When he stepped out onto the front porch, thick clouds gorged with water and electricity were rolling above the city, choking the light out of the sun like a wooly blanket of dark cotton. Having peered out the front bay-window after his lukewarm shower, he had noticed the coming storm and dressed accordingly: black corduroy pants, plaid gray shirt, charcoal vest and red bowtie, as well as his favorite tweed jacket to keep him warm, along with the long trench coat and black top hat to ward off the inbound rain.
He locked the front door with his ornate bronze key and made his way down the seven steps to the cobblestone street, bundle securely supported by his left hand. The piklink, covered in a thick waxy waterproof tarp, weighed approximately eight or nine kilos and he felt confident that, despite his frail and aging body, he could carry it all the way to his destination without cramping or too much soreness.
It was already late morning and he noticed here and there up and down the way several ladies pushing baby strollers, lugging fashionable handbags, carrying foodstuffs for the family meals. The gentile dames were wrapped in layers of poofy underskirts and thick colored dresses that made him think of a parade of onions – peel off the top layers and the smell would make the hardiest of gentlemen cry.
He set off down the walkway at a brisk pace, defying the chilling early autumn wind laden with moisture and dust particulates, a rush of air that slapped his coattails, clawed at his bare cheeks and carried a tumult of leaves from the tall oaks lining the street. He rounded the corner, pushing on, his mind busily running over the arguments of his presentation.
The half dozen blocks to the University were so familiar to him that he barely noticed Mr. and Mrs. Hennessey as they cordially saluted him and enquired about his health. He simply had no time for the petty and ephemeral interests of the oblivious and marched blindly on without turning or responding. He had used up much shoe leather on these streets, making his way to the Oxford faculty of engineering building where he used to teach the younger generation of enlightened minds and able hands.
That was well over four years ago, before he lost his position as senior lecturer, before he lost his Elise and their unborn child. These days, most of his time was spent in the attic of the townhouse his father-in-law had purchased for his daughter and her husband, where he tinkered with wires, batteries, cogs, pulleys and levers, barely preventing his writhing soul from sinking into the sea of angst and depression that steadily eroded his will.
He was alone. His reputation as a reclusive oddball hermit was well deserved and he clung to it like a badge of honor.
Halfway to the University, a powerful gust blew in with such force that it dislodged the top hat from his skull. With his free hand, he made a desperate grab for the hat, sending him off balance and threatening to topple the precious package he carried. Grudgingly, he let the hat fly off to right himself as he felt the piklink slip away and regained his balance with less composure and grace than Guillaume, the local drunken Frenchman who resided a few houses down the street from him (but basically lived at the local pub). By then, his top hat was rolling merrily down the alley, until it hit the puddle of muck that had accumulated, for decades no doubt, behind O’Malley’s establishment.
Grinding his teeth to stave off the string of unoriginal blasphemy (“disingenuous fancy-dressed dunderhead!” he silently cursed himself), he lowered his exposed balding head, closed his eyes and blew a long shuddering sigh out from his nose. The hat was probably ruined and it would certainly not make good impression on the Dean to walk in with a soiled headdress, he tried to convince himself. Yet he could not bring himself to abandon the coif to its drowning – he set the wrapped piklink down inside the alley’s narrow and protected vestibule and retrieved the drenched and smelly hat.
Refusing to sully his cranium, he returned to his precious package and set the hat on the tall metallic mast under the tarp before proceeding on his journey. Distracted by the demise of his favorite hat, he bumped into a young boy, barely waist-tall, as he exited the alley.
“Oy Mister, watch it!”
“My humble apologies, young lad!”
“Humpf!” The boy retorted with a snort but stayed his ground, barely a foot away for him. “What you got there Mister?” challenged the boy coyly as he planted his fists on his hips like an old lady chastising her son.
The boy was looking up beyond and above him, staring at the silky bundle. However much he would have liked – reveled – in explaining to the boy the mechanics of his contraption, he apologized again, this time with tight lips, and walked on.
“ARSHOLE!” the boy called out behind him for everyone out and about to hear.
Chastising himself for his carelessness with a thorny mental whip, he plodded onwards. He reached the campus in little time and with no further incidents or run-ins though he did attract the stares of a couple of vagrants, which he conscientiously ignored. The piklink was getting heavier with each step forward and he shifted his package from hand to hand to relieve the stress on his aching muscles. On the morrow, he knew he would feel the strain all along his upper body, hopefully without regret.
The engineering building was just up ahead now, around the bend and down the spruce-lined walkway. He increased the cadence of his footfalls as he felt the strength leaving him, the sweat drawing his reserves thin through the pores of his chest, forehead and underarms.
After wiping the soles of his shoes on the straw mat, he set his shoulder against the great ironclad door that led inside the bowels of academia’s administrative core and pushed with what energy he had left. The heavy door groaned but ceded and he quickly stepped inside the thick warm air laden with the odors of old cigars, burning firewood and Victorian sensibilities. The door swung back on its hinges slowly and clamped shut, cutting the wind’s whistling short with a muffled clank.
