BOOK | PRODIGY | Chapter 179

IF I COULD ONLY TELL YOU WHAT I SEE

A young autistic boy with extraordinary powers of perception is visited by a reporter and his friend

After he left the offices of Paranormal Magazine, Frank Glen was standing impatiently on the platform waiting for a downtown train to arrive. There was a rumbling noise almost like a lion‘s roar from the uptown train riding on the opposite platform. 30 seconds later, then the downtown train arrived. Its doors slid open and Frank struggled with the others to push inside. He almost changed his mind.

As soon as the doors closed, he could hear a homeless man shouting. The homeless man was Robert who was waiting for him.

One passenger shouted back to Robert, “Get a job.”

“I had a job working on the railroad,” he said and walked up to Frank and looked right into his eyes. “But I was hurt in a train accident.” But Frank wasn’t paying attention to the clues he was giving.

He carried a cup around the car and most people ignored him. A few old women gave him change from their purses then he held the cup right in front of Frank’s face.

“Will you help me, sir,” he asked suppliantly. “I’m only asking for a dime or two.”

Frank grudgingly reached into his pocket and dropped a couple of quarters into the cup.

“God bless you,” Robert told Frank. “Beware the Ides of March. You never know what’s coming for you.”

The train rolled to a stop and the doors opened and Frank began to push his way out with the others. Frank never realised what was happening while Robert was there or that the short moment of delay which the encounter which Robert had caused, would change the course of everything.

She was beginning to climb up the stairs leading out of the station, when a young woman was rushing down the same stairs and nearly ran into him she then stood a moment in front of him. That woman was Paula Hightower.

“Frank Glen, how are you? What a coincidence,” She spoke, But from the events that were to follow it would soon be clear, it would prove to be more than a coincidence. She gestured for him to step aside.

“So how are you? I haven’t seen you since the funeral,“ she said. Of course, it was Veronica‘s funeral three years before.

“I’m hanging in there,” he answered. “Day by day as the song goes.”

He felt awkward for a moment with Paula his wife’s friend now in front of him, then came a rush of memories.

“Well, do you have any plans right now?” She asked him. “Maybe we can sit for a cup of coffee somewhere? Catch up on old news.”

“You know what a terrible loss it was to all of us who knew Veronica. I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t think about her. For you it must be unbearable.”

His eyes began to tear and he responded, “It’s been a struggle.”

They began to walk to a coffee shop across the street from the subway station.“I can’t tell you how many times I thought about calling you, just to know how are you doing. But we all have such hectic lives. (Her voice cracked down the word ‘hectic’.) How is Melissa doing?“

“ She’s fine.”

“Is she still working for the insurance company?”

“Yes. Axiom insurance. She’s been there almost 4 years now.”

They both walked into the coffee shop and a hostess led them to a booth near the back of the shop, where they sat down across from each other. There was something familiar about these moments.

“And what about you, Paula? How are you doing?“ he asked.

“I’m still working for the Radio City Music Hall,” she answered. “I am always so busy. You know, just doing the things, we all have to do to get by.”

Neither of them, who were in the throes of grief, seemed willing at this moment to let the other inside. Paula’s husband had died just months before in a bus accident.

“You are still with the magazine?“ She asked him.

“No, I am pretty much freelance now. I just work from story to story.“ Again his words had deeper meaning.

“So, are you covering anything interesting now?“ She asked.

“Well, I am working on a story about this severely autistic 12-year-old who apparently speaks backwards.”

He said these words, as though it were perfectly reasonable that a boy could speak backwards and she responded with equal dispassion.

“That sounds fascinating. What is his name?”

“Jonathan,“ he paused. “In fact, I was contemplating going up to see him again before we ran into each other.“

“So where is he?”

“He is at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.“

“Would you object, if I came along with you?“

“Sure, come along. But it could take a while. You sure you don’t have other things to do?”

“I had some errands, but they can wait. But if I am intruding, all you have to do is tell me.”

“No, it’s fine,” he replied with ambiguity in his voice. A waitress approached their table to take their orders.

“I will have a cup of coffee light with a touch of honey,” he told her.

“Some herb tea, if you have it.”

Frank then remove Dr Carmichael’s folder from his bag and laid it out on the table in front of him. Paula looked interested as he opened it. He again began to read the article ‘The Universe as a Hologram.’He read for a while and she watched quietly while the waitress returned with his coffee and her order. It was a bottle of mango strawberry Ability.

