Part VIII: “The first day, let
there be light
(Winter 2011)
I’m sitting in the passenger seat. The light green glow from the clock on the console that now reads one twenty-three pulls my attention away from the window. One twenty-three. I stare at the digital numbers, they stare back, maliciously. No, I won’t let them have this power over me, not any more. I return my eyes to the scenery outside the car. Suddenly I remember when I was here and where here was. This was my road trip with my friend to Telluride, Colorado last summer. We’re on the border of Texas and New Mexico. We had just driven through a series of ghost towns. We drove eighteen hours straight, through the night, from Austin to Telluride. I’m pulled away from these realizations by the sights I now know to expect next. The sky above the prairie flatlands that ran out to the east and to the west from the lonesome country road I was riding along, first seemed like an infinite abyss filled only by the blackness of midnight, then in an instant the void was filled in all directions with thousands upon thousands of glowing red lights - for a moment, something like a pulse, and then all was black again. These flaming eyes were uniform in height, maybe one hundred and fifty feet above me and were simultaneous in their illumination. It’s as if the sky parted its invisible eyelids, momentarily revealing its pressing vision for a moment, then, realizing it had been caught in the act, nonchalantly closed them again. This repeats every seven seconds or so, like clockwork. Roaring thunder shook the air and it became dense with vibration for a few moments. My skin is now crawling over my body, hairs on end, frightened, but internally I’m still peaceful, somehow. The world lights up entirely, day invades the night, for a flash, as somewhere lightning must’ve just struck. In that moment I see three wings for every red light, surrounding me, continuing out as far as I can see and they’re spinning zealously. It’s curious to me that, despite the dense clouds, the blinding lightning, and the deafening thunder, there is no rain at all. Only the powerful wind propelling the wind turbines, and me. I look to my left, the driver is my friend still, yet it isn’t him anymore. I see him as he really is: a ghost. I see the smoke slowly ebb out from his nostrils as he exhales his last hit off his blunt. The smoke that fills the cab of his car causes a distortion of the red lights, blurring the edges, making it appear as if red halos surrounded the eyes. I long to be with the wings and the eyes, and out of this jeep carrying me to death, I don’t want to become a ghost, and I know that’s where he’s taking me. It’s now one twenty-four. We continue driving, while the hundred thousand eyes light up, the thunder rolls, the lightning reveals the wings of the turbines, and the wings spin in circles. This continues for an indefinite amount of time.
I leave the car. This hadn’t happened before. I walk along the road, fighting to stand against the powerful winds. Up ahead I see that the road seems to end, disappearing where a giant body of water appears. I continue my slow trudge, and the water seems to be approaching me as much as I it. I’ve reached its edge. There are two distinct bodies of water, not one. They seem to be wrestling with each other, trying to occupy the same space, but remaining as separate even as they are unified. I fall to my knees and peer into it. The water to the left is tinted blue, its essence is blue. I see the past, my past. I see the car ride to this moment, and the decisions that led to this moment, the situations that led to those decisions, and the life that led me into those situations in an instant. In a moment like the approach of an ambulance, when it’s next to you, and then passes you and pulls away, I now am staring into the red waters, the other waters. The future flashes before me and away from me, in a collage of image and time. The ground drops from beneath me. The waters are now vapors. Individual little balls of water, floating in space, suspended. Either the water had just separated, or the space between the water molecules just expanded. Yet it maintained its shape. The waters wrestled with each other, friction, a battle, a birth. Lightning. Electricity erupted up from the surface of the waters in front of me and reached far up into the sky, pulling my neck backwards and my head upwards. My knees still felt the ground beneath them, but the world had flipped, I was both on the ground and above it. The waters are the clouds over head. The bolt of lightning reached from the ground to the sky and fell from the sky to the ground. It was blue and it was pink and it was white.
I open my eyes, the light of the television I had forgotten to turn off before falling asleep floods into the space where the darkness that the inside of my eyelids once were. It’s morning. The images of the dream are still fresh in my mind, and flood through it like a slide show. I’ve had vivid dreams before, but this one seemed more than a vivid dream. Maybe it’s because this one began in one of my favorite memories, the wind turbine field. Memories and dreams seem to be intertwining more and more these days. Often this had me waking still under the impression that whatever I had been dreaming of was my primary concern. Sometimes it takes me a few minutes to realize I’ve woken up. I turn on my side and feel along the floor alongside my bed matt for my glasses. The familiar living room is a blur of color, the red of the leather couches, and the brown of the heavy Indian furniture blends with the beige of the walls. But as I lift the glasses to my face, the two little worlds of clarity grow larger as they approach my face until only the edges of my vision remain fogged and the lenses rest in front of my eyes, just beyond the reach of my lashes. I’m reminded of something I had heard in physics class. No matter how close two things get to one another, they never actually touch. I roll off my matt, and as my hand touches my parent’s Persian carpet, an audible spark of static electricity jumped between my skin and the fabric of the rug. I wonder, is that it? Is the illusion of touch something like lightning falling from the sky? But in reality, no matter how near your finger is to the doorknob, there’s really a troposphere between them.