In the large hearth at the centre of the hall burned a dying fire that shed more smoke than heat. He walked over to the fireplace, piklink still tightly clutched to his breast, over the Kashmiri rug that covered the wooden parquet. With the care of a mother tending to a newborn, he set the package down once again and squatted before the flames to warm his pink hands, chilled by the weather, drained of blood by the tension that coursed through him. He grabbed a log and set it over the golden embers, adjusted its position with the poker, and rubbed his quivering palms.
When the fire caught on the bark of the fresh log, he rose slowly and tried to calm himself. He lifted the piklink off the ground and moved to his left, down to the doorway leading to the Dean’s office. Before he could reach the thin pine doors to the administrators’ offices, they swung inwards as if anticipating his coming.
“Mr. Laxen! What a pleasant surprise!” called a delicate feminine voice from the threshold. “How do you do, sir?”
The voice was like a stinging jab that caught him off guard. It belonged to Ms. Annabelle Williams, a pretty clerk overseeing student affairs under the Dean’s supervision.
In his days as a lecturer here, Ms. Williams had been a good friend although she had made it crystal clear that her interests reached far beyond friendship. She had been Mrs. Glasgow at the time, a blue-eyed nymph with a sharp wit, a calculating mind and less than half his age. Though he had been equally attracted to her, he had already committed himself to a union with Elise and could not bare the dishonor of betraying his wife. In the meantime, Annabelle had married a colleague from the faculty, a pretentious little man named Henry Williams who had made a name for himself by rebutting some obscure Lord’s position regarding the steam engine’s usefulness as a weapon for military conquest.
“Mrs. Williams! Uh –“ he stuttered and blushed. “I’m running late, actually. Would you happen to know if Dean Stockwell is in his office per chance?”
“Why yes, I believe he is at his desk right now. Shall I accompany you to his secretary’s office?” she asked, wide-eyed with yearning and anticipation. Obviously the flame she carried for him had not been snuffed by her arrangement with Mr. Williams.
“Much obliged, Ms. Williams, but that won’t be necessary. I know the way quite well, thank you,” he said too quickly, noticeably disappointing the lady who kept the door open for him.
“Well then sir,” she said with a sullen look, eyes downcast, “I must carry on. Always a pleasure.”
She walked off and away from him as he stepped through the baying doorframe, refusing to look back to her. He bore down and swallowed his regrets deep beyond the pit of his stomach. Immediately, he knew he had failed to demonstrate good manners by not enquiring about her and her family. This added to the long accumulated guilt he carried preciously like his piklink, guilt for his own miserable choices.
But this was not a day for regret. There had been no compromise in the past and he was not about to concede to bygone desires, which in any case remained as inaccessible now as the day he had felt that sinful attraction for her. His research and his work had always taken precedence and, what remained today must take priority over his personal feelings and flights of fancy. After all, his priorities had to be focused on honor and respect, moral integrity and above all, industriousness and productivity, in order to secure his ascension beyond this mortal levity.
The thoughts were unwelcome at this time – he had completely failed to anticipate this chance meeting, which made them even more unsettling.
“Focus Freddy, focus!” he whispered to himself, recalling his tactics and strategies to persuade the Dean.
At the end of the hallway, the door to the Dean’s office suite was open and he walked in, anxiety now running wild. In the reception antechamber, an elderly secretary sat protecting the only access to the Dean’s personal office with a massive mahogany desk covered with files and loose papers, a large inkwell with several feathered styli and a polished tin plaque bearing her name in block letters: G. GREENWOOD. He recalled the day when she had been hired and the Dean had introduced her to him in his office on the third floor as Ms. Gertrude Greenwood. At present, Ms. Greenwood was expertly working the telegraph machine, potentially arranging an appointment for Mr. Stockwell. She motioned him to sit and wait with the wave of her gnarled hand. No welcoming smile, no acknowledging glance. That too, he remembered well about her – an uncanny lack of manners and consideration for the staff whom she treated with derision and contempt.
He set the piklink next to one of the three burgundy sofas, pulled his damaged hat from under the tarp and set it atop the back of the coat rack along with his trench coat, before sinking in the soft and rubbery leather seat. The room was sparsely decorated – a few framed diplomas marked with red wax seals typical of Oxford graduates; two photographs, one of Stockwell’s family and one in his royal military uniform; the Stockwell family coat-of-arms bearing a knight’s silver helmet above a roaring lion up on its hind legs; a few trinkets lining the bookcase’s top shelf, family heirlooms no doubt; and a miniature replica of Big Ben on a marble pedestal in the far east corner, opposite the Dean’s office door.
After a few minutes, Ms. Greenwood turned away from the communication device to face him, and he started to rise to introduce himself but was interrupted, half bent, when the old hag motioned him silently to remain seated. He complied with a grimace and returned to the contemplation of his scheme. Meanwhile, Mr. Stockwell’s door remained out of reach unless he felt ready to physically tackle the office guardian and Ms. Greenwood shuffled papers in and out of beige and brown folders like a professional paper-pusher.
