“I’m not that good. Besides, I just learned how to do it. Seems like having you over here gives me a little more horsepower.” He grinned and ate some more Tabasco covered eggs.
“I see. So… ummm… when did you learn about the separate realities? How old were you… was I?”
He swallowed his bite. “Let’s see. I think I… you… we, were around 13 or so. Adolescence is so confusing. Especially when there’s no one to talk to. You’re not a very good listener, by the way.”
“Firewall, remember? Plus, I didn’t drink when I was 13.”
“That’s true. Anyway, you did read the encyclopedias, sometimes, and every now and then you listened to NPR science programs. ‘Star Trek’ helped… so did other old T.V. shows like ‘Quantum Leap’ and ‘Stargate’. Technically, ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ deal with quantum physics.”
“Really? I loved both of those books.”
“Oh, yes… not as much as I did, though.” Giddeon almost had a wistful look to him, remembering my past. “Anyway, it was all about the same time I was becoming independent, so to speak. Taking on my own personality. I knew that we were the same, but also, that we were… different. I felt what you felt, and saw what you saw, but I had come to understand that we were joined in such a way that made communication difficult, to say the least.”
“Were you lonely?” I asked and took a bite of my omelet. It was delicious.
“I used to beg you to play with me when we were little.”
I nodded, trying to understand what that must have been like for him. Then, something occurred to me, “My mom said I had an invisible friend for about a year.”
“That was me,” he laughed. “Hard to play catch with yourself, though, isn’t it?”
I smiled, remembering how I threw a baseball in my room that shattered a mirror. Next, I asked, “Do you think everyone has their own ‘Giddeon’?”
“I think most do.”
“Even the… mentally challenged?”
He nodded, took another bite, swallowed it down and then continued, “Probably… look at savants. I think those are some of the few cases where the ‘subconscious’ can interface with the outside world. Then you have the people that can remember every day of their lives. Sounds an awful lot like ‘Giddeon’ territory.” He once again made his quotation marks in the air.
“Hmmm… can you remember every day?”
“Not as far back as they can… I was a late bloomer.”
I thought that over, and queried, “Do you think you have your own ‘Giddeon’?”
He stopped with his knife in mid-air, and looked genuinely surprised.
“I never thought about it. Maybe I do… you always were the intuitive one. You got most of the creativity, too, by the way.” He buttered some toast that had just appeared, and took a bite.
“I got most of the creativity? What are you talking about? Look at the way we play music… I suck.”
He swallowed his food, took a drink of orange juice, and then readied his fork for more eggs. “Technically, I’m far superior. I understand the theory and the progressions… but, all I’m mostly doing is spitting back out what I know. Ever notice I let you come up with the lyrics when we’re composing? Or, when you go off on a tangent with new combinations of chords, I just fill in behind you? Your 5.7 percent has some powerful good stuff, my friend. Don’t underestimate it.”
“Humph,” I grunted. “Anyway, as long as we’re at it, how come we drive everywhere we go, or walk… but, when you ‘sample’ realities, omelets, orange juice and beer just appear?”
“I was wondering how long it would take you to ask.” He paused, and put his fork down. “The quick answer is… because you want to. It helps you stay connected to the other world. Reality is all in the same place, so, it really isn’t necessary. Not necessary, at all.”
He reached out and finished his orange juice. Another one shimmered into our existence.
“When you say reality is all in the same place, you mean over here?”
“Over there, too.”
I thought that over for a moment. “Seems like I remember things being pretty far apart… I’ve driven across Texas a few times.”
Giddeon grinned. “Feels that way, doesn’t it? Let’s see… what’s the best way to explain this?” He thought for a few seconds with a finger to his lips. “Okay, just pretend you’re the first thing in the universe. Nothing else exists except you. You don’t really have any size, because size implies other reference points… so, you’re just a ‘point’, yourself.”
He had removed his index digit from his mouth in order to use that hand to gesture with alongside of his other hand. Gid obviously loved making quotation marks with his fingers in order to emphasize his points… no pun intended.
“Got it.” I responded.
“Now, you’re all alone. Nothing else exists except you. There is no time and there is no space, because in order to have those things you need distance… and, you can’t have distance without other points of reference.” He paused to make sure I was following. “Then, along comes a second point. That point has two choices… it can be in the same ‘place’ (again the finger marks) as your point, or it can be separate. That’s the only two places there are.”
I nodded. “So far, so good.”
“As you can see, there are now two places in the universe… where you are, and where the other point is, assuming it’s not in your ‘place’. No distance, yet, because there’s nothing to relate them to.”
“Okay.”