(Winter 2011)
I’m sitting in the passenger seat. The light green glow from the clock on the console that now reads one twenty-three pulls my attention away from the window. One twenty-three. I stare at the digital numbers, they stare back, maliciously. No, I won’t let them have this power over me, not any more. I return my eyes to the scenery outside the car. Suddenly I remember when I was here and where here was. This was my road trip with my friend to Telluride, Colorado last summer. We’re on the border of Texas and New Mexico. We had just driven through a series of ghost towns. We drove eighteen hours straight, through the night, from Austin to Telluride. I’m pulled away from these realizations by the sights I now know to expect next. The sky above the prairie flatlands that ran out to the east and to the west from the lonesome country road I was riding along, first seemed like an infinite abyss filled only by the blackness of midnight, then in an instant the void was filled in all directions with thousands upon thousands of glowing red lights - for a moment, something like a pulse, and then all was black again. These flaming eyes were uniform in height, maybe one hundred and fifty feet above me and were simultaneous in their illumination. It’s as if the sky parted its invisible eyelids, momentarily revealing its pressing vision for a moment, then, realizing it had been caught in the act, nonchalantly closed them again. This repeats every seven seconds or so, like clockwork. Roaring thunder shook the air and it became dense with vibration for a few moments. My skin is now crawling over my body, hairs on end, frightened, but internally I’m still peaceful, somehow. The world lights up entirely, day invades the night, for a flash, as somewhere lightning must’ve just struck. In that moment I see three wings for every red light, surrounding me, continuing out as far as I can see and they’re spinning zealously. It’s curious to me that, despite the dense clouds, the blinding lightning, and the deafening thunder, there is no rain at all. Only the powerful wind propelling the wind turbines, and me. I look to my left, the driver is my friend still, yet it isn’t him anymore. I see him as he really is: a ghost. I see the smoke slowly ebb out from his nostrils as he exhales his last hit off his blunt. The smoke that fills the cab of his car causes a distortion of the red lights, blurring the edges, making it appear as if red halos surrounded the eyes. I long to be with the wings and the eyes, and out of this jeep carrying me to death, I don’t want to become a ghost, and I know that’s where he’s taking me. It’s now one twenty-four. We continue driving, while the hundred thousand eyes light up, the thunder rolls, the lightning reveals the wings of the turbines, and the wings spin in circles. This continues for an indefinite amount of time.
I leave the car. This hadn’t happened before. I walk along the road, fighting to stand against the powerful winds. Up ahead I see that the road seems to end, disappearing where a giant body of water appears. I continue my slow trudge, and the water seems to be approaching me as much as I it. I’ve reached its edge. There are two distinct bodies of water, not one. They seem to be wrestling with each other, trying to occupy the same space, but remaining as separate even as they are unified. I fall to my knees and peer into it. The water to the left is tinted blue, its essence is blue. I see the past, my past. I see the car ride to this moment, and the decisions that led to this moment, the situations that led to those decisions, and the life that led me into those situations in an instant. In a moment like the approach of an ambulance, when it’s next to you, and then passes you and pulls away, I now am staring into the red waters, the other waters. The future flashes before me and away from me, in a collage of image and time. The ground drops from beneath me. The waters are now vapors. Individual little balls of water, floating in space, suspended. Either the water had just separated, or the space between the water molecules just expanded. Yet it maintained its shape. The waters wrestled with each other, friction, a battle, a birth. Lightning. Electricity erupted up from the surface of the waters in front of me and reached far up into the sky, pulling my neck backwards and my head upwards. My knees still felt the ground beneath them, but the world had flipped, I was both on the ground and above it. The waters are the clouds over head. The bolt of lightning reached from the ground to the sky and fell from the sky to the ground. It was blue and it was pink and it was white.
I open my eyes, the light of the television I had forgotten to turn off before falling asleep floods into the space where the darkness that the inside of my eyelids once were. It’s morning. The images of the dream are still fresh in my mind, and flood through it like a slide show. I’ve had vivid dreams before, but this one seemed more than a vivid dream. Maybe it’s because this one began in one of my favorite memories, the wind turbine field. Memories and dreams seem to be intertwining more and more these days. Often this had me waking still under the impression that whatever I had been dreaming of was my primary concern. Sometimes it takes me a few minutes to realize I’ve woken up. I turn on my side and feel along the floor alongside my bed matt for my glasses. The familiar living room is a blur of color, the red of the leather couches, and the brown of the heavy Indian furniture blends with the beige of the walls. But as I lift the glasses to my face, the two little worlds of clarity grow larger as they approach my face until only the edges of my vision remain fogged and the lenses rest in front of my eyes, just beyond the reach of my lashes. I’m reminded of something I had heard in physics class. No matter how close two things get to one another, they never actually touch. I roll off my matt, and as my hand touches my parent’s Persian carpet, an audible spark of static electricity jumped between my skin and the fabric of the rug. I wonder, is that it? Is the illusion of touch something like lightning falling from the sky? But in reality, no matter how near your finger is to the doorknob, there’s really a troposphere between them.
As I rise to my feet, after I check the
microwave’s clock in the kitchen which is only separated from the living room
by the bar, which on the kitchen side supports the sink. It’s four forty-four,
one minute before my alarm goes off, and as usual I preemptively switch off the
alarm on my phone, so as to avoid waking anyone else in the apartment up. I
look over at my cat, Noah, sprawled out on the floor, on his back. He’s pawing
at the air with his flame pointed feet, as he usually does when he’s trying to
manipulate me to rub his cotton white stomach. The movement seems different
today, mechanical and at the same time organic. I’m aware of the muscles beneath
his skin, pulling this way and that, like rubber bands. His light orange nose
flares like a rabbit beneath his sky colored eyes. I love his eyes, because
they’re nothing like the eyes of a cat. They’re human. Well, human except for
the mask of orange on his face and ears, the mixes through his body of white
fur. This fur, it’s made up of millions of individual hairs, some white, some
orange, but from this distance it appears as one mass. It’s like the
television, when viewed from afar it looks life like, but if you touch the
screen with your nose, you see individual cells of color. Perspective and
scope, the influence of these things on our perception of reality is paramount.
