The Arcturus Man

by John Strauchs

  finger can also punch the keys on a telephone to dial a number. You aren’t concerned

  about how the button feels. Same finger. Different function.”

  “I don’t know what that means. Honestly! When I felt the red cloth, it felt warmer. Wasn’t I thinking about that?”

  “No. If you thought about it, you would have realized that both cloths were the

  same temperature so how could one feel warmer. You would have talked yourself out of

  sensing that one really did feel warmer. Your finger tip sensed the color…not heat.” “You lost me. Wiggling ears? Sensing color? This is beginning to sound very

  philosophical.”

  “Thinking you know what is possible and what isn’t is the very thing that stands

  in the way of realizing your potential.”

  Jenny wasn’t getting this. At first it seemed to make sense, but now he made it all

  confusing.

  Jared was getting frustrated. It was time to let her breathe. He was suffocating

  her.

  Next Morning

  Jared gently rolled out of bed. He was up every morning at exactly 06:30. The Temperpedic bed was one of the best things he ever owned that he hadn’t invented himself. A good night’s sleep eased his torment.

  The windows didn’t have opaque curtains but they were rarely closed anyway. The sizzling morning sun beamed through the eastern windows. The room glowed with sunlight and fell on a sleeping Jenny. He had convinced her to wear eye shades as he did. The human body is programmed to wake with the rising sun. The eye shades didn’t help Jared that much, but they worked great for Jenny.

  He sat on the maple rocking chair at the foot of the bed and watched her sleep. She was on her stomach with her left arm curled under her pillow. She hugged a second pillow with her right arm. Her legs were pulled up. A splay of blond hair fell across her face and caught the sun. The white cotton sheet was snarled around her.

  Jared knew who he was. He knew he was a quantum leap in human evolution and yet he also knew that he still had the same basic programming that all humankind had. His sexual desire for Jenny was written in chemical codes in his brain. Knowing that changed nothing. The feeling was always there. Knowing why it was there didn’t relieve it.

  Jared loved his parents so much that he felt a physical ache in his heart when he thought about them—which was often. He never felt that way about anyone else—until he met Jenny. He understood the universe but he couldn’t grasp what love was. It was certainly genetic programming in his DNA, but…a new input arrived in his brain. Jenny was dreaming about her grandmother, Mormor. Jared sat quietly and rocked as he watched Jenny sleep. He watched her dreams.

  Two strong feminine hands pulled her from the water. She was nine years old. Her grandmother stood her up in front of the fireplace. She was naked but wrapped in a very large, thick cotton towel. The knitted rug beneath her feet had been warmed by the fire. Her grandmother was drying her hair with another towel. Mormor was humming a Swedish nursery song. She hugged Jenny and whispered in her ear.

  “You are such a good girl.”

  “I love you Mormor,” said Jenny.

  “Do not worry my little one. Do not worry. God takes special

  care of sweet children like my Jenny. God will watch over you,” said Mormor. She hummed again. Little Jenny glanced at the large bay window in their living room. The sun was coming up. It was early morning. The loons were calling her.

  Later That Day

  “Tell me a secret, Darling. Tell me something no one else knows,” said Jenny. She was thinking. “Tell me something about……about…black holes.”

  The question was surprising.

  “Why black holes?” asked Jared.

  “I just thought of it. Its something no scientists understand, isn’t it?”

  “OK. Black holes! As I have said before, infinity is the universal constant. Nothing is the smallest. Nothing is the biggest. Our universe is only a still point in time. Time is infinite. Black holes are composed of undiscovered energy and matter that only attract gravitation forces at the quantum level. Gravity, as you will remember from your college physics, is both matter and energy. For want of any better term, let’s call this force the Jared Force. It locks up gravitational force. It binds with it. Gravity is one of the weakest forces in the universe but when it is concentrated by being bound by the Jared Force, it becomes the strongest force in the universe. Gravity isn’t one force, but rather the resultant vector of multiple quantum forces that connect continuously to infinite distances. Everything is connected to everything else at this level.”

