The Savants

by Patrick Kendrick

  They walked toward the back of the property allowing James and Etta their privacy. The yard opened into an expansive field filled with tall, wheat-like grass. Groups of birds flew overhead.

  Cooper looked up at them, and said, “Lately, it seems I’ve been seeing the beauty of nature more than usual. I don’t remember ever seeing so many birds this time of year.”

  The two of them stopped their stroll again and watched as the birds landed on the branches of a nearby tree, filling it with color and commotion. Several deer appeared on top of a hill in the distance, and the two groups—man and animal—stood stock still, gazing at each other. The wind blew and patterns formed in the long grass like waves moving across the field. Clouds of all shapes and sizes filled the skies.

  “Huh,” said Cooper. “Does that cloud look like a question mark to you?”

  “Yes,” said Pevnick. “I suppose it does.”

  The two men stood there for an elongated silence.

  “I’d like to ask a favor,” said Cooper, turning to Pevnick. “Washington is too hot at the moment. I’d like to stay here this evening, if it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition. I feel… closer to the problem here. Can you put me up?”

  “Of course,” said Pevnick, smiling. “I think we can find an extra sleeping bag around here for you.”

  Cooper laughed. “A few of my security people will stay here, too. I’ll send the rest to hotels in town.”

  “As you wish, sir. We have plenty of room for your needs. C’mon. I’ll go tell Mrs. Brown, and she can make arrangements.”

  ***

  On the bottom of the ocean, off the coast of North Carolina, the fault line suddenly opened and a mountain-sized chunk of its vulnerable lip crumbled, sending shock waves through the sea.

  The S.S. Virginia, a State Class submarine, picked up the disturbance on their sonar only moments before the wave hit. They barely had time to brace themselves as the sea jolted them around like a carnival ride.

  The captain of the sub, an experienced seaman of some thirty years, said, “Damn, we’re still two miles away from ground zero, and we’re getting that much turbulence. Hold steady men. Like Miss Bette Davis used to say, “‘It’s going to be a bumpy night.’”

  A wide-eyed ensign, sweat dripping down the sides of his face, approached the commander once he was able to get his feet back under him. “Sir, do you think we are going to survive this operation?”

  “You want me to be honest, son?”

  “Yes, sir,”

  “Hell, yes!” said the captain boldly. But, after the ensign had turned away, the captain’s brave smile faded. His lieutenant commander approached and cleared his throat.

  “You really believe that, sir?”

  The captain contemplated before answering, then said, “No, sir. We don’t have a chance in hell. But, we’ll go down knowing we tried to save our country. Isn’t that what we’re here for? Now, make sure those torpedoes are scaled down to the specifications so we don’t blow that fault wider than a politician’s mouth.”

  The petty officer forced a smile and saluted his Captain. “Yes, sir!”

  The captain watched the petty officer rush to fulfill his directive. His command had sounded strong—it had to be—as with any he issued, in order to get scores of men jacked up enough to be willing to sacrifice themselves. He was proud to be commanding these brave young men, but as the angry ocean begin to push against the ship, he felt a pang of sorrow that he was, in all likelihood, leading these men to their deaths.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  In his dimly lit, aseptic room, Douglas Pevnick was filling the writing tablet with symbol after symbol, each flowing from one to the other, his hand feverishly moving over the surface of the pages with the pen he gripped in his clumsy, twisted fingers. He was sitting in front of the window, trying to keep his head and hands steady, slow their jerky motions, and record what he was seeing before the sun went down. Flocks of birds were filling the skies and trees, flying wildly, chaotically.

  Suddenly, Douglas’s eyelids began to flutter as his limbs became racked with the grip of a seizure. His neck arched back impossibly, as his jaws clinched and tremors took over his body, throwing him out of the wheelchair.

