The war on attrition
Story
Chapter 1
Frenkel tapped the pencil on his forehead repeatedly. He hadn’t slept in a couple days, and it was evident through the jitters in his hand. The room reeked of coffee, and was very very untidy. Frenkel, now evidently frustrated, banged his forehead on the table. It brought some life back into his body and he staggered up slowly.
He waltzed slowly along the room, carefully measuring every step, preserving every bit of energy he could. His hair had grown long and unruly, and his appearance made it clear that he wanted to be left alone. The object of his interest was a capsule placed right in the centre of the room, as a painting put out for display. He might as well have covered it with a red cloth and a velvet rope.
He reached out his finger and cleaned the head of the capsule, removing the speck of dust that had accumulated on it while he worked. Frenkel looked at it thoughtfully and said,
“Our calculations cannot be wrong. What we have here is truly magnificent. But there is only one way to be sure, yes, yes there is only one way.”
He clumsily walked back to his desk and sat down. He stared one more time at an open notebook that had written on it, in bold black ink
TAKE A RISK YOU PATHETIC LOSER
Frenkel collapsed on his desk and lost consciousness.
“Frenkel.. Frenkel, wake up. For Pete’s sake you need to start sleeping in a bed.”
Frenkel woke up with a start. His head was throbbing and his vision was blurry. It slowly solidified and he recognised the figure standing in front of him.
“Sven.”
“Yes hello Frenkel. While you lay unaware, I rechecked your work. I ran the numbers yet again. We are not wrong. We have been doing tests for a month now. There is no other way to check if it works anymore. The answer is clear. “
Frenkel shuffled in his seat. He sighed and looked up.
“Three years, Sven. It has been three years. We knew we would reach this point. We knew we would be here, and yet..”
Frenkel stopped mid sentence to look outside the window.
“If we want to see if it works, we will have to give up everything. We may get nothing but death in return.”
Sven was smart, but he was young. What could possibly happen in the future excited him far more than what he has today. He longed to be part of something great, he was intoxicated with a greater purpose. He didn’t have to think before he said,
“So be it. If we don’t dare to take this risk, then who will do it? We are the closest ones and if we don’t take the next step forward, how will humanity progress? Is it not our responsibility to strive ahead?”
Frenkel had heard this same speech a thousand times from Sven.
“Yes yes, Elon, leave me alone. What about Cassie, huh? How would she feel about this decision of yours?”
Frenkel knew he had touched a nerve there. It had been his only recourse in his arguments with Sven. But Sven was prepared.
“She will understand in her own time. It is the right decision to make Frenkel. You can’t delay it forever.”
Sven had been determined since the start. From the first time the question had popped up - about leaving everything behind to go to an unknown future, Sven was adamant to reach ahead, to grasp something beyond him. Frenkel was more than hesitant. It wasn’t that he feared losing what he had. He didn’t have much besides his work. What he feared was that he would step into a future that was desolate and abandoned. He had faith in humanity or rather in the stupidity of humanity.
Frenkel knew Sven was right. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself forever.
“Fine. But a hundred years. That’s it. Not any further.”
Sven’s face lit up. He grinned like a fool and turned around.
“I’ll go tell Cassie the news.”
As Sven walked away, Frenkel screamed after him,
“Go with that expression and only your head will come with me.”
Sven chuckled and started running.
“And on we go - to the future”
Frenkel had made no real effort to dress up. He wore a sweatshirt and tracks. He had taken five minutes to pack a few pairs of clothes and his passport (just in case - he reassured himself). Then he kept his notebook and his computer, and they shrinked down to the size of a plate. He wrapped it up in a folder and put it in his bag and zipped it up. He laced up his nikes and put on his sunglasses.
He had started setting up the capsule when Sven arrived.
“And what can I do for you sir?”
“Eat shit Frenkel. Do you always have to dress like a hobo?”
“You know it.”