  Jared continued. “Einstein almost had it. His work on a unifying theory was within his reach. Had he lived I am confident that he would have gotten it. It is so simple. Energy equals mass times gravity cubed, E = M x G3, for each interacting dimension. It is that simple. Black holes have so much force that they draw in all energy and matter. They draw in time itself. They constantly create new universes in new and infinite dimensions. Hawking and others have estimated that 96% of our universe cannot be accounted for. The missing substance is the dark matter that streams into and out of the black holes, swimming from dimension to dimension, universe to universe.”

  The lecture went on. “As you know very well, all things in the universe tend toward uniformity and stability. That does not mean, however, that all things are uniform and stable now. Boulders are broken and ground into stones. Stones are ground into sand, and sand is ground into dust—over time. And so on, ad infinitum. Ours is a very young universe. We were just born—cosmically speaking. And, everything is chemistry. Everything! Chemistry is the natural binding—the joining—of the stuff of the universe. The universe is like oil and water. Oil and water don’t mix well. You will not have a homogeneous liquid as long as the components remain oil and water. The oil will gather on the surface and begin to coalesce into small and large pools, binding together. Wind and wave action will disperse the oil pools. Some will join with other pools, making larger pools. Others will break down into many smaller pools. Even the water is not homogenous. Aside from chemical discrepancies, even the temperature of the water will not be uniform. The water will stratify along temperature lines. And, when water freezes to ice, it does so by building odd-angled bonds, making some ice less dense than water. Were it not so, lakes would freeze solid.”

  “So too, our infant universe is full of stratification and large and small pools of stuff. The idea of empty space and vacuum is nonsense. There are black holes, nebulae, galaxies, and everything else. The stuff of universe is everywhere, connecting all things at infinite quantum levels. All things are bound together at some level. We can’t see or measure the stuff at the quantum level, at least not with physical observation.”

  He looked at Jenny intently. “Do you remember the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principles?” asked Jared.

  “Yes, yes I do,” said Jenny.

  “Good! Explain it.”

  Jenny hated it when Jared did this.

  “The act of observing alters the reality being observed,” she said.

  “Yes, exactly! That is where mathematics comes into play. All things can be described by mathematics and mathematics doesn’t violate the Heisenberg Law. Math can describe dimensions that cannot be seen or measured. It can describe the stuff of the universe. Einstein’s E = M x C2is a marvelous telescope. It sees without disturbing the universe. So does E = M x G3.

  Very Late That Night

  Jenny and Jared were in bed, talking. Jenny was facing Jared’s back, snuggling close to him. The sheets were pushed to the side. It was a warm night.

  “Did you ever have a moment that was so wonderful, so beautiful, that you said to yourself, ‘I want to remember this point in time forever…exactly as it is now.’? But you can’t. Years later you can remember something about it, but you can’t remember what you forgot but you know you did. The way my grandmother…my Mormor… held my hand and stroked my hair. The
fragrance of her. The smile and how it broadened when she spoke to me in soothing, gentle tones. There was so much more to remember, but now it is just little pieces,” said Jenny.

  “Then we must put these little pieces back together again,” said Jared. Jared sat up in bed.

  “Darling, we need to get you some testosterone reduction treatments. I need to get some sleep,” said Jenny.

  “I want to do something for you,” he said.

  “Oh no. No more lessons. I’m really tired. It’s one in the morning.”

  “You can go to sleep. It’s just that you’ll do it a little differently this time,” said Jared.

  Jenny was suspicious.

  “What is it you want to do?” asked Jenny.

  “Hold my hand and close your eyes,” said Jared.

  He picked up her left hand and gently clenched it. She closed her eyes. She was about to protest but the words wouldn’t come out. Jenny instantly fell asleep. Her eyelids fluttered. He saw that her optic nerves had flashed intense bright light. He felt her pulse. Her heart rate and breathing rhythm were elevated. Jared could sense her brain waves. She quickly began to generate theta waves which rapidly changed to delta waves. All of her muscles tensed. Finally, her brain waves returned to wake-state alpha and beta waves. Jared noticed rapid eye movement. He was now certain that she was in deep REM sleep. It could start now. The REM was essential. He was concerned about shock.

