The Voyage

by Douglas Falk

  “Did you know that the deepest hole ever drilled only went eight miles down? The Ruskies pushed the envelope in their Kora Borehole Project in the eighties, and they still only reached eight miles down. Eight miles! The distance to the centre of the Earth is allegedly about four thousand miles, so you do understand that they literally just scratched the surface. It’s nothing! It really is nothing, and the idea that our trusted scientists know exactly what is going on beneath our feet gets more ridiculous by the day. The more you research this topic, John, I’m telling you. The deeper down the rabbit hole you go, the more you realise that what you thought you know, you don’t know. If there is any conclusion I have made thus far, it is that very realisation. That I know nothing. We know nothing. I have come to realise that the people who claim to know everything are the ones you should avoid. Like Neil deGrasse Tyson.”

  John protested. “What do you mean? Why are you so against Tyson? Did he steal your parking slot years ago in a galaxy far, far away?”

  “It’s nothing personal, really. I imagine he’s a decent guy in private, aside from the bloated ego and his misguided belief that he was gifted with a towering intellect. How can he, or any other scientist for that matter, presume to know how the inner layers of Saturn, Neptune, or Venus are like from the comfort of an armchair in his luxurious home in Manhattan? Ah, the arrogance. The arrogance, John! The arrogance radiated from these guys in their white lab coats who think they deserve an elevated position in the social pyramid because they have PhDs and learned how to scribble down more advanced math equations on a piece of paper than the average Joe ever could. Do you think Tyson has ever been to space? Hawking? Dawkins? Nye? Cox? Carl Sagan? Let me tell you a secret. None of them have been there. Only about five hundred people have allegedly gone to space. Which isn’t that many, when you think about it! Five hundred people. While only sixty-nine people were convicted of conspiracy charges in the Watergate scandal, nearly a thousand were estimated to be in the know. Who knows what would have happened had Bernstein and Woodward not investigated the matter? Maybe Nixon would have gotten away with it all. What I am saying is, keeping five hundred people silent is not as hard as you might think it is, historically. With the right incentive, it would be in their best interest to keep their mouths shut if they were told, say, that the fate of the world would be at stake should they talk.”

  “Yeah, but they all got found out, though. Nixon and his cronies. If NASA faked the Moon landings, for instance, they’ve done a pretty damned good job keeping it under wraps for over fifty years.”

  “That’s a good point, John. But the magnitude of what we are talking of here far eclipses Watergate, wouldn’t you say? Everything pales in comparison to the deception of keeping the real shape of the Earth a secret.”

  “I suppose you’re right, on a hypothetical level.”

  William slammed his fist on the table.

  “Listen to me now, because this is important. Those planets and stars they claim to know what they consist of, their exact weight and mass and distance from us…it’s all conjecture. A mathematical construct. And they are wrong, oh so wrong. Every bit of research I do points to it. We don’t know what the wandering stars are. They could be circular, non-spherical tiny luminaries in the sky from what I can tell, but I’m not making any absolute calls on the matter until the day I know for sure…which I doubt will ever happen. But I would bet the farm on that they aren’t terra firma and that there is certainly no cute little NASA rover driving around on Mars via remote control from Houston. Isn’t it a curious case? Neither of us, nobody we know, likely nobody on this Earth, will ever set foot on Mars. Yet—if you were to ask the man on the street if Mars could be visited, they would swear on their grandmother’s grave that it is indeed the case and that we will have boots on that red ground in a couple of years from now and that we will colonise it before 2030. It’s a fantasy. Our five senses tell us that those shining circles in the sky are just distant lights. Earth is what matters—but the brainwashed masses think colonizing some speck of light in the sky is more important because they watched a Matt Damon movie set there.”

  “Sure, sure.”

  While intrigued by William’s filibustering, his desire to sleep like a log got the better of him. John yawned and pulled up his Samsung Galaxy S7 and looked at the clock. 00:47.