Without raising her head to meet his gaze, she hoarsely spat out his name like a diseased tooth to let him know he could now approach without fear of decapitation or castration. He picked up the wrapped piklink and approached the desk that dwarfed the old lady.
“Ms. Greenwood, I have-”
“Mr. Laxen,” she repeated, cutting him off, and stared him down like a fey queen from her midsummer throne, “I feel obliged to inform you that despite Mr. Stockwell very kindly agreeing to meet you today, neither of us have forgotten the disturbing events that led to your termination here at the University.”
“I ca-” She had paused just long enough for him to utter those two syllables when she resumed her stern verbal reproof.
“In the interest of decency, I urge you to find within yourself some shred of self-respect to preserve the decorum of this esteemed institution and contemplate your words with measure and deference when addressing Mr. Stockwell.”
Not forgotten, nor forgiven, he thought to himself, waiting for the secretary to instruct him of the appropriate moment to speak.
She stared at him for a few seconds, eyes half closed looking above the lenses perched atop her bony nose, before she widened her gaze, giving him the go ahead.
“Thank you, Ms. Greenwood. I shall do my very best to abide by your wise counsel.” He bowed slightly but would have rather rammed his fist down her throat to yank out her forked tongue.
“Mr. Stockwell has been waiting for you for well over half an hour now, Mr. Laxen,” she pursued. “You may go ahead, provided you knock to announce your presence.”
“Of course, Ms. Greenwood,” he conceded meekly. “Thank you, Ms. Greenwood.”
“Come in!” Mr. Stockwell’s voice pierced through the thin door that separated his office from the waiting room after he had knocked. He turned the handle, stepped in and closed the door behind him, relieved that the old harpy was now out of sight.
“Ah, Frederic Laxen, old chap!” the Dean intoned jovially as he pushed his chair back and rose to greet him. The office of the Dean of the faculty of engineering had not changed much since his departure from the University, save a few additional with hairs in his mane and mustache.
The room was smaller than the antechamber but the high ceiling combined with the entirely mirrored western wall gave the impression that the office was considerably bigger than it was in reality. The northern wall behind Mr. Stockwell’s desk had been redone into a floor-to-ceiling bookcase holding hundreds of leather bound volumes, most likely just for show given engineers’ reputation that had little to do with reading, except perhaps instruction manuals.
“Dean Stockwell. Thank you for agreeing to meet with me today,” he said, returning the greeting formally.
They clasped hands firmly with a small jolt of their forearms and Mr. Stockwell grabbed his shoulder with his free hand, a smile painted across his thick dark lips topped with a trimmed salt and pepper mustache.
“Please, Fred,” the Dean motioned with his right hand to the two large seats before the desk, “may I call you Fred?”
No.
“But of course, Mr. Stockwell!” He rested the piklink once again on the ground by the second empty chair and both men sat facing each other across the vast expanse of tinted and varnished teakwood. The small table lamp on the desk projected an emerald tinge onto the Dean’s skin, giving him a sickly appearance in the dim of the office.
“So what brings you by the office today, Fred? I imagine you are not here to reminisce about the good old days!” he giggled sarcastically.
“No, sir, I have actually taken the liberty to bring to your attention an incredible opportunity that could raise the status of this engineering department and of the University as a whole, not to mention contribute immensely to our Kingdom’s foreign campaigns.”
“An opportunity, you say? Do tell! Does this have to do with your package there?” The Dean enquired, half amused, half intrigued.
“It does indeed, Mr. Stockwell,” he sat forward, readjusting his position in the large armchair, “and if you would be so kind as to indulge me for a few minutes, I would very much like to provide some introductory remarks before unveiling this wonderful machine.”
“By all means, Fred!” The Dean leaned forward and opened a lacquered wooden box to retrieve a fat cigar that he offered his visitor.
“I’m afraid my health would not allow me such an extravagance and the pleasure it provides would be lost upon me,” he said, hoping not to offend his host.
The Dean merely raised his shoulders, leaned back against the headrest and crossed one leg over the other at the knee as he fished a matchbox out from his waistcoat pocket. “Please,” Mr. Stockwell signaled for him to proceed while he struck the match and brought its flame to the foot of the tobacco log. Instantly, he could smell the harsh alkaloids it released, irritating his mucosa.
“I fathom you are already well aware of Nikola Tesla’s revolutionary theories on electromagnetism, emerging from the Graz Polytechnic in Austria earlier this year.”
“Yes, I’m aware of the young man’s potential but I imagine you have also heard about the controversy that has followed him beyond the Polytechnic?” Already, the Dean was showing his skepticism through the smoky aura.
“In truth, Tesla’s administrative situation at the Polytechnic has little impact on the actual merit of his postulates.” He cleared his throat to avoid coughing impolitely, and continued. “As men of science, we are duty-bound to consider the validity of his theories beyond the character of the man who formulates them. In any case, I will recognize truth in your assertion, sir, but since my…,” an unfortunate pause, “departure from the faculty, I’ve collected his works and publications and applied them as best I could with some important modifications.”
