Simon's Gift

To the World...

Simon's Gift

Benjamin Trayne

Simon Simkovitch had reached the age of eighty-nine. He stood in his back yard and stared into the endless reaches of sky, and space. As if frozen in time, his aged frame remained perfectly still; as motionless as the dinosaur that had once paused on the very same spot, to watch the sparkle and flash of a huge incoming meteor that would spell its doom.

But this time, there was no meteor. And this time, what was incoming was of far greater power.

But all Simon was doing was wondering, a distinctly human flaw. Or is it an asset? It depends entirely on the conclusions drawn from what we know and what we learn.

Many years earlier Simon had earned a doctorate in physics. As a practicing theorist, he had long dabbled with ambiguity and paradox, attempting to resolve issues through the application of mathematics. But lately, the more he had done so, the more new ambiguities had appeared. And so, retired from teaching at the university and free to pursue his muse, he gradually had all but given up eating and sleeping. The problems and potential solutions he could imagine swirled continuously through his mind, jostling against one another, revolving and twisting as he vainly attempted to make the pieces fit.

There was another element that came into play, as well. Although he wouldn't likely have acknowledged it, Simon was a philosopher.

With all of these things in combination, Simon had become a lightning rod for true revelation. He was fortunate indeed not to have been killed when the burst arrived. When it did, Simon momentarily stopped breathing. His mouth opened wide, his chin came up, he felt distinctly faint; his eyes rolled back in his head and he was immediately and physically driven to his knees, as if stricken with a burst of energy, as if the sheer weight of the cataclysmic impingement on his human mind was too much for his legs to support. On it came, a thundering tsunami of realization that rolled over the tidewall of his perceptions and preconceptions, blasting away his existing frame of reference for the world around him. All was changed now, all things, forever different.

Now on his knees, Simon turned his eyes again skyward and gasped for air, just as might a man who has been submerged for long minutes, but has at last broken through the surface of the water. He held his arms tightly against his chest as if to keep himself from exploding. And then, as his vision cleared, the true amazement for Simon began. Nothing at all looked as it had before. Crimson and white rose petals in morning light had never, ever been so beautiful, for he now knew precisely and intimately, what they were. Emerald green shone from each graceful blade of grass. Simon stood up and breathed deeply, pulling in lungfuls of air, savoring the experience.
It was all so gargantuan; the summation of his extensive education had coupled with everything he had learned and imagined since, and now, realization had burst upon him. It was almost beyond his fertile imagination to embrace it. For more than seven decades he had theorized, experimented, ruminated and agonized over the mysteries of the universe, and of existence itself. And now, at long last, Simon understood. He understood everything.

There was only one thing to do. And that one thing had to happen, immediately, without delay. He had to record it, to write it all down. The things he needed to document for the world would astound the scientific and philosophical communities, that was certain. It was so undeniable, it was axiomatic. Anyone who would read what he would write would have no choice but to agree. And like Simon, they would be forever changed, as would the rest of the world, and humanity's entire perception of its own existence.

Anyone who has ever had something they held most dear will know how Simon felt about what he now owned. Deep within his heart, Simon feared the loss of it. It had come so quickly, what if it should depart the same way? The thought terrified him, and he resolved to get right to the task of getting it all down on paper.

But first, there was something he could not prevent. Simon wept. Tears of amazement, tears of thankfulness, salt-laden alligator tears of joy and happiness. He knelt upon the grass, and he wept. Had the length of his weeping been proportional to the immensity of his mental illumination, he never would have stopped, never would have risen. But it did finish. Then, he wept for the rest of the world, who didn't yet know what he now did. Everyone lived their lives beneath an oppressive overlay of questions. Ignoring the questions so that life could be lived had become second-nature to all. When his revelations would be brought to the fore, the bright light of clarity would enable them, would allow them to conquer all impediments, would permit mankind to at last, evolve.

His home was in the countryside, and that was good, because had anyone witnessed his tears, they might have called for help. Help would have been interference, and he couldn't afford any time-consuming distractions. He wiped the tears from his wrinkled cheeks and went inside to start his computer. But his computer wouldn't start. What a horrible time for a breakdown! The necessary path was obvious. He would have to write it out by hand, and there was no time to waste. He took several ballpoint pens from his desk drawer and found a looseleaf binder, thankfully full of paper.

