Save the Last Bullet for God

by J. T. Alblood

  I just barely noticed the instructions on the table.

  Dear Competitors,

  Our subject for this week’s contest is “Creating Something Together.” The remaining three competitors will create and present a brand new invention. The competitor with the weakest contribution to the project will be eliminated—this week, the public’s vote will count.

  Good luck,

  BBM Coordinator

  Note: All the materials you will need for your invention will be provided to you.

  I wondered if they were aware of the philosophical objections to what they proposed. Suddenly, the picture of the Kaaba I had hung on the wall caught my attention. Something had been written on it in a childish script:

  If you’re reading this, I’ve managed to turn you back.

  GOOD LUCK

  I looked at the image of the Kaaba. A spot had been circled, and in it, in bold capital letters and underlined was a single word: WATER. After thinking of the boy and what he’d done, a sweet smile formed on my lips.

  When I entered the lounge, the last two competitors were sitting quietly. When they saw me, a bittersweet joy swept over both of them. Unexpectedly, Feryal stood up, and hugged me. “We’re happy you’re back,” she said.

  Hıdır came over as well and put his hand on my shoulder. “Welcome back, son. You scared us. When the boy said he would disqualify himself and give you a chance, we tried very hard to convince him otherwise, thinking that you would do the same. But, he had already decided. But yes, we’re glad you’re back.”

  “Yes, and now we can end the competition properly,” Feryal added.

  I thanked them both and sat down to join in their chat. “This week’s competition is really interesting. They want the remaining three of us to invent something. They must be wondering what will come from three such different disciplines.”

  “I know one thing that won’t happen—we can’t create food.” Dr. Özel smiled.

  Hidir smiled as well and looked deep in thought. I decided to follow Ender’s advice and move the conversation to my work.

  “While we think, would you be open to going over my work?” I asked. “Maybe we will discover something new about the code using all of our disciplines. Maybe we can show the audience a different perspective and all that it offers,” I continued.

  “That will be very challenging, young man,” Hidir said. “After all the billions of people and accumulation of years, discovering something new will be very difficult.”

  “But we need to try. We owe it to Ender to try. Let me suggest a topic, and then we can see where the conversation takes us.”

  “You mean brainstorming,” Dr. Özel said.

  I nodded my head.

  The scientist and the cleric looked at each other as if they were surprised and a little excited.

  “Go on,” Hidir urged. “What is the topic?”

  “Water,” I said, starting the conversation. “Water is a magnificent structure that gives life to all living things; it is indispensable as well as mysterious, and something we neglect since we always have it. After all, we only notice it when we are in need of it.”

  After a moment of silence, Feryal took on her typical posture as lecturer. “A good start. Let me add to that. Under normal conditions water is fluid. But at a full one hundred degrees, it changes its form, suddenly becoming steam—a form that has nothing to do with the previous one.”

  “What is your point, professor?” Hidir asked.

  “If you were a fish whose entire life was spent in water,” she explained, “you would bet that water didn’t have any other characteristics and, since you would never be able to see it, you would think that such a thing as steam was impossible.”

  Hidir and I nodded, pleased at her explanation.

  “Now think about it the other way,” she continued. “At zero degrees, the same fluid—warm, odorless, and transparent—becomes a crystal structure with an actual volume and solid form that has lost its transparency. It is as if a magical wand had touched it!

  “Now let’s once again imagine ourselves as beings in a body of water that has never dipped down to zero or risen as high as one hundred degrees. No matter how broad-minded we were, no matter how we used our minds to question the past or the future, no matter how we combined our talents and knowledge as living beings, it would never, ever cross our minds that the water we knew could form such a structure, thus we wouldn’t predict steam,” she explained.

  Hidir jumped in then. “Yes, I think I understand your meaning. You are saying that when someone who had experienced steam tried to tell those beings in the water about it, they might listen to him, but their brains would prevent them from believing it because they would have never experienced it before. Likewise, if another creature who’d experienced water in its solid form told them about ice, they again would be skeptical.”

  “Exactly,” Feryal said, clasping her hands together. “But those three forms of water currently exist in our world. The whole story of life relates to their existence, and our minds allow us to create related metaphors. Still, if someone came from another dimension or universe and said there was another form of water, we, with our inexperienced states and weak minds, would remain skeptical.

  “Currently, the universe we observe and perceive, and the laws governing it are like the fluid form of water. However, time and various phenomena could turn the universe into something governed by laws and characteristics that we don’t yet know. However, unlike transformations of water, this transition may occur suddenly when the appropriate conditions are provided. But, as we have never seen it, we cannot predict what it is or experiment with it. At this point, we come up against a brick wall.”

  There was a long silence after that as Feryal sat back in her chair and Hidir and I pondered her argument. I finally decided to add something.