“Along comes a third point. That point now has three choices… it can be at your point’s position, the second point’s position, or, somewhere else.”
“Still no distance?” I queried.
Giddeon nodded his head and smiled. “That’s right… not yet. No way to measure. Now, imagine a fourth point joins the party. You get something akin to distance, but it’s fuzzy. Two points may appear like they’re right next to each other compared to the third one from your original ‘point’ of view. But, are they really? If you could move around them,” his hands were in the air trying to mimic the points and their motions, “you could see if that was actually ‘so’. In order to do this, you would be introducing a multitude of new positions, or points, into space.” He glanced off for a second, and then back. “You know… like the way two stars look really close together, but are really millions of light years apart because one is closer to you than the other?”
“Yeah, I think I see…”
“Suppose one is maybe 6 light years away, and the other one is on the other side of the galaxy. They look like they’re next to each other because they have no real size to you… they’re just points to your eyes. Their light is coming in close to parallel.” He paused, again, to make sure that sank in, and then went on, “Meanwhile, a star over laterally to these two guys may only be 8 light years from you, so it’s actually closer to the first star than the other one is… the two that look like they’re closer together are actually further apart. It becomes evident if you could get into a spaceship and travel around… time and distance.”
“Makes sense… geometry and frames of reference.”
Giddeon seemed pleased. “Correctomundo. So, you can see that the universe is just billions and billions of points. Actually, an infinite number of points.”
“Sure.”
“Here comes the kicker. Let’s just take your geometrical center and call it a point, okay? Now, take the geometrical center of the closest star, Alpha Centuri. How far apart are these two points?”
“4 light years, more or less, if I remember correctly from high school.”
“That’s right… sort of. As long as you have an infinite number of points to measure from, that would definitely appear to be the case. Now, dissolve every other place in the universe except those two points. You’re back to your two options… they can be in the same place or ‘point’, or they can be separate.”
I thought that over for a bit. �
��And, if they’re separate, there really is no distance between them… they’re just separate?”
“Just like every other potential point in the universe would be to you,” he said, beaming like a proud teacher. “Remove all of the points except the one you’re interested in at the time, and it’s always the same… everything is right next to you.”
“So distance…”
He finished for me, “…is just an illusion that keeps us apart.”
Chapter 25
We left the diner as I mulled over the metaphysical aspects of the universe, and together, we walked down the sidewalk bordering Orange Avenue. Giddeon was uncharacteristically silent as we crossed a side street and continued on. In front of Bayside Books, he paused and looked in the store from underneath the green canvas awning.
“Let’s go in here for a minute,” he said.
The door was open since the outside temperature and the inside temperature were identical… that happens a lot on Coronado. The smell of books was strong; I never really noticed it, before. I had been in there dozens of times in my old life, but I was only using 5.6 percent of my capabilities back then.
I followed Giddeon back to the far end of the bookstore to the section that contained ‘Philosophy and Religion’. He seemed to know exactly where he was going.
“Here you go.” He handed me a small, hardback book. There were birds on the front cover. ‘Johnathan Livingston Seagull’.
“I read this a long time ago… good book,” I said.
“Time to read it, again. It’ll only take a couple of hours.”
Shrugging my shoulders, I said, “Okay. I don’t really feel like playing more golf this afternoon, anyway.” I took the book from him.
“You go on back to the boat. I’m gonna hang here for a while,” Gid said as he turned his attention back to the wooden ledge where, of course, ‘Johathan Livingston Seagull’ was still shelved in the other reality. I saw him reach for a copy of ‘Illusions, The Tale of a Reluctant Messiah’, which was written by the same author. He then walked over and sat down in one of the two chairs beside a little round table nearby, and began flipping through the book. I made my way to the front of the store and past the pretty desk clerk without paying.
Just another advantage of coma surfing.
__________
Boris was waiting on the bed since Giddeon had left the door open a crack. He looked up, stretched, and then laid his head back down on his right paw, while gazing at me through sleepy eyes. His nictitating membranes halfway obscured the yellow-gold of his irises.
If there’s one thing cats know, it’s how to get comfortable… they seem to have perfected it compared to all of the other creatures on Earth. Nothing flows into soft surroundings and becomes one with the contours of a good spot quite like a cat. Then, when they’ve achieved absolute success in their endeavors, they announce it to the world and the rest of us stiff jointed beasts with such a look of satisfaction and relaxation that, if it wasn’t so comical, would induce envy enough to kick them straight away out of their bliss.
Of course, those beasts would have to actually be able to interact with them on a physical plane.
Since I was in a coma miles away from there, I didn’t even depress the mattress when I lay down next to him and opened my book. Boris yawned and flipped over on his back with all four feet in the air.