Seated then with a glass of ice water on the stand beside him, Simon began to write. The first thing he would complete would be the outline. For when certain basic truths were known, anyone could easily reach the same definitive conclusions. All he had to do was to get those down, and he should never lose the rest. He had to make sure this work had a clear beginning, would properly build on the known and then expand in a coherent fashion to include the secrets of the universe, life, the existence of all things and the place of mankind itself within all of it. Then it must conclude with an appropriate ending, a challenge for the reader.

He wrote, furiously and feverishly. He wrote with all of the fervor and freneticism of a newly-enlightened being. After four continuous hours, he realized he needed to stand, stretch, and to move about. He was overdue for a trip to the lavatory, he needed food, perhaps even a break. But he couldn't bring himself to do any of it. His belly growled, he thirsted, his kidneys ached, both of his legs tingled with the intense oncoming numbness from remaining in his chair for so long. Still, he wrote on.

Eventually, he began to make mistakes. This would be a treatise for the ages, both prophetic and informative, perfect. He could not afford to include silly errors. Worse, a quick proofreading of the first ten pages revealed that he'd gotten a bit ahead of himself. The presentation needed to proceed a bit more gradually. He would have to make more than one kind of correction. So finally, he looked at his watch. It had been just after ten A.M. when he had started, how could it only be eleven-thirty? He glanced at the window, and realized quickly why it was so. Darkness. He had not stopped for more than twelve hours.

So, reluctantly, he decided to take care of necessities. He didn't care about food but he did need a drink of water, he needed to make that lavatory stop – how long ago was it that he had ignored the need? He moved to rise from his chair.

His legs would not respond. It was then that he realized he couldn't feel them at all, oh no, this would be painful! He slowly raised and massaged each of his legs until he began to feel the tingle of blood flow restarting. The muscles in his legs then began to hurt, a terrible ache spreading from his hips gradually to the tips of his toes. Worse, he noticed a dull pain in his chest that seemed to connect to a similarly dull pain in his arm. He knew what that could mean.

Looking at the stack of completed pages, he realized his progress had been good. But there was so much more! And he knew it was infinitely more important than his one life in this single existence. Yes, now he knew, there were “others”.

And so, he took care of necessities only. He was grateful he'd left his cane within reach. Usually he didn't bother with it unless he was going somewhere, but now, it shaved a lot of time from the necessary break. He could rise sooner. Approaching the age of ninety, the cane meant something.

He resumed the writing of his treatise, ten minutes later. He'd taken two aspirins, drunk a glass of water, relieved himself and placed a fresh glass of water and a package of soda crackers on the stand. He could not afford sleep, or time to prepare a meal. Eating would make him tired, and he feared the loss of his train of thought, feared that he wouldn't awaken to finish.

Thus, perhaps the greatest written work in the history of mankind took shape. Throughout the ages, the only thing that has succeeded in passing enlightenment on to future generations has been the written word. He knew it, he felt it, and now, he was making his own massive contribution to a deeply confused and troubled world. Many were the edits, thousands of times he adjusted his use of terms and hundreds of times he re-read portions of the document to assure that all was clearly stated. There was no room for imagery or flowery words. To the point.

He wrote on.

Soon the window brightened with the light of a new day, but he didn't notice it. Like the treatise he was writing, it was something he'd never done before. Still he wrote, still he edited. The work had passed forty thousand words but was not complete. The stack of completed pages was growing, and whenever Simon glanced at it, he knew the feeling a successful prospector feels as he adds to his growing pile of gold. And yet, the value was so much greater. He realized now he would succeed, would finish this, would pass along to the world and to all of science the grand gift he had received the previous morning. The previous morning! He finally took another look at his watch. It was three in the afternoon.

Now he feared that fatigue might have damaged the effort, might have separated the text from the goal. It was time to re-read all of it from the beginning to see that it was properly composed. But first, he had to repeat the short break he had taken many hours earlier. But again, his aged legs would not respond.

It was time to make a decision.

