1
“What do you see?” Presley whispered with controlled anxiety.
“Um…” Professor S. must be stroking his beard in the dark. The rest of the group waited in respectful or sarcastic silence. A roomful of expectancy was pressing quietly on the carpet. But Professor S. would just take his time.
“Um…” Professor S. was still not ready to say anything. For everyone else the room seemed to be completely dark. They could not even tell the precise position of Presley’s head, where Professor S. should be staring at.
“I see trees…many trees…many many trees...”
“A forest, you mean?” A diligent researcher, Presley had the virtue of being accurate in presenting research results.
“Don’t interrupt me! Trees, yes, the trees…they are black, very dark black…”
“But trees are green and black is black, neither dark nor light.” Presley thought, but did not say a word.
“In the middle of the trees, there is something…”
“What is it?”
“A man. He’s red, in the middle of all the black trees. He’s going fishing. He’s got this huge fish in his hand, which he holds in the way he would hold a lovely lady...”
“Wait a minute, you said ‘he’s going fishing’?” Presley thought this was an important detail.
“Yes, so he’s got this lovely lady that he adores and admires. She’s better than anything he’s seen or is capable of imagining. She’s the perfection, the impossible, the ultimate. He follows her into the sea and never comes back again.
“Oh no, he never comes back, leaving his wife and their three year old son behind, waiting for him day and night in that little cottage.” As Professor S. seemed more and more sure about his vision, Presley grew less and less comfortable in his seat. “I can see the little boy playing alone in the little loft. He stays there and reads. He doesn’t make any noise. I can see him growing into a scholar...”
“Okay,” Presley couldn’t stand hearing it any more. “This doesn’t make any sense. I have to ask you to give it back to me now.”
Someone turned on the light. Presley stood up. He stared at the floor with both hands in the trousers side pockets, then invited Professor to have a stroll with him in the rose garden.
At his appearance everyone was taken by Professor’s dapper outfit and confident demeanour, his complete openness and brisk clarity as he stared into the eyes of whoever he happened to be talking to. But as soon as he started to introduce his recent research projects, many realised that, if absolute confidence exists in this world, it must be in the soul of only two types of people - the enlightened and the insane. And it was clear which category he fit better. According to himself, Professor S. was teaching Anthro-paranormal Psychology at the University of Albilie at Baliny. Appearing as a new member at the Researcher’s Club on The Source of Everything tonight, he took pride in his ability of seeing one’s “deepest wound” through the “Flame of Spirit”, which burned continuously above one’s crown until he died, according to the mystic belief of the primitive tribe Labanba living on the Wuzizuki River. This flame was only visible – Professor S. detailed - in a dark space, when the seer was entrusted by the querent. The first condition was easy. The second was often enabled by the querent handing over a piece of personal item to materialise and prove the trust. The more precious the item the more accurate the vision.
Everybody was curious, even the sceptic. It was a scientists’ club and everyone’s mind was thirsty for seeking solutions and now here came a puzzle. The issue about sanity took no priority. After Professor S. agreed to demonstrate the “game”, however, nobody readily volunteered himself to be the querent. After an almost unbearable pause, Presley Taillon hesitantly offered himself to be the white mouse, under one circumstance: his handing over the special item in the dark.
2
Thinking in retrospect, Presley spent his entire youth in proving his homosexuality, in vain. At the age of twenty three, he came to face the grim reality that, him, Presley Taillon, was attracted to women and hence would have to most naturally meet a girl and get married and have children like everyone else. He went into deeper depression at the realisation; adult life appeared to be filled with meaningless and hideous games which he did not want to take part in. He wanted to become a monk when he was a child, but gave up with that idea after reading the degrading scandals regarding some Catholic priests. He felt better calling himself an atheist.
At least he loved his job. He had a perfect job - researcher in fundamental physics. He liked the autonomy of being a researcher, the general uselessness of the fundamental research, and the impossibility in explaining to any lay-person about his job.
“What do you do?”
“I’m a physicist, in fundamental physics.”
“Wow.”
End of conversation.
Zana was one of the few who went beyond the “wow”. Actually she went WITHOUT the “wow”. Zana was working in the cafeteria at the university where he studied. She had long black curvy hair and olive skin, and she was the girl who bombed his non-existent closet, and dismayed Presley with his true sexual orientation.
It was lunch time and he went as usual right before they closed the cafeteria. Zana handed him his beef stew and not-so-fresh salad, and smiled at him. At that smile he thought about pineapple.