“Yes?” the Dean inquired, more or less impressed, billowing out smoke like a coal locomotive slowing to a stop.
“Despite being labeled as esoteric or even occult in some circles, Tesla’s models and calculations are in and of themselves quite innovative and brilliant in my opinion. He hypothesized that with sufficient electromagnetic energy, matter can be broken down to base molecules and reassembled at a later time or even location. Already he’s demonstrated that a shifting magnetic field can be constructed using two coils with a ninety-degree phase difference. In addition, his latest postulates indicate that adding a third coil and supplying all of them with unequal current could generate a rotating field. That shifting rotating field could potentially generate the energy required for the electromolecular process to begin.”
“I follow your and his line of thought, Fred,” the Dean looked him straight in the eye, almost defiant, furrowing his brow into a large bushy V that almost hid his pupils. “But esoterics aside, there are inherent flaws in the mechanics of the proposition, that is, in the resulting matrix of energy where the fields would inevitably collapse. Is that not the case, Fred?”
“I would agree, in principle, that the instability inherent in Tesla’s electrodynamic flux is a potential problem. However, with the additions and modifications I’ve made to the model, I believe that the field can be stabilized effectively.” The Dean was picking under his nails with the tip of one of the pens strewn on the surface of the desk. “In fact, Mr. Stockwell, my model includes not two or three coils but eight, disposed in a mobile oscillating arrangement plotted on a flexible fractal pattern. In such a case, the field is not only stabilized but is strengthened, and exponentially so!”
“Well,” the Dean began, very serious now, discarding the pen and righting himself in his armchair, “with all due respect, that is simply preposterous!” Mr. Stockwell interlaced his fingers above the blotter covering his workspace. “Not only would that be virtually impossible to setup mechanically, but the idea of an exponentially self-reinforcing electromagnetic energy field would require immense energetic inputs!” He saw something like pity in the Dean’s eyes. Yet again.
“Indeed,” he agreed in order to calm the rapidly souring mood, “the energy requirements would vastly surpass what is available in an individual’s laboratory. However, the engineering department of a well-resourced University would-”
“Let me interrupt you right here, old friend. Although your ideas may be admirable, I foresee your request and can not imagine how this department could generate such power sufficient to yield the results you are seeking. God Almighty, your hypothesis would likely require as much electricity as that consumed in London in a full year!” The Dean’s voice was strained with annoyance and a dash of contempt.
“I do not believe so, Mr. Stockwell. My calculations indicate-”
“Calculations aside, Mr. Laxen, Oxford can simply not be investing limited resources in dubious projects generated by ex-professors, especially those terminated for misconduct! In addition, you must already have realized that the faculty’s laboratories could never generate the kind of charge you would need to demonstrate incontrovertible proof to achieve your objectives!” The Dean paused and he relaxed visibly for an instant, lowering the tone of his voice. “Please, Mr. Laxen,” Mr. Stockwell pleaded genuinely this time, “although I admire your courage and perseverance, the proposal you have brought forth here today is simply untenable!”
“But, Mr. Stockwell, I-” he tried again.
“Enough, Fred!” came Mr. Stockwell’s curt retort.
“Please sir, let me show you the model device I’ve constructed to-”
“Absolutely not! Again, Mr. Laxen, understand that the University is an institution with well-established and clear policies and procedures with which we must all conform. All of us!” The statement was solidifying around old accusations and its finality was all but inescapable.
“But-”
“Thank you for coming today Mr. Laxen,” the Dean soothed his voice as he rose to indicate the end of the discussion. “I wish you all the best in your endeavors. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have another appointment for which I must prepare. Goodbye Fred. Please keep yourself well.” The Dean extended his right hand, not for shaking, but rather pointing to the door behind his guest.
He was suddenly drained of hope and miffed by this narrow attitude. “Thank you, sir,” he said formulaically before picking up the piklink and walking out. The weight of the machine had apparently multiplied in the course of the last few minutes. He passed through the antechamber where he gathered his attire, out into the hall and outside where growling thunder greeted him like a great wyrm woken from a thousand year slumber.
He set off towards his home, tired and exasperated by the wasted time and energy invested in what had obviously been a futile attempt guided by logic and reason. It seemed that rationality was secondary to preserving institutional habits, even in one of the world’s most revered and advanced learning centres. Bitterness and frustration washed over him as he treaded the road back to his home.
The clouds overhead were just about ready to burst and unleash the torrential downpour that had been promised since the early hours of the day. Streaks of lightening coursed horizontally, splitting into diverging nodes of bright light just below the cloud cover. The occasional grumble followed those distant flashes, as if the sound was trying to catch up with the light, like a dog chasing after its own tail.
