A Theory of Gravity

by Wycroft Taylor

  He had his eyes closed during the whole time he was reciting that poem he had composed mostly in his mind during brief moments beginning the night before. Because his eyes were closed, he did not see how Sylvia reacted to his recitation.

  When he opened his eyes and looked at Sylvia, she still rested her head on her hands but had turned her head sideways and looked steadily at him with eyes that seemed bigger than before. He noticed that her eyes were brown. Her face seemed pinker than usual. Had she been blushing?

  She raised her head and blew a kiss at him and then reached forward across the table as if trying to touch his hand. “That was beautiful,” she said. “It is something like what you said to me last night. You’ve turned what you said into a poem. I wish you’d write it down and give me a copy and sign it. It will be a cherished keepsake of mine.”

  He was embarrassed. Now, it was his turn to blush. He was in a hurry to change the subject so that he might escape being embarrassed. Before changing the subject, he said to her, “I’m glad you like it. I meant what I said.” “I know,” she replied, reaching towards him again with her outstretched arm pressed against the table.

  He then leaned forward so that he might smell the soup. “This smells really good.” He picked up his spoon and took a sip. When he saw that she was still staring at him and reaching towards him, he said, “Join me.” “Okay,” she said, as she pulled herself out of her reverie. Then she picked up her spoon, dipped it into the soup, and took a sip. “Yes, it’s good. It seems especially good tonight.” “Whoever the cook is and whatever this is made of, I’ve got to say it’s good.”

  He turned to face the creatures lined up against the wall and said, “My compliments to whoever or whatever made this soup be it machine or creature.” Not being able to comprehend the English words but realizing Peter was addressing them, the creatures looked first in Sylvia’s direction; and, when she said nothing, they looked straight ahead. After fidgeting nervously for a while, they resumed their formal postures, which amounted to standing erect inside of their carts and barely moving.

  When the soup was finished, they were both offered and accepted a second helping. The escort in charge of the ladle and tureen came up to them and filled their bowls a second time. They drank it all.

  Sitting idly in front of his empty bowl of soup and playing by hitting the bowl of his spoon against the bottom of the soup bowl, Peter said, “That class was unlike any class I’ve ever before taken. I suppose the idea is to get inside of a student’s mind in ways our own science has not yet attempted. One gets information and at the same time has one’s mind opened and memory widened and deepened.

  “The learning is more quickly and easily accomplished that way than by any of the ways humans have so far devised. I think I might even be able now to make a couple of the sounds the creatures make. He proceeded to make buzzing and clicking sounds complete with guttural stops and the raising and lowering of pitch that came very close to the way the creatures talked. Sylvia listened attentively. “You’re getting there. You’re not yet saying words but you’re making and putting together sounds pretty accurately. It is baby talk, but it is pretty good baby talk for all that.”

  He said, “I could not help but notice that, while we sat with the nozzles attached to us, the teacher was quite busily fiddling with something in the top drawer of its desk. Have you ever gotten a glimpse of what is in there? Do you have any idea what the teacher was doing? Did what it was doing have anything to do with teaching in fact? In fact, I was wondering whether the one you call teacher actually ever does any actual teaching.”

  She said, “I once asked the teacher what was in there. It pulled open the desk drawer and showed me a transparent block filled with squares with rounded corners inside of which were symbols. It pushed one of its limbs on the surface, made a strange popping sound, pushed deeper, made another popping sound and pushed still deeper.

  “I think the thing the teacher plays like an instrument is a kind of three-dimensional keyboard that must be manipulated in very complicated way with all eight of its limbs. What makes the teacher a teacher is the fact that it knows how to operate that thing which none of the other creatures seem to know how to do. That devise plus the nozzles and our diet makes us learn. Because the teacher operates the device, he gets (and truly deserves to get) the title of teaching. But I am not entirely sure of what I am saying. Take what I say as no more than speculations. The teacher never demonstrated how it played that thing or what its function was. I only got that one glimpse and that one, very limited, demonstration. I drew conclusions.”

