Wonder of the Waves

by Jim Lombardo

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Sergio, the Update

  Anderson slowly pushed the door open and entered the dimly lit hospital room. Sergio lay in his bed as usual, motionless and with his eyes closed. A tube from an intravenous bag fed into one of his arms, while a respirator rhythmically pumped oxygen into a mask that covered his face. Anderson walked over to the opposite side of the room, pulled the curtains back, and pushed open a window to let some light and fresh air into the room. His ears were met with the disconcerting rattle of a delivery truck’s diesel engine in the parking lot below, mingled with a concert of birds singing blissfully nearby. Life was churning outside, whereas inside this room, it was hanging on by a thread. Anderson pulled a chair alongside the bed, sat down, and clasped his hands together.

  “Sergio, I hope you can hear me. I thought you might like to know that we did it. The Earth is safe now, and I want to thank you for your help,” he said emotionally. “When you wake up, we can do your performance evaluation and see about that raise,” he quipped wistfully.

  The doctor entered the room, and Anderson struggled to regain his composure.

  “Hi, there. Any response from him?” the physician asked.

  “No, but I just got here.”

  The doctor approached the bed and observed his patient generally, then leaned over and delicately removed Sergio’s oxygen mask. He went over to a nearby sink, moistened a hand towel with cold water, and returned. After gently sponging the man’s forehead and cheeks, he laid the towel over the bed’s handrail with special care and reverence, as if it was something holy. Dutifully he reached into his pocket to retrieve his penlight.

  “We’ve discontinued the sedatives, so…this would be when we would hope to see some progress.” The doctor paused for a moment, almost as if he was fearful about checking Sergio’s pupils. The test itself was so very simple and small, but for this life, the implications were everything, every single thing. He took a deep breath and pulled up Sergio’s right eyelid. The dilated pupil lay there, unmoving and unchanged. Just an oversized, jet-black circle of nothingness. He brought the penlight up to the eye and flicked it on. Bright rays of light streamed forward, and the pupil rapidly constricted into a much smaller circle. Sergio scrunched the eye closed, and instinctively jerked his head away to one side. Then his eyes both opened. He cleared his throat and gazed around the room.

  “Gordy...what’s next, boss?”

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Blake Lake

  (Nearing 7 years old)

  On an immaculate spring day in southern England, a handful of people took center stage on purple velvet upholstered chairs. Hannah, her parents, Anderson, the Queen of the United Kingdom, and assorted dignitaries occupied the elevated open-air platform. The front was decorated with festive bunting, a lectern was set up in the middle, and along the back hung a colorful display of flags representing all of the many countries that had contributed to resolving the crisis. Hannah was now Dr. Hannah Blake, having recently earned her PhD in Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. The title of her groundbreaking dissertation: “Digesting the Waves of the Cosmic Stew: A Survival Guide.”

  Behind the stage, what once was the breeding ground for the terrifying orb was now home to a tranquil, azure lake. Miniature, wind-driven waves rhythmically lapped against a shore comprised of grayish, boulder-strewn clay. A throng of international press and invited guests waited for the dedication to get underway.

  “What’s it feel like having an entire lake named after you?” Anderson asked Hannah.

  “I’m humbled, of course, Marblehead. But to officially christen it, let’s go swimming after this.”

  Anderson laughed. “I’ve never learned to swim. I’ll wade in with you, but that’s all. You don’t want another crisis on your hands.”

  “No! No more crises...please!” Monica joked.

  “Yeah, listen to my wife. She’s smart too,” added Brian.

  “Is it only a matter of time before they rename the entire planet after you, Hannah?” Anderson inquired.

  “Well, little girls do need to set lofty goals for themselves, right?” came the impish reply.

  The Blake Lake Dedication Ceremony was kicked off by Dr. Murray who was serving as emcee. After a prayer led by the pastor of the Blakes’ Gloucester church, Anderson was introduced as the first official speaker. He rose tall and strode to the microphone, pulling a folded piece of paper with speech notes from the inside breast pocket of his suit jacket. With the end of the applause, he addressed the attendees.

