Giddeon (Silver Strand Series) (4 page)

My wife and child were still asleep in the late afternoon… jet lagged, I suppose.
 
As far as myself, I don’t really need that much sleep, anymore.
 
I suppose I still have some stored up from those 4 years in a hospital bed.
 
I pulled out my smart phone and checked for messages.
 
Nothing.
 
Then I checked my email.
 
Just spam.
 
So I did what I often do in such situations… I opened the virtual folder that held Melody’s prose and poetry.
 

It was all originally recorded in her right-handed script.
 
Over the years, I had scanned hundreds of pages and then transcribed them into type using Word.
 
Melody still sometimes writes down her thoughts (not so much since Giddy arrived on the scene), and I have to badger her to let me see them… she’s funny that way.
 
The paintings are for all the world to see, but anything that comes in the form of words, she tends to protect.
 
I tell her that she shouldn’t be shy… I think everything she puts on either paper or canvas is beautiful, whether it’s in the shape of brush strokes, charcoal swirls or script.
 
I’m not sure she believes me, but, it’s true.
 
Assuming she doesn’t edit this out, I’ll let you be the judge:

When I close my eyes, I can see your face.

If I close my heart, would I lose my place?

I felt your hand,

Where is it now?

A phantom touch,

A feathered vow.

She wrote that in her journal a few days after I didn’t call.
 
It still hurts.
 
Little Gid stirred for a moment, reminding me that all was well.
 
For some reason, the knowledge I had of the asteroid didn’t bother me.
 
I scrolled through some more of Melody’s folder.
 
Prose, then:

I breathe slowly in the air beside the ocean, and wonder whose lungs have held the same.
 
Whose words were made using these atoms?
 
Were they words of love?
 
Of comfort?
 
Of despair?
 
Were they once part of a baby’s cry, bringing a mother to a small room in a foreign land to soothe the little one’s soul?
 
Will the nomadic molecules ever come back around and visit me when I am an old woman?
 
When I am an old woman and walk beside the water one last time.
 
Will some of them be carried into the heavens, brushed from our atmosphere to wander forever in the blackness of space?
 
I should think it better to reside here, near the greens and blues, and sometimes within the pink of lungs.
 
I hold my breath for as long as I can, to give them refuge, at least for a while
.

I love the way she writes.
 
More:

Dappled sunlight makes its way through the branches of the Eucalyptus and dances lightly on my skin.
 
The illumination seems almost joyful as it is reflected to my eyes, and also to the grass and trees near to me.
 
It is as if the journey from the sun, just a hop, a skip and a jump for the nimble little packets of brightness, was simply a race for children to find out who would arrive first… to see who would win the contest, and just what it was on Earth that they would tag.
 
The energy they all bring is absorbed by me and my silent green companions.
 
We soak up the day, and smile.

Now, onto Giddy:

Oh, my God… did you really come from me?
 
You, with your perfectly formed fingers, toes and belly?
 
So soft and warm and trusting, you lie against my breast and I feel your heart… a heart that was for so long within my womb, and now is out in the world.
 
I want to shield that heart from pain and sorrow and sadness, but, I know that I cannot.
 
I want to always be your guardian, but, I know that eventually I will not.
 
For the time being, though, I will hold you, and the world will be as it should be.

I looked over at them on the other bed, smiled, shut off the phone and then actually fell asleep, myself.

*****

Kevin Ho peered into his telescope, a furrow in his brow.
 
He had checked and rechecked the coordinates and times.
 
The scientist had the field of view on the highest resolution currently available… the frames per second recording, likewise, was at the machine’s maximum.
 
An audio timer was counting the seconds in his headphones, and his focus was glued to a star that was over 300 light years away.
 
The automated voice droned out the seconds with military precision, and as it got closer and closer to the first set of numbers written on his paper, he held his breath and tried not to blink.

24… 25… 26… 27… 28

And, there it was… the faintest flicker, a shadow of a shadow that briefly obscured the star’s light.
 
At least it looked like something had done that.
 
He would have to go over the tape and subject it to a detailed analysis, but, he believed it would prove to be exactly what his new friends from
San Diego
had said…

A rock.
 
A great, big rock.

*****

How fragile are our lives?

How fragile is the crystalline dream that encases us all?
 
Like brittle amber that shatters with just the slightest touch, it scatters into a thousand pieces that quickly begin to form again, just as fragile, just as delicate.
 
I know that worlds upon worlds are born each and every second, but, somehow, I wonder if they are just the same world.
 
The same world with different facets.
 
Some are so similar that just a mere whisper of a difference is all that is between them.
 
They run in parallel, and if superimposed one over another, a difference can barely be discerned.
 
Yes, they eventually diverge, but like a river, sometimes they reconnect and flow together.

When a group of people gather at a mesmerizing performance, such as an opera or a play, you can feel it.
 
All of the realities are separating, but, yet, the worlds stay together, focused upon the event.
 
There is no better place to be, and the universal doppelgangers step in concert with one another.
 
You can feel it, can’t you?
 
That hush in the crowd as everyone takes in what is before them.
 