  “If it is a keyboard, then I think somehow it connects to the nozzles attached to us. The teacher’s pressing into the different depths determines somehow what we hear and see in our minds’ eyes,” Peter said.

  “It would be nice,” Sylvia said, “if we could bring the secrets behind the nozzles, the soup, the morning drink, and the playing of the keyboard (if that is what it is) back to Earth. I think good uses could be made of such technology, not only in teaching the usual curriculum but also in counseling people in trouble or not fulfilled.”

  He was about to agree when the three bells rang again, causing the creatures lined up against the back wall to get a move on. The one with the bagpipes turned to the right and, playing softly the incomprehensible and (to Peter) very discordant sounds, led the others around and around the table. Sylvia said something to one of them and gestured for Peter to stand up and back up to the wall. The creatures then cleared the table, picked up the table and chairs, and rolled to the door, with the two astronauts taking up the space left for them in the middle of the procession marching in pace.

  Two of the creatures then opened the door as everyone else marched out of the room. The two creatures then closed the door and took up their positions behind Peter and Sylvia. Everyone marched to the door where the corridor lined with bedroom doors were. The door was opened. Peter and Sylvia entered and, standing at the doorway, watched as the line of creatures rolled away from them. They rolled straight across the large room and through a doorway in the far left corner.

  The two astronauts noticed that the large meeting room was now much emptier and quieter than before. “The party must be over,” Peter said. Peter wondered what the party was all about and realized he had not yet talked about that with Sylvia though he tried once, he thought he remembered, earlier in the day.

  “I’ll have to remember to ask Sylvia what all the fuss was about.” He was reminding himself to ask her because so much that was so strange was happening in such rapid succession that he feared he might neglect to ask her about something that interested him simply because there was so much else to talk to her about.

  Chapter 45: The Second Evening Alone

  When Peter and Sylvia got to the corridor where the bedrooms were, Peter asked Sylvia where she wanted to sleep tonight. He said, “Why don’t we try my bedroom tonight? In fact, it might be a good idea to alternate between the two bedrooms—one night in yours and the next night in mine.”

  Sylvia put her hand in his, kissed him on the cheek, and said, “Thanks for the invitation. It’s nice to be lost on a desert island with one other person and that person very special to you who happens to want to be with you too, night after night, even if partly to assuage the pain of being a castaway.” And, listening to her say those words, Peter was thinking what a nice poem those words would make and how nice it would be to hear her recite them some dinnertime.

  She said she would go to her room first, take a shower, brush her teeth, and get her bathrobe and then she would rejoin him. He said, “I’ll look for a bouquet of roses and, if the creatures actually thought to decorate my room with such a bouquet or something that looks like such a bouquet, I’ll pull a couple of the roses apart and scatter their petals on your side of the bed.

  She kissed him once more, went to her room, opened it with the aid of the piece of metal she carried on a chain around her neck, winked at him, waved goodbye to him,
opened her door, entered her room, and closed the door behind her.

  He too had a piece of metal with a flat end attached to a chain around his neck. He had found it on the table next to their morning drinks. When he looked at the teacher unsure whether the locket was meant for him, the teacher pointed with four of its limbs at the chain and swayed back and forth in its motorized carts, all of its eight limbs either pointing or quivering. It also made some noises which Sylvia interpreted as meaning “the locket is yours. Take it.”

  Now, he removed the locket from his neck and tapped first the circular patch on the left side of the door and then the circular patch on the right side of the door. He then pushed the door open and, rather than closing it, left it slightly ajar so Sylvia could get in easily (he wasn’t yet sure whether or not the lockets each one had worked on both of their doors though later he learned that they did).

  Once inside his room, he was surprised and pleased to see how clean and well-organized it was. He wasn’t sure he really needed anything more than a room like this. He doubted he’d be happier in a castle. He took a shower, brushed his teeth, and walked naked through his room.

