Dark Matter

by S. W. Ahmed

  “It’s about differential equations again,” she explained, turning to the appropriate page in her book. “I just don’t understand how to use the superposition principle to figure out the solution. These Fourier and Laplace transforms make absolutely no sense!”

  “Oh yeah, let me show you how it works.” He began by writing a few formulas and sketching a couple of graphs, and then proceeded to describe very simple analogies from real life.

  As he kept talking, he soon realized that her eyes had a glazed look on them. “Cheryl?”

  She seemed to suddenly snap back to the present. “Yes?”

  “I just asked you a question.”

  “I’m sorry, could you repeat it?”

  “Sure. What happens to certain types of caterpillars at some point in their lives?”

  “Well, uh, they undergo metamorphosis,” she replied. “I mean, they become butterflies!”

  “Exactly! Think of the Fourier and Laplace transforms as examples of metamorphoses. An equation goes through a metamorphosis to end up as a different representation of itself.”

  He continued to clarify all the statements in the book with similar examples, and then went into more detail to show her how to solve the problems. But she just didn’t seem to be paying attention, and he had to repeat the whole process several times from the beginning.

  Suddenly her cell phone rang, in the middle of one of his lively explanations. She snatched the phone right away and answered, hurrying off to a corner of the lab. He could hear her talking in a hushed voice, sounding compassionate at first, but then becoming increasingly agitated. The conversation went on like this for several minutes. He could only think of one person she would be arguing so fervently with.

  She came back, looking quite upset.

  Marc thought he may even have spotted a tear in one of her twinkling eyes, something he had never seen before. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I have to go.” She looked away to avoid his stare.

  “What! What about your homework? We’re not even close to half way!”

  “I know, but I have to go. Listen, Marc, do you mind finishing this assignment for me? I’ll pick it up from you in the morning.”

  He wasn’t sure whether it was wise to ask and get into an argument, or to just drop it and let her go. But he felt a rising tide of frustration about what was happening. The day had just been too hard, and he was finally reaching his tolerance threshold.

  “Why, what’s more important than this assignment right now?” he asked. “Did someone die or get hurt?”

  She seemed surprised that he had actually talked back. “I… I… look, I have other things to attend to.”

  “So do I!” he retorted. “I am on probation, you know? I do have to focus on my own research.”

  “I know. But if I don’t get this assignment in on time, then I could fail the class.”

  “Shouldn’t you be working on it, then, and not me?”

  “But I can’t do it by myself. That’s why I need your help!”

  “Help, yes! I can show you how to do it, and I always do. But what good is it if I just do the whole assignment for you, without you even understanding what I did? How will you ever learn anything that way?”

  “But it just takes you a few minutes!” she snapped. “It would take me hours. Besides, you’ve never had problems doing my homework for me before.”

  “Never had problems? I’ve always had problems with it. Do you think it’s fair what you’re doing to me?”

  “Oh, so now I’m not fair to you? I have always been brutally honest with you!”

  Marc suddenly got up from his chair, his face flushed with anger. “Honest, are we?” he said sarcastically. “About what, or better put, about whom? Your boyfriend?”

  “I knew it! That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Yes, I have a boyfriend. You’ve known that all this time. Did I ever tell you otherwise?”

  “Yes, he’s your boyfriend! And yet you rely on me for everything, not him. I’m the one who’s always there for you, who listens to you and consoles you, who helps you through all your courses. You spend pretty much all your time outside of your class schedule everyday with me. So tell me, what kind of boyfriend is he exactly?”

  She looked stunned at first, but then the expression on her face slowly turned sad. “You think this is easy for me, Marc?” she said.

  “Easy! You use me as your servant during the day, and then go back every night to have fun with your real boyfriend. That way, you have all the free time for him that he could possibly wish for. I dare say you’ve got it easier than anybody else I know!”

  “Oh really! Do you think it’s all fun and games with him? He’s always out with his buddies, partying away. Even when he’s around, I can’t talk to him about anything. And yet, he always expects me to be there for him, at his beck and call.” She looked down at the floor.

  The time had come, Marc decided, to finally take a chance. “So leave him!” he said, trying hard to put on a smile. “Why can’t you just go out with me?”

  Tears were in her eyes. “I can’t, Marc,” she said, shaking her head. “My whole life at Cornell has been with him. I… I just love him too much.”

  Marc sat in his chair again, feeling the strength suddenly flow out of all his muscles. He stayed silent for a minute, while she just stood there. Then he looked her in the eyes. “Well, Cheryl,” he said quietly but firmly, “if you love him so much, then why are you still here with me?”

  Any remnants of hope he still had faded away as she quietly gathered her belongings and moved towards the door. He contemplated getting up to stop her, but this time he had really had enough. It was time for this vicious cycle to end.

  As she opened the door, he saw her turn around to look at him. He looked in her direction, but avoided her stare. She seemed to open her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Perhaps she was hoping that he would ask her to stay, that he would promise to help her finish her assignment after all. But he said nothing. Finally, she closed the door behind her and left.