  Time to shut this tinfoil-hat session down, I think.

  John put his thick gloves on and bade William farewell. “William. It’s been a pleasant evening…albeit maybe a touch of too much obscurity for my taste. I am too tired right now. Got to head home.”

  William nodded, and they put on their coats, wished the bartender a good night, opened the front door, and found themselves standing in the midst of what could only be described as a snowy inferno. An icy gust of wind came hurling through the street towards them, and John covered his eyes as best he good.

  I can’t get back to my warm comfy bed soon enough.

  “John!” William shouted as the cold winds drowned out the noise. “We’ll see one another again…soon! And write to me later about the Huckleberry Finn essay on Skype or in text. We got it covered, no problems. And good luck with your courtship of Alma!”

  William smiled all-knowingly as John flinched with a forced confused expression on his face.

  “Come on, my friend. I’m not blind.” William smiled and waved him farewell, and the two parted ways. John started walking as quickly as he could.

  I’ll get there in about five minutes if I make a run for it.

  As he was about to turn left on Odengatan and make his way up on Dalagatan, he heard a faint cry from behind him. It was William.

  “John! I know you’re sceptical of everything I told you tonight, and you will likely brush it all off for the time being and your average life problems will take up your thoughts…for a while. But in the end, I can promise you, you will see things differently, and you will understand what I’m talking about. Good night!”

  Yeah. Bloody likely.

  John yawned and started walking up the slope towards his street, Dalagatan 62.

  Right now, I don’t care if the Earth is flat, spherical, a cube, or even fidget spinner-shaped. All I want is a long night’s sleep…and cursed be the one who stands in my way from achieving just that.

  3

  Jesus H. Christ. What on Earth did I drink last night? Chloroform? Valium? Absinthe?

  John opened his eyes slowly and felt a throbbing pain tingling through his body. He touched his forehead and cringed.

  It feels like a giant dropped an anvil on my head and left me for dead…a glob of dead meat for the vultures to feast on.

  He reached for his mobile phone with a trembling hand and looked at the clock. 11:12 a.m. He mustered all the strength he could find within and rose to his feet and waddled towards the bedside window. The curtains were drawn, and the clear sunlight shone through the thick glass. John looked outside and saw the glistering, snow-covered Vasaparken in its full glory. The snows had stopped falling, and it was a bright, beautiful winter day.

  A winter wonderland.

  The park was crowded with ice skaters and hockey players on the ice field. John donned his beige housecoat and managed to drag himself into the kitchen.

  This was a cumbersome task indeed.

  Still in his zombified, hungover state of being, the pursuit for a cure was on. He opened the cupboards hoping to find aspirin. Finding none, his last hope was the fridge.

  Damn. It’s as good as empty. No pick-me-up drink for me today.

  Distraught and in ill mood, John started opening the cupboards again, hoping that he would have better luck this time, when the phone in his right pocket rang.

  “Yes, hello?” he muttered drowsily.

  “Good morning, John! Are you in school?”

  Just splendid. My dearest mother. I’m so not up for this right now.

  “No, Mom. My next lecture is at 3…luckily. I have some things to attend to before then.”

/>   Like scurrying back to bed and bury myself under the blanket in foetal position while praying that I will feel better in a couple of hours from now.

  “So, you’re at home? Wonderful! Go now and water the Spider Chrysanthemum in the living room so you don’t forget it later. A beauty like that needs the gentlest of care.”

  The Spider…the Spider Chrys…what? My brain is clearly not fully operational yet. It’s too bloody early in the morning for this nonsense.

  “What in the living daylights is a Spider Crystalwand?”

  “Spider Chrysanthemum. Don’t be silly. The large purple flower I gave you last week, of course! I put it on the mantelpiece in the living room. Have you forgotten? Oh no…you haven’t tossed it out, have you? Good gracious me!”

  John waltzed through his apartment and found himself in the living room and looked around.

  Oh, there it was.