  Indeed he did find a bouquet filled with something that he thought must be roses sitting in a tall vase made out of what looked like cut crystal. He put his nose close to one rose and smelled the perfume made by roses and was very happy. It amazed him that the same creatures that put him through the ordeal of the maze could also be as considerate and kind to him as to supply him with roses.

  He pulled two of the roses out of their vase and pulled apart the petals. He folded back the cover on the side of the bed he knew Sylvia liked and scattered the rose petals there. Then he pulled back the cover on his side of the bed, got into the bed, pulled the covers over him, and waited for Sylvia.

  “How nice this is,” he sighed. “How perfect everything is. I cannot remember ever being happier.” He folded his arms and put his hands behind his head, thus raising his head up a little higher than it would be if it rested only on the pillow. He tried to recollect all that had happened that day and, once again, vowed to remember to ask Sylvia about what was going on with the creatures. He was so relaxed and so happy and so filled with the day’s events that he yawned and then closed his eyes and, despite not wanting to, fell asleep.

  The next thing he knew he was dreaming that he was inside of the maze again and had just walked down a long corridor which dead-ended at a single gray door which, try though he might, he could not open. He was about to turn around when a noise as of a door sliding on a track that did not well fit its runners filled the air.

  Then he saw that a door that had fit flush against the wall and that he did not even notice when he went down that way, was closing. He ran very fast trying to get through the opening before the door fully closed but was too late. That opening to the rest of the maze was now closed to him. He tried pounding on the sliding door but it did no good so he returned to the door at the end of the corridor, thinking an idea of a way to open it might occur to him now even though he could not come up with such an idea earlier.

  He got to the gray door and felt all around its frame and around the area surrounding the frame, thinking there might be a hidden button or latch, when loud grating noises suddenly arose, got louder and louder, and annoyed him because of the whistling and screeching sounds that surrounded them. He looked around for the source of the noise and saw something that terrified him: the walls on either side were coming towards him—the space in which he was confined was narrowing. He realized with horror that if this closing in of walls on either side of him did not stop, he would be crushed to death.

  He ran to the gray door and started banging on it and calling out to Sheila Ridgeway. “Sylvia, astronaut Ridgeway, can you hear me? I am Peter Philby. I came to rescue you but now I see that I am the one in need of being rescued. If, for some reason, you have refrained from answering me when I called for you earlier despite being nearby, I plead with you to answer me now. The walls are closing in on me. I am about to be crushed. Astronaut Ridgeway, help me. Help me. Help me.”

  He said “help me” time and again. And then felt warm fleshy arms circling him from behind and a soft fleshy leg circling one of his. He felt a kiss on his cheek and heard a very melodious and feminine voice say, “I’m here, baby. Don’t cry. I’ve come through the door and pulled you out of your nightmare. You’re safe with me.”

  He opened his eyes and saw, not a corridor, but his nice clean and very pleasant bedroom. And Sylvia was laying in his bed next to him. He turned around and put his arms around her naked body and said, “I dreamed I was back in the maze. I thought I’d die. I decided you were my only hope. That one part of my nightmare was true: you are my only hope.”

  He wrapped his arms and legs around what he regarded as her very lovely body. He kissed her and kissed her, so relieved was he to be here with her and not deep inside of some horrible maze like a torture chamber existing somewhere.

  When his breathing and heartbeat returned to normal, he sat up and apologized for waking her up and upsetting her by screaming aloud while dreaming. She said, “I’m just glad I was here. I had dreams like that when I first got out of the ramp I was trapped in but had no one to comfort me. I just screamed and ranted and raved in the middle of the night. There was no one to comfort me.

  “I had to wait until the dream ended. When it did, I had nothing to do and nowhere to go except to stay where I was and sit up and huddle against the nearest wall and wait for my breath to slow and for my heart to calm down. I wish you had been there with me then.”