Sven wore a suit. He had a sling backpack. Truly, a corporate look. He believed that clothes played a huge part in making an impression on other people. Frenkel believed that Sven was full of shit. He was of the opinion that it was Sven’s narcissistic tendencies that made him dress the way he did.
They both knew what they were going to do. They were both scared, and their adrenaline was pumping through their bodies, making them feel more and more excited for what was about to happen. They both took their seats inside the capsule and lowered the glass.
“How did Cassie take it?”
“She didn’t. I left a note.”
“Classic. You know you aren’t gonna see her again right?”
“Let bygones be bygones Frenkel. You don’t need to bring it up every time.”
Frenkel and Sven briefly exchanged a glance and both of their faces turned firm.
“Let’s go.”
Frenkel closed his eyes as he hit the button. Sven gripped his bag. The world went black.
Sven’s mouth was bleeding. The metallic taste of blood was the first thing that was brought into his awareness when he woke up.
“Bloody hell. Should have kept my mouth shut. Bit on my fucking tongue.”
He looked around and the sight left him confused. They were oriented backwards, and his spatial awareness was warning him that his body was not used to the way that they were. It looked like they were hovering over the ground, but the gravity had forced them to remain in that position. He looked to Frenkel’s side to make sure he was okay.
Frenkel was still not awake. His head was lobbed towards one side, and his arm dangled from the end of the chair, and it also trickled blood. “He must have had his hand out..” Sven thought to himself.
Sven decided to do what he was good at. Taking control and making lists. He created a mental note of what all he needed to do to make sure that there lives aren’t it immidiate danger, and got to work getting them done. He checked if the vaccum seal was still active, and he found it was (which gave him a reassurance of the state of affairs). He checked the doors and they appeared to be jammed, they opened a little and shut with deroicity. He did not have the strength to force them open. He looked in his bag for a moment and removed a lever, and attempted to wrench it open. Having no success, he leaned his sweaty brow against the lever and gave himself some rest. As he heaved against it, life crept into Frenkel’s unconscious body.
Frenkel had only a moment to cherish his feeling in his own skin before he disappeared, and reappeared - out of his spaceship, straight into a seat, facing a young woman. It was more than just teleportation, though, he felt like his soul had been searched, literally.
“Number six hundred and twenty eight. Attempting to reach the 50th century.”
The shrill voice of the woman in front of him brought him back to the present. He was lethargic and felt like he had been living in a cellar for a week. “Things could be worse.. right?” Was what he thought to himself to justify his situation.
“Number six hundred and twenty eight, Attempting to reach the 50th century.”
“That’s me. And who might you be?”
“Number six hundred and twenty eight. Attempting to reach the 50th century.”
“Do you ever like talk sense or are you like an automated message? If this is what they came up with to halt time travellers., the future sucks. tp I’m outta here.”
Frenkel got up hastily from his seat and walked across the table to take a closer look at the lady in front of him. She was robotic all right. He went over and started examining the circuit embedded on the back of her neck.
Her voice sputtered suddenly, and caught Frenkel off guard,
“Number six hundred and twenty eight. Two passengers. One harmless and one rogue. One rogue, one insurgent. One death and one life. You have been warned.”
With that, Frenkel let out a curse as he felt the familiar sensation of being warped away. Blackness emerged and swallowed the light
Sven saw Frenkel wake up with a start and that reassured him that everything was fine.
“Hey, you good?”
“Yeah, yeah. Just got warped to timekeepers society. A robot said something about one of us being harmless and one of us being rogue - one of us dying. A warning of sorts.”
“Ah, bullshit. Must be a deterrent for the people who move forward in time.”
“Probably, but let’s try to remain cautious.”
Sven nodded and indicated for them to exit the spaceship. Sven’s side was blocked out because of their weird orientation, but Frenkel’s side faced up - so it was free to be opened.