He began to read to her a paragraph near the end of the article.,

“Indeed even our most fundamental notions about reality become suspect. In a holographic universe, as Pribram has pointed out, even random events would have to be based on holographic principles and therefore determined. Synchronicities or meaningful coincidences suddenly makes sense and everything, in reality, would have to be seen as a metaphor, even the most haphazard events would express some underlying symmetry.”

“So what do you think?” he asked her.

“I think I have a lot to think about,” she acknowledged.

“Do you mind if I skim through it for a few minutes?” she asked.,

“Go right ahead.”

“What time is it?” He asked.

“It’s about three o’clock,” she answered.

His mind wandered from thought to thought while watched her reading.

“I don’t know enough about neurophysiology or sensory perceptions to make sense out of it all,” he began to speak his thoughts. “That’s the problem with journalism school, they can’t teach you the expertise to actually understand what you are writing about. It’s too damn easy to fall into the obvious. We are habit, all of us, creatures of habit. Take for example this cup of coffee, I always order in the same way, light with a touch of honey. Why the hell do I do that? What in Christ’s name would it hurt me to vary the routine every once and a while?”

She was earnestly turning the pages as she read.

“Same thing with me,“ she responded. “Every Thursday I followed the same routine. But today I did something different. I stopped for 10 minutes at the bookstore, just to allow myself a few minutes to browse and because of that we ran into each other.“

Then Frank said something unexpected.

“Patterns of perception, ways of seeing the world, which bring a comfortable certainty. But we only see whatever we’ve grown accustomed to seeing.” He paused. “We need to get going now.”

“Just a couple of minutes. I’m almost finished.” She scanned the last page and pushed the folder back to him. He took it and put it back in his backpack.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied. Then they both left the coffee shop.

On the subway uptown to Columbia Presbyterian, Frank and Paula were standing close to each other on a crowded subway car.

“Are you in the habit of tagging along with people you haven’t seen in years?” he asked her.

“No, not really. But I promised myself when opportunities present themselves, I would seize them from now on. I’ve grown very tired of these incessant what if’s. What if I did this? What if I had gone this place or that? What if I made this decision? You know the routine.”

“Yes, unfortunately I do. What if we caught the cancer sooner? What if I hadn’t waited so long to ask her out for the first time? What if? I just can’t afford the time or energy for such regrets anymore.”

The subway car opened and they began to file out of the car.

“I decided I just have to work through it somehow. To find something else to believe in or I will go crazy trying,” she told him.

As he walked beside her on the way from the subway to the hospital, he kept thinking about how familiar she seemed. Veronica had talked so much about her when they had first met. He had only spoken briefly to Paula at the funeral. He could tell that she was burdened with something. But he was afraid to ask more personal questions. Paula also felt the same familiarity, but she was also afraid of more intimacy and she still thought their meeting was more than a coincidence.

They were both quiet as they entered the hospital, then he took her to the elevators, then upstairs to the fifth floor. When they reached Dr. Carmichael’s office, they could see that the door was partially open and that Dr. Carmichael was working quietly at his desk.

Frank knocked on the doorstop, with some hesitation. Paula was standing a couple of steps behind him. Dr. Carmichael did not acknowledge it, Frank knocked louder.

“Come in please.” Dr Carmichael finally told him

Pushing the door open, Frank came into the office.

“I hope I’m not bothering you, I’m sorry to show up like this unannounced.”

“It’s no imposition. Please take a seat.”

“I’ve brought someone along with me.”

He gestured for Paula to come inside and she awkwardly entered the room.

“Please both of you, sit down. I just have a couple of more minutes of reading to do. I will be right with you.”

Frank and Paula approached his desk and sat down in two chairs opposite him.

“This is Paula Hightower,“ he responded. “This is Dr Carmichael.“

“Nice to meet you, Ms Hightower.” He continued reading for a couple of minutes while they both sat quietly.

“So what do you think, Mr Glen? Did you have a chance to read the material I gave you?“

“It was fascinating,” Frank responded. “ A little mind boggling, though.”

“Is that the only impression it made on you?” Dr Carmichael asked. He seemed annoyed.

“To be honest, I didn’t understand half of what I was reading. I am woefully ignorant of neurophysiology and brain chemistry.”

“A courageous man accepts his ignorance,” Dr. Carmichael acknowledged. “But you understand the general thrust of holographic perception.”

“Only vaguely, Doctor,” Frank responded.