  Squawking birds began propelling themselves against the window as Magritte, the nurse, came back into the room. “Oh, my,” she said, alarmed. She knelt down next to Douglas, trying to calm him, initially, but she quickly identified the persistent seizures as status epilepticus and knew she would need medication to control them. She moved furnishings away from Douglas’s writhing form so he would not hurt himself, and ran to the intercom on the wall. “Help!” she pleaded. “Mrs. Brown, someone! I need help in Douglas’s room.” Then she raced to the drawer and removed some medication and IV supplies.

  James was bouncing through the house on his way back to his room. He never felt more alive than at that very moment. He tried to concentrate on the figures he needed to complete his calculations, but the image of Etta, and the memory of her touch, her taste, distracted him. He didn’t mind. She’d said she had work to do, too, but as they parted for their separate rooms, he sensed the shared knowledge they had discovered: they weren’t alone, anymore; they had each other.

  His cheeks were red, warmed by the sun and tinted with the blush of young love. His thoughts swirled around something he’d never felt before. It was another one of those things that could not be explained on paper with calculations. Another one of those things, you simply had to believe in.

  His phone vibrated again. It was a group text from Dr. Hisamoto that included his name along with Heimel, several department directors, and the President of the United States! Energized with newfound confidence, James steered his mental focus to the calculations he needed to answer the persistent questions from the scientists who had now taken to calling or texting him, just like he was…what…normal? He pondered the implications of that thought and had just placed his hand on the door knob to his room when he heard the nurse’s plea for help. He stopped, listening, trying to comprehend the meaning of the plea as Mrs. Brown pushed by, almost knocking him down in her rush.

  “Excuse me, James,” she called back, breathlessly.

  James watched her speed down the hall. He frowned, wondering what the commotion was, then decided there was only one way to find out. He followed Mrs. Brown. Quickening his pace to catch up, he watched her dart into a room. Before the door shut behind her, he caught it, and eased into the doorway.

  Across what could only be described as a bedroom turned into a makeshift hospital room, Mrs. Brown and Magritte crouched over a young man dressed in a patient’s gown, trying to restrain him. He watched as the nurse fastened a tourniquet around the teenager’s arm and struggled to start an IV as he tossed about. Mrs. Brown helped steady the arm as the catheter needle found its way into a bulging blue-green vein in the patient’s pale skin.

  James watched, fascinated—though he had experienced seizures for years, he’d never seen someone having one. He was about to say something when he noticed some notebook pages scattered about the room. Leaving the door ajar, he stepped toward the far window, bent over, and picked up one of the pages. Behind him, Dr. Pevnick threw open the door and burst into the room.

  “James, please go away,” he said, urgently.

  James ignored him; instead, he watched as Pevnick knelt at the young man’s side. He wondered who the young man was. Why hadn’t Pevnick told them about him? He was obviously a patient; were there more? Looking around, James noticed several dead birds on the outside windowsill as he gathered more of the fallen pages. He was startled by what he found. Though the pages were filled with scribbles that no one else could possibly read, he could. They were messages—suggestions, calculations, and bold hypotheses—and they were addressed to him. James felt his heart beat faster as the enormity of what he was reading dawned on him.

  “I’m sorry,” said Magritte, “I just stepped out of the room for a moment. When I came back, he was
like this.”

  “Did you take him outside?” Pevnick asked. “I advised you not to…” He stopped when he noted Mrs. Brown giving him a wordless, but scolding frown.

  Magritte pushed Valium into the IV, and the seizures quickly began to subside. The young man’s skin was soaked with sweat from the exertions.

  Perspiring, too, Magritte finally looked up at Dr. Pevnick, her face stony. “No, sir,” she said. “I did not take your son outside. He has been staring out this window since you left this morning. I’ve never seen him like this. He just keeps scribbling in that writing pad you put here.”

  “What pad?” asked Pevnick.

  “This one,” said James, holding it up, along with the loose pages, for him to see.

  Pevnick rose to his feet and pushed back his hair, catching his breath. “It’s…just doodles. He’s having some unusual neurological activity today. That’s all. He doesn’t know what he’s doing…but please, James. Please, go away. This…doesn’t concern you.”