They both shuffled out through his side and stood at the top of their now crumpled spaceship. The first thing that they both took notice was of the smell of coffee, or what seemed like coffee. Maybe it was oil. I don’t know, maybe you should ask them. The next thing that they noticed was a man who had appeared in front of them. It seemed like he had been waiting for their arrival, quite impatiently too. He had a nasty frown on his face and he rapidly tapped the pencil on the notepad that had appeared in his hands.
“Guess we gotta talk to him then..”
“I’m sick of talking to people.”
Frenkel and Sven get down from the spaceship and stand in front of the man. Both of their clothes are quite crumpy by this point. Sven’s once classic attire was now reduced to just a rolled up shirt. Frenkel looked as terrible as ever.
The man wore what seemed like one piece of cloth fabricated to fit him, but it appeared as two. Probably an automatic size fitter, like the self lacing nikes back at home - Frenkel thought to himself.
The man started speaking with a start.
“No no no we can’t have that here. We can’t, you guys you’re breaking too many rules, you’re creating problems for everyone. You have to stop.”
“But, officer - if I may call you that, what have we done? Far as we know we just jumped forward in time.”
The man put his hands on his hip.
“Yada yada time travel I don’t care. I don’t like being out here got it? I want to go back. Every time someone new pops up I have to be there, do you know how exhausting that gets?”
“Still not breaking any rules..” Sven said while he looked deeply into the soles of his shoes.
“Alright alright fine. You’re good folk, I get that. But you are being troublesome. People like you, “, he points to Frenkl, “with such moral sentiments. such idealism - such principles, they create problems.”
“And you,”, the notepad dissapears from his hand and he points the other hand at Sven, “you are anything but welcome here. Greed, Ambition, faith. None of that will be tolerated here.”
“But we don’t hurt anyone. State of the art you see. You make your own choices. But if you do cause trouble we will burn you alive. But we don’t hurt anyone.”
“Keep your personalities in check, don’t do anything stupid and inject these into your bodies. And you should be good to go. Just don’t cause trouble - I hate being away from life.”
A syringe appeared in both of their hands. In the tubing was a microchip. Before they could ask what it was the man was gone. In his place was a banner that read -
“Welcome to Utopia. You’re gonna love it.”
Sven and Frenkel were playing connect four. They both sat solemnly in their chairs, trying to think of a move that the other person had missed. The holographic projection of the game flickered with life between them.
“You can’t beat me Sven.”
“So it’s gonna be another draw then. Gosh artificial games just take away the satisfaction of being able to like turn the board over and spill everything.”
“Satisfaction or regret..?”
“Eh you win, there. This is a boring game.”
Frenkel lumped back into his chair. He had lost more weight since they had arrived in ‘utopia’. Not that they had nothing to eat, on the contrary, they could eat anything they wanted, and as much of it as they wanted, but that meant inserting the chip into their body, and Frenkel had a strong resentment against that. Sven, indifferently had injected the chip. Frenkel had caught him in the act, and his face echoed disappointment. Sven carried on like nothing happened.
They hadn’t left the small space they had found since they had landed. They wanted to make sure that some basic life functions were still present, and that they wouldn’t die by just walking around. The air seemed to be breathable and the water seemed to be drinkable. So far so good.
Frenkel got up from his seat and walked towards the small cushion that served as a replacement for his bed. As he did so, he deliberated,
“You know, one thing struck me as weird. The officer, or the patrol cop, or the tour guide, or whatever he was, why was he so irritable? I wonder what caused him to be so annoyed with us. I am sure time travellers are nothing new in this area.”
“Yeah that struck me as odd too. It seemed almost like we had just woken him up or something. He was fine after sometime though. You think it has something to do with this place?”
“It’s the future, man - and it looks like it too. We can do literally anything we want, but why does it feel so.. empty? It feels like we have travelled to somewhere where time stands still. Tis the absence of the tick that bothers me. Why are the streets empty?”
“I could imagine that they don’t need to work for stuff anymore, right? It wouldn’t be a suprise if they have reached a point where they don’t need to do a hard day’s work to get anything. I mean, isn’t that where we were headed anyway - with all the tech gizmos and stuff. Isn’t that the point of why we innovate in the first place, to make life easier?”