  Reading, Massachusetts

  Jenny was dressed in her favorite summer dress. It was a maroon cable knit dress. Her hair was in a ponytail. She was twenty-seven years old and didn’t have a care in the world to think about. Life was wonderful. She felt euphoric. She walked down the sidewalk to her house. It was a walk she had taken thousands of times, but this time, there was something different about it. She was walking to her girlhood home in Reading. Something was odd. The house was sold soon after her grandmother died. She was her mother’s mother, and her mom, Ingrid, needed the money. Jenny hadn’t been there for several years. Why was she here now? Something was strange.

  She opened the gate and walked in. Her bike was dumped on the porch steps. Her bike. It was really her bike. Her dad drove over it years ago. How could it be back? The house looked the same. It was an old Victorian with white clapboard siding and a huge wrap-around porch. She walked to the side of the house.

  Her grandmother was in the garden. She was alive. She was alive? Now she knew she it was a dream. Mormor was in her faded blue coveralls and flower print blouse. She was wearing that hideous old straw sun hat. It was a blue wide brimmed hat with blue lace for a hat band. She bought it in Stockholm on her last trip. A tuft of white hair had fallen over her face. It was Mormor. There was no doubt about it. This was weird, but she was surprised how calm she felt.

  Jared was doing this. She knew it. She could feel Jared’s hand. If she clenched her fist hard, she no longer felt his hand. If she relaxed her hand, it was back again. He was holding her hand. She felt safe. She felt relaxed, not excited. This was all a dream. It was a wonderful dream. She didn’t want to walk up. She held his hand lightly.

  Jenny walked up to Mormor. She was resetting strawberry runners, clipping some and rooting others. Her garden gloves were caked with the soft loam. Jenny’s chore had been to fill the compost barrel every evening after dinner scraps were collected. Not all scraps mind you. Just the ones that Mormor said were OK.

  “Hello, Mormor. It’s wonderful to see you again.” Her grandmother turned slowly and glanced at the girl standing behind her. She looked hard at the girl. Who was calling her Mormor? She stood up, dusted off her coveralls, and took off her gloves.

  “Sakes Alive. You look so much like my Jenny. Have we met? My memory isn’t what it used to be,” said Mormor.

  Her grandmother’s heavy Swedish accent was music. Her voice was soft and calming.

  “I’m Jenny. I really am. This is a dream. You know it’s a dream. It’s my dream and you should know me,” said Jenny.

  “A dream, child? Well if you say so. I can’t get over how much you look like little Jenny Nilsson.” She was a little concerned now. This young girl was addled.

  “But it’s really me, Mormor. You died a few years ago. I cried so much I thought it would never stop. My heart is bursting just seeing you again Mormor. I love you so much,” said Jenny.

  “I died? Well, imagine that. But here I am. Bold as brass,” said Mormor.

  Her grandmother loved idioms. Jenny learned them all as she grew up. Her mother was usually at work. After her father died, they needed money. The $10,000 life insurance policy was a huge amount of money when he took out the policy shortly after coming to America. It wasn’t that much when he died. Her Mormor raised her. It’s not that she loved her mother less than Mormor, but that she knew her grandmother so much better.

  “Take a good look at me Mormor. It’s me. I’ve sort of traveled in time in my dream,” said Jenny. She could still feel Jared’s hand holding hers as long as she didn’t grip too tightly. Would Mormor disappear if she let go of his hand? She mustn’t do it. She didn’t want to lose Mormor. Not yet. Not again.

  Her grandmother took a step closer and looked deep into Jenny’s eyes.

  “Land a Goshen! What are you doing to a poor old woman, child? Is it really you? Am I dreaming too? I’ve lost my senses,” said Mormor.

  “Mormor, what does it matter who’s dreaming? Maybe we both are.” Jenny pulled out a locket that was tucked inside her blouse. “See. You gave me this locket. It has your picture inside.”

