Giddeon (Silver Strand Series) (26 page)

It’s amazing how much we all take for granted.

The Earth and all of its varied forms of life.
 
The sky and the mountains and the oceans.
 
On smaller scales, the intricacies of the 92 naturally occurring elements that interact and combine to make everything around us.
 

Sometimes, now, I’ll stop and look at a bug or Boris or a plant in my back yard, and I become almost immobile when I think of the structures and mechanisms and reactions that make them possible.
 
I’ll sit there and observe them, and become absorbed in the wonder of life and the magic of living.
 
Having shrunk down with Giddeon, and having viewed cells and molecules on a level impossible with even the most powerful electron microscopes in existence, I am simply mesmerized by the interplay of atoms and molecules and proteins on minute level.
 
Even though I can no longer see those levels, just knowing the interplay is there is enough to stop me dead in my tracks.

Even inanimate objects fascinate me.
 
The forces that act upon them and shape them into our world.
 
Do a computer search on
gelatin cubes dropped onto solid surface high speed video
and watch that orange shape deform and rebound in slow motion… I have to warn you, it’s hypnotic.
 
You can spend hours watching it if you’re not careful.
 
I made it into a screen saver, of sorts.
 
Watching that video makes me think of all of
Giddeon’s
equations regarding acceleration, deformation and tension that he tried to teach me… most unsuccessfully, I might add.

*****

Slow motion makes everything better.
 

Gives you time to appreciate things.
 
I understand why Giddeon wanted to slow down time.
 
What could be more important than spending it with the one you love?
 
And, you do spend time, you know?
 
It’s the currency we’re all given, and you never know exactly how much is in your account.

I try not to throw time away, because you can never get it back… at least in this world.
 
Giddeon and I could go over and over to a certain reality, if we wanted to, and observe it time and time, again.
 
But that was all we could do… observe it.
 
Over here, you can live it, and that’s so much better.
 

However, you can live it only once.

Life is not a dress rehearsal.
 

My subconscious half always liked that saying.
 
Even though it sort of
was
a dress rehearsal for him… back then, anyway.
 
Now he has Mia, so I guess he can finally star in his own little play.
 
You know, come to think of it, they can go back and observe themselves if they want to… like he and I did when we went to collect the tears from Melody.
 
So, I guess they have an advantage over the rest of us.
 

Good for them : )

 
They deserve it.
 

*****

They both went so many years with no one to hold onto.
 
I wonder if it’s like that for everybody?
 
Are there billions of Inter-Dimensional Tourists the world over wishing for a partner?
 
Alone and wondering what it’s like to actually touch another person?
 
Kind of sad, when you think about it.
 
Maybe that’s our job in life.
 
To find our partner so that they can find theirs.
 
That has a nice symmetry to it.
 

Sort of like physics.
 
Usually symmetry means you’re on the right track.
 
You can feel it, can’t you?
 
When you’re on the right track?
 

When I hold Melody’s hand, or pick Giddy up and turn him upside down and listen to his laughter… laughter that has been replicated by countless children through untold generations before… I know that I’m on the right track.
 
My wife and child are magic and miracles all rolled up into one amazing reality, and I’m lucky enough to share it.
 
Being in a coma for four years really made me realize how precious things are.

Beyond precious.

Beyond value.
 
No matter if you believe in God or science or magic, or all three of them, together, the fact remains that us being here and being able to touch and see and hear and smell... to laugh and love and taste and create… is a miracle.
 
And, miracles shouldn’t be taken for granted.
 
They’re all around us.
 
Each and every atom in each and every thing.
 
Each and every smile.
 
Each and every song.
 
All generated from stars and nebulas and singularities in a huge, cosmic E-Z Bake Oven.

So, let us eat cake… that’s what it’s for.

Life’s short, eat your dessert, first : )

*****

We wade through miracles, looking for a tumbler of magic.
 
That’s the irony for most of us.
 
I was the same way… actually, worse.
 
I wasn’t even looking.
 
I was just a cardboard cut-out of a person living a two-dimensional life.
 
Never appreciating, never thinking, never living.

So many people go through their days, their months, their years, with nothing to show for it.
 
And, I don’t mean things made of matter.
 
I mean things
that
matter…
 

Experiences shared.
 
Love given.
 
Time together.

*****

And, even worse than not appreciating the world and people around us, is the destruction of the world and people around us.

War, disease, pollution, famine and misery.
 

We spit in the face of the universe by allowing such realities to become real.
 
And, it’s all of us that give life to most of our problems.
 
We manifest them on a daily basis.
 
Our thoughts become solid and take on existences of their own… like monsters in closets.
 
The manifestations feed on our fears and insecurities, and lick at our tears and sweat.
 
We are each the horsemen of our own apocalypse.
 
We cut down our own dreams with swords of envy, petulance and hate.
 

*****

The thing is, though, in order to tear something down, it must first be built… and the destructive force in all of us is the flip side of our own creativity.
 

But, do we have to flip that coin?

And, if we do, can we weight it so that it lands with the positive side up?

I think we can.
 
We have plenty of dragons to slay without becoming dragons, ourselves.
 
Genetic conditions, infections, accidents, catastrophes and syndromes.
 
Pain and suffering from a multitude of causes.
 

Aging and death.
 

There is much to fight without fighting each other.
 
How can we reach for the stars with our hands around each other’s throats?

I believe we must, instead, use our hands to sculpt our realities into something worthy of the material granted to us.
 
