Journeys of the Mind

by Sonny Whitelaw Sean Williams

  'So what happens to the particle then?’ asked Peter.

  'That's where it gets really weird. Tate said it would interact somewhere else and go back to appearing as an ordinary particle again. From there it could criss-cross through time, through any number of interactions, over and over.'

  'Until?'

  Jed shook his head. ‘Forever. According to him, there might be only one single particle in the entire universe. By bouncing backwards and forwards it's able to account for every particle we think we see. Neat, huh?'

  Peter put the piece of paper face-down on the table. ‘But what does it mean?'

  'Nothing, I guess. It's just interesting.'

  'If you say so.'

  Jed studied Peter for any hint of sarcasm, irrationally ready to defend the topic. What had he expected? Peter was a trained tax consultant, not a chemistry student. If Jed had hoped that his cousin would suddenly leap into the air and cry, ‘Eureka! Now everything makes perfect sense!’ then he should have known to be disappointed.

  'Well, I've got work to do,’ he said, reaching for Peter's empty plate. ‘You know where I am if you need me.'

  'I do.'

  The volume finally came up on the wall-screen and the tinned applause of a game-show floated after him.

  * * * *

  When Peter woke at eleven the next morning and went to check the mail, he discovered another brochure in his letterbox.

  Your home is being POISONED!

  Toxic CHEMICALS and radioactive WASTE

  In YOUR drinking-supply!

  The format was the same as the one he had received in the mall, and many others in the last few months. Three lines of foreboding text in a style reminiscent of deranged hokku on one side, and the slogan and logo of the One World: Earth movement on the other.

  You have NO-ONE to blame

  But YOURSELF!

  He tore the pamphlet into tiny pieces and scattered them across the yard, littering with wilful abandon, remembering Carol as she had been, before. Bright, cheerful, loving, normal: his.

  Christ. He leaned back and closed his eyes, letting the too-hot sun burn the tears before they could flow free. Sober, his personal demons were less persistent, but they were still there.

  Wasn't it bad enough that she had betrayed his body without betraying his mind as well?

  'Something is troubling you,’ said a voice.

  He opened his eyes, startled. Facing him across the fence was the man he'd confronted in the mall yesterday: yellow hair, grey eyes, tall. Fragments of the torn pamphlet danced in the wind around the man's feet.

  'Where the hell did you come from?'

  'I'm sorry to startle you. I was passing and saw you standing here. You looked like you needed someone to talk to.’ The man's voice was soft and concerned.

  'Are you offering?'

  'Of course.'

  'You don't know what you'd be getting yourself into.'

  'Maybe better than you think.'

  'How could you? We don't even know each other.'

  The man gestured with one hand: irrelevant. ‘My name is Felix.'

  Peter looked up and down the street. There was no-one else around. Sobriety and loneliness made the offer tempting. He'd considered seeing a psychiatrist once about his problems; what difference did one complete stranger make over another? At least this stranger seemed prepared to listen for free.

  The coincidence of the man's appearances and the pamphlets was too striking to be ignored, however.

  'If you're looking for converts,’ he said, ‘if Carol or her friends at OWE gave you my address, then I should warn you we won't be talking long.'

  Felix laughed. ‘No. Just like you, I have nothing to do with them. I am a free agent, following my thoughts wherever they lead me.'

  'Fair enough, I guess.’ And indeed Peter was reassured. Something about the man put him at ease, made him feel as though they had known each a long time. ‘I'm Peter,’ he said, gesturing at the front door of the house. ‘Can I get you a drink?'

  'No. Let's walk. It's a lovely day.'

  Peter locked the door and they set off down the street. The air was warm and heavy, even at such an early hour, and he swiftly regretted not having brought a drink with him. Within minutes, his mouth was dry.

  Nevertheless, somehow, he talked.

  Carol's conversion had begun with an affair. One of her co-workers had seduced her during a conference in Cairns. The physical infidelity he could have forgiven, in time, had it not led to an interest in the cuckold's life outside work. A successful field agent in OWE, he had given her literature, encouraged her interest, and ultimately stolen her mind.