Though he loved humanity and the potential the whole race carried deep within its bosom, untapped and dormant, he had long felt a profound hatred for each and every person around him, a dark and powerful feeling that now rose to his consciousness with this most disheartening of disappointments – the simple fools he kept as neighbors, the insolent and impudent boy from the alley, the vain and arrogant Mr. Williams and the immoral temptations his wife forced upon those around her, the vindictive and unforgiving Ms. Greenwood, and most of all, the righteous and dismissive Mr. Stockwell. They were all guilty of being deeply flawed beings who consistently refused to grow beyond their instincts for immediate self-gratification and failed to see that latent hibernating promise of greatness, embracing instead a self-fulfilling prophecy of mediocrity and apathy.
The trial and judgment of his fellow man was interrupted by a thunderclap that deafened him for a few moments and he stopped, dead in his tracks. A bolt of lightening had struck one of the trees less than a hundred yards ahead, parting the centennial trunk lengthwise and toppling both halves in a slow crackling fiery descent across the road. As he looked upon the scene, people came out of their houses to gawk and stare at the disaster, whispering words of thanks to a heavenly protector who had had the good will to preserve nearby houses and their residents.
Light drops of water came from the heavens in response, either to quench the flames licking the old tree and its remaining tufts of leaves or to press the onlookers to curb their curiosity and return to their own affairs. However, despite the rapidly intensifying pitter-patter around him, he did not feel the urge to resume his course, afraid to interrupt, or worse, to lose the precious insight that had come upon him.
Indeed, he thought to himself, this was a sign of some divine fortune, for inspiration had been rekindled with that which he had just witnessed, along with hope for his creation’s success. Securing the loose ends of the new plan into a tight knot, he hastily raced the rest of the way to the battered cottage that was his shelter, work place, and protective chrysalis from the ubiquitous evils of this world. So fixated was he that he let his top hat be carried off into the blustery weather, this time making no attempt to retrieve it.
By the time he reached his dwelling, the afternoon sky had gone dark as a moonless night while the rain had become a deluge that poured and seeped all the way through to his undergarments. He wasted no time hanging his coat or shedding the soaked garments and instead climbed to the attic, taking the stairs by twos despite his creaking joints, hugging the piklink as if it were a child being rescued from an inferno, spraying rainwater all along the way.
He kicked open the door to the makeshift laboratory he had set up, placed the piklink on his workbench and turned to rummage the aluminum chest in which he kept the tools of his trade. He pulled out a pair of insulated asbestos gloves along with large wire cutters, which he set down next to the piklink, turned towards the closet at the back of the attic and pulled out a coil of think hemp rope. As if the devil were after him, he ran back to his workbench, dropped to one knee with one end of the rope in his hand and tied a knot worthy of a seasoned seaman to the leg of the table. He gave the rope the strongest tug he could to ensure that the knot would support the weight and the ground bolts would hold the bench in place. Fumbling with the remainder of the rope coil, he slipped it around his waist once, passed the rope around again to his back and pulled the rope from under his groin around his left leg, and again around the right leg, before securing another solid knot below his navel.
Retrieving the wire cutters and slipping on the gloves, he jumped to unlatch the small window whose glass panes had been covered with old newspapers for privacy. The roaring wind pushed the storm into the attic, lifting a flurry of loose papers and small and light objects all around the room. Braving the rain, he craned his neck outside – first to the right and then down. A long three-storey way down.
But confidence boiled in his blood, more so than when he had had to face Stockwell an hour or so earlier. Grabbing hold of the window frame, he lifted himself up and swung a leg into the storm, then the other. The sloping ledge just below the window was barely a foot wide, probably slippery with wet leaves, but sturdy enough to resist the brief journey. He lowered the full weight of his body onto the ledge slowly and cautiously until his footing was secure. The billowing wind coming between him and the outside wall kept threatening to wrench him from his precarious perch. In the thick clumsy gloves, he clung awkwardly to the smallest of handholds to keep himself from falling, edging his feet inch by inch towards the neighbors’ house. Every sidestep was demanding and his concentration labored to prevent the shivers from overcoming his delicate maneuvers.
He kept his mind on the task at hand and his eyes from wandering to the ground below, intent on the telltale promise that he had been offered earlier. His right hand finally clasped firmly on the wire that led up to the lightning rod standing tall on the rooftop. With his other hand, he reached for the wire cutters and, bracing one of the pliers’ legs against the wall, snapped the thick copper thread as low as close to the ground as he could manage.
He let the cutters fall down below to the mud and he heard a wet splash as they hit the ground. He pulled the wire outward, ripping the small metal tacks from the worn planks of the house’s façade, which had kept it in place. Thankfully, the ground wire came free without much effort and he started back towards the small window whose shutter had been banging open and shut for the duration of his escapade.
The rain was dripping into his eyes so he simply shut them to avoid the temptation to look down. It took only a few minutes to slide his way back inside, dragging behind and above him the electric lead, hoping that the lightning would not hit just yet.
Back inside the attic, he brought the tip of the wire to the workbench (with less than a foot to spare), and closed the window, jamming the cord in the sill. He then stripped off the wet clothes that stuck to his body like a frosty leech and uncovered the piklink, wrapping the tarp around his waist to generate a false sense of decency rather than to regain lost body heat.