There is enough sickness and death… enough pain and suffering.
 
And, in the end, it comes to all of us.
 
At least in our present time and place.

Can we circumvent the seemingly inevitable?
 
Can we stave off the curse of misery, sweat, toil and demise?
 

Maybe, so.
 
I’ve heard it said that the only thing that’s impossible is impossibility.
 
Every lock has a key, and every room has an exit.
 
We just need to find the keys to the locks… or failing that, become locksmiths, ourselves.

I think maybe we must look to the heavens, not just with our eyes, but, also, with our hearts.

*****

I read words that I had yet to write… they had already been written by somebody else.
 

I don’t know how to explain it.
 
I don’t know if I should even try.
 
Alternate Dad puts my letters to you down into his computer as part of a story.
 
He puts the words of Giddeon and you and Greg in there, too.
 
I thought maybe I was just remembering what I had seen, and that was why, word for word, the letters to you were the same.
 
But, then, I wouldn’t look on purpose, for a week or more, and there they would be.
 
Virtually every time I penned something to you, it already would have been written in his file.
 
Even this letter… I went and looked, afterwards, and there it was… including this sentence and the next one, which I added after I had finished.
 
My mind gets caught in a loop when I think about it.

Never do I whisper our actions into his ear, like I did the first time.
 
He just does it on his own.
 
Like there is a conduit between his universe and ours.

I think somehow his reality and our reality are connected.
 
An association that doesn’t really follow the normal rules of time and space.
 
I find it odd that that particular time-line is one of the silver strands that didn’t go dark in the potential futures… the ones that met with the asteroid… you know, the ones that Giddeon had visualized a while back?
 
Maybe somehow the asteroid missed his world in its future trajectory.

The unusual thing is that the words of his that I have read are in our past.
 
They came before these events occurring over here play themselves out… several years before.
 
I finally learned to time-travel on my own, by the way.
 
I still have to go to sleep to make my way back here, but, both directions are available to me, now.
 
I don’t know the ending of his book, because for some reason I can only access that time of his… the time of his writing as it mirrors our situation.
 
I can’t get into the parallel days that would coincide with ours.
 
I know they’re there, because I can see that silver strand stretching off into the distance, but I can’t follow it.

Almost like I’m being blocked.

*****

Dr. Jennifer Evans got out her husband’s old acoustic Fender guitar from her walk-in closet and brought it to her office as we requested.
 
During Melody’s last taping of me at home, Giddeon had asked us to tell her to do that.
 
Dr. Evans waited until we showed up for my appointment and then brought the instrument to the room where the hypnosis sessions took place.
 
I sat down in my usual chair, and Jennifer lowered the lights while Melody took a seat across the room near a corner.
 
Within minutes, I was out… I share that trait with Gid, by the way… easily hypnotized.

Jennifer’s deceased husband was apparently pretty good on the guitar.
 
Kind of strange how many people in this little saga play music… I wonder if there is a reason for that?
 
Like I said, before, the Aborigines believe the world was sung into existence.
 
Maybe it wasn’t just the once… maybe it has to be sung each and every day.

*****

Giddeon came to life and told Jen to open the guitar case and hand him the instrument.
 
He went about tuning the old strings, which still were in fairly decent shape as the tension had been off of them during storage.
 
There’s a little compartment in the red felt neck of the guitar case under the bridge, and Giddeon told the therapist to undo the latch and get what was inside.

It was a folded up sheet of paper with hand-written lyrics.

Jennifer looked them over, and tears welled up in her eyes.
 
Giddeon waited for a few moments, and then began an acoustic version of her husband’s song that was recorded on that sheet.
 
It was a take on an old Tommy
Tutone
tune… the original tune was kind of
their
song.
 
Apparently, her husband had written a sequel:

Jenny, Jenny, what have I come to…

I don’t want, nowhere to run to.

I think maybe, you have done to me…

Something strange, something good,

Something that I thought nobody ever would.

Something strange, something good, something fine…

I’m so glad I got your number, 86-Heaven-5309.

I’m so glad I got you on the line.

You turned from a lover to a friend…

So many times, then you softly turned right back again.

Jenny, Jenny, what have you done to me?

You wrap yourself around me… and, that sets me free,

Sets me free, sets me free.

Jenny, I’ve got your number, Jenny, you’ve got my name.

Even after all these years, I still feel just the same.

Jenny, Jenny, I’m so glad you’re mine… 86-Heaven-5309.

Jenny, Jenny, I’m so glad you’re mine… 86-Heaven-5309.

It seems like yesterday, I called you up to say…

‘Jenny, I scratched your name off of that wall.

I’m sure you’re just a good girl after all…’

You were so happy that I called.

Jenny, I’ve got your number, Jenny, you’ve got my name.

Even after all these years, I still feel just the same.

Jenny, Jenny, I’m so glad you’re mine… 86-Heaven-5309.

Jenny, Jenny, I’m so glad you’re mine… 86-Heaven-5309.

*****

When I watched it back on tape, it even almost made me lose it.
 
Dr. Evans had her hand over her mouth during most of the performance with tears streaming down her face… there were two cameras that recorded the sessions, one on me and one on her, so we can actually show a split screen if we want.
 
She didn’t know about the lyrics her husband had written, or the compartment in the guitar case.
 
Melody went and put her arms around Jennifer, and the two held each other and wept bittersweet tears.

Giddeon just sat there on his chair and studied the old guitar, as if it was of great interest.
 
I think he was trying not to cry.

*****