  Six months after the conference, she had confessed. The affair was over, she said, but it had given her a wonderful new perspective on her life and marriage. With their better than average wealth, they had so much to offer the world—and themselves. They were wasting their lives. Couldn't he see that? Wouldn't he just come along to a meeting of the local chapter (which she had been attending for three months, behind his back) and see for himself what went on there?

  Numbed by the double-whammy, he had gone.

  OWE wanted to save the world, no matter what it took. An admirable aim, but, in Peter's eyes, possibly a little late in the day. The world was being dragged down by antibiotic-resistant bacteria, deforestation, waste-dumping, increased toxicity of ground-water, local aerosol cooling in the north hemisphere and the greenhouse effect in the south, nuclear criminals and the proliferation of radioactive material, overfishing, desertification, algae blooms, rising lead levels; and, on a social level, spreading unemployment, illiteracy, corruption, exploitation and unrest. OWE, according to its own propaganda machine, was like a person with a cricket bat trying to deflect an avalanche.

  But Peter could have forgiven that, too, had its methods been as innocent as its ideology. OWE the organisation was an abomination, demanding nothing less than total commitment to the cause. Any means was permitted provided only that it contributed to the end—which, if the training films shown at the meeting were anything to go by, consisted of equal parts genuine philanthropy and blatant proselytising. A veneer of global responsibility overlaid a core of religious fanaticism based on a bizarre mixture of Zen, asceticism and Gaia. OWE was no less corrupt than Christian Fundamentalism, as far as Peter was concerned, and no less wrong in principle. If ‘the truth’ had to be brainwashed into people before they could accept it, could it really be true?

  He had walked out of the meeting swearing never to return. Two months later, Carol had walked out on him. A month after that, he'd taken a redundancy package offered by his work and retired early. Six long months further down the track, very little had changed.

  He hated losing her but couldn't bring himself to hate her; and OWE, the obvious alternative, was too nebulous a target. So it seemed these days that he hated everyone else instead—even Jed, who had moved in shortly after Carol left. And himself most of all...

  When he had run out of words, Felix picked up the thread of the conversation. ‘Do you still love your wife?'

  Peter thought about it. He'd asked himself this on many dark nights. Finding an answer in daylight was more difficult than he thought it ought to be. ‘I don't know.'

  'But you do feel that she has betrayed you by embracing a cause which excludes you.’ Felix steepled his fingers and smiled. ‘It's ironic, you know. She must be feeling the same way about you.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'That there is a comfort in belonging and in believing that part of us will survive the grave. Who can blame her for such seeking comfort in times such as these, when death is all around us? And she, naturally, wants the ones she cares about to be saved as well. To protect their souls along with hers.'

  'But OWE is crazy. If she truly loved me—'

  'Love is just a physical thing.’ Felix's eyes twinkled. ‘The soul has nothing to do with love.'

  'All the songs are wrong, then?'

  Felix ignore
d the question. In the shade of a rustling eucalyptus, he pinned Peter with his stare. ‘Think of this: if a woman marries into an insular community, she will remain an outsider until the day she dies. She will not belong. Her adopted family may love her, and she may love them, but as I said before, that is a physical thing. She isn't like them and never will never be, no matter how hard she tries.'

  'I don't understand.'

  'Perhaps if I put it another way.’ Felix closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. ‘You are listening to me, and considering what I am saying. We feel at ease with each other. Is that correct?'

  Peter acknowledged that his initial misgivings had disappeared completely. ‘So far, I guess.'

  'What does that tell you about the difference between me and your wife?'

  'That she and I don't ‘belong', but you and I do?'

  'In principle, yes. When a person finds the group that is right for them, little on Earth can stop them from joining.'

  A small silence fell, and with it a cold feeling into Peter's heart, as though Felix had told him something he'd always known but refused to admit.

  'What do you know about the velocity of money?’ asked his new friend.