The contraption he had built over the last ten months was a rather delicate machine with a wide metal disc at the base, overlaid by a series of layered saucers of smaller and smaller diameters, all of them magnetized. Each metal plate had been punctured along the edge and fine solid but non-conductive strings had been carefully woven into those holes to generate the complex movement to reproduce the fractal pattern required to fit his theory. Although the device included more than six hundred and fifty such plates, the top layer supported the eight coils that would oscillate without ever colliding to produce the desired magnetic field. At the centre of the base protruded a tall aluminum mast that activated the rotation of the base wheel with a small electric motor.
He proceeded to secure the lightning rod’s severed ground wire to the motor and stood back, watching, waiting for lightning to strike and activate his precious device with enough energy to create its electromagnetic field. He could still hear the thunder beyond the walls over his galloping heartbeat and above the pummeling rain, and he could still make out the electrical discharges in the upper atmosphere from the ghostly flickers through the blotchy and ink-stained window. He sat and waited patiently.
When the cold got the better of him, he ran down to put on some fresh clothes. He set the kettle to boil some tea and, while on the ground level, he grabbed an umbrella nearby the main doorway, deployed its protection and ventured on the front porch. He looked up to the sky as best he could without getting too wet and to confirm the magnitude of the storm. The severed ground wire danced limply above his head in the thunderstorm, like a tress of unwanted hair caught in whirlwind. He ventured beyond the porch, onto the muddy grounds to retrieve the wire cutters.
By the time he found his mud-covered tool and returned inside, the kettle was screaming for attention. He dragged himself to the kitchen and poured himself a welcome cup of Ceylonese tea, added his milk and sugar, and settled on the cushions of the living room couch. The day’s palpitations and excitement caught up with him all at once as he took in his first swallow. Before he could drink anymore, he succumbed to his body’s crying need for rest and rejuvenation. The cup of hot tea spilled on the couch and rolled down on the rug. His snores were deep but not undisturbed.
***
He is sitting on a tall throne in a wide hall of marble and gold. The hall sits at the pinnacle of a tall mountain peak that coexists with the white clouds in the open skies. Beyond the hall, a thousand fountains jettison water that runs down the slopes into azure rivers and crystal streams winding through a thick green forest rolling down on each side as far as the eye can see.
He is there, but he is not there. The person on the throne is wearing his face but he is not in control of the voice that comes out from his mouth. He is Kronos, and he is calling for his children to return to the Hall of Makers. His powerful voice shakes all of Olympus. He has been waiting for this day for several eons and finally the day has come. But his children are late or, more likely, afraid to face their creator. But he is patient. He is time itself.
After centuries of patience and resolve, it is not the children that first appear. It is Gaia, his estranged wife, wearing the features of Annabelle, who comes to him. Her eyes are the deep blue seas and he glimpses schools of fish and whales swimming in the depth of the orbs. She has come to dissuade him but they have had this argument before and he grows impatient and angry with her.
Her voice is a peaceful orchestra of the leaves rustling in the wind, of waves lapping sandy shores, of chirping spring birds and of mewling newborns. She pleads for mercy for their children once again, spilling seawater and few fish along with it as her tears streak her cheeks. When her tears hit the marble floor, tall trees sprout instantly but they barely reach Gaia’s ankles.
Furious, Kronos’ tectonic voice erupts, cracking the very foundations of Olympus, the rumbling of continents colliding, eyes burning with molten rock and metal behind his star-like pupils of infinite empty chaos. The children are small, petty and selfish and they no longer deserve to rule. They have sealed their own fates with their own actions.
It is then that the three prodigal sons decide to return. Carved of his own flesh and nursed in his wife’s fluids, they have grown with the same visage – that of Mr. Stockwell – with attires that suit their stations: Zeus in royal regalia, Poseidon covered in fish scales, and Hades in a halo of fire. The three brothers step toward their father, united and confident.
“The rule of the Titans is over, Kronos!” barks Zeus, waving his thunderbolt. “Olympus is not for you! Leave now before I remove your last remaining testicle!”
Poseidon and Hades laugh heartily, pleased with the insult but also pleased that Zeus would now be the first to draw their father’s ire.
“I have been gone for far too long, my sons,” concedes Kronos. “During that time, I had hoped to see you grow and mature, become responsible beings! Instead, your petty warring and scheming have ruined the world I have bequeathed you! You have gravely disappointed me and I am here to take back what I should have never left under your care!”
“Bequeathed?” asks Zeus incredulous, looking to his brothers for support. “We took this world from you!”
“Silly children,” Kronos shakes his head from side to side, “your arrogance is commensurate with your ignorance. I am Father Time and there is Mother Nature,” Kronos points to a passive Gaia off to the side of the great Olympian hall. “You dare believe that you can take what we do not wish to give? Indeed, this purge of you and yours is a fitting punishment for your blasphemy against the Elders so the world can be made right again!”
