Thursday, November 20, 2008

Worlds Worlds
The alarm of my clock blared. It was 6 am. Moving with the agility of a sloth, I managed to swing my arm and hit the clock. Rolling up out of the warm covers of my bed, I sat hunched over, tired. My head snooped down in-between my arms, unable to rise from my drowsy state. After a few minutes went bye I raised my head, I took a deep breath and dragged my hand over my face, pulling on my eye lids to wake me up. With some effort I managed to stand, stretching, pulling my arms out side to side and yawned. The aroma of coffee lured me into my kitchen. My automated coffee pot never tired always making me coffee at 6 am, a true life saver, grabbing the handle of the coffee pot. I began to pour out the delicious substance, only to realize that I had no cup for the burning hot fluid in mid arch. I looked down and watched the coffee fall onto my feet and burn them. I set the pot on the counter in a dash, jumping up and down yelling “Shiitttt!!!!” I grabbed a towel and begun to wipe my feet. The skin of my feet red and sore, I was suddenly awake. I mopped up my spill with my rag. I reached for my favorite mug; it said on the side of it “I love New York.” I grabbed the treacherous pot of coffee and poured myself a warm cup of the brew. After letting the cup cool for a moment or too I drank till the cup was empty, I placed it on the counter.
Walking out of my kitchen, I opened the curtains in my pajamas to reveal the vast and huge city of Manhattan. I looked down the some 37 stories below me. The cars moved slowly and steadily like ants building a new home. The people walked, dodged and ran around doing whatever they had to do. Every morning at this site, since I moved here 17 years ago, behind my large glass window I had wondered what “reality” really was. I’m a college teacher at the Hunter College of Science and Technology, teaching theoretical quantum physics to those that wish for a course with little to no home work. After a few minutes of being a statue in front of my window, I decided to prepare for my day. It was 6:20 a.m. I walked into my open closet, grabbing a suit and a red power tie. After I dressed I went and grabbed another cup of coffee and drank it down till gone. It was 6: 30a.m and time to go to work.
Grabbing my brief case and my hat, I left, making sure I locked my room. Then I took the large elevator down to the lobby. Tina, the front desk manager, waved and I waved back in a polite manner. Then began the epic journey of the six block walk to the college, when I walk is the time I have the most brilliant ideas for class. According to quantum physics, the world that one see’s, or in this case reality, is really a reality of six billion people being run at once, while you have your own knowledge of what is going to happen each and every day of your life unconsciously. Yet you have consciously saying, no idea what is going to happen to you. This makes me question my perception of reality, and if what is around me is real or is made by me. But, I cannot let my mind wonder, for I will lose track of time; speaking of which, it is 7:00 am.
Turning into the door way of the college, I proceeded down a series of hallways to the open door of my large and empty room, as large as a coliseum, but with a crowd of only thirty. All my students were there early, as normal and prepared for class, although I do offer a weird topic, anyone that does take my class gets hooked for some reason almost instantly. “Today, class, we are going to continue our talk on reality.” They opened their note books and grabbed pencils. “So who here can tell me, what is reality?” They thought it over for a bit. No one spoke. They just sat there looking down and thinking.
A girl in the back with orange hair spoke. “Reality is our perception of the world through our senses and what we make of it.”
“Good” I said in agreement “But our instruments we use to see reality can be bent and broken by electricity to alter the information like that of a muscle spasm, thus how do we know what is real by our senses, anyone else?” A boy in the front spoke.
“Reality is what our mind tells is real” he said with confidence.
“Good, yet this basically the same as our senses. Because our mind uses what information it is given to read, to tell us what is around it, anyone else?” I asked. I really wanted to challenge them and see what I could get. Another student in the middle in a purple sweater spoke.
“It is not what reality is, it is, what is reality?”
“Right.” That was what I was looking for. “All of your answers where good but, this one is the most true of all. Because reality is a perception of the mind based on the five senses, but those five senses can be fiddled with. Thus you must not ask, “What is reality?” Because you can have a fogged view that will never clear, but what is the fogged vision.” They began thinking and thinking, questioning there reality and there world around them. I knew it was working because out of such a small class, no one was playing or tipping in their chairs trying to pass the time. This was the most provoking question with no straight answer that had been gnawing at me for 24 years. I let the question seep in. A student then spoke from the middle, “If reality is reality, but then we ask what reality is how, do we know what is real?”
I smirked as I had stumbled across the same exact question myself, “We simply don’t know what is real, because we can’t classify what is real and not real, because to our mind, if a nerve tell us it is there then it is there.”
The class thought more. One student began writing something. I sat for a minute and let her finish what she was writing. “Because we don’t know what is real, but we have a sense of what reality and real are, I ask you, what do you know about reality? I would like at least some thought on the paper with no limit attached, but if you only write a paragraph it better be the best writing of your life.” With that I sat at my desk where a news paper sat. “Oh right, you’re all dismissed.” I opened the news paper to the comics. Laughing at a few of them, I had noticed that a student had stepped next to me. “Can I help you?” I asked him.
“Yes, I was wondering if there is anything more you knew about reality. That I don’t.”