  “If I went to a man who lived a thousand years ago with a CD in my hand and said, ‘All the knowledge you need is written and recorded here,’ the man would not believe me. No matter how hard I tried to explain it to him, I wouldn’t be able to. I would struggle and finally give up. So I would probably say, ‘When the right time comes, you’ll understand.’ What I mean is that, for certain conditions to happen, we need to evolve and the infrastructure of our brain needs to develop so that we can notice and understand something.”

  “That’s true,” Feryal said, leaning forward again. “If we go back to the example of water, note that all the substances in the universe are formed by the same particles: protons, neutrons, electrons, the bottom quark, the top quark, et cetera. These particles form the same atoms but different molecules. To repeat a frequently given example, in World War I, chlorine gas was used, and it was so harmful and fatal that it is now forbidden. And sodium on its own is a completely flammable substance. But when these two volatile elements are combined, they turn into table salt. The chlorine inside is the same toxic chlorine that kills human beings and animals, but it becomes salt with sodium.”

  “Water is the same,” she continued. “Two unrelated flammable and caustic gases are combined together and form our source of life. Water is the same on the summit of the mountains in Nepal as it is in a dewdrop on the grass in Istanbul. It presents the same characteristics everywhere. It’s not important where the main components forming it were before or what kind of function they had—they are now water.”

  “There is a Japanese researcher who even claims that water has a memory. He claims it remembers all previous situations and events and carries that data everywhere within it—just like our DNA,” she added.

  Hıdır joined the conversation again. “As you know, human beings are 75 percent water. I have seen it myself how water relieves people by absorbing the energy and serenity inside during a prayer or invocation. It does so especially when the Qur’an is read by a human voice. As you said, Feryal, water has a memory, and a given drop of water may have passed through the gills of a fish in the sea, the fog on top of a high mountain, and
the smoke of a factory chimney. Indeed, that drop embeds everything it sees and experiences into its memories forever.”

  Suddenly, the picture on my wall and Ender’s note came back to my mind.

  “I have a question,” I said, turning to Hidir. “Water itself, as you say, is special, but can it be even more special when it is holy water?” I asked. “Like the holy water in Christianity: water with spiritual aspects—like the water in the Kaaba!”

  Hidir looked at me in astonishment. “Zamzam water; it has been there since the Prophet Abraham.”

  Feryal looked at us with a questioning look.

  Hidir explained. “There is some water in the middle of the desert, of unknown origin, that gathers no moss, never dries, and holds no microorganisms.”

  “Okay. Special water, water with a special characteristic—let’s call it Zamzam,” Feryal said. “How do you think it could change its form?” she asked, now surprised and excited.

  It was my turn to explain. “It is always said that the language of God should be spoken in a holy and special frequency. It is the human larynx and the Qur’an suras that provide this frequency. Furthermore,” I explained, “each different energy frequency can turn water molecules into different forms by affecting each of them differently. Thus, oscillation of each voice frequency could turn water into a form we don’t know by entering into a resonance with the water.”

  Hidir and Feryal exchanged glances of amazement. When I noticed the shine in their eyes, it was obvious that we had already decided to give the experiment a try. There were only a few days until the final episode, but we had a chance to show the world something new.

  The next days passed quickly as we set to work. The cleric read each sura of the Qur’an carefully into a special recording device. The program managers met our demands for a sound-modulation system and brought along the supporting computer equipment as well. Even our demand for pure Zamzam water was accepted, though with some bewilderment. Dr. Feryal Özel’s demand for particular scientific tools were answered without question. I assumed that the excitement of the program managers was an indicator of the mood of the audience. As we worked, we were notified that December 21, 2012 was the day of the final show.

  Concerns about whether we would finish on time made us and the managers increasingly nervous. Right before the show, Feryal was barely able to convince the managers to provide her with a special magnetic resonance device with which to perform the calibration process.

  The complex machine was installed in my room. As the machine was small, its isolation could be easily maintained, and all the walls of my room had undergone a special process for protection from any external influences.

  The night of the show arrived.

  Shortly before going on the air, we left the Big Brother studios for the first time since our arrival. We traveled by special vehicles with special security measures. We went to a screening center where we entered a specially calibrated MRI machine. With little time to waste, the calibration and the magnetic proton spin resonance was preserved—as it was identical to that of water. We then went back to the BBM studios accompanied by the same security team. When we arrived, we went directly to my room and to the safety of isolation. All the hustle and bustle made it feel like we were in an action movie. Once we got inside, we were finally alone, and we wished each other luck.

  The recording of the final episode began. The show was touted as the most exciting and suspenseful live program in television history, and this only doubled the tension.

  Feryal’s machine began working with a slight buzz and we watched the thin transparent tube with its tiny water drop. Just as Feryal had said, the molecules in the drop of water carried cohesive forces that had a certain limit, and when they reached that limit, they would form the perfect water drop. That was our cue to begin transmitting the suras of the Qur’an. From the vibrations of the suras, the water drop appeared to resonate along with the sound modulation formed by the different frequencies.

