Later, assuming his eventual recovery, it would turn out that his new aspirations had been little more than a theoretical exercise. A place such as the Professor’s, which Desmond, if a little unfairly, called a shack, did not come on the market under two or three million dollars.
“When I got my shack, m’lad, rreal estate prrices werre a frraction of what they arre today,” Desmond McBride announced proudly.
The day after their return, they settled into their usual routine. The only difference was that they managed to convince Alicia to stay with them for the foreseeable future. This gave Suzy much more freedom. Matt did a marvelous job tending to Alec, but Sacha needed a woman’s touch. Within a couple of days, Suzy returned to her painting classes. Within a week, however, she discovered that she could learn much more from Alicia than from the less-than-successful teachers at the school. Both ladies began painting with vengeance. Suzy said she’d never had so much fun before. Outside sailing, that is.
Alec, thanks to Matt, was again busy with his lectures.
Some days later, completely out of the blue and without any preamble, Suzy asked Alec point blank: “When we were sitting on the beach, and later when we took the same stroll, did you notice something peculiar happening with the ocean? The waves, I mean?”
“Yes,” he conceded, turning away. He wasn’t quite ready to discuss the subject.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” She wouldn’t give in so easily.
Alec hated discussing phenomena that were as incomprehensible to him as the velocity of thought-waves. Assuming there were such a thing as thought-waves.
“I didn’t command the waves to retreat, if that’s what you mean. I can’t. Oh, believe me, I tried! I tried it and nothing happened. I know that I can’t. Yet, well, the elements, if you will, seem to respond to something inside of me.”
“And you have no explanation at all?”
“Not as yet,” he was hedging. She sensed it but didn’t press. He, on the other hand, knew that she wasn’t buying it. Not altogether.
“You know, when you’re writing a thesis, you write the beginning last.” He sounded as though he’d changed the subject. “It’s a sort of resume of all your conclusions, which, when presented at the beginning the reader knows what the paper is all about. The body of the work then serves as an explanation of how you’ve reached your conclusions. Do you follow me?”
She nodded.
“Well, it’s not as simple as all that. When I had to write my conclusions, I remember sitting in front of my computer for four days, not being able to even start. I had no problems with the body of work, you understand, but the conclusions, the quintessence, the crux of the matter, just wouldn’t come in a comprehensive form. I knew, of course, what it was, but... well, as I’ve said, it wouldn’t come.”
He looked up at Suzy, as if gauging her attention. Satisfied, he continued.
“On the fifth day, I decided to put the Theory of Information to the test. I opened my iMac and closed my eyes. I then told myself that all the information I need is available in me, and is ready to be put into word. I sat there till I convinced myself beyond a shadow of doubt that the Information was there to be had. I then sat still, not even trying to write anything at all. This was after a four-day mental block, you understand. Well, the next thing I knew, all my conclusions had been neatly typed. So neatly that they did not need a single correction. Oh, I wrote them all right. I remember watching my fingers do a machine-gun staccato on the keyboard. Only I’ve never been quite so neat before. The clock said that it took me less than three hours. Under normal condition, a couple of weeks of painstaking work checking all data, comparing different sources and so forth would be considered fast.”
There was a prolonged silence. At long last Suzy sighed as if making up her mind.
“Did you know,” she asked, “that is precisely how Mozart is said to have composed? He didn’t start till he knew the entire composition, and then just wrote it all down. No errors, no corrections. As if it was all there, ready and waiting for him.”
“So I am not crazy?” Alec was only half-serious, but there were signs of his tension dissipating even as Suzy spoke.
“Darling,” Suzy smiled her reassurance, “painters do that sort of thing all the time. Sculptors talk of just removing the unwanted pieces of stone to reveal the sculpture that was always there, within the block of rock, ready and waiting to see the light of day. It is the most natural creative process I know.”
Alec, for all his studies of physics, didn’t know that. After a while the usual far away look returned to his eyes. “My thesis, Mozart’s music, waves, even what we used to call ‘inner travels’, they’re all to do with our perception of reality. And the relationship of reality to consciousness. Or whatever we are aware of at our deepest level, in, well... in our heart of hearts as poets would say...”
He looked at Suzy. She nodded, but again didn’t push.
“When consciousness leaves our bodies—we die. I don’t mean leave the body partially, as in sleep, daydream, or even profoundly, as in a coma. But completely. You cannot stay alive without consciousness. We say a stone is not alive because it is not conscious. In those terms, you can define consciousness as life itself. People who define life as God, would have to assign the same appellative to consciousness.”
“God is consciousness?”
“Something like that. Full consciousness that is, to which few, if any of us, can lay claim. But total awareness is awareness of totality. That, I always thought, is what people mean by God.”
‘I am Life’ Suzy remembered her books. “Who is I, in that case?”
“I am. I am is the awareness of life and I am is the expression of consciousness. The two are inseparable. You might say they are one. Not as Cartesians say ‘I think therefore I am’, only ‘I am conscious, therefore I am’.”
“Or I am consciousness...” Suzy added wonderingly. “It’s a simple as that?”