  “Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, distinguished guests, Dr. Murray, Brian and Monica Blake, and our dear Hannah. It’s both an honor and a pleasure to join all of you in this fabulous celebration.

  “The first day I met Hannah Blake, I told her that I was going to do my best to think outside of the box. I remember her shaking her head and commenting, ‘You might need some luck escaping from your proverbial box, Gordy. Because I suspect there’s no inside or outside of anything.’ That was the moment it became clear to me that I was going to be more of a student of hers than a colleague.

  “In my life, I’ve been blessed with many wonderful teachers who helped expand my educational horizons. But I can truly say that Hannah turned out to be the greatest teacher I ever had. Every day that we worked together, she illuminated my mind with her innovative ideas and discoveries. However, I feel that the most important lesson she ever taught me didn’t involve physics at all. Certainly, Hannah demonstrated her brilliance figuring out how to stop the void, but that’s only one part of this child’s story. Because the fact is that rescuing the world required more than mere brilliance. It required a leader, a leader who was kind, and who genuinely cared about their fellow men and women. It demanded someone with a healthy dose of humility...not to mention a whole boatload of cool,” Anderson added with a grin. “What I learned is that it takes more than scientific genius to unite and inspire people to do remarkable things, and it’s these other qualities that I will always admire most about Hannah.

  “On behalf of Earth’s community, I want to thank you for carrying us all through our trying ordeal, for watching over us, for guiding us, and for loving us.

  “I would like to personally thank you for all the gifts you have given to me: my life, of course, but also your friendship, and all those physics lessons, some of which I actually understood. I also want to publicly recognize Hannah’s parents, Brian and Monica, for the very unheralded personal struggles they had to endure for our sake. We are forever beholden to you both for your sacrifice.”

  Anderson then closed his speech. “For all that you did, Hannah Blake, and for all that you are, let the permanency of Blake Lake, in all its beauty and tranquility, symbolize the world’s eternal gratitude to you.”

  As the applause subsided and Anderson began to turn away from the podium he paused abruptly as he became aware of a soft but persistent high-pitched buzzing sound hovering near his head. He gazed around in front of him and then nervously trained his focus on a tiny black object hanging in midair about one foot in front of his nose. Instinctively he raised his right hand to swat at it, but then held back in fear of being hurt again. Drawing in a sharp breath of air, he tracked the object as it proceeded to plunge straight down onto the lectern’s flat wooden work space in front of him. He exhaled resoundingly, and his shoulders sagged as he watched a water beetle clumsily meander forward across the wood where it had landed. Anderson nudged it gently, and it flew away.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  A Curtain Closing

  In another part of time and space, near the top of a mighty physical structure, a frail, elderly man found refuge and solitude in a darkened space. His figure silhouetted behind a majestic window, he surveyed the bustling city below, and was enchanted by the lights flickering in the night.

  Sensing a strange tightness and fluttering in his chest, he considered ca
lling for help. Instead, he chose to find comfort by reconnecting with an old friend. Kip gently ran his fingers along the rows of brass keys on his saxophone, and felt the metal warming to his touch.

  “Maggie,” he said tearfully. “What a time we had, darling. By God were you something.”

  The rhythmic ticking of the pendulum inside the grandfather clock close by furnished a tempo as he guided the mouthpiece into his lips. Sweet, mellow notes sprang to life from his instrument and began dancing on air. Wondrous waves of sound gracefully waltzed and whirled in a cyclical nature around the room, until their wellspring ran dry. The energy of these waves then swiftly waned, slipping back into the communal cosmic soup.

  Epilogue

  In one of the largest human works projects ever undertaken, an artificial island was constructed on Blake Lake, at the original site of Stonehenge. The ancient stones were then returned from London, where they had been stored, to their precise former arrangement and location on the planet.

  In the end, the influences and confluences of the heavenly bodies above circulated around and through the megalithic construction as they had for five millennia, for a reason which Hannah and the device’s architect had an inkling about, but which was only perfectly understood by **, the unit of energy that Hannah had likened to a foot leaving a lasting impression in the sand.

  * THE END *