  Peter automatically recited the definition he had been taught at university, although the relevance of the question eluded him: ‘V = PQ/M. The number of times per year the average dollar is spent on goods and services.'

  'Exactly.’ Felix nodded, and produced a dollar coin from within his pocket. ‘I give this coin to someone, who passes it on to someone else, who passes it on to someone else, and so on. If the velocity of money is four, say, then this coin will change hands four times in twelve months.'

  'Yes. So?'

  'Well, ask yourself what happens to the coin between transactions. When you pass it on, where does it go? Into someone's pocket? Into a safe somewhere, waiting to be counted? Imagine if the coin could move of its own volition from that pocket or safe and back out into the world. Back into circulation. What would happen to the velocity of that coin then?'

  Peter considered the question. ‘The amount of money in the world would appear to increase, wouldn't it? If we emptied all the safes of one dollar coins—'

  'Yes, but suppose the apparent volume of money remains the same. What then?'

  'Then the number of actual coins would have to be less than it is now. By the formula, that means that the velocity of money would increase.'

  'Exactly.’ The coin flashed in the sun as Felix tossed it from one hand to another. ‘Now imagine that the coin can travel backwards as well as forwards in time. Its velocity might increase a thousandfold, were that the case.'

  Realisation suddenly dawned. ‘I see where you're headed. You're about to suggest that there may be only one one-dollar coin in the whole world. By jumping through time it appears to be everywhere at once.'

  Felix turned his patient, pleased gaze back on him. ‘That's very astute, Peter. Very quick indeed.'

  'Not really. I heard something similar just yesterday, from my cousin. Except it was subatomic particles, not coins.'

  'Feynman's time-travelling electron.’ Felix nodded. ‘The idea's the same. Interesting, don't you think?'

  'Yes, but not terribly relevant. And anyway, all the dollar coins in my pocket can't be the same.’ Peter fished for change. ‘See? This one's dated 1992, and this one 1998.'

  'True. Which brings me to my next point.’ Felix gestured around him, at the quiet suburban street and the boxy houses lining it. Solar panels and antenna dishes raised their blind eyes to the sky. Two blocks down, a boy on a bike was taking great care to crumple every aluminium can he encountered.

  'The world is a very strange place, Peter, in which many strange religious notions may propagate. All, however, orbit a common truth, and OWE is close to it. The people of OWE don't believe in saving the world for our children, but for our future incarnations, our future selves.'

  'They do?’ Peter had missed that aspect of their crusade during the one meeting he had attended.

  'Yes. Hardly an altruistic motive, but that is beside the point. They are only close to the truth. They are wrong about what happens after death.'

  'Of course they are,’ Peter responded with automatic derision. ‘Reincarnation is such a stupid idea, when you think about it: we die then come back later as someone else but still the same person. How can that work?'

  Felix shook his head. ‘Not the same person, Peter, the same soul.'

  'There's a difference?'

  'Of course there is. Remove the body, and all that remains is the soul. No love, no emotions, no memory: nothing but the essence in all of us. That which makes us like each other.'

  Peter heard the echo of what Felix had said in the mall, the sense of certainty in the man's voice. He wondered if he'd traded one religious fanaticism for another by allowing the man into his afternoon.

  'So what if they are?’ he asked, pretending to be more interested in the approaching cyclist. ‘OWE, I mean; wrong. What can I do about it?'

  Beside him Felix sighed. ‘These are difficult times, Peter. What happens always happens. All we can do is try to make it a little easier.'

  The boy in the bike leapt the curb a few metres from Peter and skidded noisily past. His hair was short and blonde, and he was older than he had looked from a distance.

  'I think you're crazy,’ said Peter to Felix. ‘All this talk about ‘end times’ is just the usual sucker line to drag people in. Any second now you're going to hit me for a donation, and then—'

  The bike skidded to a halt. ‘You what?’ said the boy.

  'Nothing.’ Peter shook his head. ‘I was just talking to—’ He stopped in mid-sentence.