“I don’t think it was ever supposed to be complicated. The religions made it complicated. They would not recognize that we are more than meets the eye.”
“I thought that’s exactly what they said.”
“No way. According to all the religions I’ve laid my eyes on, the various theologians claimed that we are nothing, sinners they call us, but the big Ju-ju is somewhere out there, granting or not granting us higher traits. In fact what defines man is the degree of his awareness of his totality or wholeness. Without this awareness a man is hardly human.”
“You’ve said something like this before, haven’t you?”
“Probably. I’m fed up with the blind continuously leading the blind. It ceased to be funny.”
Alec’s ideas, if one could call them his, were beginning to find a semblance of order. He was a long way from full understanding, but he’d taken the first step. He accepted that just because he could not dissect something with a scalpel or smash it to smithereens in a Super Collider, it didn’t mean that that something did not exist. The acceptance of this premise was, for him, a continuous process of reconciliation of his mind with that over which he had much less control.
“And all this has something to do with moving oceans about?” Suzy smiled in spite of herself.
“It all has to do with reality as we know it. Back then, I imagined the ocean different than it was. I didn’t question if I or anyone else could do it. I didn’t doubt that it could happen. I just assumed that it could. I think I held a ‘why not’ type of cavalier attitude. But, simultaneously, I was deadly serious about it. I thought that if it could happen, then it would. I left it at that.”
“I see,” Suzy said quietly. She decided not to ask him any more questions. Some of his answers had been worse than her questions. If he was right, then why couldn’t he cure himself?
Alec must have read her thoughts. He glanced again at his legs. And at some level of perception he began hating Sandra and all she stood for. He rebelled at his total inability to oppose her power with his own will. He was
rebelling against her interference. This frame of mind was the beginning of the darkest depression he’d ever suffered.
He was on the verge of giving up.
“Giving up what?” he asked himself. But he heard no answer. He’d lost the ability to listen.
It seems that dreams were the only thing in Alec’s life that kept him sane. The night following their last discussion on the nature of consciousness, Alec made his first ‘trip’, for the want of a better word, to the Far Country. It was a return trip, the first after many years. He actually smiled at the thought that nothing had changed. Well, almost nothing.
Somehow, his universe has grown. It was hosting more stars, a greater variety of nebulae, of galaxies of different shapes and sizes. Whirlpool galaxies spun on their axes creating currents that extended for many light-years. Their spheroidal sisters, some dressed in cosmic sombreros, others arranged in vast clusters, so vast that light took a million years to shine upon itself. All these, and so many, many others, enriched this universe, which Alec thought he’d once known so well. Yet it was all so familiar. Perhaps the universe hasn’t changed, after all.
Perhaps I have. Am I really the only reality?
His thoughts seemed to come from so deep within, almost as if they weren’t his own.
Alec also found that he wasn’t attached to any particular segment of space, but rather wandered about until his attention became anchored to a particular point of interest. Then, the object, or group of objects, grew, expanded, the colours previously diluted by distance increased in intensity and diversity. Only all this took place faster that he could think.
He turned his attention towards the familiar Crab Nebula. For more than a thousand years it spread its influence across the vastness of space. The fragments of its body were still expanding at more than a thousand kilometers per second. At its source an ashy orb attested to its former glory. Alec had no idea how he knew of its precarious history.
I was born of the white-bluish dwarf still at your heart…
Only then Alec realized that he was not aware of his body. Not just his of his legs, but his whole body. The memories of his previous visits to this realm flooded his... his what?
My soul? What is soul? The questions came and disappeared with the velocity of light. My consciousness? That’s right. My consciousness.
The realization of his own beingness flooded his awareness.
My awareness is the mirror of whatever I come in contact with by placing my attention on it. But am I not just conscious of the reality I myself created?
The Nebula continued to expand.
So what is attention?
He directed his mind at a distant star which shimmered as though with new light. It was as far as his attention could reach. The next instant, he was witnessing the explosion of a gigantic sun. A cosmic wind shot by him and through him, without touching his senses. He didn’t even feel the heat. Almost simultaneously the eternal silence of Outer Space was filled with a sustained roar as a billion, billion thunders that raced after the photons spreading the news of a new beginning.
Attention is….
He almost had it but it... the attention, had been distracted by the Super Nova. The brightness was awesome.
How come it doesn’t burn my eyes? And as the question formed that answer was there, apparent: I have no eyes...
He could see without eyes, he could feel without a body, he could hear without his ears.
Who am I. Who am I... who am I...?
I am...
I AM
That was all that formed in his awareness. Just that. I am.
“I am that I am,” his mind mirrored its own definition. And for some inexplicable reason this still incomprehensible knowledge filled him with unbelievable joy. He laughed at the stars; he embraced the individual atoms with contentment. He impregnated each photon with his pleasure. The countless particles flying in all directions became saturated with serenity. There was another word for it back on Earth. They call it love, down there.
Here, it felt more like Oneness.
What would he give to have Sandra by his side...