“We have grown in strength and power, Father Time. We welcome your attempts to discipline your children but I think you will find that we have matured and can resist your yoke!”
“The Elders made the Titans and they share my disappointment. Your divine armies cannot withstand the fury of the Titans, especially since they have entrusted me with this mission and the means to accomplish it! Your downfall is at hand. The human you have created no longer believe in or even fear you! Your powers are dwindling my poor children!”
“Brother Poseidon, lend me you trident! Brother Hades, lend me your scythe! Our weapons combined will rid us of this old fool once and for all!”
“So be it then! Your choices will mark all the worlds now and forever because of your infantile insolence!” Kronos closes eyes that could fill universes and spreads his arms wide, calling upon the Elders’ return…
Gaia is looking away, spilling more tears…
And the energy of the Titan Kronos engulfs Olympus and the mountain crumbles like a child’s sand castle. All that light… so much noise…
***
Frederic Laxen woke up because of the cold. But it was not only cold – it was also quite wet. Groggy and still half-asleep, he felt disoriented and confused given that he could not determine where he was in the deep of the darkness around him. However, it took just a few seconds to realize that he was naked, outside, and it was still raining.
The chilling wind combined with the autumnal rainfall activated his exposed skin and produced a plethora of goose bumps. The bitter wind drilled into the marrow of his very bones and forced his mind awake rather abruptly. However, the familiar surroundings of his hovel were gone, lost into obscurity so deep he silently hoped he was still dreaming or lost in a nightmare. Squinting and scanning, he detected no light shining around him despite the many heartbeats that had already gone by since his rude awakening.
Lying there on the ground, he could feel himself covered in sleek wet mud. He tried to gather himself and stand but the mud was so slippery that he fell twice before he could regain his footing and stand upright. It was like standing on the alluvial banks of a river recently drained. Despite the darkness, he felt shame for his nakedness and panic was quickly laying siege upon his mind.
The darkness was so overwhelming, so profound and total that he figured himself trapped between sleep and wakefulness, in that dark place where death can snatch up the souls of mortals and carry them to their rightful destinations, be it hell, purgatory or paradise. He sunk back to his knees with a splash and a whimper, whispering the words of prayers he had thought forgotten since Elise’s passing, hoping that this was the onset of his soul’s purging rather than the entrance to Hell described by Dante.
Though time was difficult to measure in this dark ocean, he could tell that already several minutes had gone by since his awakening. The rain and ensuing cold gnawed at him incessantly and he suddenly sneezed loudly. Sneezed? No one had ever talked about catching the common flu in the afterlife! Yes, the air still smelled of Oxford, the seasonal compost of leaves and mud, human refuse and stale ales spilled into the streets. But where had it all gone?
He regained his feet once again, this time more securely without collapsing into the mud around him. After a few minutes of spinning round upon himself searching for familiar bearings, he could barely make out faint lights glistening on the horizon, reflected in the juices in the wide and expansive plain around him. Far away in the distance, the dancing lights could be coming from dwellings…
Then the sky lit up. A spray of crackling lightning illuminated the heavens and the clouds overhead. “I’m still in Oxford!” Indeed, with the burst of natural light, he was able to make out the shadows of houses beyond the vast plain around him. But there were no mudflats in Oxford!
“What in the heavens happened here?” he cried, face turned skyward, not really hoping for a response (though one would have been most welcome).
As he uttered those words, he recalled the events that had led him here: the meeting with Dean Stockwell, the lightning splitting the great oak, the perilous stroll on the tiny ledge of his dwelling, the piklink and his revolutionary electromagnetic theory of matter transformation…
Like the streak of lightning that rippled across the skies, it all came back to him in a flash. The piklink! It worked! His theory was sound! Matter could be transformed and reconstituted with adequate manipulations! “I DID IT!” he yelled at the top of his cloistered lungs. He closed his eyes, reveling in the feeling of accomplishment against the odds of doubting peers…
“Oh my dear Lord, what have I done?!” He looked down at this feet covered in what he now desperately hoped was natural mud. But he knew then that it was not. The lightning strike had effectively powered the piklink as he had hoped but to an extent so great that it had transmogrified all matter around him into the primordial soup in which he now stood – houses, trees, and people alike were now a stew that his bare feet trampled impetuously. He was paralyzed with the weight of the ultimate responsibility that fell squarely upon him, naked and alone in a pit of cold darkness.
Another lightning bolt flared above his head, above the clouds even. In that instant, he could estimate the extent of the disaster he had visited upon his friends, neighbors and old colleagues. “The crater has must have eaten the entire campus, beyond O’Malley’s pub, all across the neighborhood! All that matter! All those people! Dear Lord, what have I done?!”
More bolts of electricity crackled up above and he felt an ominous foreboding, a feeling of dread that he could not escape wherever he turned, wherever he ran. There was no place to hide, no way out. His scientific efforts had been a success mired in disaster and he would surely be lynched by angry mobs once they realized he was the architect of this devastation.
