change intentionally put in an agent (similar to Peter or Mary) that could lead on and neutralize threatening elements like Ted.
If I wanted to go really mind-bendy, I’d predict that Ted himself, and the idea that he has false memories, may in and of itself be a false memory caused by The Haze.. though to what end I would not be sure.
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