“Well…” I said leaning my chair back, only to lose my balance and fly backwards slamming my head on the wall. An alarm clock sounded. Again moving with the power of a sloth I hit my alarm clock. My hand had simply gone through the clock; I tried to hit it again to see if I missed, again nothing. Turning my head over, still wrapped up in the covers, I faced it. It was see-through. The clock’s blocky shape was out lined by white lines. My hand sat in the middle of it, as the numbers of the clock changed to 6:01 am. Screaming in a panic, I rolled out of my bed. My floor was see-through. Looking down I could see my nude female neighbor in the shower. I looked back up at my apartment. Everything was messed up, all in wire. Every wall was transparent; as the sun is bright. The city and the world around me were completely exposed to my sight.
“Sir! Are you ok?” the student asked me. Realizing that everything that had happened. I was sitting on the floor with my back to the wall. I snapped back in to reality. “What- oh right sorry, umm, I m fine, I would have to say that I know just as much as you.” At the same time questioning what had just happened, as I stood up.
“Ok, thank you, you are alright, right?”
“Yes, thank you.”
The student turned and left the room, unsatisfied. I exhaled deeply, thinking of what had just happened. Was that real? Or was it dream? I reached back and touched the back of my skull where my head had hit the wall. I could feel a small amount of pain and a bruise. I just sat in awe for about forty minutes. Letting the past few moments wash over me, I grabbed my brief case and turned, leaving the class room. I walked back through the mazes of hallways onto the outside campus. A student of mine was on a tall statue about to jump off. Noticing this, I ran at him yelling, “What are you doing?!” He paused to look at me.
“I’m seeing what reality is.” He said calmly with his arms out wide. He jumped off the thirty foot statue. I ran to grab him before he hit the ground. I caught him in my arms. He knocked me onto the concrete ground, banging my head. The alarm clocked sounded. I reached out expecting another fiasco. My hand hit the clock, and the alarm stopped. I jumped out of bed and looked down for my neighbor. The floor was solid, my walls where solid. The world was blocked out. Walking around in my apartment curiously, looking for anything out of the norm. Slipping on some coffee on the floor of my apartment I fell backwards banging my head on the counter.
I awoke inside some sort of chamber filled with some kind of fluid and a gasmask on my face. The floor was a shinny white, smooth and seamless. There was some sort of console in front of the tube where a person was pressing buttons. Hundreds of screens of information flew by in seconds. A couple screens had body diagrams on them, the screen began to flash red, displaying awake. The being turned around and faced me. It yelled out in some sort of language that sounded like Japanese. Two armored troops walked in. One of them pulled out a needle and stuck in a tube. The fluids poured into the fluid around me. Dark green strands danced around, and the world around me faded.
Sirens blared in the background. A medic was standing over me, pressing on my chest. “He is wake and alive, get me some bandages!” he yelled. He grabbed my head, lifted it, and began to wrap gauze around my skull. There was a puddle of blood around me and the statue was to my left. The student was hunched over beside me holding my arm. He was screaming. My eyes began to drift again into darkness. The white room was back when I opened my eyes. This time the lights where off and the screens of the console where gliding along the track at a slow pace. Light lit the tube and the fluid around me. I felt light like a feather. I want out this time. I leaned back only to realize, I was about one fourth my normal size. My body was small and fat. My hands looked like a two year old baby’s hands. I moved them around a bit. It still felt the same as my hands. I swung myself forward and punched the glass. A little thud sounded. The console began displaying red flashing screens again. The door slid open and the lights blinked on. It was a woman. She looked exactly the same as my mother. She pressed a button on the side of the tank. The lid opened. She reached in and grabbed me out of the thick fluid. She placed me in a towel, wrapping me up carefully, removing my gasmask. I scream out in fear. “shhhhssssss” she said just as soft as my mom. I relaxed. “Who are you?!” I said. I realized that my voice was extremely high pitched and sounded like a two year old. “I’m your mom silly,” She said nicely shaking me in her arms. I sat in her arms confused. Another woman walked into the room.
“What are you doing!?” she said in a near panic.
“I m holding my baby because he woke up,” She replied calmly. The women walked over to the console and looked at a progress bar.
“He is only 38% done being educated; you must place him back now.” She said angrily.
The lady holding me placed my gas mask back on me and kissed me on the forehead. “Good night my child,” she said, placing me in the vat of liquid. The women, yelling at my mom, injected the same fluid as before in my tube. The world, again, faded to black as Dark green strands walked around me.
My eyes opened to a hospital bed. I looked at myself back in my normal body. My head was covered in bloody bandages. A nurse asleep in a chair next to me woke up. “Hello…” I said. She breathed in quickly and looked around alert.
“Oh, hi.” She said. She then grabbed a piece of paper and a clip board. “Mind if I ask you some questions?”
“At this point in my life, just a little,” I said “But by all means then go ahead.”
“Who are you?”
“John Harris the second.” She scribbled on the piece of paper.
“What is your occupation?”
“I’m a teacher at the Hunter School of Science and Tech.”
“Ok, last one…How old are you?”
“I’m 38 years old…I think…”
“You think?” She said out of interest.
“Yes.”
“Well, it could be because of your head injury but, I want a physiatrist to look at you and evaluate you and your progress…” The nurse left the room with grace and the door closed, and I thought and thought, I m 38, I repeated…or am I...?

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