Frenkel remained silent. Sven had raised a good point. He knew Sven was right, and yet something within him denied the answer that was given to him. He wanted to argue with the point, but he had nothing to say. All he could say was,
“Well if everything’s given, and you don’t need to do anything, what do these people even do?”
Sven got up from his seat as well. He took a big yawn and stretched long. His arms brushed against the low ceiling.
“Guess we’ll find out.”
They spent the next three days doing more tests. The results were as expected, but there were some surprising ones as well. The world ran completely on renewable energy, mostly solar, and the immediate ones filled with portable and large nuclear shelters. Everything was as expected, efficient to the maximum capacity, and wastes were almost non existent. It was all too perfect. Everything was exactly what you would expect of a futuristic world, and that bothered Frenkel to a great detail.
They decided to head out the next day. The sky was calm and the winds were strong. The sun was out, and the clouds made beautiful patterns in the heavens. It was not cold and not too hot. They didn’t carry an umbrella.
As they walked deeper into the city, large buildings came to sight, but they had almost a presence as if they were alive. A living presence. They were covered with greenery and solar panels, and the magnificent blue green colour competed with the beautiful blanket above for supremacy in beauty. The ultimate war of attrition, nature and humans. Nature gave them the gifts and the humans turned them into vast beauty, magnificent technology and untouchable greatness. Nature was oblivious to humanity’s boasts however. The wheel just keeps turning, it reminded its children.
Yet humanity kept advancing. To a goal it knew didn’t exist. To greater heights, above and beyond. Running, constantly running, afraid that if they stop, they will be dead and their history wiped off the face of the universe.
The buildings sheltered within them smaller pathways, houses and infrastructure that itself, had a glow of life. It would seem as if they were planted as trees, and sprouted as houses, the fusion of nature’s delicate hands and humanity’s brilliant mind.
Sven and Frenkel walked side by side, both picking out new aspects that impressed them, discussing them at length, what they would do different and what may have caused the people to create such a city. They were both crazy in their dreams, and had just been handed their result, a perfect world just as they would want. It excited them and dulled them at the same time. How long could happiness really last? How long could one thing make you happy? How much time is it before you long for the next big thing, the next great thing in your life?
“And yet there are no people. Something is wrong Sven, I can sense it. We may be walking in a dead city.”
“It can’t be. What about the policeman then?”
“Hologrophic projection? Automated voice message? We got a warning remember? This doesen’t look right.”
“But look around Frenkel. How can such a place, be dead?”
“My neighbour’s daughter has created a city
you cannot see.
On an island to which you cannot swim..”
“Oh please stop. I don’t want to hear that poem one more time from you. Can’t you just give it a chance?”
“A perfect world is a dead one.”
None of them said anything after that. They silently shuffled towards the entrance of the building that lay in front of them. Written on its top was ‘City centre’.
The tower opened to accommodate the two of them. A voice boomed seemingly from both nowhere and everywhere,
“Welcome to the city centre, we hope you have a joyful experience today!”
The tower was truly bizarre. It had a shape that you could almost grasp and describe, but it always escaped definition, changing in one form or another, a filter against the uniform, against the general. Your eyes could follow it forever, and the mind would not get bored. It was like looking at a hypnosis circle, something new appeared every timebl
The space, the floor, seemed different, although they couldn’t understand how it was different. They just knew it was different.
Frenkel and Sven calculated their steps. There was the sound of a hushed conversation in the corridor in front of them. Excited, they ran forward to find the source of the noise. The cascading walls changed colour as they ran across it, and glittered like the scales of a dragonfly in the sun.
There were three children sitting on the ground and playing with marbles. The marbles seemed to be moving through the air, and they were moving in a way that looked almost like an illusion, as if the boys didn’t stop them, they would move forever.
