The Media Candidate – politics and power in 2048
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CHAPTER SIX
Baseball and Politics
The next morning, Elliott sat motionless on the side of the bed as he’d done every morning of his career. This was his “collecting time” as he explained to Martha. “This is where I collect my thoughts and figure out where I’m going that day.” He’d tried to get Martha to try it herself because “it helps to focus your day.”
Martha always responded, “I can’t even focus my eyes without a cup of coffee. How can I focus my day before I get up and have my coffee and read the paper?”
Elliott fervently believed in the ritual; and this morning it had special meaning to him, even though it would not be followed by his other longstanding ritual of going to work.
This morning’s collecting time, however, took a much longer look than just this one day. His meditation carried him beyond his home and his life. As he relaxed his mind this morning, a giant spider the size of a cat emerged and stalked him. The spider transformed into a holographic TV. There was Martha and “her TV family” exploring a wonderland of Hollywood animation, intertwining advertising, politics, adventure, and emotions until they were a monolith, a seamless package.
Then he caught a thermal and rose toward a mountain. There was Ms. Dobbs at its peak holding a white ribbon with gold lettering that read Best of Fair. Around her sat her subjects: Martha, Susie, and even Luke. He couldn’t soar over this mountain, so he flew away from it.
Water below him swirled and grumbled into a collage of grotesque icons, like the ice cubes in a vodka ad. But the icons jelled into faces. Lizzie smiled, waved, seduced. Junkie invited the cameras to explore, to grope. Baseball jocks, movie stars, and news anchors all spun about this sea, celebrating its fertility, exploiting its abundance. They flowed with the torrent, always laughing, always on top.
Millions of bodies clung to their TVs, voting and applauding, even as the whirlpools sucked them beneath the surface. Suddenly Elliott plummeted in the still air. What would his choice be now that he could no longer soar? He opened his eyes and saw just swirling vines and swaying flowers of an Oriental carpet at his feet. His collecting time had never before strayed so far. But he had never before been faced with such a dilemma.
Elliott had dedicated forty years of his life to the Laboratory, years looking for answers to questions that might not have answers, searching for fundamental particles with his high-energy cyclotron. These particles could help man understand the basic building blocks of the universe, forces that shaped the universe in that blinding instant of creation billions of years ago.
But the technology he’d developed was not like superconductors or lasers or transistors that could be harnessed to make life better for others. The knowledge gained in his laboratory was the most basic kind, but it couldn’t relate to anything on earth or even on the sun or the brightest stars in the sky. The kinds of events he’d studied occurred in only two places, in his laboratory and at the instant of the creation of the universe. It was an expression of art with a price rivaling the Big Bang it simulated. Elliott could not suppress the feeling that the billions spent on this laboratory might have solved earthly problems.
He rubbed his eyes when the Oriental carpet began to defocus. And the time, the eons, I gave to the Lab. Could have spared some for my family. Now I’ve got the time. Now I can repay—but to whom?
Elliott walked into the breakfast room where Martha sat with her coffee and paper. “I think I’ve figured out some things.”
Martha seemed not to hear him, but Elliott knew better. “I went over to Halvorsen’s office yesterday to look around.”
The paper dropped and two stern eyes met his.
“Her files had already been scrubbed clean. There was only meaningless stuff. At least it looked meaningless to me, so I just left.”
Martha returned to her paper.
“I did a little library research on COPE, and you know, it still all sounds like bullshit to me.”
“It’s too early in the morning to argue about this anymore, Elliott. And besides, I know you’re just looking for something to do. Now that you’ve got the time, you should get interested in baseball or something like you used to.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, too. But not about baseball. I need to do something that’ll help me give back. Society has paid my way my whole career, and now that I’ve got the time …. I think there’s more wrong with our politics than ever before. I know you don’t see it that way, probably because you’ve grown into it slowly. But it’s like I just dropped into it. And I think our world really needs leadership. My collecting time told me I need to get involved with politics.”
“You know I watch all those political shows on TV,” Martha said. “I like to see some really smart, good-looking candidate win. And you can advise them and everything right from your TV just by looking at the answer on your screen you want to send. It’s sure a lot easier than listening to endless debates and going to a VFW hall to vote like we used to.” She paused to study Elliott. “But, you know, I just can’t see you in politics. You might know a lot about quarks and electrons and stuff, but you hardly ever watch TV. And the only time you read the paper is when you run out of something scientific. I don’t think you’d fit in on The Senate Ladder or National Countdown. Besides, all the candidates nowadays are young and athletic and sexy.”
“But that’s the whole problem. Everybody in politics today is the same. And none of them even know what it used to be like. I think there’s room for someone with a different view of things. I’m not sure what I could do, but we need people to remember the past, not just accept the present.”
Martha shook her head as she returned to the paper. “I don’t see what’s wrong with baseball,” she muttered.