I watch the movement of his feline arms, the twitching of his nose, the rising
and falling of his lungs under his coat, the sweeping motion of his tail.
Synapses sent form the brain along the nervous system, into the muscles, which
then respond as told by the mind, yet unconscious of sending the commend. It’s
all electricity; no one has to tell their lungs to expand and contract in order
to breathe, electricity propels the life systems, on its own accord. Then when
you move closer to the screen, you see the atoms, the quarks, the leptons. As
it turns out, the building blocks of life are simply little balls of energy, in
ordered spheres of chaos. Light and heat: electricity again. From the smallest
particles in the world, to the World Wide Web, (www., or in Hebrew 666), to the
storms in the sky, electricity is fundamental. Even the atoms of dirt, or
rocks, or stones, or wood, at their base are made up of energy. Even the water,
which conducts electricity, at its root, would not be without energy. And now,
we’ve harnessed it in such a powerful way, we can communicate with it, travel
around the world with it, create with it and even kill with it. Electricity
makes the world go round. What is electricity? We think we control it, because
we harness it, but do we, through any act of will, compel it to continue to
keep our hearts beating?
I walk over to Noah, across the living room of my parent’s small, cramped apartment, filled beyond maximum capacity and bend over and stroke his fur. I love watching the fur change from groupings of hair standing on end to a unified mass of hair, all laying sideways as my hand passes over them. The vibration of his purr stimulates my hand which runs down his spine and chest. Straightening up, I stretch my hands to the ceiling, inhale deeply and exhale. My muscles feel fresh, rejuvenated, filled with oxygen. I return to the matt and stow it behind the sofa and fold the blankets and set them neatly on the couch under my pillow. My mind slowly begins to transition from ponderings, to the day ahead and the life to follow. It’s the first day of finals and I need to leave my parent’s place in San Antonio by six or so in order to get to my bus stop in Austin in time to get to my first final, which begins at eight. I chuckle out loud to myself as the school’s slogan enters my head, “What starts here changes the world.” I can’t help but feel as I do when I watch a beer commercial, skeptical. It’s a good slogan, it’s just very grand. Though I can’t lie to myself; that is where I want to be. I want to be a part of, or at least to see, the changing of the world. I want to be important, and to have left a mark, or made a difference in the world. Like every one, I want my name to mean something a hundred years from now. That’s why I have my plans. I don’t know how to accomplish these things yet, but I do know how to put myself in the best possible situation to accomplish these things. I knew, coming out of high school that my best chance to get into UT was to apply to the liberal arts department. Once you’re in, you can change majors to something more prestigious, I told myself. But now I know that I can maintain a higher grade point average if I stay with my English major, in order to increase my odds to get into law school. It looks good if your grades improve yearly, just as long as they don’t start off too low. So I made sure to take the more difficult classes earlier on in my colligate career. This year, I’m free to build my GPA with electives. I also take special care to select classes that wouldn’t appear to be easy if one were to look at my transcript, but that were still well within my range to pass with high marks. Everything was going according to plan, my grades have increased significantly each semester and now I was poised to close with a few 4.0 semesters just in time for grad school.
These thoughts continue to race through my mind as I selected my clothes for the day out of my laundry basket, which I kept on the love seat in the living room, as I don’t have any sort of closet space or dresser since there’s no room for either in the already overcrowded living room. Blue jeans, the same pair I wear every work day (my only pair), and a black thermal shirt. I look over at the microwave again in order to check the time, five o two, already. Damn, it feels like no matter how much time I give myself in the mornings, it’s not enough. I tell myself to stay focused; I don’t have time to waste thoughts. I step into our bathroom, and lock the door that leads to my parent’s bed room and the one that opens to the living room. I avoid looking at the mirror as I undress, as is my custom. I don’t much care for the appearance of unclothed human flesh, especially when it’s my own. I wonder at the obsession people have with this is, why they waste so much time, money and effort to see each other without clothes, when we really look better clothed anyway. And if you happen to be that one in ten thousand who has a nice body, you’re probably on television showing it off already, not waiting around to share it with quote unquote regular people, like the ones who drool over you. People spend a lot more time than they realize, striving for things they already have. Such as visions of beautiful nudity, when all of the people who are beautiful when nude, they’ve already seen nude or can see, if they turn on the television or get on the internet. I have a hard time not judging people who seem to be slaves to their primal instincts. I appreciate sex, as a beautiful thing, a gift from God. But this modern, casual idea of sex drives me crazy. We’ve taken something beautiful, and God given, and made it cheap, dirty, and filled it with guilt. I guess that’s Satan’s number one task though, perverting the Holy. I just wish people weren’t so willing to miss out on pure, perfect, un-perverted sex. They turn this down for immediate gratification, cheap thrills, and youthful lusts. I reckon the problem is that people don’t understand that it’s more a spiritual act than it is physical. As I pull the shower curtain back, start the water, and wait for it to warm up enough to not punish me when I step under the faucet head. I continue developing my plans. After law school, I’ll need to actually practice law somewhere, successfully, for some amount of time before transitioning into politics.