Frenkel went up to the children and shook one by the shoulder. The child turned around and looked into Frenkel’s eyes. Something about the child’s appearance took Frenkel by surprise, and he jolted back. He looked ordinary, yet his eyes seemed unusually hungry, like they had been staring into the dark abyss. The other children looked exactly like him, and were mimicking his actions, just oriented differently. It looked like an illusion, and yet it was real.
“Sorry about that kids. Let me do the introductions,” said Sven as he patted Frenkel on the back and stepped forward, “ My name is Sven and what might your lovely names be.?”
The children looked confused and then started laughing. It was a pure angelic sound, something that could drive you to lunacy. Seemingly at the same time, they stopped laughing, and the boy who had been playing with the marble got up and dusted himself off. The other children disappeared into thin air.
“You are mistaken sirs. I am not a child. In fact, I have lived a long life, much longer than you would expect. From your misunderstanding, I would take it that you are new around here?”
Frenkel was still shocked on seeing the other children vanish. He assumed that they were holograms, but they just looked so solid, so real.
“How did they just dissapear..? What is this place?”
The child shook his head, amused with Frenkel’s reaction.
“It’s been a while since I have seen someone like you. Come on, let’s take a walk.”
The path they had gone through to reach there had changed when they looked back. The child appeared in front of them, his arms indicating a request for them to follow him. The child guided them through the seemingly endless corridors of the town centre.
“Would you like some coffee, then?”
Before they could answer the question, they found themselves seated in a chair, facing the child, who was now lying down in front of them, in what seemed like a comfortable sofa. In their hands they held a cup, filled with coffee. Sven took a sniff and realised that it wasn’t just coffee, it was a blend that he used to make, and it had been replicated perfectly. Frenkel had also made the same realisation and they both smirked at each other.
“I know you must be filled with questions, but I think I can give an overall explanation that can answer most of your questions. The rest, will answer themselves over time. Let me start from when it all changed.”
Chapter 2
There was something in the air. The leaves in the branches of the tree outside the window rustled loudly, with such force. The wind was moving with anger, with a determined mind to cause destruction. It reflected his thoughts, it reflected his mental state.
He laid down on his bed. Lately, sleep had been at the top of his concerns. The thing with sleep that annoyed him was that it was elusive in nature. When you needed it, you could never have it. It only came at times when you weren’t thinking about it. He liked to have control over all aspects of his life. Hence, he had trouble sleeping.
He debated for a minute, whether to continue laying in bed or to get up and do something that took his mind off of sleep, so he could sleep. He rolled over as he tried not think, which resulted in the exact opposite of what he wanted.
“Fuck this.”
He ran his hands through his hair and put his feet on the ground. He got up suddenly, and he tasted his head spinning. It really was a woozy feeling. His head settled, he cracked his knuckles and took a long uninterrupted yawn. His mind started wondering about the reasons why we yawn, but he shoved it to the side. He scribbled a note about it and pierced it with a tack, displaying it on his board.
- human yawning why?
The note tilted to one side. The board that it had been put on was filled with such noted, all brief, short words. Some connected, and some bizarre. It spanned the length of his arms, and if you stood close to it, it was the only thing you would be able to see. Close to every inch of it was covered with questions, unanswered questions. Things he did not understand. It was an exercise he had started a month ago, when he thought about why his wife had decided to leave him. He was a perfectionist, he needed an answer to everything. Cause and effect. The more he looked around, the more questions he found. The more he tried to answer them, the more questions he created. It was a never ending cycle.
He didn’t really know what he felt about the board. On top of the messy display, he had written
Matt’s Brain
In big bold letters.
“I should really start talking to more people. The more I think, the crazier I think I get.”
That was the normal side of his mind. He knew he didn’t have to really listen to that. He also knew that it was right. He still didn’t have to listen to that.
He turned towards his bed again, and faced the massive glass wall that hung over it.
“The question really is, what do we do now?”
Faint music played in the background, or did it? Maybe he was imagining it. He could definitely pick out the piano playing. Definitely real.
He removed the marker from his pocket and uncapped it, like removing the sheath off of a sword.
