The Revelations by Erik Hoel (some good books to read TXT) 📗

puppetry once more. Now the great Cartesian theater is deconstructed, the wands of props and the full houses of sets are hustled into the dark corners of storage, the boom mics unrigged in dark wirings and the stage lights cooled down with a vibrating hum. Backstage the actors are tiredly wiping away makeup with wet washcloths in front of mirrors and removing the pageantry of feathers and elaborate costumes, not prepared to dream themselves because they are the miniature demons of thoughts and thus themselves dreamless; beyond them, past the dressing room of melting and scaling lights the deep-red curtains are winging close, the stage is swept dry by a lone janitor, and then the lights are shut off, leaving only a pregnant darkness, and then not even that . . .

SATURDAY

Kierk wakes up and immediately has the acute awareness that Moretti will be giving a talk later today at the CNS. As he lays on his back looking up, soon the textured ceiling is occupied by the empty screen of his morning mind and a memory plays out of the last day of his PhD . . .

The memory was of the Madison winter skyline receding in his rearview mirror, seen from across a frozen Lake Monona, heading out of town on John Nolen Drive. He was leaving, pretending to know what he was doing. The unreal morning light stroked the smoothed throat of late November. Everything was a.m. poetry, everything was snowy math. Events let themselves off, unmoored and floated up, weightless—two possible worlds hovered before him like spheres. Kierk wanted to throw it all away just to see what would happen, to see if it would free him, allow a movement to greater heights. Some voice whispered: further, further and faster. He was sick of this cold, he could go somewhere warm. Simultaneously he knew that nothing would happen, he would dissolve into himself, his own personality turning self-cannibalistic in the manner of the consumptive. It’s too late to make any improvements, Kierk had thought, the universe has been finished for a long time now, it’s wrapped up, all that’s left to do is the casting. You, you’re the cowboy. You, the Roman soldier. You, the geisha. You, the failed scientist. Action.

Outside the lecture hall Kierk sits with his knees up to his chest listening to the familiar voice of his mentor echo out from within. Occasionally Kierk shakes his head, or laughs darkly to himself as he catches the old phrases and terms, some of which he had invented himself. Inside he knows is the entirety of NYU’s CNS faculty, a huge number of students, many of them crouched in the aisles and standing along the walls, and of course all the Crick Scholars except himself. Finally, there’s the rising of applause that goes on for a long time. Then low murmuring as Antonio responds to a few questions that Kierk can’t hear. The audience members come streaming out, discussing in excited voices, gesturing with their arms. Kierk sneaks away to the nearest restroom to wait for the crowds to pass, determined not to be seen. After washing his face and hands he goes back out into the hallway, having avoided most of the foot traffic. He can hear Antonio still packing up inside, the sound of someone saying goodbye to him, the unzipping of a laptop case. Kierk considers—he could just walk away right now. He doesn’t have to see Moretti, doesn’t have to talk to him. On the other hand, they hadn’t spoken since Kierk had left, hadn’t corresponded since Kierk had published a paper arguing against their former work. And here was Antonio, nine months later, still giving the same spiel that Kierk had helped develop. Kierk hangs between walking away and confrontation, the two possibilities flipping back and forth, a thing that could only be examined from one side at a time, reality itself, and then Kierk makes his choice and opens the heavy lecture-hall doors.

Antonio, looking just as Kierk remembers him, glances up from closing his bag with huge hands and locks eyes with Kierk. Neither says anything. They are completely alone in the auditorium.

After a silence, Antonio says—“You didn’t come to the talk.”

“I know it by heart.”

“Ah,” Antonio hangs his head, grabs a final cord from the podium, puts it into his bag.

“Where is everyone?” Kierk says. “I assumed there’d be a crowd of questioners.”

“They’ve given me a reprieve. There’s going to be a gala afterwards. Norman Bennett told everyone to wait until then.”

“A gala . . . for you?”

“You’re invited, of course.”

“Of course.”

Antonio is still on the stage by the podium. Kierk takes the two steps up to it slowly. They face each other on the creaky wooden planks and under the bright lights, Antonio tall and looming at center stage.

“Since you stormed out, telling me everything I did was wrong, I had thought to hear—”

“Since I stormed out?”

“—because you left with no degree. They want me to sign something here, you know. For you. To grant you it.”

“You know I deserve it. And you read the paper, you know my ideas.”

“You’d like to have a debate, Kierk,” Antonio chuckles, then gestures to the empty rows of seats. “Now that we have such an audience?”

“Did you read it?”

“Yes, of course I read it.”

“And your response is what? You haven’t issued any. Just going to ignore it, I suppose?”

“I said everything I needed to. Things play out in the literature.”

“You mean in the arena where you have the greatest advantage in terms of time, money, connections, a team.”

“That is the way science works. It’s not perfect, but if you stay in the game, I look forward to many—”

“So you’re just going to ignore it.”

“There are so many different things that are wrong with your thinking that I wouldn’t know where to begin. I wonder if you ever understood me at all.”

“Oh really, and what didn’t I understand? Your theory rests on information theory. Information is frame-variant. So