He realized for the first time in many hours that his chest still ached, and it was decidedly present in his left arm as well. The continued lack of sleep might well end his life. Under ordinary circumstances, he would have already been at the hospital, being checked and most probably, admitted. To both ignore it and to continue was to accept a great risk. And yet he felt there was no choice. He looked at his water glass. There was a small amount of clear water visible in the bottom. How beautiful it was! He picked it up and gratefully drank it, savoring the wetness on his tongue, moistening his parched and cracked lips. He felt no sensation of hunger.

Driven to finish, there was only one choice: continue. He reached out and grasped the stack of pages, and began to review them. Reading carefully and thoughtfully, he covered each page, marking with a pencil the occasional error, here and there adding an arrow where he might clarify a point or make it easier to read. All of it was likely unnecessary. The objective was getting closer. The composition was on-track, and the progression was exactly as he had intended. Another hour and a half passed, and he finally finished the proof-read. Back to it. There would be no more stopping.

It was at that point that Simon gathered all of his resolve together and refocused. For him, it was like a second wind. He thought it must have been that small amount of water that had provided him with new strength and vigor. Perhaps it was. But in his mind, Simon was seeing much more than where and what the world is currently. He saw things that had been, and that would be, and that had always remained unseen by other humans. His mind perceived the progression of the ages, from times long preceding the formation of the ball of mass now known to mankind as the earth.

Beyond the walls of Simon's home, in everyone else's reality, nothing had changed. There remained just the normal passage of time, the sun rising at the break of day, light fading as each day closed, the blackness of night punctuated with many billions of stars, the occasional meteor streaking through the firmament. But for Simon, entire seasons now seemed to pass as he wrote. His aged hands literally flew over the paper, drafting quick but concisely-detailed graphic representations of the mechanics of what he had seen. A clean-shaven man, he soon felt as if he should be able to reach up and touch a long, flowing beard where there had been none. No longer was he troubled by pain, or discomfort, or thirst, or hunger. Days passed. Simon had no idea how long he had been working.

Finally, the phone sounded. He could not answer it. He couldn't get up, did not wish to be distracted, hated the insistent, obnoxious jangling, deliberately turned up so that he would hear it from anywhere in his little house. It rang, and rang, and rang. It was probably his son. It had been months since his academic associates at the university had heard from him, but they would have hung up after six or so rings. His son lived hundreds of miles away, and checked on his father by telephone with regularity. Although the old man possessed a cell phone and it was in his shirt pocket, no one had been given the number. He considered the cell phone to be for his own outgoing calls only. Perhaps he should call his son. Ordinarily and under any other circumstances at all, he would have done just that. But as the ringing stopped, the restoration of silence allowed the overriding objective to again close about him like a comforting cloak of wisdom. It prevailed, and he returned to his task.

After a time, the old man began to weep again, as the emotion that he'd been outrunning for days at last overcame him. Most writers have experienced it. When the objective of a piece has been realized, when you've at last nailed it, when you've finally made your point or concluded a story, tears may come. But in this case, the appreciation was unwelcome. His body finally ached from both age and extreme fatigue. The tears stung, and he had to wipe them away to see. He began to mind the tremendous thirst that had set in. And his chest again ached, now a bit more insistently.

He wrote on feverishly, focusing now on completing the challenge. He was nearly done with this, his final and monumental contribution. As he at last finished, he considered how little stood between this single document and the loss of it. Should the pain in his chest worsen, should anything happen to him, it might indeed be lost. He would reach out to his associate and closest friend for help to archive, copy and publish this work.

Suddenly and without warning, a mighty searing pain gripped his chest. So intent was he that he merely pushed his notebook back so that bending forward would not cause his forehead to strike it. He couldn't rise, anyway. He gasped for air, discovering that the intense pain would not permit him to draw a full breath. He was having a heart attack, and he knew it. With two fingers he extracted his cell phone from his shirt pocket, and opened it. It was off. Unsteadily and through pain, he firmly pressed the button to start his phone. It had been too long since he'd paid it any attention, and the battery was dead.

His thinking became fuzzy, his consciousness was threatened; and yet he gazed at the final page on the desk before him. It looked so...strange. What were these characters, there on the paper? What had he done? He couldn't even read them...had it all been for nothing? Had he lost his mind altogether? Was he about to die? He reached for his pen and scrawled “Thaddeus” on the paper, the word trailing off as he fumbled the pen. His chest spasmed again with pain.