The marker slid noiselessly on the glass, dropping its ink where it went,
- If I release it, then what?
“Then what, Matt - then it’s amazing. the whole world can see your brilliance and benefit from your great mind. It will change the world as it is. Nothing will ever be the same again. You wouldn’t even be able to look at a pencil in the same way again.”
- And what if it happens, what I fear?
He usually minced his words when he was with other people. He meant what he said, but not in the way he said it. He often wondered about what would happen if he had no filter, brain to mouth all the time. It was probably a good thing that he spent most of his time alone, guarded away from society’s menace. Only Satan knows what would happen to him he went around public like he went around alone.
“If that happens, then it’s the end. Everything ends. The ultimate end. No more nothing, void.”
He knew he was exaggerating, but sometimes it was important to see what the blackest night would look like. He always reassured himself by thinking that there would still be stars, but it really ruined his metaphor. He really enjoyed his broken and beautiful metaphors.
- Is it worth it?
The notes changed in the background, and he recognised the symphony. It was his favourite thing to listen to, when he was thinking because he felt it set his brain on fire.
“You have ten pills. Nine of them, change the world for the better. Revolutionise it like it has never been before. One of them, results in its end. Which one do you take?”
He walked around, unsatisfied. I have the power , but am I god?
He felt a pain, an emptiness of a kind he had been feeling ever since he had found what he was looking for. That’s the thing about success, none talks about what happens after it. All we think is happily ever after, we never stop to think that like everything else it is just a moment. And moments pass. They pass like water flowing down a slope. From the moment you get it, it is already fleeting, being replaced - either by emptiness, or an attempt to fill it, with something new to strive for.
In his case, it was worse. He had been working towards something that he never should have. He often wondered what Oppenheimer must have felt after the first successful test. Yet that was a different story. Oppenheimer had someone to blame, odds to fight against - a survival instinct. All he had was curiosity. It really makes you wonder about human choice and conscience. At what point will he get his objective achieved, without having active involvement.
Say, for instance, if he convinced someone to come down and make this decision for him. If we consider the case in which the man chooses to do it, does he have anything to do with his decision? Is it still his fault if something bad happens? Is it still his goodwill that changed the world for the better?
“I hate this. Shut up, just shut up. I don’t want to think about how cool the brain is and how it can be fooled or how it works. Just shut up. “
He threw the marker on the floor, but it bounced up and stuck him in the nose. For a moment, the pain fed his fire of fury, but it led to laughter instead.
The laugh started slow and built up so it sounded more like a cackle. Like how someone would react if they had lost everything and someone told them a really funny joke. Maybe that is not an apt comparison. Like how clowns laugh at things that are outside of their work. Laughter that is painful.
He sat down in the corner of the room and hugged his knees. He wanted to make himself so small that nobody would be able to see him. Nobody would be able to blame him for what he was about to do.
“About to do? About to do? hahahh. All along. There is no real decision here is there. I’ll have to either go insane or be driven insane. hahaahah.”
He beat his fist on the ground. It felt good. It felt real. He built up tension in his wrist and got up.
“Do it. Release them.”
The machine picked up the audio signal, and went to work. Simultaneously, a series of clicks were heard and a helmet was dropped somewhere in the wild.
People often speak at length about what would happen if a prehistoric man was put into the modern era (right from birth). It is an interesting idea to think about. If they were expreienced to the same faucets of imagination that we are, would they be able to keep up with modern era technology, or would their prehistoric brains be unable to grasp it all?
Humans tend to relate whatever they do not understand with a supernatural era. At first, fire was worshipped, and then, when it was fully understood, it was enslaved. Its a cycle for most things in the world for humanity, from bowing down to something, to understanding it and then to ultimately enslaving it.
The helmet had fallen in the world below. Matt had made sure that he did not know where it would be sent. He had made such a decision so that he couldn’t change the decision he made. He might not even be able to witness the change in the world, only to watch it change as a whole, be moulded in the shadows.
