Chapter 2a
Erwin Packard was, as stated previously, decidedly uninteresting. In fact, his mother once described him in an interview as being, "a proud, introverted boy," who later grew to be, "an obnoxious waste of a man." His specific personality traits did endear him little in the way of friends and companions but a few have still reluctantly come forward to proclaim, "Yes, I knew Edward Picard or whatever." Of these, a few even had experiences with him that could have realistically occurred. While this seems like a very sub-par source of information, we must view these interviews as contrasted to our other sources, things such Packard's own personal diary and his extensive Wikipedia article (yet to be created).
With men like Erwin Packard, the diary is perhaps the least reliable of all sources. There has been great debate into exactly how this idea should be presented to the masses and our studies have found the best way to explain the depths of Erwin's madness is this: He was fucking bat-shit crazy.
In the same interview mention about with Packard's mother, who is a surprisingly kind and well-rounded woman, she explains this in more concise terms.
She said, "One day Ernest just snapped. It wasn't sudden, it happened over a few years, but you could tell when it started. I think it was the late eighties. He came over to ask if he could have my plunger and a roll of toilet paper and something just didn't seem right about him. He didn't seem angry or upset or anxious or tired or...or..well, bad, you know? He seemed the same, his mood that is, but something was just...it just wasn't quite right. It was like he'd built a complex machine capable of independent thought with algorithms that allowed for adaptation and some measure of learning, then taken that and reassembled all the pieces into something organic and flexible enough for him to mold his own features on to and then taught the thing his speech patterns, his mannerisms and enough of his life story to convince people that this organic cyborg was actually the real person."
His ex-wife was also among those interviewed and had this to say: "I don't know who you're talking about...please...just let me go..." Despite her solid testimony, however, there is some doubt as to the validity of her claims, given that there are no records of Erwin Packard being married. Critics of this argument have pointed out, however, that there are also no records of him specifically being unmarried. Others contend that both of these arguments are flawed because of the total lack of research on the topic. Some research these individuals say might have solved the debate included checking public records for marriage licenses or asking family if Packard had been married. While popular opinion seems to be that Packard was in fact married at some point the sad truth of the matter is that we may never know.
Following is a piece of evidence supporting that Packard may have taken a wife:
Sunday, July 15, 1990
The wife and I went out to dinner today. It was nice but I keep feeling like I'm somewhere else. We got there and I thought to myself, "oh yeah, I remember this happening," even though it was only happening just that moment. I keep having these strange dreams, the kind that make the real world seem strange when you wake up. I don't sleep much because of them.
Last night I had the teeth dream. Laura tells me it's a common dream, lots of people have it, I shouldn't worry, but I don't think I'm the same. I remember I was drinking something, sitting at a bar with the bartender from The Shining and I swallowed something. I looked in my beer, nothing amiss there. I slide my tongue around to check for anything else, no debris. But not enough. A tooth was missing. I felt around it with my tongue and felt another nearby move. I reached in and pulled it out smoothly, watched the long string of saliva-blood dangle in the air between my tooth and I. Then I pulled out another. The one next to it dropped into my beer. I pulled another and another, more terrified each time until there was a full bloody smile resting in the palm of my hands. I clenched my fingers tight around them until they hurt worse than pulling the teeth had and started to cry. I woke up crying, looked around and saw only darkness. In my mouth were sharp hard spikes, foreign and cruel. I could still feel my own teeth in my aching hands. I was awake for a full minute, petrified for a full minute, before I screamed. I told Laura about it and she tells me it's common.
I told her about that dream because it was just scary. I told her about that one because it's not as strange as the others.
The one I don't tell her about, the one that didn't wake me up... I can't explain that. It's like being alone and indifferent and cold but not much else. Senses are overloaded but there's no source. I remember it vividly but can't wrap my mind around it enough to remember it accurately. When these kinds of dreams, these strange ones that I can't explain, not always like the one I described, when they started it made sense. I was troubled. Life has been kind to me. Blissfully boring and tender. I don't feel troubled but I do feel...worse. My thoughts seem to be getting disjointed. I can't focus. These dreams...
We rented a movie after, I talked her into the Batman movie they made last year. She didn't want to watch it, but she gave in and did. She liked it but she fell asleep before it was over. I liked the Joker.
Have you ever stepped on a Lego? Have you seen those guys who walk across beds of hot coals? I feel fine, just like the guy on the coals, but I know I'm doing a mixture of the two. Does that make sense? Well, who cares, anyway? It's time to sleep...perchance to dream?
This journal entry is believed to have been produced slightly two years after the letter to Packard's younger self. Research on the topic reveals that Packard may have been suffering from disturbing dreams and perhaps even insomnia when this was written. Even with all the answers this cryptic message might contain, though, the questions it raises are two fold. Is "the wife" in the diary his wife? Who is Laura? Why was he having these dreams?
We asked his wife about the dreams during our interview. "Please! Stop! I didn't do anything!" was all she had to say.