He sat down to consume his meal, in the meanwhile ruminating about pineapple. He was shocked in finding out he actually had no idea whether pineapples grew in soil or hanging on trees. Everything about a pineapple - the prickly touch on the skin, the mellow and tantalising aroma, the soft and juicy flesh, the sweet and sour taste and the itchy sensation it felt on the tongue - told him that it must be a fruit that grew from a tree. But he just could not picture a fruit so round and plump hanging from a plant. He could only see them buried in soil with the tuft of hard and stiff thorny leaves sticking out vehemently.
That night he could not sleep. Still thinking about pineapple.
When he saw the girl again the next day, he realised it was the smile that he could not get over with, not the pineapple.
After he fetched his meal he sat down at his usual table close to the gate and started devouring the plate contents. Zana came and placed a glass of coke in front of him. It was from the soda machine. When Presley looked up, she gave that pineapple smile, and walked away to wipe a table a few steps away from Presley’s. He had not drunk any soda after he read that report about the chemicals contained in a can of coke. He was a safe man.
“Ur...sank you.” Presley said with a stuffed mouth.
“You’re welcome.”
Is she really shy or it’s just some kind of makeup that girls use on their cheeks? Presley wondered while he made some room in his mouth.
“I like coke.” He drank a full mouthful.
She did not reply. He ate a few fries.
"How are you?" He found it a bit odd right after saying it.
"I'm fine, thanks. How about you?"
"Good! I'm good. I mean, I'm normal. You know, I mean, I'm normally good." Presley got really stressed while part of his brain was still struggling to understand what he meant exactly.
"Are you a student?"
"Yes, I'm a graduate student."
"What do you study?"
"Fundamental physics."
"What is it?"
"We study...the world, the universe, how things work, we found the theory that explains everything...you know, everything."
Zana stood leaning on a table, toying with her piece of cleaning cloth, waiting to hear more.
Presley wiped his mouth for the fifth time and said, "Yeah, you know, like the origin of the universe, time, even extra dimensions. We study to understand them and write articles about them."
"You mean, like the fourth dimension they are talking about in movies?"
"Yes, exactly."
"Do they exist?"
"...yeeeeeeeeees, they might. And they might not. We don't know. Nobody knows."
Zana thought really hard for a while.
"But you get paid doing that?"
"Right."
Presley had a digestive problem that night. He could not even remember what he ate.
3
“What a beautiful evening!” Professor exclaimed as they stepped out of the backdoor.
It took Presley a while to get used to the dark, then the immense rose garden slowly emerged from the dark. The century-old rose garden was paved with stones, which in the moonlight brought one back to distant past. The garden was built inspired by the court yards in the far east. Narrow paths meandered in between lush roses which in the dim light looked like patches of crimson and magenta on background of dark green. If it was a maze one would not even notice - they simply lost themselves amidst the aromatic ambience.
“What... exactly did you see in the ‘vision’?” Presley was shocked by his own distinct voice.
“I described it to you.” Professor S. said, “Before you interrupted me, that is.”
Presley looked above Professor’s head, but there was nothing there. When he discovered he was doing that, he admitted to himself he was driven half-insane by this suspicious newcomer. He would like to question him in private but had totally no idea where to start.
“I once painted a water-colour painting...”
“A what?”
“A water-colour painting. I painted a scene of my garden seen through the window of my study. In the garden I had all kinds of herbs collected from the tribes I visited on the Wuzizuki River, and I used them for my ritual simulations.”
Presley wondered with despair where this conversation would lead to.
“As I painted on I entered some kind of trance. I found myself following the guidance of my brush not my brain in carrying out the strokes. This is not at all common with the art of water-colour painting, as it’s a precise art which requires a lot of conscious planning, a bit like writing a short story. But I just let myself go. It was an experiment. Everything is experiment for me. Life itself is just a vast experiment with no clear hypothesis...”
“So what did you find out?”
“I saw my late wife in the picture.”
Presley turned to stare at Professor, but his face being in the shade Presley could not tell his expression except for feeling a little more sombre than before.
“She was smiling at me in the middle of the plants I painted.”
“It could be just... I mean no offence, but it could be just an illusion out of... out of nostalgia.” Presley’s Researcher’s Tentacles reached out in no time seeking for logical answers.
“Yes, but that tells me the same thing.”
Presley could not help thinking of the vision earlier described by Professor again. As a scientific minded scientist, he was immune to any kind of what he would call “superstitious nonsense”. He never read a horoscope, preferred pills to hypnosis if he had to see a shrink, believed there were logical causes behind any phenomenon. All inexplicable mysteries were results of temporary limits of human intellect and it was the scientists’ job to eliminate them. What Professor saw in him plunked an unsettling string in the darkest corner inside him, however.
He did not like the feeling of apprehension and hence the invitation for a stroll with Professor hoping to expel the discomfort by articulate discussion, but now he felt more trapped than before. He did not know what questions to ask Professor S.