  “So do me,” he said.

  He apologized for having fallen asleep in the first place. He said, “I so looked forward to seeing you slip into my room and, when you came, making room for you and putting my arms around you and making love to you like I did last night. He looked for one of the rose petals and found one and held it up to her and said, “See, I even put rose petals on your side of the bed. I wanted to be surprised when you came here by the smell of the roses or by whatever synthetic version of roses the creatures so thoughtfully provided.

  “I pictured a room full of perfume and of you. It would have been perfect. In anticipation of the perfect, I got so becalmed I fell asleep and therefore lost out on seeing how you reacted to the lair I so carefully prepared for you—my perfume factory. Instead, once asleep, I entered another world entirely and had the horrible nightmare that you saved me from.”

  She put her arms around him once again and lay beside him. He loved having here there and being with her but he was not, after such a horrible dream, in a mood to make love to her. After a while, he asked, “Sylvia, are you awake?” “Yes, I am. I can’t sleep,” she answered. “Neither can I.” he said.

  She got up out of the bed and sat down on the armchair beside it and drew up her legs so that her knees touched her breasts and wrapped her arms around her knees. After a time when neither said a word, Sylvia said, “I noticed you left the door ajar. You should not do that. Our keys work on both of our doors.”

  She continued, “Did you know that creatures sometimes come into this corridor and wander up and down the halls. The younger ones especially are fond of doing that though they’ve been told repeatedly not to. In fact, when I came to your door, I found one pushing on it and about to enter the room. I had to pick it up and carry it to our corridor’s entrance and push it out into the large room. What if I hadn’t been there and seen that?

  I can picture in my mind coming into your room and finding that youngster or some other creature, after crawling down the hall, finding your unlocked door, pushing it open with its snout, wandering around inside of your room, finding your bed, crawling on top of it and, discovering that you slept there and thinking that the warmth coming from your body was soothing, deciding to crawl beside or on top of you.”

  He shivered thinking about it. “And I’d sense that I am not alone and I’d think you were there and I’d roll over and put my arms around the t
ough carapace and my face against the stalks that support the eyes. Talk about a nightmare,” he said. “Rest assured I will be sure to lock my door from now on.”

  She said, “Since neither of us are sleepy, I wonder if you would mind if I talked to you about something that’s been on my mind.” “Talk away,” he said. “Whatever you say interests me.”

  “This has to do with our relationship. Maybe I’m bringing this up to soon but I feel this is something that needs to be brought up and, since we are both wide awake and talking, I figure: why not bring it up now?” “Go ahead,” he said. He was a little worried that she was easing into telling him that she regretted having been intimate with him and wanted to stop being intimate with him starting tomorrow night.

  “You know,” she went on, “When I was about twelve years old, my parents got divorced. When that was going on, I sometimes spent hours looking at a family photo album. I stared at the screen and moved slowly through time chronologically. I saw pictures of them before they married: pictures of picnics and family gatherings and birthday celebrations and swimming outings and camping outings.

  “And, though pictures tend to capture only happy moments or else the one taking the photograph pressures the people being photographed to look happy, when I looked at those pictures of my parents very carefully and saw what seemed to me to be genuine happiness that were not forced or exceptional. They looked truly happy to me. At a certain point in time, that changed however. The smiles began to seem forced. Or the pictures were taken when my parents looked most happy even though they weren’t.

  “Also, the number of pictures being taken diminished. Whole years passed when no photographs whatsoever were taken. Or only holiday pictures were taken. Or only pictures of one or the other were taken and then later cropped in such a way as to make it look like they were together in the same place at the same time.

  “And, though the pictures provided a good record and reminder, I didn’t need pictures to show me how things had changed. They lost interest in one another. They spent a lot of time apart and a lot of this being apart had to do with their discomfort at being in each other’s presence. There was a lot of tension in the air. They would bicker. And finally they divorced.