  Chapter 5

  Marc sat motionless in his chair and stared straight ahead. Surprised at his own sudden boldness, he thought about what had just happened. He had confronted Cheryl at last, after so many months of this confusing, unnatural relationship.

  “So much for taking it to the next level tonight,” he thought. So much for all those endless hours at her side, helping her with her studies, listening to her woes and giving her a shoulder to cry on. So much for all the anticipation that she would one day become his girlfriend. It was over now, once and for all.

  Depression and hopelessness began to overcome him, emotions he was sadly quite accustomed to. But this time he was determined to fight them, because he was angry. This time, he wouldn’t let these emotions get the better of him. He reminded himself why it was a good thing that Cheryl was out of his life. If Cheryl really did become his girlfriend, then his plans to build the time machine would be in doubt. With Cheryl by his side, he would have something worth living for in the present. But now, with that possibility completely gone, there was nothing and nobody left in the present to live for.

  He got up, turned to face the center table, and took out something from his pocket. It was an antique pocket watch, an inch in diameter, with no attached chain and a case made from shiny gold. The case had engravings in Chinese characters on its outside cover. He flipped the watch open. Inside, the timepiece had a clear, two-tone dial with Roman numerals set on a white background. The continuous ticking sound was very faint, and he could barely hear it above the background hum of the electrical equipment and air conditioners.

  This wasn’t just any old timepiece. It was from Hong Kong, made back in the early 1900’s. It was one of the few prized possessions Marc’s father had brought during his migration to Canada in 1968, a family heirloom passed down from generation to generation. Handed down to him by his mother on the day he had left home to attend college, Marc had ne
ver let it out of his reach since.

  He placed the pocket watch on the side desk, and turned on his little boom box in the corner. It began playing songs from Enya’s Watermark, one of his all-time favorite albums. Enya’s music always helped him relax and concentrate. Tonight he needed to concentrate, for tonight he was determined to make substantial progress.

  Walking over to one of the whiteboards, he picked up a marker and began making changes to some of the equations. Before long, he was frantically writing on all the boards in the lab, rushing every minute from one board to the next. After a while, he took a few steps back to survey everything he had just written. He began stroking his chin, as he often did when he was deep in thought.

  Suddenly a smile crept across his face. “That’s it, yes!” he yelled. “No wonder!”

  He had tried the same simple time travel experiment so many times before, but it had never worked. Now, he believed, he had finally figured out why. There was a variable missing in one of the equations specifying how much energy was needed to open and stabilize the wormhole.

  He ran to the center table, and began making adjustments to some of the electronic instruments. This was followed by some furious typing on the desktop computer. New graphs instantly appeared on the monitors. Getting more and more excited, he began muttering different ideas to himself as he worked.

  After several minutes of this frenzied activity, he was ready to try a new experiment. He went back to the side desk, picked up the pocket watch, and stared at the photo attached to the inside cover. It was a picture of his parents, taken before his birth. Both of them were smiling, his father’s small, sharp eyes gleaming with happiness, and his mother’s long hair flowing freely down her back. It was obvious that he looked more like his father than his mother – they had identical eyes and noses, and shared the same height, body shape and skin color. But he did have his mother’s sweet smile. The brown color of his hair was also a compromise between the deep black of his father’s and the light blond of his mother’s.

  It wasn’t just the physical resemblance. Marc’s intellect and interest in the sciences were things he had inherited from his father, a highly successful, tenured professor of astronomy at the University of British Columbia. His father may have made many a great scientific discovery in his time, had he not died so prematurely at the age of 35. Fortunately Marc had carried on the family tradition of dedication to science and academia.

  Marc’s mother had been a financial analyst, having worked for most of her career at different financial institutions in downtown Vancouver. But she had never made much money by herself, particularly after her husband’s death. The perpetual depression she had fallen into had resulted in a profound negative impact on her intellectual and professional capabilities. It had caused her to eventually get laid off, and to end up on unemployment benefits for much of Marc’s childhood.

  Marc had grown up in a home where his mother often cried for hours, even days on end. She had never failed to give him love and care, but she had not been able to give him a happy or social childhood. He had spent most of his younger years as an introvert, a daydreamer, a kid who had never known the pleasure of developing good friendships or of spending quality time with others.

  During his teenage years, his mother had fallen in love with another man, and the wedding had taken place just before his move to Boston. Seeing his mother finally happy, he had taken advantage of his newfound freedom and independence in college to shed his introvert personality. He had gone all out to make friends and build an active social life, and he had succeeded. Life at MIT had been great. He had done well in his studies and engaged in a lot of extracurricular activities, and he had also met Iman.

  The series of ill-fated events since then, however, had brought misery back into his life with full force. These events would hopefully soon be erased from history, once and for all.