  “I see it now. Beautiful thing. I had forgotten it.”

  His mother sighed loudly on the other end. “You are so air-headed, John. You need structure and order in your life. When will you achieve that?”

  When hell freezes over, probably.

  “I’m in full control of my life.”

  “Ha! You don’t even own a calendar, do you?”

  Sadly, her assumption is close to the mark.

  “Of course I do, Mother,” John lied. “Do you have anything in particular to say, or are you just calling to torment me over trivialities?”

  “I just called to check in. I worry about you, John. Sometimes I wonder if you will ever find the right course in life. Don’t drift through life aimlessly like your father did; you don’t want to end up like him,” said Johanna Wilander softly.

  No, I most certainly do not. On that point we are in full agreement.

  John had not spoken to his father for many years, and he did not miss him.

  She did the right thing, leaving him. He was unstable.

  John’s father Alexander worked as a solicitor during his heyday, when his parents were still married.

  Gosh, it must be eight…or nine…years since I last heard from him.

  Alexander Wilander had vices that eventually got the better of him. After gambling his entire life savings away one drunken night at Casino Cosmopol, he became an embittered drunkard who spent his days at home hitting the bottle, and eventually Johanna had enough.

  That was nine years ago.

  “Don’t worry about me, Mom. I will find a way.”

  “I hope so. Take care of yourself, John.”

  John breathed a sigh of relief.

  What should I do now? A warm cup of tea with honey wouldn’t be too bad. I’ll put the kettle on.

  And then the phone suddenly rang once again. John looked at the display and groaned.

  William. Intrigant number two. Can’t they just leave me in peace? I’m being persecuted here.

  “William Milton, I presume? Or should I call you Ferdinand Magellan, the legendary explorer? In light of your rantings and ravings last night about…hidden landmasses and American admirals going haywire down at the South Pole…”

  “It would be an honour, John. Listen up.” William paused for dramatic fashion. “There is a person I’d like you to meet. That I want the both of us to meet, in fact. Tomorrow.”

  “Who? I have things to do. Like our project in class, remember? Or have you thrown in the towel completely? Is it common for flat-Earth converts to abandon their work once they’ve seen the light?” John cackled, mockingly.

  “Our work there can wait. Listen up here—I have set up a meeting with a certain doctor Celeste Wood at the Royal Institute of Technology,” said William.

  “Who on Earth is Dr. Wood, and why are we going to RIT? Wait…does this have anything to do with…”

  “What we discussed last night? Oh, you betcha.” William made no attempts at concealing how thrilled he was. John could literally hear him huffing and puffing excitedly on the other end, like that of a child unwrapping the first Christmas present of the year.

  John sighed loudly. “William, I am telling you, whatever it is you think you are onto. You are chasing your own tail with this. I have been proven wrong about some things in my life and some hard stances I’ve taken, I have regretted. But I am right about this. However…”

  “Yes?”

  “However, my calendar for tomorrow is pretty much smack empty. If I’m in the right mood, I guess I could tag along. This shindig, whatever it is that you’ve set up, better be more interesting than my previous plans, binging Netflix shows at home.”

  “I guarantee you that it will be. The rendezvous with Dr. Wood is at 1 p.m. sharp, so we’ll meet by the fountain at the courtyard at 12:45. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  “And another thing. Before you tuck in tonight, pull up YouTube and plough through some material of my choosing.”

  “What material?”

  “Look into the material on these channels from these guys: Jeran Campanella, David Weiss, and Mark Sargent.”

  “Are those chess players? Pig farmers? Wine connoisseurs?”

  “Not exactly,” squeaked William. “Just look into it, before the meeting. As a personal favour.”

  “Sure. I’ll look it up. I might skip the lecture at 3 with Professor Hultin. I mean, I still have the project to work on—”

  “Put that aside for one day, will you?”

  “I suppose I could…”

  “Of course you can. Put your tin-foil hat on, John. We’re going down the rabbit hole tomorrow. See you then!”

