Memorials of S. S. Dickinson (1882)

Charlie Hawkins, an eighty-one-year-old senator from Iowa, takes shelter in an abandoned building in Washington, D.C. While he is waiting for a snowstorm to let up, fatigue and old age begin to take a toll on him. As he struggles to keep himself alive, he engages in a dialogue with his alter ego, whom he calls Lucifer Mann. Lucifer Mann challenges Charlie with questions from his past, forcing Senator Hawkins to talk about many of the things he has seen or read about throughout his life. Charlie is confronted with the possibility of alien colonization as well as evolution versus religion. Qabbalism numerology and his years as a senator all become a part of the dialogue between Charlie and Mr. Mann. This desperate period becomes Charlie’s search for truth within himself, his own personal truth, as only a man faced with certain death can reveal.