“Where on earth is this Wuzizuki River and why do I care about your water-colour painting?!”
“What kind of school would hire a professor like you and tolerate your voodoo experiments?”
No, these are completely irrelevant.
“Do you know me?”
“How did you figure out about my parents?”
No, these are totally nonsense.
Maybe what he really wanted to say was: “Tell me more about my life!” but he did not realise.
“You are half-way to getting the answer if you know the right question to ask,” Professor S. said uncannily, “this stands true in scientific research as well as personal life. Like I said, life itself is just a vast experiment with no clear hypothesis.”
“What if we know the right question to ask?” Presley challenged, “What if, say, we ask so many questions that one day or another, we hit the right one?”
Professor turned to talk to the moon, “Human conditions are all alike. Oedipus strove to escape his destiny. Human beings have been doing the same things ever since.”
Presley was astonished by these words, his fingers nervously stroking in the side pocket the key ring Professor S. just returned to him.
4
Presley would never forget the day he went to the zoo with Zana. It was a bright Sunday in May, about one month after they started dating. In the early afternoon Zana called him up for a trip to the zoo. In one hour he found himself in the blinding sun in the middle of nine hundred screaming children and parents chasing after them. In front of the monkeys locked in a big cage, Zana told Presley that she was pregnant. Her words came as surreal as everything else on that day.
Presley stood there staring at the monkeys staring at him. Zana went on and implied they should get married and listed the reasons why it was best solution. That was when Presley decided that “this is too much”. He simply walked away.
Zana tried to call. The conversations sounded like this:
“Can we just talk about this?”
“Yes. We are talking.”
“Can we see each other so I can look you in the eyes?”
“No.”
“What’s wrong with you? You’re the father of the baby. You can’t just escape from it, from me!”
“True. It’s my fault. My problem. Can you just give me some time to digest it?”
After two weeks, Presley called Zana to break up.
“I am not ready for a life with you.”
Zana’s sobs came loud and clear through the phone. Presley was very embarrassed.
After that Presley did not have any other romantic relationship in his life. He was back to his closet again. He did not mind being alone or even lonely. Solitude had been Presley’s best friend since a young age. He grew up with a single mother who had to turn herself into a workaholic to support the family. At the age of ten he was sick of his mother’s tight hugs and overly affectionate fondling. He started hiding himself from her; his mother turned increasingly sour. While the neighbouring children busied themselves torturing insects, painting mail boxes, placing splinters of glass on the street, he spent most his Sundays lying on the cold floor in his bedroom contemplating the clouds in the sky, meditating the possibility that outside of the atmosphere somewhere on another Earth another boy like himself was staring at the sky thinking about him.
To his right underneath the bed somewhere in a dark corner there laid a wooden chess box. Inside the box Presley kept all the tickets and small trinkets that reminded him of the trips to the Luna Park with his father. Father did not come back often, according to his young memory. When he did he would buy all kinds of sweets and toys to make Presley happy. Young Presley believed Father was much better than Mother, but maybe for this reason he was much less available. Presley would remember the length of the intervals of his visit and started counting the days right after he left. But Father always disappointed him. He came less and less often.
“Why doesn’t Dad live with us?” He once asked his mother.
“...because he doesn’t want... he doesn’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why? Is it because he doesn’t like us? Is it because we are not good enough?”
“He’s not good enough. We don’t need him, honey. We can do without him.”
When Father eventually disappeared Presley believed it was his mother’s fault. He carefully collected all the things related to the memories of Father in the big chess box. There was also a key ring that Presley always carried in his pocket. It was the head of a smily clown, a prize from a shooting game in one of the trips with Father to the Luna Park.
The key ring slowly lost its colour and the smily clown got a dented nose and his face looked as if he just came out from a coal mine. Presley had nearly forgotten about it, but it was the first thing that came in mind when Professor S. asked for a special personal item. Now stroking his old friend smily clown, Presley was seriously shocked by Professor S.’s insight on humans’ predicament, as much as he would like to prove the opposite by living a “homosexual” life, or a reclusive scholarly self-sufficient life.
Presley Taillon had a dream that night. He was back in the zoo he went with Zana. The zoo was turned into a familiar looking Luna Park out in the wild. Little Presley was trapped alone in the empty Luna Park trying to find an exit. It was dark and everybody had already left - the kids, the parents, the lions, the elephants. Even the monkeys were not in the cage any more. All he could see was the merry-go-round that turned around and around, and the perpetually jaunty music playing on and on and on. He woke up in the dark gasping, with the cheery music playing in the ears, soaked in cold sweat.
(End)
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