I step under the now lukewarm water. I waste no time, rapidly cleaning myself, turning off the water while I soap up, and then back on again when it’s time to rinse off. As I spread the soap over my skin I notice the beads of water collecting and running down the ugly, faded looking orange tiles on the bath room wall. This interrupts my thoughts. Something else forces its way into my crowded mind. Water. They say our bodies are ninety-eight percent water and if we were to remove all of the water from an average sized human body, all that would remain would be a small mound of dust, about three inches high. But, despite this fact, the beads of water condense and roll along my skin, the same as it does on the plaster tile wall. What is it that separates me, and my body, my mind, and this water falling on me? Water conducts electricity. Another interesting fact is that the amount of salt in the ocean, three point four percent, is the exact same amount as the salt in human blood, three point four percent. I wonder if this is some kind of cosmological coincidence. Is coincidence even real? Or is it like luck or fate, just something we’ve made up to make ourselves feel less at the mercy of the unpredictability of our universe, the utter failure of our cherished Newtonian physical understanding of the universe. We like the illusion of control. But the fact is, we people, we rest in the middle space between two infinities that defy predictability and order at every turn, the bigness of the universe, and the universe of micro biology. There are quarks which, one single quark can occupy two difference spaces. There are Quarks, which can move from point A to point B instantaneously, without traveling the distance between point A and point B. If you split a Quark, and place half of it in China, and the other half in America and then reverse the spin of the one in China, at that exact same moment, the one in America will reverse its spin to match. Photons, that is light, travel at the speed of light. Unlike, say a car, which if it approaches a dog at ten miles an hour, and the dog runs away from it at five miles an hour, the car then would be approaching at five miles an hour. With photons, if the dog runs from an approaching light beam, at say ten thousand miles an hour, the photon will still be bearing down on it at the exact same speed. What the hell? That defies our laws of nature. Obviously, that’s why Einstein had to come up with relativity. But all relativity is, is luck, or coincidence, or fate. Essentially it’s, we don’t have a clue, and we don’t have control, so we need something to give us the illusion of control, so we give it a name. Science seems to me to be Adam continuing his given work in the garden. Naming things makes us feel powerful and like we’re in control. It gives us the comforting illusion that we know what’s coming next. If we can observe 1, then we observe 2, then we know that the result will be 3. But reality is, infinity up from one, infinity down from one, infinity between one and two, and spontaneity lands us at any random interval depending on its fancy in that particular moment. What really gets me, in the end is this, why do we, people, essentially simply condensed masses of water, infused with electricity, or energy, have consciousness?
I turn the water off and step onto the red matt on the floor, grab the blue towel hanging on my parent’s door to my right, and dry myself. Dry myself, rather, transfer moisture from the surface of my skin into the fabric of the towel. I wonder why my skin doesn’t absorb water like that. I know that science can describe the process, and explain the difference. But that doesn’t answer my question. My question is, how do the little packets of energy, that make up the quarks, that make up the atoms that make up the cells of the towel, know to remain static, as the energy packets that make up a towel, rather than skin or anything else. What is it that makes me any different from a towel? At the basest of bases, the smallest of smalls, we’re identical. Is that why the bible says that stones could sing the praises of God? Is that why Jesus said not to claim Abraham as their father? Because God really can raise up children for Himself out of rocks? Did Jesus really know quantum mechanics over two thousand years ago? What the hell, because science now gives validity to those crazy ass claims. Maybe the word of God really is the only reason a towel is a towel, and I am me. Because science sure as hell can explain, in great detail, that my skin doesn’t absorb water. But it damn sure hasn’t got any explanation as for why. This is why, any rational, free thinking person must acknowledge that science is essentially an exercise in faith. It takes tremendous faith to wake up each morning. Modern science knows that we have solid grounds for our faith that if we drop an apple it will fall, but the reality is the leptons in the atoms in the cells that make it an apple could, if they chose, to move from point A to point B instantaneously, and transport the apple to the North Pole. As I step off the mat, I look at the deep blue indentions where my feet had been a moment prior. Did I just decide to step off the matt? Or did little packets of energy decide to jump forward, and my mind, ever so dependent on the illusion of control, fill in the gaps and record my perception accordingly? I would disregard my own thoughts as the ramblings of an insane man, except for the double slit experiment which means observation alters the behavior of sub atomic energies. Thus, if I dropped the apple with observing it, it might just land on the North Pole or if I didn’t observe myself shower, we might not need drains.
After drying myself, I put on the clothes I had selected for the day and unlock the bathroom doors. I walk into the kitchen. Damn! It’s already five thirty eight. That’s probably just enough time to eat a bowl of cereal, brush my teeth, pack my bag, walk to where my truck is parked and leave by six. Unfortunately it’s a ten minute walk to my car from the apartment, because there are not enough spaces in the complex for all of the cars, so every night a few people have to park outside the gate along the street. Last night I had been chosen by my late arrival for the honor of the freezing mid-January trans-apartment complex walk. I pour my traditional Kashi cereal into the bowl and follow it with the milk. I sit on the counter in the kitchen because the table has become a shelf for books and bags and whatever else we don’t have room for the on the floor. As I shovel the tasteless cereal into my mouth and swallow it half chewed before the subsequent mouthful is forced in my mind drifts back to my plans. I’ll probably need to speed by seven or eight miles an hour instead of my usual five, preferred for its safety, I can’t afford any tickets and cops aren’t supposed to pull you over for five or less. Eight would be risky, but I needed to get to campus in time to finish the homework I was too tired to do last night. Those three additional miles per hour, over the course of the hour and a half drive could shave off ten to fifteen minutes added on by the walk to my truck I hadn’t accounted for previously. It can get hard to stay motivated, but I have a plan, and I have the will power to make that plan happen. We will overcome the obstacles and won’t let anything prevent us from bringing our destiny to fruition. The bowl is empty, aside from some left over milk. I drink the remaining milk and put the bowl and the spoon in the dish washer, put the necessary books and my laptop in my back pack and leave the apartment. Taking one last look at the microwave clock as I close the door, it’s five fifty eight. Everything’s going according to plan.