But there was no Sandra. He’d killed her. He destroyed his memories of her. Or tried to. He alone would rule these inner worlds. No one would dictate to him the nature of true reality. No one! He and he alone would find the source of his power. Within himself. Within or without his body.
What would I give to have Sandra by my side...
Within the impenetrable darkness of the night, an even darker shape detached itself from the wall and bent over Alec’s body. For a moment the shape stood there, stooped, as though checking if all was well. If one could see in the dark, one would detect concern on the man’s angular features. A deep concern born of something akin to fear. Only it wasn’t normal fear. It was dismay born of compassion.
In the morning Alec’s depression got worse. Suzy had already left the bedroom some time ago to look after Sacha. She always tried to leave the bedroom before Matt came in. It was, she thought, less embarrassing for her husband.
When Matt came to get him out of bed, Alec dallied.
“I feel tired,” he lied. “Just let me be.”
Matt withdrew and sat at the far side of the room.
“I don’t need you here,” Alec barked. “I don’t need anyone. No one at all!” He all but shouted.
Matt didn’t move. He sat as immobile as though cast in granite. After some fifteen minutes, he got up and set about preparing for Alec’s morning ablutions. The special clothing he wore, a sort of outsized swaddling band that went under the name of adult diapers, took care of his nocturnal emissions. But, on occasion, the outer clothing also had to be changed. As often the sheets. Each morning they went through this embarrassing procedure. Hardly a word had been uttered. Matt worked quickly, efficiently, and with minimum effort imposed on Alec’ part. He was in no position to help.
Then Matt administered a massage to restore at least partial circulation into the parts of Alec’s body that remained immobile. This took a good twenty minutes. When Alec still attended to his duties at Caltech, all his lectures had been scheduled for the afternoon hours. This gave him and Matt plenty of time to do what was necessary.
Usually Alec wheeled himself to take breakfast in the nook of the living room. Today his arms, even hands were numb. Matt took him to the table and waited.
“Well?” Alec asked without looking up. He was leaning over the table.
“Is there anything you would like for breakfast, Sir?”
“Surprise me,” Alec sneered with an air of abject indifference.
Matt went to the kitchen, prepared a poached egg and toast, and brought it to Alec who was still slouching over the table. Matt sat next to him, and with infinite care began feeding him. Now and then, Matt put down the fork and held a cup of coffee to Alec’s mouth, aiming the plastic straw between his lips. The whole procedure was eerie for its absolute quiet. After breakfast Matt broke the silence.
“What is your agenda for the day, Sir?” Everyone called Matt by his first name. Matt didn’t reciprocate. He maintained his distance.
“I don’t care,” came the answer. “I just don’t give a shit.”
Matt bowed in silence and withdrew to clean up the bedroom. He was back within a relatively short time. Alec hadn’t moved. His eyes seemed to wander over some non-existent horizon. Slowly he looked up at Matt’s impassive face. This is a man I’ve learned to love, he thought. This is a man... but he refused to think any more. Resignedly, he withdrew even deeper into his shell. A shell that was rapidly becoming empty.
***
16
Magic
Thursday nights were long reserved for dinners with Desmond. Not that Old Des never dropped in on other days, especially now that Alicia was gracing the young’uns’ nest with her presence. But not only Desmond––everyone looked forward to the Thursday get-togethers. Usually, they met early for a few long, relaxing drinks. Ladies sipped wine, while Alec
and the Professor did a little justice to Scotch. Luckily for Alec, who recovered partial use of his arms and hands, Scotch was of the common garden variety, and Alec had not incurred the excessive wrath of the Professor’s gustatorial ethic by adding a ‘fair amount of solvent to protect their gastro-intestinal systems’, but rather to make the salubrious nectar last longer.
On March 18th, they celebrated Alicia’s tri-months-versary.
The dinner had been preceded by a tour of Alec’s office, Alicia’s bedroom, and all the other rooms wherein the vertical surfaces that lent themselves for hanging a variety of canvases. The object of the exercise was to tell which paintings had been ‘perpetrated’ (as Alec referred to them) by Alicia, and which ‘committed’ (as Alicia called them) by Suzy. The Professor thought them all to be brilliant. In fact he offered to buy them all, providing someone would explain to him what they represented. This brought protests from both ladies, and a weak applause from Alec.
But not all of the remarks were that serious. There was a very discernible difference between Alicia’s and Suzy’s style. Not just in the application of the brush but the manner in which the two ladies approached their art. Alicia preferred oils and watercolours; her brush-stroke was warm, romantic as though she’d been painting the love she felt for whatever caught her attention. Suzy couldn’t have been more different. After only a few months she’d given up the brush for a spatula, which progressively got broader as her confidence increased. Her strokes seemed to suck out the essence of the colours from her subjects, concentrate them and place them in such relation to each other as to create the most explosive effect. Her painting seemed to compensate for her temper, which at least of late, she had managed to keep on a short rein. Also she much preferred acrylics to oils, as the former dried faster and were soluble in water. And the idea of rinsing her spatula in water was much preferable to soaking it in a jar of smelly turpentine.
Alexander: [Alexander Trilogy Book Two] Page 20