  'Yeah?’ The boy's sneer said it all.

  Felix was nowhere to be seen.

  * * * *

  Jed caught the news on the bus. China had frequently been accused of fouling the Irtysh, one of the Eurasian continent's longest rivers, with industrial and biological pollutants, thus rendering its precious water unusable for those further downstream. Tempers had recently reached flashpoint with construction beginning on a Chinese dam designed to restrict flow even further. Now trade embargoes had been threatened and troops were moving. The UN was calling for a summit.

  'World War III,’ a fellow commuter mumbled, and Jed surprised them both with a snort of laughter.

  'I doubt it,’ he explained to the ring of faces staring at him. ‘There are too many sides to choose from, these days, and none that really matters. World-wide chaos is about the best we could manage.'

  A vague murmur told him that he'd touched a common chord in his fellow commuters. But still they watched the broadcast with trepidation, the older ones remembering the Gulf War or even earlier. Remembering other times when the world had trembled on the brink of change.

  By the time Jed made it home, Peter was unconscious in the hallway with a large bruise darkening his temple. The wall-screen was torn where a chair had struck it. Broken glass littered the lounge room. The air stank of booze. The only sound came from where the phone lay discarded on its side—the regular beep-beep tolling a personal Armageddon, twenty-first century style.

  Jed managed to drag Peter to bed and made a cursory attempt to tidy up before barricading himself in his bedroom to study the evening away.

  Why bother? He asked himself that question a thousand times before finally giving in to sleep. Did it really matter what he did? Sometimes he felt as though he was butting his head against an impenetrable barrier. What would he gain if Peter's self-absorbed lethargy was in fact the only appropriate response to the world around them?

  Tate, the new friend he had shared lunch with two days in a row, would disagree with that, Jed thought. At least Jed hoped he would.

  Dawn brought with it sounds of movement in the kitchen. He struggled from bed to find Peter trying to make a cup of coffee. His cousin's eyes were charcoal-dark with fatigue; his hands trembled almost uncontrollably.

  'You rea
lly trashed yourself last night,’ said Jed, taking the spoon from him and preparing two cups, both strong. ‘A pleasure to be alive, isn't it?'

  'Not today.’ Peter accepted the mug and, sitting down, put it into his lap. ‘My wife's left me to join some weird cult that believes in saving the world for their future selves, and I don't have anything better to do but drink and argue with religious nut-cases. Is it any wonder I think I'm going crazy?'

  'No wonder at all,’ Jed said with a wink. ‘I often think that myself.'

  'Well, you're the one who has to put up with it all, or at least clean up after it. I'm sorry. If you want to leave, I'll understand.'

  Jed smiled as sincerely as he could, given the hour of the morning. ‘Are you kidding? Mum would skin me alive when she found out.'

  'Found out what? That you'd left, or what you'd left?'

  'Both.’ He sat down next to Peter and stared into his cup. The only sound for a long moment was that of their breathing and the rasp as Peter scratched at his stubble.

  'I've been thinking about what you told me the day before yesterday,’ said Peter, uncharacteristically breaking the silence.

  'Which bit?’ Jed didn't let himself hope that some of his advice had finally hit home.

  'Your friend. Tate.'

  Jed was puzzled, but only for a moment. Peter was clutching at anything to distract him from the misery in his life. Perhaps with good reason. And Tate's wild theory was better than current affairs.

  'Yes, well, it's a fascinating concept,’ he said. ‘We talked some more after class yesterday. I told him I thought it probably wouldn't work.'

  'Why not?'

  'Well, if he's right, interactions between particles and their opposites must be happening all the time. What happens if there are too many at a particular moment? How does the Universal Particle squeeze into all of them, and what happens to space-time and causality as a result? Is there a limit to the complexity of such situations? Do they somehow break up of their own accord?’ Jed shook his head. ‘The idea seems intuitively simple, but isn't really.'

  'What did Tate say?'

  'That he agreed with me about the complexity problem, although he still thought it might be possible in principle.'