The winter wind is cold and has teeth, despite this being Texas, and despite this being San Antonio, Texas, it was bitterly frigid outside. This is the coldest it had been in Texas, ever. Yesterday’s news paper by the bus stop said we had reached record lows of eighteen degrees. As I stepped out from under the protection of the apartment building I realize it’s raining a bit. Shit. I pick up my pace from a brisk walk to a flat out run. I get some sort of pleasure out of running with my heavy backpack on. It really doesn’t seem to be slowing me down that much. Perhaps the extra motivation of avoiding hypothermia gave my legs special strength today. The rain drops, once little specks, are now substantial pellets, almost frozen. I hold my breath as I pass the dumpster. I’m pretty wet at this point and still only halfway across the complex. I pass the buildings in a flurry, building 4, building 3, building 2, building 1 and the front gate. I punch the pass code into the pad just beneath the door handle and fling the metal door open. It’s rigged with a spring, so it flung back and the handle caught me just above my right hip. I’m still frantic, so I don’t have time to acknowledge the pain. I continue my run down the street that runs adjacent to the apartment. It’s raining an animal shelter at this point. I’m wet and freezing. Finally I see my truck; it seemed a lot further this morning than it did last night. Wishing I had a fancy button on my key to unlock the door from a distance, I pulled my backpack around so that it was in front of me, unzip the font compartment, and fumble around for my keys, while running. Found them. I reach the truck, unlock the door, and get in. The rain sounded like pings of small stones on my car’s metal frame. I put the key in the ignition, backpack in the passenger seat, and go.
I don’t turn on the radio, because I use the first leg of this drive to recite verses to myself. Not only do they give me a peace, but it’s supposed to keep one’s mind sharp as on ages if they train their mind to memorize passages of any sort, secular or religious. I’m in a rush, so the words pour out like a waterfall as I pass housing subdivision after housing subdivision, going 55 in a 45 zone. Psalm 34:17-22, I turn my windshield wipers onto the highest setting. Luke 9:23-26, I press the AC button and turn the heat on. Romans 8:28 – 29, “I know that God works all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose, and for those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that he might be the first born among many children.” As the words left my mouth there was a blinding flash of light. I heard something. It wasn’t thunder; it sounded more like a sharp crack. Now there was more cracking. I slow the vehicle down. Then I saw it, a telephone pole in front of me was falling over, onto the road. I slam the breaks. The tires don’t have enough traction and I begin to slide while making that very irritating squeal. My car skids to a stop maybe 7 yards away from the fallen pole. My heart is racing; I turn on my hazard lights and step out of the vehicle. The power line that ran alongside the road, dependent on the large wooden pole, had come down with the pole. It was jumping around in the street, dancing on the wet pavement, sending sparks of pink electricity in all directions. I am transfixed. I stare at the electricity. Pink, blue, and orange sparks send the cable jumping upward, only to bounce into another puddle of water. I had never seen anything like this. I felt as if in a trance, or even possessed.
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He stood there, with a blank expression on his face for five minutes or so. He watched the electric cable’s play in awe. For once, his frantic mind was still, void of thought. His inner voice was finally silent. He was unaware of the cars that had lined up behind him, and was now unaware of their u-turns. Rain continued to fall, on him, all around him. It was a sharp rain, the kind that stings the skin. After minutes of silence, an idea formulates in his mind. A force, beyond him, pulled him back into his car. Now he was not listening, and obeying, he was simply following. He follows himself, feeling outside time. As if he had done this before, maybe in a dream, and was now following through with the déjà vu. Time was no longer one dimensional, only going forward, linearly. Now time is as it really is, moving out in all directions as a blanket, rather than a line. He had done this before, had done this in the future, and was now in the moment where the two intertwine. His mind was void of thoughts, but knew something all the same. He knew exactly what to do, what each successive thought and step was, though he was not aware of his final destination yet. He closed the door, turned the car around and drove back the way he came. He drove back to the apartment complex, this time punching the code to open the gate, and drove up to his parent’s apartment building. A spot was available right next to their building. He took it. He got out of his truck, back pack in hand and returned to the apartment. It seemed that he forgot he was soaked to the bone, because he dropped the bag, took out his laptop, plugged it in, and began typing right away.
His dripping wet fingers left small beads of water on the keyboard at first, but as time went on it was more of a layer of moisture that covered his laptop, rather than independent collections of water molecules. He didn’t take time to marvel, but he did note that he was somehow able to recall every thought that had gone through his head that morning, from the dream to the present. The past was catching up to the present at a rapid pace. It never reached the fore front of his mind, but a deep realization was impressed upon it all the same. While all of his plans, dreams, and work towards being a person who changes the world filled 98% of the landscape of his time, it was in one moment that his true imprint on this planet was going to be made. He had willed himself to accomplish more, do better, and outperform everyone around him as long as he could remember. But his defining accomplishment had fallen into his lap, unplanned, unprepared, and unintended. Somewhere deep beneath the waves of thought that he was aware of, the irony struck him. He worked so hard to do something important, all his life. But the most important thing he would do came effortlessly. Accomplishments hold some weight; they affect the world, momentarily and on a very small scale. But this, these words he was writing, had the potential to outlast his life time. Affect generations of people. Who has more eternal clout, a wealthy politician or a poor writer? Only time would be able to tell. But the ripple effects of one moment’s inspiration would never be lost on him again. Somewhere deep inside him he realized that a moment can be a black hole, which defies the rules of space and density. A lifetime of effort, importance and gravity can somehow be pushed into the space of a few minutes. As he drew to the end of his frantic typing, he felt complete. He wasn’t bothered by missing class. Somehow, now, it seemed less important. He wasn’t sure what it was, but something inside him had just changed, and changed permanently. Often the biggest changes in life occur beneath the awareness of the person or thing being changed. While countless hours of analysis, argument and thought had brought no conclusion, a moment outside these parameters had all the answers. As he pressed the save icon he thought to himself that he’d like to go for a walk in the rain. Once I learn to not need to leave a legacy that I’ll final be able to do the latter.