__________
I found myself enjoying the novella just as I did when I read it several years ago. The second time, however, it was a bit surreal… especially towards the middle and latter parts of the writing. Since I had recently gained a new appreciation for the fluidity of reality, the way that Jonathan and his mentors moved from place to place seemed eerily similar to the way me and my subconscious alter ego sampled fields of probabilities. I was so engrossed in the tale that I read it straight through. True to Gid’s prediction, I wrapped up my reading in two hours (I took quite a bit of time looking at the pictures) and closed the book. Boris hadn’t moved.
“No need for travel when you’re in a good spot, hey buddy?” I reached out for the cat. He rolled over, expecting to be ‘scratched’.
“That’s right,” replied Giddeon. I hadn’t heard or felt him come in, but, there he was, at the foot of my bed. “What did you think of the book?”
“Sounds like Richard Bach had his own Giddeon putting ideas into his head.”
“That’s kind of what I think, too. Maybe a breakdown in the firewall. Still don’t feel up to golf?”
“Nah… not really. We played this morning.”
“Even at Pebble Beach?”
I looked at him quizzically, “For real?”
“As real as it gets, over here.”
I noticed he had on a golf glove. “That’s quite a drive… it’ll be dark when we get there.”
He took on a Chinese accent. “Young grasshopper… did you not read the book?”
“I’m not a seagull.”
“That’s right… but, you are getting a little bored with playing the same course, aren’t you?” He was back to his normal Southern voice.
“Maybe a little, but there’s always ‘Sea and Air’ (the Navy course on the island). We haven’t played there, lately. I just don’t know how I feel about getting too far from my comatose body.”
Giddeon held up a hand and then imitated Yoda, as best I could tell. “Everything’s here, it is. There is no far away.” His voice was crackly, and he grunted afterwards, for emphasis.
“So am I Kwai Chang Caine or Luke Skywalker?”
He laughed. “You’re anyone you want to be.” He morphed into Obe Wan Kenobi, and then, back, again. “And, anywhere.”
Darkness enveloped us and then I saw a flash all around me in my peripheral vision that seemed to be a pretty darned good imitation of that notorious tunnel of light.
Chapter 26
I had seen the first tee on Pebble Beach quite a few times on television, so I recognized it, instantly. The clean, cool ocean air came at us from the direction of the water, and the greens and blues all around were spectacular. I knew the scenery would only improve as we made our way along the holes bordering the Pacific. Of course, there wasn’t a soul on the course.
Not for the first time, I considered the possibility that I had indeed died and was in heaven, or at least an upper level of Purgatory. I wasn’t even Catholic like Father McCreeley, but, I supposed there could be such a place situated in the space between postulated reward and punishment.
Giddeon had his left hand up close to his nose and imitated the inflections from an old movie, “I love the smell of glove-palm in the morning.”
“You really should work on your jokes, dude… and, it’s after noon.”
“I thought that was pretty good… and does anybody really know what time it is?” Giddeon smiled as he teed up his ball. He took a couple of practice swings and promptly hit it 320 down the middle. “Nice change of scenery, eh?”
“Played here, before?”
“Oh, sure… I’ve got to do something with all of the spare time you give me. I don’t care much for reading message boards and watching re-runs of ‘Two and a Half Men’.
“Sorry. I’ll tune into ‘Masterpiece Theater’ more often if I ever make it back.”
Giddeon grinned as I then teed up. “I’ll settle for ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’… now, that was a show,” he said.
I hit a bit more of a fade than I wanted, but stayed in the first cut of rough about 285 yards away. A red-tailed hawk soared above us, and his shadow hugged the terrain of the course. “Are we really here?” I questioned my playing partner. “I mean, I’ve seen Pebble Beach many times on T.V., but not in this kind of detail.”
Giddeon reached down, plucked a few blades of grass from the tee, and then let them loose in the breeze. “Feels real to me.”
“Looks real, too,” I observed. “Have you been to other courses?”
“Heavens, yes. Oak Tree, The Black, St. Andrews… the Nicklaus course in Cabo… I
highly recommend that one, by the way.” We began walking off the tee, and then down the perfectly manicured links.
“So even if I’ve never seen them or read about them…?”
“Oh, I see what you’re getting at. You think that this is like virtual reality, and I have to have had exposure, through you, to the layouts in order to ‘reconstruct’ the settings.” Again, as he was prone to do, he put quotation marks in the air with his fingers as we strolled down the fairway. Maybe there’s a gene that’s responsible for that quirk, because me and my brother have been known to use our digits in that way, also.
“Something along those lines…”
Coronado Dreaming (The Silver Strand Series) Page 8