Simon lost conscious awareness for the final time, and he slipped off into a lucid dream.

*************

Straightening himself up, Simon looked toward the window, raised his eyes to look at the ceiling, and attempted to will the pain away. He began to catch his breath, and the crush in his chest began to subside. “Wait a minute,” he thought.

He slowly sat back in his chair, and began to think. Then a smile slowly formed on his lips as he recalled the old maxim from General George Patton, “No good decision was ever made in a swivel chair. ” He reached down, and began to massage his legs. The pain of renewed circulation began to come, and this time, it was a welcome ache. The things he had realized should make all the difference. The human mind was an extension of the intelligence, the great, collective intelligence. One that could be accessed. One that could be used. It was an unrecognized power, one that had only been intimated by some who were considered to be little more than crackpots within the family of man. Of course, a great many of them actually were, crackpots. But not all of them.

Gradually and with great effort, Simon rose from his chair. He walked from his computer to the kitchen sink, his water glass in hand. He turned on the faucet and let the water run for a moment, then filled his glass and drank deeply. The pain in his chest had nearly subsided, the pain in his arm was gone. He breathed, gratefully. He realized he'd left his cane back by his chair, and he smiled.

It was late on a summer evening, and he walked to his back door and opened it. The sound of crickets filled the air. He realized it was late enough for the birds to have roosted, and the nocturnal creatures had begun to awaken. It was his favorite time of day. The brightest of the stars shone now in the deep, velvet blue of a darkening sky. He turned back and closed the door. Then he walked to the phone, and called his son.

“No, no, I'm fine,” he assured. “I was just out for an evening walk. Listen, I've been busy writing something. Something very important. Um...I guess I can call you back after I'm finished, okay? I'll call you back.”

Returning to the kitchen, he made himself a peanut butter sandwich and took a hard-boiled egg from the refrigerator. Then he selected a cold soda for its caffeine. He sat down, and he ate. Shortly, he began to feel much better, and then, he realized how tired he actually was. Very tired.

“Ha!” Simon was not about to give in to that. Ha, ha!” He rose from the kitchen chair, stretched his arms out to both sides and inhaled. He hadn't felt this strong for many months, perhaps, years, despite the overbearing pressure of fatigue. He stepped over to a small mirror that was held to the refrigerator with magnetic strips, and peered into it. He started, and gasped with surprise.

He beheld the face of a younger man. Not very much younger, but without doubt, less aged than himself. Although he knew his own will had assisted his recovery from a heart attack, the change in his face was an unexpected development. Could he control it? He laughed aloud. Of course, he could. He stood right where he was, stretched out his arms once again, concentrated, and exclaimed in a firm voice, “Bring it on!”

Days had passed since the onset of his massive realization, and now, rather than vanishing, it was clearer and sharper in his mind than it had originally been. That is a fantastic side-effect of writing. When you want to learn something very well, you teach it. When you want to clarify a topic in your mind, you write about it.

Simon gazed at the stack of pages on his desk with deep satisfaction. And yet, there remained just a hair's-breadth between the existence of that precious manuscript and its obliteration. That was something to which he had to attend.

Earlier in the creative process, he had planned to leave a note to his friend Thaddeus, asking him to present the manuscript for him. He had not expected to be alive to do it himself. Now, there was no need. But he could not leave anything to chance, to the extent chance could be avoided.

He gathered the pages back into the binder, rolled up his shirtsleeves, got into his little car and set out for the university, some five miles distant. As he drove, he thought.

Twenty minutes later, Simon had crossed the university campus on foot from the parking lot. The door plaque before him read, “Dr. Thaddeus Falsworth”. He entered the outer office of his colleague. The administrative assistant looked up, smiled brightly and asked, “May I help you?”

“Yes, please. I'd like to see Dr. Falsworth.”

“Please be seated. He's busy right now.”

He queried, “Is anyone with him?”

“No,” she answered, “but I won't disturb him until I know he's finished. He's grading exams, and he really doesn't like to be disturbed. If you'd like to come back, I can make you an appointment...”