I walk over to Noah, across the living room of my parent’s small, cramped apartment, filled beyond maximum capacity and bend over and stroke his fur. I love watching the fur change from groupings of hair standing on end to a unified mass of hair, all laying sideways as my hand passes over them. The vibration of his purr stimulates my hand which runs down his spine and chest. Straightening up, I stretch my hands to the ceiling, inhale deeply and exhale. My muscles feel fresh, rejuvenated, filled with oxygen. I return to the matt and stow it behind the sofa and fold the blankets and set them neatly on the couch under my pillow. My mind slowly begins to transition from ponderings, to the day ahead and the life to follow. It’s the first day of finals and I need to leave my parent’s place in San Antonio by six or so in order to get to my bus stop in Austin in time to get to my first final, which begins at eight. I chuckle out loud to myself as the school’s slogan enters my head, “What starts here changes the world.” I can’t help but feel as I do when I watch a beer commercial, skeptical. It’s a good slogan, it’s just very grand. Though I can’t lie to myself; that is where I want to be. I want to be a part of, or at least to see, the changing of the world. I want to be important, and to have left a mark, or made a difference in the world. Like every one, I want my name to mean something a hundred years from now. That’s why I have my plans. I don’t know how to accomplish these things yet, but I do know how to put myself in the best possible situation to accomplish these things. I knew, coming out of high school that my best chance to get into UT was to apply to the liberal arts department. Once you’re in, you can change majors to something more prestigious, I told myself. But now I know that I can maintain a higher grade point average if I stay with my English major, in order to increase my odds to get into law school. It looks good if your grades improve yearly, just as long as they don’t start off too low. So I made sure to take the more difficult classes earlier on in my colligate career. This year, I’m free to build my GPA with electives. I also take special care to select classes that wouldn’t appear to be easy if one were to look at my transcript, but that were still well within my range to pass with high marks. Everything was going according to plan, my grades have increased significantly each semester and now I was poised to close with a few 4.0 semesters just in time for grad school.
These thoughts continue to race through my mind as I selected my clothes for the day out of my laundry basket, which I kept on the love seat in the living room, as I don’t have any sort of closet space or dresser since there’s no room for either in the already overcrowded living room. Blue jeans, the same pair I wear every work day (my only pair), and a black thermal shirt. I look over at the microwave again in order to check the time, five o two, already. Damn, it feels like no matter how much time I give myself in the mornings, it’s not enough. I tell myself to stay focused; I don’t have time to waste thoughts. I step into our bathroom, and lock the door that leads to my parent’s bed room and the one that opens to the living room. I avoid looking at the mirror as I undress, as is my custom. I don’t much care for the appearance of unclothed human flesh, especially when it’s my own. I wonder at the obsession people have with this is, why they waste so much time, money and effort to see each other without clothes, when we really look better clothed anyway. And if you happen to be that one in ten thousand who has a nice body, you’re probably on television showing it off already, not waiting around to share it with quote unquote regular people, like the ones who drool over you. People spend a lot more time than they realize, striving for things they already have. Such as visions of beautiful nudity, when all of the people who are beautiful when nude, they’ve already seen nude or can see, if they turn on the television or get on the internet. I have a hard time not judging people who seem to be slaves to their primal instincts. I appreciate sex, as a beautiful thing, a gift from God. But this modern, casual idea of sex drives me crazy. We’ve taken something beautiful, and God given, and made it cheap, dirty, and filled it with guilt. I guess that’s Satan’s number one task though, perverting the Holy. I just wish people weren’t so willing to miss out on pure, perfect, un-perverted sex. They turn this down for immediate gratification, cheap thrills, and youthful lusts. I reckon the problem is that people don’t understand that it’s more a spiritual act than it is physical. As I pull the shower curtain back, start the water, and wait for it to warm up enough to not punish me when I step under the faucet head. I continue developing my plans. After law school, I’ll need to actually practice law somewhere, successfully, for some amount of time before transitioning into politics.