  The tiny water drop completed its formation, and it seemed about to fall down as expected. But instead, it hung in the air for a while and then rose slightly. At the same time, it transformed into a miraculous form of undefinable color, shape, and brightness. This magnificent form remained suspended, and, soon after, another water drop, following the previous one, started to rise, vibrating and changing its shape and form as well. As light passed through these transparent forms, some bright figures and numbers appeared on the wall. As one water drop came close to the other drop, the two merged together. Other water drops were now moving toward the water drops already hanging in the air, displaying colors and shapes that mankind had never before seen or imagined.

  As the suras continued being read, and the number of drops changed by the suras’ resonances got closer to 114, a figure began to appear in the middle of the room. It was a hypercube, one that I’d heard about in books but could never visualize, even in my dreams. The cube was four-dimensional cube and formed by amazing colors. It looked like a computer that had different pages of information on each plane. As this masterpiece took shape right in front of our eyes, hanging in the air as if to challenge all the laws of physics, we experienced a feeling beyond astonishment.

  We were so stunned that we didn’t notice the sudden arrival of a number of uniformed officers. Breaking the door, they entered with shouts of “Cut the broadcast immediately! Stop everything!” We stood still as they unplugged the device and tried to turn it off. Then chaos ensued.

  A BBM coordinator ran in, screaming, “What do you think you’re doing?!” He grabbed Feryal by her shoulders and began to beat her. Hıdır rushed to protect the professor from the coordinator, but I couldn’t move and I didn’t know why. My body and mind were suddenly overcome with exhaustion and I remained still.

  I was losing consciousness and my sense of time and space were disappearing. Through my misty vision, I saw Hidir and Feryal on the floor, covered in blood and about to collapse. Before I knew it, everyone else had left and I was alone. Had I won? I wanted to stand up, yell, and fight, but I was too far away to succeed.

  The door opened, and suddenly I noticed that my bonds were untied, and I could move. I proceeded toward a lighted corridor.

  Elif

  It was the most comfortable, peaceful, and happiest period of my life. Istanbul was a very beautiful city, and every moment in the city warmed and welcomed me like a good friend. I was a young assistant at the university, making my wedding plans while trying to finish my thesis in the department of foreign languages. Life hadn’t showed me its challenges yet, and I was indulging in all the excitement of youth.

  I went to concerts and presentations or hung out with my boyfriend or went with him to enjoy the nightlife with our friends. To me, life was beautiful. I was young, my dreams were happy, and my worries about work could be easily pushed aside. My future was ahead of me, and I was proceeding joyfully.

  Then a storm came. My boyfriend got a job offer with a successful position after his graduation, and he went out to “celebrate” with my girlfriend from school. Through a bit of coincidence, I caught them. I was devastated. The man in my life and all of our future plans were now in the rubbish bin.

  Istanbul became a city of sadness. The dark water of the Bosphorus scared me with its currents and swirls. The city seemed as if each location was in another dimension or another time, and these dimensions and times were all in layers. When I was in one half of the city, the other half was always in another land—on another continent.

  But it was a city of infinite possibilities, so I remained strong until my storm passed. I did everything I could think of to pass the time. There was no one special in my life, old or new, but I wasn’t exactly alone. I met up with old friends. In the back of my mind was the cliché, “time will heal everything.”

  No matter where I was, my mind was always with me, and when I realized I couldn’t run away from my thoughts, I made a new friend: alcohol.

  I was also intro
duced to quanta during that time. I understood it, assimilated it, and beautifully adapted it to my life. The only thing I would give to the outside was uncertainty.

  That’s when I met Oktay.

  The research campus that led the world in conducting Turkey’s experimental studies related to quantum mechanics, and the area where it gathered all its genius people, was known as Istiklal Street. It was known as the center of wandering—a good street to practice the principle of uncertainty. Istikal is also home to the Jazz Stop, the only place you can indulge in smoking indoors until four in the morning while listening to live music.

  It was past midnight, and I had just cleared out all my acquaintances by boring them with quantum philosophy (my friend, alcohol, and I were having a deep talk that night). Feeling a little too relaxed, I stumbled back onto somebody’s lap.

  I offered my prince a false apology, but, then, I took a second look and my furtive glance showed me a man of medium height, wavy blond hair, green eyes, and a little charisma. But still, I didn’t cut him a break.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” I said.

  He leaned forward and asked in a timid voice, “Do you have a name?”

  “None of your business,” I said.

  “Pretty name, but your parents must not like you very much; why else would they give you a name like ‘None of your business?’” He was being absurd, but it made me take a second look.

  My second impression was mostly the same, but this time, I realized he had more self-confidence and that his eyes were blue. I felt a sudden spark.

  …