"You're looking at Act One, Scene One, of a nightmare, not restricted to witching hours or dark, rainswept nights. Professor Walter Jameson, popular beyond words, who talks of the past as if it were the present, who conjures up the dead as if they were alive. In the view of this man, Professor Samuel Kittridge, Walter Jameson has access to knowledge that couldn't come out of a volume of history, but rather from a book on black magic, which is to say that this nightmare begins at noon." - Rod Serling, opening narration.

This is the story of a teacher of history who breathes uncanny life into his descriptions of time gone by - almost as though they were recollections. We find early in the piece that the reason for this is that they were, indeed, memories - memories of a single life that has spanned more than 2000 years of human history. Walter recalls living in the era of Plato. He took part in wars that defined some of the great civilisations and he married women from a number of generations.

As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that while immortality has its benefits, it's also an experience tainted by misery and suffering. The constant loss of those around him has taken its toll on the immortal Mr Jameson. A single quote effectively sums up Walter's fate and the tiresome burden in which he finds himself. Spoken by Kevin McCarthy in his contemplative role as Walter Jameson is:
"It's death that gives this world its point. We love a rose because it will soon be gone. Who ever loved a stone?"

Walter eventually comes to the realisation that he no longer wants to continue living the same way through countless more generations and events climax with him aging so rapidly as to leave behind only a pool of dust in his wake.

"Last stop on a long journey, as yet another human being returns to the vast nothingness that is the beginning and into the dust that is always the end." - Rod Serling, closing narration.