Alice loved to to play in the woods. She liked to imagine that the sticks were an obstacle course, and she used to rush through them as fast as she could, taking advantage of her youth and energy. She had become really good at navigating through the woods, and nobody else could match her talent in the woods.
A child stood by the fireplace. He was warming his hands. His father comes, they have a conversation about life and other people and what it means to be alive, we start to see why Frenkel thinks in the way he does.
cut back to the views and then the child explains the rest.
There was a divide in society, between the abstainers and the cynics. The cynics thought they lived life for what it truly was..? But the thing is that it conforms to your relative happiness, your state of absolute happiness, of absolute elation, whatever that may be. So I want to see Sven try on the helmet at some point..
Why were they wiped out?
They both woke up with a start. They weren’t on the couch anymore, but were sitting in a train compartment. They were sitting side to side, with the child sitting across them, focused on them. The train seemed to be moving and at the same time, it seemed to be completely still. The child was drinking what seemed to be a frothy latte.
“What is with the continuous change of scenery? You really like to show off don’t you?”
“The mind wanders. Why we are in a train compartment is not important, what’s important is what you understood from what I showed you.”
“Seemed like a movie to me.. “ said Sven nonchalantly.
“A mad scientist coming up with an invention that can change the world forever, or destroy it. Sounds like lame science fiction to me.”
“Lazy writing if you ask me.”
Sven and Frenkel high five over the table. The child shrugged and let out a laugh.
“Tough crowd huh?”
The child reached under the table and pulled out a helmet. It was huge and had brazen pipes running across its corners, like antlers that had been folded down. It had dents in some places. It looked like a crown for the king of nothing.
“What do you think this is?”
“Oh, I don’t know, do you like to imagine yourself as a king in your little acts?”
-This,” he keeps the helmet on the table, “..is the thing Matt created. A device, that could simulate pure happiness in your brain. With no side effects.”
His words rung out like a bell. The meaning of such a machine was starting to be understood by them. Frenkel had already begun to see how that would change the world. Sven, well Sven..
“Bullshit.”
“Go on then, try it on. I won’t stop you.”
“I’ve had enough of your hallucinations, “ said Sven as he reached for the helmet on the table and fastened it over his head.
“Be careful with that Sve…”
Sven was going to ask Frenkel to not worry, but before he could, he lost his voice. Oh and he also lost his consciousness. The writer slyly put his pad away.
Sven knew where he was. He knew exactly where he was.
Yet something felt different, although he knew where he was. He had recalled this specific memory of his a billion times, yet this was vastly different from all the times he remembered it.
They say that brains are very special in the way that they create an experience for the user. It has been a common theme in Philosophy to suggest that the reality that we experience is just the brain’s comprehension of the actual world, like how it interprets it, not how it really is. It is really fascinating to think about what that could possibly mean if the analogy was considered to be true. Was there something out there, something so different, something that we had never seen and at the same time as real as all of our experiences? As real as the touch of skin, or the feeling of a tear streaming down your face, or sweat dropping from your forehead? Just the thought of it has made you curious, or dare I say, excited to want to experience it and to believe in it.
That’s another curious fact about our lives and our experiences. Since our reality is just an illusion that is made by our brains as it really comprehends physical reality, we are aware of it. We are aware of the fact that we are alive. We are aware that somehow meat and bones have combined to give rise to ‘us’, whatever ‘us’ is. The second level of experience, is how we interpret our brain’s interpretation of the world. What I mean by that may be a bit confusing. Think about perspective. How we look at a certain incident or a certain memory of ours. While it is actually happening, it matters to the extent that our lives depend on it, and there is a different feeling on it that is impossible to put into words. Yet when we look back at it, we think of it as something that just happened. Like the past is just a story, a fiction, a tale, rather than our real conscious experience. But what if memories could be looked back at, and be as real as they were when they happened?