I step under the now lukewarm water. I waste no time, rapidly cleaning myself, turning off the water while I soap up, and then back on again when it’s time to rinse off. As I spread the soap over my skin I notice the beads of water collecting and running down the ugly, faded looking orange tiles on the bath room wall. This interrupts my thoughts. Something else forces its way into my crowded mind. Water. They say our bodies are ninety-eight percent water and if we were to remove all of the water from an average sized human body, all that would remain would be a small mound of dust, about three inches high. But, despite this fact, the beads of water condense and roll along my skin, the same as it does on the plaster tile wall. What is it that separates me, and my body, my mind, and this water falling on me? Water conducts electricity. Another interesting fact is that the amount of salt in the ocean, three point four percent, is the exact same amount as the salt in human blood, three point four percent. I wonder if this is some kind of cosmological coincidence. Is coincidence even real? Or is it like luck or fate, just something we’ve made up to make ourselves feel less at the mercy of the unpredictability of our universe, the utter failure of our cherished Newtonian physical understanding of the universe. We like the illusion of control. But the fact is, we people, we rest in the middle space between two infinities that defy predictability and order at every turn, the bigness of the universe, and the universe of micro biology. There are quarks which, one single quark can occupy two difference spaces. There are Quarks, which can move from point A to point B instantaneously, without traveling the distance between point A and point B. If you split a Quark, and place half of it in China, and the other half in America and then reverse the spin of the one in China, at that exact same moment, the one in America will reverse its spin to match. Photons, that is light, travel at the speed of light. Unlike, say a car, which if it approaches a dog at ten miles an hour, and the dog runs away from it at five miles an hour, the car then would be approaching at five miles an hour. With photons, if the dog runs from an approaching light beam, at say ten thousand miles an hour, the photon will still be bearing down on it at the exact same speed. What the hell? That defies our laws of nature. Obviously, that’s why Einstein had to come up with relativity. But all relativity is, is luck, or coincidence, or fate. Essentially it’s, we don’t have a clue, and we don’t have control, so we need something to give us the illusion of control, so we give it a name. Science seems to me to be Adam continuing his given work in the garden. Naming things makes us feel powerful and like we’re in control. It gives us the comforting illusion that we know what’s coming next. If we can observe 1, then we observe 2, then we know that the result will be 3. But reality is, infinity up from one, infinity down from one, infinity between one and two, and spontaneity lands us at any random interval depending on its fancy in that particular moment. What really gets me, in the end is this, why do we, people, essentially simply condensed masses of water, infused with electricity, or energy, have consciousness?
I turn the water off and step onto the red matt on the floor, grab the blue towel hanging on my parent’s door to my right, and dry myself. Dry myself, rather, transfer moisture from the surface of my skin into the fabric of the towel. I wonder why my skin doesn’t absorb water like that. I know that science can describe the process, and explain the difference. But that doesn’t answer my question. My question is, how do the little packets of energy, that make up the quarks, that make up the atoms that make up the cells of the towel, know to remain static, as the energy packets that make up a towel, rather than skin or anything else. What is it that makes me any different from a towel? At the basest of bases, the smallest of smalls, we’re identical. Is that why the bible says that stones could sing the praises of God? Is that why Jesus said not to claim Abraham as their father? Because God really can raise up children for Himself out of rocks? Did Jesus really know quantum mechanics over two thousand years ago? What the hell, because science now gives validity to those crazy ass claims. Maybe the word of God really is the only reason a towel is a towel, and I am me. Because science sure as hell can explain, in great detail, that my skin doesn’t absorb water. But it damn sure hasn’t got any explanation as for why. This is why, any rational, free thinking person must acknowledge that science is essentially an exercise in faith. It takes tremendous faith to wake up each morning. Modern science knows that we have solid grounds for our faith that if we drop an apple it will fall, but the reality is the leptons in the atoms in the cells that make it an apple could, if they chose, to move from point A to point B instantaneously, and transport the apple to the North Pole. As I step off the mat, I look at the deep blue indentions where my feet had been a moment prior. Did I just decide to step off the matt? Or did little packets of energy decide to jump forward, and my mind, ever so dependent on the illusion of control, fill in the gaps and record my perception accordingly? I would disregard my own thoughts as the ramblings of an insane man, except for the double slit experiment which means observation alters the behavior of sub atomic energies. Thus, if I dropped the apple with observing it, it might just land on the North Pole or if I didn’t observe myself shower, we might not need drains.
After drying myself, I put on the clothes I had selected for the day and unlock the bathroom doors. I walk into the kitchen. Damn! It’s already five thirty eight. That’s probably just enough time to eat a bowl of cereal, brush my teeth, pack my bag, walk to where my truck is parked and leave by six. Unfortunately it’s a ten minute walk to my car from the apartment, because there are not enough spaces in the complex for all of the cars, so every night a few people have to park outside the gate along the street. Last night I had been chosen by my late arrival for the honor of the freezing mid-January trans-apartment complex walk. I pour my traditional Kashi cereal into the bowl and follow it with the milk. I sit on the counter in the kitchen because the table has become a shelf for books and bags and whatever else we don’t have room for the on the floor. As I shovel the tasteless cereal into my mouth and swallow it half chewed before the subsequent mouthful is forced in my mind drifts back to my plans. I’ll probably need to speed by seven or eight miles an hour instead of my usual five, preferred for its safety, I can’t afford any tickets and cops aren’t supposed to pull you over for five or less. Eight would be risky, but I needed to get to campus in time to finish the homework I was too tired to do last night. Those three additional miles per hour, over the course of the hour and a half drive could shave off ten to fifteen minutes added on by the walk to my truck I hadn’t accounted for previously. It can get hard to stay motivated, but I have a plan, and I have the will power to make that plan happen. We will overcome the obstacles and won’t let anything prevent us from bringing our destiny to fruition. The bowl is empty, aside from some left over milk. I drink the remaining milk and put the bowl and the spoon in the dish washer, put the necessary books and my laptop in my back pack and leave the apartment. Taking one last look at the microwave clock as I close the door, it’s five fifty eight. Everything’s going according to plan.