“Won't be necessary,” he said. “Thaddeus is my oldest and best friend. He'll see me now.”

He strode to the door and stepped into the office of his friend.

“Good morning, Thad! It is still morning, isn't it?” He stepped into the office and placed the binder on the desk.

Thaddeus Falsworth was startled. With a stranger at his desk addressing him by his first name, he wasn't really happy about either of the trespasses just committed – the fact that it was a stranger, or the insolence of his address.

“Young man, “ he intoned angrily, “What is the meaning of your barging into my office? And it's Doctor Falsworth, to you!”

Simon leaned forward, looking into his friend's eyes. “Look a bit more closely, Thad. It's Simon.”

Dr. Falsworth squinted, tilted his head and looked through the lower half of his bifocals. Then he stood and looked more closely. He did recognize the voice! And the features!

“Simon!?”

“Simkovitch. At your service.” The formerly old man performed a sweeping bow, ending with his right hand extended.

“Simon! What the hell!”

Simon removed his glasses and realized that his vision was clearer without them. He folded them and placed them in his shirt pocket, alongside his dead cell phone. “I don't know what to tell you, Thad. What's happened to me is a direct result of what's in here.” He tapped the binder with his index finger. “Please read it. Right now.” Then he leaned forward, reached out and placed two fingers on the side of his friend's face. Thad felt a strange tingling and a warmth at the point of contact. He looked at Simon. His eyes seemed to be sparkling, in some odd way.

Then, he was gone. Vanished. No longer there.

Within another minute, a few hundred miles away, a younger, self-assured Dr. Simon Simkovitch walked up the front steps to his son's home. He stood on the doorstep, and considered for a moment. What the hell. It would have to come, sooner or later. Everything was about to be different.

He pressed the doorbell button.

At that moment, for the earthly existence of Simon Simkovitch, all was finished. His mind blanked. Total darkness had at last prevailed.

*****************

Dr. Thaddeus Falsworth stood on the front porch of Simon's home, rapping on the door. Behind him were two paramedics, at the ready. “Thanks for coming so quickly, gentlemen. The resident, Dr. Simkovitch, hasn't answered the phone for days. He's nearly ninety years old.”

When no answer came at the door, Thaddeus tried the knob and found it to be open. The three men proceeded inside.

There, they found Simon Simkovitch, slumped over his notebook, dead. One of the paramedics checked for a pulse.

“I'm sorry, sir, must have been a bit more than a stroke. Maybe his heart.”

“I'll call his son,” said Thaddeus. “Simon was my single best friend in the world. I should have stayed in closer touch.”

As one paramedic went out for the gurney, the other looked at the open binder over which Simon had been slumped. “He must have had a stroke, though...this writing is complete gibberish!”

Thaddeus hadn't gotten an answer, so he touched the button on his cell phone to end the call and walked over to look at the notebook. He gasped. “That's not gibberish!”

Seemingly amused, the paramedic stepped back, and smiled slightly. “Umm...it's not?”

“My good man,” Thaddeus retorted, “'Gibberish' is not a synonym for the word, 'Aramaic'! And it isn't just any Aramaic. It's the ancient, Syrian variety.”

“Are you saying he was writing in another language? Not English? So was the guy, like, a professor of languages?”

“Yes, 'another language'. And no, he wasn't. He was a theoretical physicist and mathematician. Philosophy was his only other serious interest. I'd have sworn he would never have known how to write...this. I'll have to work at it to even translate it, and I am a professor of language studies.”

Thaddeus never looked up from the notebook as the paramedics prepared to move Simon's body. He never even looked up when the zipper was closed on the body bag. He was turning pages, examining illustrations, graphs, and equations. And he was doing his level best to discern what Simon had been writing.

The paramedics were leaving. “Sir, are you coming?”

“No,” came the reply. “You go ahead.” Thaddeus pulled up a chair and sat down.

As the ambulance pulled slowly out onto the road, Thaddeus sat, shaking his head in disbelief. “Simon!! Where did you...how...My...God! My God!” On it came, a thundering tsunami of realization that rolled over the tidewall of his perceptions and preconceptions, blasting away his existing frame of reference for the world around him.

Tears of amazement welled in his eyes.

*************

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