That keen anticipation to see what is next, together.
 
It’s like everyone is of the same mind, and you know who it is that sits next to you because they are an extension of yourself.
 
All of the realities spinning off of you and the people around you stay and sit, contented in the chairs.
 
You can almost feel the weight as more and more similarities perfectly overlap and add one to another.

And, finally, at the end, applause erupts.
 
The clapping of hands mimics the wings of birds and releases all of the worlds into the night sky.
 
If you look closely, you can almost see them hanging there briefly like diamonds… diamonds that become stars, and then galaxies, nebulas and quasars in the universe of life.
 

The velvet backdrop upon which they shine is a void, but I know that within that void are connections that hold it all together.
 

Some call it dark matter, but, I know that it isn’t really dark.

It’s silver.

Silver strands.

*****

Melody, Giddy and I went out to supper when we were rested.
 
I ordered a Blue Hawaiian in honor of my subconscious, and I’m sure he enjoyed it.
 
The night air was cool in comparison to the daytime atmosphere, and the
Tiki
torches scattered around the outside tables reminded us that we weren’t on
Coronado
, anymore.
 
Hawaiian dancers put on a show for the guests, and one of the performers really took to little Gid.
 
She picked him up and held him close as she gyrated in her grass skirt and skimpy top.
 
He was smiling and laughing the whole time, and all of the guests pretty much fell in love with him… especially the women.
 
Looks like I’m gonna have a ladies’ man on my hands.

When Giddy was returned to us, our meal came.
 
The butter-soaked shrimp and scallops were extraordinary, and the salad was crisp and delightful.
 
Melody was beyond description with the firelight dancing off of her face, her hair and her eyes.
 
Giddy, with his curls swirling ever so slightly in the warm summer breeze, was on his best behavior… as if he wanted everything to be perfect on this special night.

I didn’t tell you that, either, did I?
 
It was our Anniversary : )
 
Three years.
 
Almost as long as I had been in the coma.
 
Compared to my unconscious life, it seemed like only three days… I guess time does fly when you’re having fun.
 
That kind of worries me.
 
If we’re married for a hundred years, will it seem to be just a few short months?
 

I want to slow it down.
 
I try to focus on each little thing, no matter how mundane.
 
The way she holds her fork.
 
The shape of her lips as she kisses Giddy on the cheek.
 
The way she absently pets Samantha or Boris when they are in her lap.
 

The love in her eyes as she looks up at me on the dance floor.

I don’t let anything slip by.
 
I catch it all and try to store it in my mind.
 
If she would let me, I would install cameras all over the house (not in our bedroom or bathroom, of course) to record her every move.
 
Like a reality show just for me.
 

I suppose the movie theatre of the future beat me to it.
 
I wondered if they were still using my eyes to take it all in… or
Giddy’s
eyes… or for that matter, the cats’?

Melody looked up, almost as if she was reading my thoughts, and smiled.
 

I’m a lucky man.

*****

Have you ever heard of the Butterfly Effect?

 
It doesn’t just apply to the atmosphere, you know?
 
Little things can have big effects over time out in the deep of space, too.
 
Do you remember the anti-satellite tests they had a while back?
 
The
U.S.
and
Russia
and
China
?
 
We took turns blowing targets out of orbit.
 
The rationale for all of that destruction was that in the event of war, one country would be able to disable another’s orbiting eyes. Some feared that such tactics could be used prior to a pre-emptive strike, which resulted in even more tests.
 
And, the tests we heard about weren’t the first… all three countries had all been at it in one form or another for quite some time… that’s one reason why there’s so much space junk in low earth orbit.

But not all of the nuts and bolts and pieces and parts stayed in close orbit.
 
Some made their way out near the edge of our planet’s gravitational field.
 
You wouldn’t think that would be a problem in the vastness of space, but one of those little scraps of metal happened to ricochet off of a passing meteor years ago.
 
That meteor was in an elliptical orbit around our sun, and the tiny nudge was enough of an event so that the second object just happened to strike another small meteor a few years later.
 
That rock eventually impacted a large asteroid dead center in a game of cosmic billiards. The lump of nickel and minerals was travelling at such a high rate of speed that it buried itself deep into the cortex of the porous traveler.
 
A huge pocket of ice then had an opening to the surface, and when the gigantic, dark object turned in its natural rotation toward the sun, steam shot from the vent and changed its trajectory over a period of weeks until, finally, all of the ice was expended.

The odds against that sequence of events was astronomical, but lotteries are won every day… it works both ways, you know?
 
Both positive and negative. The steam put the projected track of the large asteroid onto a collision course with our planet.

Giddeon looked into the camera, using Greg’s eyes.
 
The therapist had seen this video five times, before, but for some reason felt compelled to watch it a sixth time.

Some might call this an unintended consequence of those tests so many years ago, but I wonder about that.
 
I wonder if we brought this upon ourselves?
 
Maybe the Butterfly Effect just multiplies energy, and in this case, it was negative energy.
 
The amplified intent of our warlike nature might be coming back on us like malevolent ripples in a pond.

Karma in the form of an asteroid.

*****