The winter wind is cold and has teeth, despite this being Texas, and despite this being San Antonio, Texas, it was bitterly frigid outside. This is the coldest it had been in Texas, ever. Yesterday’s news paper by the bus stop said we had reached record lows of eighteen degrees. As I stepped out from under the protection of the apartment building I realize it’s raining a bit. Shit. I pick up my pace from a brisk walk to a flat out run. I get some sort of pleasure out of running with my heavy backpack on. It really doesn’t seem to be slowing me down that much. Perhaps the extra motivation of avoiding hypothermia gave my legs special strength today. The rain drops, once little specks, are now substantial pellets, almost frozen. I hold my breath as I pass the dumpster. I’m pretty wet at this point and still only halfway across the complex. I pass the buildings in a flurry, building 4, building 3, building 2, building 1 and the front gate. I punch the pass code into the pad just beneath the door handle and fling the metal door open. It’s rigged with a spring, so it flung back and the handle caught me just above my right hip. I’m still frantic, so I don’t have time to acknowledge the pain. I continue my run down the street that runs adjacent to the apartment. It’s raining an animal shelter at this point. I’m wet and freezing. Finally I see my truck; it seemed a lot further this morning than it did last night. Wishing I had a fancy button on my key to unlock the door from a distance, I pulled my backpack around so that it was in front of me, unzip the font compartment, and fumble around for my keys, while running. Found them. I reach the truck, unlock the door, and get in. The rain sounded like pings of small stones on my car’s metal frame. I put the key in the ignition, backpack in the passenger seat, and go.
I don’t turn on the radio, because I use the first leg of this drive to recite verses to myself. Not only do they give me a peace, but it’s supposed to keep one’s mind sharp as on ages if they train their mind to memorize passages of any sort, secular or religious. I’m in a rush, so the words pour out like a waterfall as I pass housing subdivision after housing subdivision, going 55 in a 45 zone. Psalm 34:17-22, I turn my windshield wipers onto the highest setting. Luke 9:23-26, I press the AC button and turn the heat on. Romans 8:28 – 29, “I know that God works all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose, and for those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that he might be the first born among many children.” As the words left my mouth there was a blinding flash of light. I heard something. It wasn’t thunder; it sounded more like a sharp crack. Now there was more cracking. I slow the vehicle down. Then I saw it, a telephone pole in front of me was falling over, onto the road. I slam the breaks. The tires don’t have enough traction and I begin to slide while making that very irritating squeal. My car skids to a stop maybe 7 yards away from the fallen pole. My heart is racing; I turn on my hazard lights and step out of the vehicle. The power line that ran alongside the road, dependent on the large wooden pole, had come down with the pole. It was jumping around in the street, dancing on the wet pavement, sending sparks of pink electricity in all directions. I am transfixed. I stare at the electricity. Pink, blue, and orange sparks send the cable jumping upward, only to bounce into another puddle of water. I had never seen anything like this. I felt as if in a trance, or even possessed.
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He stood there, with a blank expression on his face for five minutes or so. He watched the electric cable’s play in awe. For once, his frantic mind was still, void of thought. His inner voice was finally silent. He was unaware of the cars that had lined up behind him, and was now unaware of their u-turns. Rain continued to fall, on him, all around him. It was a sharp rain, the kind that stings the skin. After minutes of silence, an idea formulates in his mind. A force, beyond him, pulled him back into his car. Now he was not listening, and obeying, he was simply following. He follows himself, feeling outside time. As if he had done this before, maybe in a dream, and was now following through with the déjà vu. Time was no longer one dimensional, only going forward, linearly. Now time is as it really is, moving out in all directions as a blanket, rather than a line. He had done this before, had done this in the future, and was now in the moment where the two intertwine. His mind was void of thoughts, but knew something all the same. He knew exactly what to do, what each successive thought and step was, though he was not aware of his final destination yet. He closed the door, turned the car around and drove back the way he came. He drove back to the apartment complex, this time punching the code to open the gate, and drove up to his parent’s apartment building. A spot was available right next to their building. He took it. He got out of his truck, back pack in hand and returned to the apartment. It seemed that he forgot he was soaked to the bone, because he dropped the bag, took out his laptop, plugged it in, and began typing right away.
His dripping wet fingers left small beads of water on the keyboard at first, but as time went on it was more of a layer of moisture that covered his laptop, rather than independent collections of water molecules. He didn’t take time to marvel, but he did note that he was somehow able to recall every thought that had gone through his head that morning, from the dream to the present. The past was catching up to the present at a rapid pace. It never reached the fore front of his mind, but a deep realization was impressed upon it all the same. While all of his plans, dreams, and work towards being a person who changes the world filled 98% of the landscape of his time, it was in one moment that his true imprint on this planet was going to be made. He had willed himself to accomplish more, do better, and outperform everyone around him as long as he could remember. But his defining accomplishment had fallen into his lap, unplanned, unprepared, and unintended. Somewhere deep beneath the waves of thought that he was aware of, the irony struck him. He worked so hard to do something important, all his life. But the most important thing he would do came effortlessly. Accomplishments hold some weight; they affect the world, momentarily and on a very small scale. But this, these words he was writing, had the potential to outlast his life time. Affect generations of people. Who has more eternal clout, a wealthy politician or a poor writer? Only time would be able to tell. But the ripple effects of one moment’s inspiration would never be lost on him again. Somewhere deep inside him he realized that a moment can be a black hole, which defies the rules of space and density. A lifetime of effort, importance and gravity can somehow be pushed into the space of a few minutes. As he drew to the end of his frantic typing, he felt complete. He wasn’t bothered by missing class. Somehow, now, it seemed less important. He wasn’t sure what it was, but something inside him had just changed, and changed permanently. Often the biggest changes in life occur beneath the awareness of the person or thing being changed. While countless hours of analysis, argument and thought had brought no conclusion, a moment outside these parameters had all the answers. As he pressed the save icon he thought to himself that he’d like to go for a walk in the rain. Once I learn to not need to leave a legacy that I’ll final be able to do the latter.
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