  James tilted his head quizzically. “Hmmm. I’m afraid it does. Did you tell your, uh…son that I was here?”

  Pevnick frowned, wondering what he was getting at. “No, of course not. He doesn’t know who you are.”

  “Oh, but he does. You see, Dr. Pevnick, these scribbles, as you call them, are written in my own universal language, the Manti we discussed previously.”

  Pevnick’s face twisted, incredulous. “What? No. You’re mistaken…”

  “Hardly, professor. This one in particular is addressed to me.” James held up one of the pages as if he were an attorney in court, revealing crucial evidence. Then, edgy, he said, “We need to talk, sir.”

  Pevnick helped Mrs. Brown and Magritte lift Douglas and put him back into bed. He was exhausted, and his eyelids fluttered shut; his breathing slowed, his body loosened.

  “You’re right,” said Pevnick, wiping a sheen of perspiration from his face with the sleeve of his jacket. “Yes, James. You’re right. We need to talk.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  An hour later, James was seated at a table in the study, piles of papers in front of him, along with several open books. A laptop flickered images of swirling patterns of dots, like Twentieth Century Op Art come to life.

  Dr. Pevnick entered the room refreshed, but with a stern look on his face. “This will have to be quick, James. The President is going to do a live telecast from here in the morning. He’s asked me to be there with him and to help prepare some notes tonight.”

  “Of course,” said James, dryly. An awkward silence followed in which James continued scribbling on a notepad, looking through the pile of books, and watching his computer screen—immersed, as if Dr. Pevnick was not there.

  Pevnick shuffled his feet, then mulled about the room as though seeing it for the first time. “I’m sorry you had to find out about Douglas like that,” the doctor offered.

  James looked up and stopped his research. “Me, too. It makes me…question your integrity.”

  Pevnick’s face darkened. “I had my reasons for the deception…allowing people to believe he was dead.”

  “Yes, indeed,” said James, standing. “Were you embarrassed you had a son—a behavioral problem—you couldn’t fix?”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Is he the reason you brought us here? Were you hoping to find a key, to see how we defects, or—what was your word—those with afflictions function?”

  “No,” Pevnick said, raising his voice, “I was trying to protect him. The reasons I brought you here had nothing to do with him.”

  James continued his work for a moment, dropping the conversation.

  “I have to go,” said Pevnick.

  “Wait,” said James, putting down his pad. “There’s something you should know. The President will want to know this, too.”

  “Quickly,” said Pevnick, impatient.

  “Based on your son’s writings…”

  “His what?”

  “Yes, doctor. His writings. He clearly knows the language that I believed I had made up. Evidently, I was not the original author of this language.”

  “Who was, or is, then?”

  “This will be hard for you to follow, but I am going to ask you to bear with me, to take a leap of faith, if you will.”

  “Are you going to tell me Douglas made up this language?” he said, irritated. “That’s impossible. The accident that killed my wife and left him…well, it left him with only part of his brain. The cognitive part doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “Not unlike, let’s say, a savant?” James asked. “Even with your perfunctory review of savants, you should know some of us operate, perhaps even excel, using only part of our brain.”

  Pevnick walked to the window of the study, peering out as if looking for an answer. Quietly, almost imperceptibly, he replied, “Yes. Yes. Of course. You’re right. I did want to learn more about people like yourself. I wanted to see if I could gain insight on how to, I don’t know, make his life better, maybe. Maybe even communicate with him on some level.”

  James pondered Pevnick’s words for a moment. He stood and moved next to him at the window. In the fading light, seagulls flew in various formations, dipping into the ocean as if on cue, like patrons at a deli waiting for their number to be called. Glancing down, James noted a swarm of wood ants on the windowsill outside. They formed a distinct pattern that silently told him he was right; the notion that had eluded him earlier, when he and Etta were kissing, had been the answer all along.

  Matching the doctor’s quiet delivery, James spoke above a whisper, “Then you succeeded.”

  Pevnick looked at him, frowning. “What are you talking about?”