Dr Carmichael sat quietly a moment is the thinking about what he might say. Then he began, “Let me see if I can explain it in relatively simple terms.” He paused a moment, picked up a blank piece of paper and held up each upper corner with both hands, letting the paper dangle.

“Let’s say the sum total of all our perception experiences are plotted along the top edge of this paper. From those very first moments of cognition in the womb to those last moments of consciousness before our deaths. Our entire brain experience we perceive as movement along the edge of the paper, With the rest of the paper representing the available stimuli from which these experiences are isolated.” He paused. “Do you understand me thus far?”

“Thus far,” Frank responded.

“And you, Ms Hightower?”

She nodded in acknowledgement.

“Everything else on this paper, every point not along the top edge has been filtered out to give coherence to a completely chaotic set of stimuli. I propose that even this sense of duration, this movement from one event after another, which we call time passing, is merely an illusion created by our brains, which serve, as the neurophysiologist Karl Pribram proposes, as a sort of holographic film, Capturing holistically certain patterns of stimuli from the environment.”

“Now that’s a mouthful,” Frank interrupted.

“Let me continue. Then I will take you to see Jonathan again. He’s been asking about you.” He paused. “Many linguists, following the lead of Noam Chomsky, even believe that language itself is wired into our brains at birth. That we come out of the womb, already understanding the rudimentary elements of grammar and word construction and our whole quest for knowledge is really discovering the patterns inherent within the structures of our neuron net.” He stood up and gestured. “Come on both of you. Let me take you to see Jonathan.”

He stopped himself a moment.

“I think it will be better if I brought him to the observation room. Just wait a few minutes. I will be back.“ He left them in the office.

“Did you understand a word of what he was saying?” Frank asked.

“Yes,” she responded. He is saying there’s a lot more to be seen than what we normally experience with their senses. That’s the rest of the piece of paper.”

For 15 minutes they sat quietly until finally, Dr Carmichael returned to the room.

“OK, I’ve taken Jonathan to the fourth floor. We can see him now.“

Dr Carmichael took them downstairs to the same room where Frank had met me before. I was sitting quietly in the corner, my eyes closed with my hands laid atop of each other. Dr Carmichael came into the room and gestured for Frank and Paula to keep their distance. Dr Carmichael sat down across from me.

He spoke softly to me, “Jonathan, Jonathan.” Then I opened my eyes. “I have brought visitors to see you again.”

I pivoted my head almost machinelike and my eyes seemed distant as though in a trance. Then I fixed my eyes on an artist sketch pad, upon which I had rested my left elbow.

“Have you been drawing again? Do you mind if I look at it?“

He pushed the pad from beneath my elbow while I send this into rested with my attention focused elsewhere. Return the pan around again. It was a detailed Pencil drawing of a tall brick tower with what looked like rope ladders hanging on three sides. Atop the tower was a flagpole how much a flag was hanging with a Saint Andrew’s cross.

“Can you tell me what it is?”

I did not acknowledge him. He opened the drawer and removed the tape recorder

“Can you tell me what it is, Jonathan?” Dr Carmichael spoke into the recorder.

Pressing a button, he made it play backwards. I began to mumble and he recorded what I mumbled. Then he played this backwards.

“It’s a high tower,” they could hear my voice.

“This is really spooky,” Paula said. “You don’t think this has anything to do with my name, do you?”

“With Jonathan we don’t know what to think.” Dr Carmichael acknowledged. “ he is constantly surprising us with his coincidences.“

“It gives me the creeps, surely, it’s some sort of coincidence,“ Frank responded.

“That we don’t know. We have thus far documented over 200 of these so called coincidences. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you some of them.”

Dr Carmichael pointed again to the ladders and the flag. Then sitting no more than a foot from my face, he stared directly into my eyes. Then speaking slowly and deliberately he asked me, “What about with ladders and the flag?”

I was stoic and unresponsive. I knew it would be too much for them to tell them the fullness of what they meant. There was a years-long war coming which would remake the world.

“You not saying there could be a real connection between this picture he has drawn and me? How is that even possible?” Paula asked.

She was beginning to make the same argument to herself that Dr Carmichael had made about the puzzle boxes on the day I arrived at the hospital.

“I don’t know how it is possible. But it appears that Jonathan’s brain doesn’t work in the same way as yours or mine. Remember what I said to you about the paper. He seems to be able to see more of the paper and not just along the edge.”

“Yet to us he seems unresponsive, disconnected from everything around him,” she observed.