  That sounded ominous. But what else to expect from this oddball than the unexpected? I have an inkling that I’m in for something bizarre tomorrow.

  John poured himself a cup of green tea and walked back into his study towards his computer chair. Just when he stepped into his room, his left foot got stuck in the doorsill, and he fell uncontrollably downward, head first. With a loud thud, his body crashed down on the hard parquet floor, writhing in pain in his left shoulder, which he landed on. He looked up and saw that his beloved cup had shattered into dozens of pieces. He managed to pick himself up slowly and gazed at the mess on the floor.

  My beloved Winston Churchill mug. It’s been with me for five bloody years, ever since I visited the Church War Rooms in London.

  As the hot liquid content of the broken mug splayed across the floor and seeped into the white rug in the centre of the room, he thought of the iconic Churchill quote that was written on the mug.

  History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it myself.

  He went back into the kitchen and opened the freezer and grabbed a fistful of ice cubes and placed them on his aching left shoulder.

  No. Screw the Professor Ulf Hultin lecture in English Syntax. I intend to stay at home and blaze through what William told me to watch. What else do I have cooking anyway? Why not?

  John walked back into the study and waded over the tea-drenched rug without a care in the world. He took a seat in the chair, logged on to his ASUS computer, and opened the web browser. He then visited YouTube and searched for one of the names…and quickly realised that he had entered one of the more obscure chambers of what is called the Internet.

  4

  “Welcome!”

  Doctor Celeste Wood, PhD in Theoretical Astrophysics at the Stockholm Royal Institute of Technology, opened the door to her study. She had but a hint of an American accent, John thought.

  Had I not known she was foreign thanks to the name that gave it away, I almost wouldn’t have guessed.

  She appeared to be in her late thirties, had short brown hair, and was elegantly clad. She took off her reading glasses and placed them on her spacious desk in the west side of the large oval room, facing the windows overlooking the university courtyard.

  “Which one of you lads goes by the name of William Milton?”

  William gently raised his hand. “I do, Dr. Wood!” he said jovially. “We’ve had some quality correspondence these past coup
le of months over e-mail, have we not?”

  Celeste Wood smiled.

  “Call me Celeste, please. And we did indeed. My question was but a courtesy—of course I knew it was you. We traded photographs of one another, and I never forget a face.”

  John moved forward smoothly to shake her hand. “John Wilander,” he said. “We’re in the same class, William and I.”

  “Ah. Upper grad English teacher-in-the-making, you too?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Commendable line of profession, teaching kids. I say commendable in the sense that I find it gallant that people would willingly put themselves through a five-year-long chore to graduate, only to end up an underpaid low-level worker stuck in nightmarish conditions every day, no doubt. Sorry! I shouldn’t rain on your parade. If you both have decided it’s your calling in life—then by all means, do pay heed to that decision and follow through. I’m just saying…I have experience in the field you will spend your days at, and for the most part…it ain’t pretty.”

  I don’t want to think about my future career prospects right now. It makes me anxious; it’s too far away, too remote. Too intangible. I don’t even know if I want to be a teacher one day…hell, I only picked it due to peer pressure and a lack of alternatives that were better at the time.

  “I have to say, your Swedish is very good. More than adequate. You could have been born here, almost!”

  John paused.

  “Where in the States are you from?”

  “Boston, Massachusetts. I moved to Sweden seven years ago along with my husband, Perry. I received a job offer hereabouts and I thought…why not! I needed a change. A fresh start. Things had gotten a bit troublesome at Emerson College, where I worked prior to this. In-fighting, funding cuts, you name it. I barely knew a thing about Sweden, but when the offer arrived…well, let’s just say that I didn’t mind going as far away from there as possible.”

  Celeste saw John eyeballing the framed photograph next to them, hanging on the wall next to her diploma from Emerson College. The picture depicted a robust man in his mid-forties lovingly embracing two girls who looked near identical to John’s keen eyes.