His brain raced with too many uncomfortable truths, too many uncertain propositions. The perilous mental exercise concentrated on one thought that steadily returned and solidified: “Why not me?” he asked himself. “Why am I still here, alive, when all others have gone? Am I already being punished by the Lord in Heaven?”
The lightning storm continued to rage and illuminate the barren plain with greater and greater intensity and speed. He was no meteorologist but he had never seen or heard of such a phenomenon, even in the worst thunderstorms – in fact, there was no thunder at all! The blue and purplish light generated by the static trapped in the clouds felt unnatural, as though it was a result of the disturbance created by the piklink.
One flash drew his attention to a metallic shaft jutting out of the liquefied matter. It was difficult to evaluate how far the object was given the lack of bearings and landmarks around him but he spontaneously decided to start walking towards it, if only to generate a bit of body heat and stimulate blood circulation in his constricted veins and arteries.
Before he reached the object, he realized that it was in fact his piklink. As he drew nearer, he was able to tell that it was badly damaged. He squatted next to the singed contraption that still sizzled with static energy. Many of the magnetic discs were gone and those that remained were half molten. The fine wires were frayed. The instrument was beyond repair… Nonetheless, he picked it up, a protective reflex no doubt, and resumed his heavy footfalls towards the lights ahead.
***
After the deafening thunderclap, many Oxfordians woke and stormed the streets to realize that their town was under attack, enemies of the Kingdom exacting their revenge for the invasion of their lands, rebelling against progress and the civilizing thrust made by the British across more than half of the known world.
For a while they stood bewildered with fear and anger on the edge of the plain where houses had stood just a few minutes ago. The destruction had been total and an entire section of the town had been razed and flattened. Nothing was left standing. Some cursed the villainy of the natives who were responsible for the attack. Other murmured that such havoc was necessarily unnatural, the work of powerful cabals of sorcerers and witches. Many cried and wept with profound grief for the neighbors and friends gone in that single instant. All prayed to God for salvation…
A few brave souls then decided that waiting until morning to search the plain was unreasonable and the idea spread rapidly like the black plague, infecting mostly men. While their superstitious wives and naïve children pleaded with them not to risk the journey for fear of further attacks and potential curses, the men ran to and fro to collect oil lamps, torches, pitchforks and axes.
A few groups formed, a several dozen men in total, and after reassuring their families and explaining that this humanitarian mission was being launched to find and rescue potential survivors, they stepped beyond the safety of the cobblestone streets and into inches of slimy mud.
The groups had agreed to stay within earshot of one another to ensure that if trouble arose, other groups could rally to lend their help in defeating whatever faceless enemy lived in the gloom.
Women and children stayed behind, on the edge of the clear cut circle of devastation, while others ran back to their homes, either to stay or to collect bandages and other medical supplies to help the wounded survivors.
The hustle and bustle was rapidly increasing, especially when police rode in on their horses. A sergeant in charge ordered half a dozen men on horseback forward and followed the groups that had already dared venture in the sinister area, calling after the men to return to safety.
***
Frederic Laxen was drawing nearer and nearer the town and its dwellings. He could make out against the almost constant bursts of light from beyond the clouds that people were coming towards him. They carried torches and other sources of light to illuminate their way. He could also see that many of them were armed from the sparkling tinkles of metallic weapons. They were coming for him! They knew he was responsible!
He was surrounded – they were coming in from all sides, calling to each other to tighten the ranks and prevent his escape.
He clung to the piklink with resolve and advanced towards the mob, ready for his due lynching…
***
“I see something!” one man called, pointing into the shadows. “There’s someone coming towards us!”
“I see it too!” replied another.
“Oh my God, it’s a monster!”
“Where?”
“There! There!”
“The monster has a weapon! Get him!”
***
Frederic Laxen heard it well – MONSTER! The men from Oxford were mustering, running towards him, ready to exact the judgment he deserved. God had clearly forsaken him. The Elders were coming, he knew that now, coming to take him. He had called them with the piklink, drew their attention to the speck of dust in the vastness of space. They had not wasted time and they were nearly here.
Perhaps he could explain to the men rushing towards him if he had but a minute to clarify – everyone was in danger!
***
As the men drew near, they saw a deformed biped, a creature of black ooze with white eyes that glowed with malice and malevolence in the darkness. They were making ready, brandishing torches and raising their tools and weapons to punish the evil creature that had destroyed their beloved city.
They were but a few paces away when the creature seemed to merge with the sludge covering the ground. As it flowed back into the mud whence it had come, the creature raised its metal weapon above its head, ready to unleash another wave of destruction and snuff the life out of the city’s defenders.
“Get it! Get it!” screamed the oncoming throng of men. “Kill it!”
At that very moment, a bolt of lightening torn from the heavens streaked downwards and connected with the metal shaft of the creature’s weapon. Unable to stop their rapid advance because of the slippery sludge, men collided and toppled over each other like a cascade of dominoes.
The flash was so intense, so bright, that many of the bravest wailed with panic and horror. When the light receded, there was nothing left but a smoldering heap of flesh…
***
PT 11/01/2011