“It’s quite a paradox. He can seem completely unaware, lost in his own world. Yet I assure you, he is completely aware of everything in his environment.”

“Poor boy, what a tremendous shock it must be to his psyche. Can I try to talk to him?” she asked.

“Of course.”

He rose from the chair and Paula sat down across from me.

With sweetness in her voice, she grabbed my hand and spoke, “ Jonathan, Jonathan. What a terrible gift! What must you see?” I knew who she was and how important she would be in my life. My eyes filled with tears. For the first time I turned my head and looked someone in the eyes. Kissing me on my cheek and hugging me briefly, she then released me. Two streams of tears began to slide down each of my cheeks.

Turning to Dr Carmichael, she pleaded, “Is this all you do to keep him here in this room? Testing him like some lab rat in a maze? Doesn’t he get to do things that other boys do?”

“He is not like other boys,” Dr Carmichael responded.

“Have you asked him if he wants to go out?”

“The outside world is much too dangerous for him,” Frank responded.

“Nonsense, You and I could take him outside to the park, to the zoo or to the museum.”

“Maybe Dr Carmichael is right. How would he communicate?” Frank expressed.

“Let me see that machine a moment,” she took them to a player and spoke into it. “Jonathan, how would you like to get out of the hospital? Go to the zoo or museum?”

She played it backwards. My eyes grew more alert and I turned my head toward her and formed my lips together.

To their surprise, I spoke slowly with my voice sounding clipped, “I go with you.”

“Yes, Jonathan. Outside.”

I struggled, “Outside.”

“You can keep him cooped up inside like this. He’s a little boy for Christ’s sake. I know what we can do. We can take him to Playland. I’m sure he’ll enjoy that.”

“I’m not sure we’re taking him anywhere,” Frank interrupted.

“Why not, Frank? The rush of endorphins would be good for you as well.”

“Dr Carmichael, you must put a stop to all this talk of taking him outside,” Frank pleaded.

“I am beginning to reconsider this. Yes. Yes. I’m going to allow it. The stimulation could be good for him, “Dr Carmichael responded.

“So, So when Doctor can we do this?” Paula asked.

“Saturday will be fine.”

Then we’ll be here about 10 o’clock and will make a day of it.” Paula told them both.

“Has anyone told you how pushy you are?” Frank asked her.

“As I told you before, I made a decision. I’m going to seize the moment. Can I tell him now?”

She spoke slowly with enthusiasm, “Jonathan, we go outside. Saturday.“

Then I smiled for the first time.

“Now that we have agreed to this unexpected adventure, I have a question for Jonathan,” Frank proposed.

“I can’t guarantee that he will answer it, You can ask him.” Dr Carmichael responded.

Frank recorded his question, “You said once to Dr Carmichael, ‘tell them he stopped the train wreck,’ What did you mean by that?”

Dr Carmichael played the question in reverse for Jonathan.

“Sometimes he never responds,” Dr Carmichael acknowledged.

I began to speak in my characteristic backward sing-song, The inflexion sounding almost French. I went in for 30 seconds. Frank then nervously manipulated the buttons of the player as he struggled to turn the player on. When he finally played it backwards, I had spoken, “That train wreck four months ago was stopped by the old man.”

“What train wreck was stopped four months ago?” Paula asked. “What does he mean by that.”

“This is crazy. I will be out of my mind to contemplate this? Frank was thinking about the boy in Mexico and Isabel and every strange coincidence over the last three weeks.”

“Dr Carlisle, would you compile a list of those 200 coincidences, just to satisfy my curiosity.”

“Of course.”

“Thank you. I really think we should be going now.”

“You can stay a little longer if you want.”

“Can you tell me what was going on with this question?” Paula asked him. “Why are you in such a hurry to get out of here?”

“No, I think we have a lot to think about and we’ve bothered the boy enough for one day. Please tell him goodbye for both of us.”

“I will give him my goodbye,” Paula told him, and she gave Jonathan a huge hug. “Goodbye Jonathan, we will see you Saturday.”

After they left the observation room, she told Frank, “You are afraid of him, aren’t you? You are afraid you might find out something that shakes your whole world view.”

“I am not afraid.”

“Alright,” she tried to assuage him, “You’re not afraid. So how do you want to arrange a meeting for this outing?” But she knew she was right about him.

“We’ll meet here at 10 o’clock.”

She hesitated a moment, then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

“It was good to see you again, Frank. I will see you Saturday at 10 o’clock.”

For the first time in months, they both for a moment experienced a respite from their grief.

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