  James returned his stare, then pointed outside. “You see those birds out there? How they form a distinctive pattern? And these ants, too, just outside the window?”

  Pevnick squinted at the ants. “Yes,” he said, hesitant but curious.

  “They’re talking to us. Or, I should say, God is talking to us.”

  “What are you saying, James?”

  “As I said, you have to take a leap of faith. Will you agree that the Manti, my so-called new language, is valid, explainable, and usable?”

  “Yes,” said Pevnick, reluctantly. “Inasmuch as any made-up language can be. As far as I can tell, it has standard symbols that can be recognized by another person. With the training and repeated exposure, it could be learned and two people should be able to communicate with those symbols, like sign language, I suppose.”

  “Douglas was using the Manti, doctor,” James continued. “I don’t know how he learned it. Perhaps he has those extra sensory perceptions you’ve documented in some savants. But, the point is, he knows it and has written text on this notepad you left in his room and on the sheets from his bed…on anything he could get his hands on. All those scribbles you’ve found in his room were his attempts to tell us something. But, no one was listening…until now.”

  “Go on,” said Pevnick, staring at the notepad. Even he could see, now, there were repeated patterns to the symbols he’d previously thought were merely doodles.

  “I told you,” James said, “I don’t believe in coincidence. I think we were brought here so I could communicate with Douglas, so he can deliver this message to us.”

  Pevnick looked at James incredulously. “And who is sending the message, James?”

  “You don’t know, doctor? With all that is happening, you really don’t know? Or, maybe you just don’t want to believe…”

  “Believe in what, James? Quit being so cagey.”

  “In God, Dr. Pevnick. God is sending this message.”

  “God?” said Pevnick, his face flushing with anger. “I told you, I don’t believe in God.”

  “Then call him what you will: Jehovah, Yahweh, Allah, Mohamed, Buddha, the Great Spirit; it doesn’t matter. There is a higher power. And it is directing us. You just don’t see it.”

  “And you do?”

  James rubbed his ha
nd over his face before speaking, then turned and blasted Pevnick with anger, “Your view is limited, as it is with most normal people. Like so many others with your limited view, you think in terms of manipulation and machination over instinct and nature, greed instead of need, want instead of giving. Animals and nature have lived here for eons, evolved and survived, while we pathetic humans continue to destroy ourselves and the planet we live on. In truth, we all deserve to die. But, I’m afraid if that happens, we will irreparably tear the fabric of nature, itself, and upset a balance already in place and that we, in spite of all our flaws, are a part of. We must find a way to survive for the good of everything, if not everyone. We have to listen to this message.”

  Pevnick, shaking his head, queried through clenched teeth, “And what is the message, James?”

  James looked at him as if he were talking to a child. “How to save the world. What else?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Harvey Peet: Congenital Savant

  Melbourne, Australia: Ten years ago

  Harvey sat in a dark room in a corner of the massive building formerly and generically known as the “Orphan Asylum” in Melbourne, Australia. He was alone, as usual. People generally did not like to be around a kid whose head was the size of a melon and held eyes that scanned back and forth like the orbs of some alien robot. That, and he cussed so much that even street-smart orphans with their own ghetto language felt assaulted by his bursts of profanity. That was part of his “disease,” his caretakers told the children. He was “severely retarded and had Tourette’s syndrome,” they said. It contributed to his almost constant grunting, sniffing, snorting, and the profanity. They “should just ignore him,” was the advice.

  But, Harvey did not want to be ignored. He knew he was different, but he had so much he wanted to share. By the time he was nine years old, he had read every book written by Herman Melville, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Jack London, Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Leo Tolstoy, Ray Bradbury, Mary Shelley, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, as well as several versions of the Bible, the Torah, the Quran and many, many more books in every imaginable genre. He devoured medical textbooks and mechanical and science journals. He loved anything about anthropology, perhaps because he was trying to figure out exactly what he was. He wanted to tell people the details of these fascinating books and stories, but no one wanted to listen.