  “Let me see that, child,” said Mormor. She examined it and opened the locket.

  “It’s your locket, Mormor,” said Jenny.

  “I haven’t given this to you. I plan to, but I haven’t given it to you yet. It’s still in my jewelry box,” said Mormor.

  “I don’t know how much time I have with you. I don’t want to waste a moment. What year is this?” asked Jenny.

  “Why it’s 1994. You’re taking a nap upstairs. My Jenny is nine years old and here you are all grown up.”

  “Remember when I fell into the rose bush when I was learning to ride my bike?” asked Jenny.

  “Of course I do. That was so terrible. We rushed you to the emergency room. It took more than twenty stitches to fix you,” said Mormor.

  Jenny pulled up the front of her dress. There was a pale scar just above her right knee.

  “This is the scar, Mormor,”

  Her grandmother took out her glasses from her vest pocket and knelt down to look at the scar.

  “Saints preserve us! It really is you Jenny. It’s really you,” said Mormor. She bear hugged Jenny. Jenny held on as tightly as she could. She never wanted to let go. Not ever.

  “God works in mysterious ways, Jenny. I have no right to question his mighty Work,” said Mormor.

  Jenny didn’t know how much time she had. Then she heard Jared’s voice in her head. “Take all the time you want, Jenny,” said Jared.

  Jenny and her grandmother walked to the house and entered through the back porch. The potting table was just as she remembered it. Mormor spent hours at that table every summer. Jenny’s school books were piled on the side board. It was wonderful. Everything was wonderful.

  “Let me get you something to eat,” said Mormor.

  “Yes, please,” said Jenny. She felt as if she was nine again.

  Her grandmother went to the refrigerator and began pulling things out and setting them on the kitchen counter.

  “I have some leftover meatballs with lingonberries I can heat up. Let’s see. There is some rosolli left. How about some buttermilk….Jenny?” said Mormor. Getting the name Jenny out was strange.

  Jenny looked around the kitchen. She didn’t want to forget anything. It was the same old refrigerator her father bought. The entire family attended the ceremony of dragging it into the house after the delivery truck dropped it off on their sidewalk. He bought it at Sears and made payments on it as long as she could remember. She and Lars
played in the cardboard box in came in for weeks until the first big rain. It was a marvelous fort.

  She was sitting at the rickety kitchen table with the speckled grey Formica. She saw that the big “L” was still there where Lars had started to carve his name until Mormor caught him doing it. Everything was from the 1960s. The kitchen faucet looked like an antique. The green plastic tile splash guard above the sink and stove was dreadful but also magnificent because her mother and father spent two weekends putting it up—and she helped. Mormor’s spice cabinet was above the gas stove. The doors were always open. The hand knitted pot holders were hanging on the wall. Dingy green linoleum covered the kitchen floor. Everything was sort of avocado green, although not exactly. Mormor was so happy when the kitchen was finished. She had never had a fancy kitchen before. That everything was sort of green would have been the envy of her neighbors in Sweden. It was all as it was. Jenny was nine again.

  “Child, I don’t want you to tell me anything about what happens. I don’t want to know when I die or about anything good or bad. We have to live our lives without knowing such things,” said Mormor.

  “Of course. I understand.”

  “I have to ask one thing,” said Mormor. “Are you married? Do you have children?”

  “No! I’m not married,” said Jenny.

  “That is too bad. Don’t wait too long,” said Mormor. “Have you learned Swedish yet? Your children will need to know it.”

  “I’m so sorry, Mormor. I haven’t.”

  “That’s alright. I suppose it’s not that important in America.”

  Her grandmother prepared a plate of leftovers. She poured the meatballs from a small sauce pan right on her plate and then spooned the lingonberries on the side. She piled the rosolli to the other side.

  “It’s wonderful. I haven’t had this in so long, Mormor.”

  Too little girls burst into the kitchen and then stopped short as they spied a stranger at the kitchen table.

  “We got tired of sleeping,” said Krissy.