  He looked at the picture again, and kissed it. He then shut the case of the pocket watch, walked back to the center table and placed the watch right in the middle of the empty circle. He thought it especially appropriate to use this timepiece as his first time traveler, not just because of the good luck it often brought him but also because of its symbolic value.

  Next, he turned on the three identical energy emitting devices facing the center. A loud, high pitched noise began emanating from them, almost like the sound of an airplane jet. Each of the instruments projected a bright light towards the watch, one of them sending a blue ray, another one a green ray, and the last one a red ray. The rays met at the center, combining to create a white glow around the watch.

  He turned to the computer and set some final figures. This was a simple experiment to open up a wormhole, send the pocket watch into it, and make it reappear at the same location in exactly 10 minutes. His hands trembling with excitement, he pressed the Enter key on the keyboard and waited.

  Suddenly the three energy emitters dramatically increased the intensity of their rays, turning the glow around the watch into a brilliant white light. It was almost as if the area around the watch had turned into a little sun. He had to close his eyes to avoid getting blinded by the brightness.

  After several seconds, the light rays and the loud hum began diminishing, until they eventually disappeared and all returned to normal. He opened his eyes, hoping to high heaven that the timepiece was gone. But it was still there.

  “Damn!” he yelled out in dismay, banging his fist on the table.

  He inspected the energy emitters, but they seemed to be in perfect working order. After analyzing some of the other measuring instruments, he sat back at the computer and began modifying the main program. Every now and then, he would walk back to one of the whiteboards, look at what he had written, make a change here and there, and then go back to the computer and keep working.

  A half hour later, he repeated the experiment. Once again, the light rays turned on and the loud hum began. Once again, the pocket watch was surrounded by a brilliant white light. And once again, unfortunately, nothing happened.

  Marc was starting to get frustrated. He thought about giving up for the night and going home. But then he remembered his probation notice and the fight with Cheryl, and he instantly felt a renewed drive to continue.

  “I have to make some progress tonight,” he said to himself.

  Following some more analysis, he came to the conclusion that the energy emitters still weren’t transmitting enough energy to open up a wormhole. After making additional calculations and adjustments on the computer, he began the experiment once again.

  No longer feeling as optimistic about success, he casually turned the energy emitters on, observed the pocket watch brightening up expectedly into a little white sun, and began turning his head away in frustration. All of a sudden, however, a thin blue circle appeared around the edge of the sun.

  He couldn’t believe it. Was it working? Just as his calculations had predicted, a tunnel began forming behind the blue circle, seemingly trailing off into a different dimension. The blue circle rapidly increased in thickness, transforming itself into a sphere and eventually engulfing the glowing white sun. Then, in one brilliant flash, the sphere departed into the tunnel with all of its contents. He had to close his eyes due to the brightness of the flash.

  When he opened his eyes again, all was back to normal. The blue sphere, the tunnel and the white light had all vanished. The energy emitters had also shut themselves off. But, most importantly, the center of the table was bare. The timepiece was gone!

  “Oh, my God!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, jumping up and down with joy. “It worked! It worked!”

  The next 10 minutes would be excruciatingly tense for him, waiting for his pocket watch to reappear. He paced nervously around the lab, and cast a glance every few seconds at the timer on the computer screen.

  It was easily the longest 10 minutes of his life. As the last few seconds closed in, he closed his eyes in anticipation of the bright flash reappearing.

 
The timer reached 10 minutes, but nothing happened. He opened his eyes and looked around. All was quiet, as before. The computer was showing the same graphs, and all the instruments appeared to be working properly. But no wormhole, no flash, no pocket watch.

  “Maybe there is a small delay,” he thought, “or my calculations are off by a few minutes.” He sat down and waited, trying to calm his nerves by listening to the sweet sounds of Enya’s tunes.

  Another 10 minutes passed, then 20, then an hour. Still nothing, and it was already 3 am. His excitement had worn off, and exhaustion from the long day was kicking in. As he sat by the table, wondering where his calculations had gone wrong, he began dozing off. His arms curled up on the table in front of him, and his head dropped onto them without any resistance. Before long, he was deep in sleep.

  Chapter 6

  Marc awoke from his nightmare to find his body trembling and his heart throbbing loudly. It took him several seconds to calm down and remember where he was. He glanced at the clock on the wall. It was 4:30 am, so he hadn’t slept for more than an hour and a half.

  It was the same wretched nightmare he often had, reminding him of how Iman had left him in his senior year at MIT. He had pleaded with her to give their relationship a chance, but the pull of her family and the boundaries of her culture had been too strong. They would never have accepted somebody with his ethnic background or upbringing. She was destined to marry someone from her own country.

  This was one problem he wouldn’t be able to easily fix with the time machine. No matter how far back in time he went, he would never be able to change his identity or ethnicity. The only solution was for him to prevent himself from falling in love with Iman in the first place. He would therefore travel back in time and warn his younger self not to go out with her. He would eventually find someone else, someone who would love him and never abandon him.