Sven hadn’t felt butterflies in his stomach for a while. There was a difference between being excited and being fearfully excited, and now he was leaning to towards the latter. It was an alien feeling to him, it really was. He knew what he was seeing was not real, it was a simulation, but he felt like it was. He knew it wasn’t but his body was telling him it was. The reality he knew was folding up inside him, and his emotions flowing through him, buried the connection between what was real and what was not, as he drowned into the memory.
There is a feeling that is almost worthy of turning you into another version of yourself. Its like you have physical filth over you. Its like you rolled in oil and you couldn’t wash it off. That’s what Sven felt like when he didn’t work out in the mornings. There is a vast contrast and a change, going from working out twice a day to not working out at all.
Sven was a secretive person by nature. He kept to himself and minded his own business, most of the time. The problem with being like that is when you fall in love, you fall hard.
And that is exactly what happened with him, exactly what one would expect
Time flows uninterrupted. Always. Marching forward raising both impending doom and arising reincarnation. Empires rise and fall, men die and live. Time lies unaffected. Does it even exist, then? Is it just a human construct then, if it isn’t affected by human thought. But it is affected by human thought isn’t it. We can change our image of time and our perception of it will change. Maybe its not as constant as we think it is. Maybe its just for our convenience then. But that reality of time is only our interpretation of it. Our argument for what it is. Its fundamental and abstract. Its elusive yet definitely real. Everyone knows what it is, but no one can really understand it. It is a mystery in plain sight, a carrot dangling in front of our eyes, an ornament in a museum. And yet it marches forward, taking with it - days, seasons, lives and species.
The young boy refused to be part of this unending cycle of time. He hated being unable to understand something, and he loathed the mysteries of the universe. A true scientist.
Sven knew exactly where he was. Standing in that room, there was no way to be mistaken. This was exactly where it had happened.
A glass cube. His greatest invention. He snorted, greatest invention.
Nothing beats an upward trajectory. The tragedy of life is that you can waste it away by thinking. The blessing is that nobody dares to.
Thoughts, thoughts, lovely beautiful thoughts. Ideas, experiments, thoughts. What if and what now. Questions, so many questions. This is where it all happened. This is where he roamed and did it. This is where he felt at home. There was always another approach, another idea that they could try, something they had missed. Something left to be consolidated. A pile, two piles - piles and piles of paper lay at his feet, the world danced to his rhytym.
“I am no longer your prisoner, mother. I have eyes and I can see. I have a mind so I can think.”
Curiosity. Such an interesting concept. Why must we try to understand something that has nothing to do with us?
But I must know. I must understand how such a thing can exist, how ti works, how it functions, how it runs, what makes it run? why does it run? What caused it to run? Why why why why
Break it down, into smaller and smaller and smaller pieces. Solve the infinitesmal and build it up. Lay layer over layer of equations, built like tearing down the Berlin wall, resting on it the backbone of man’s progress, the torch being carried from one hand to another, a will being stated again and again with no change. A thought shared by generations and generations and millions of people coming together to answer
Why?
Sven takes the helmet off. (Voila!)
Frenkel studies Sven closely, to see if he could understand the effects of what Sven must have seen. The helmet lay now on the table separating them and the child.
“So… that was something.”
Sven looked a little lost, a little shook up, like he’d started eating lunch and someone took his plate from him. His eyes remained stern though, with an unsettling firmness about them.
“And, this was given to anyone who wanted it?”
Sven voiced the question out to the group.
The child hesitated for a second. It could be seen that he expected this question, and given his previous acts, it wouldn’t be surprising for him to pull out a visualisation and a pointer and start explaining everything.
“The helmet was dropped in a forest in (insert place here). Believe it or not, a child found it first. You know a child’s curiosity - he couldn’t wait to put it on. It’s not completely understood as to what happened to him, but the next thing that we know is that he was found dead, along with his whole family. The helmet became its own religion. Each and every person who put on the helmet, didn’t want to take it off. And when they did, it led to the vicious cycle that you’d imagine.”
“Science has progressed … to this level.. impact on society?”