Detrás del tiempo (Behind Time)

Catalog Note *Detrás del tiempo* (Behind Time) by Peter Kapra is a science-fiction novella exploring consciousness and dimensionality. The narrative operates on two planes. In the primary storyline, immaterial beings called "enfobas"—existing without physical form, eyes, or bodies in a timeless darkness—gradually awaken to consciousness. Two entities, Eoe and Deue, establish the first known communication between their kind, discovering they can measure temporal passage through mental impulses and developing a counting system. They deduce they are traveling toward a universal barrier that may reveal their origins. The secondary narrative, set on contemporary Earth, introduces Dr. Pierre Charonne, a French mathematician obsessed with deriving a mathematical formula explaining human origins across the universe. His daughter Anette expresses concern about his obsessive work. An American engineer, Franky Spiro, returns to Paris after four years developing "IBZ-33," a perfect calculating machine, ostensibly to visit Charonne but primarily to see Anette, with whom he is secretly in love. The narrative suggests a thematic connection between the enfobas' struggle to understand existence and Charonne's mathematical quest.