Crying Over Spilt Light Read online

  “When I tell Mr. Sunlight to do a job, I need to see if he did it or not, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So I take a peek,” he said taking a peek between his cupped hands and Alex leaning close to see as well, “but Mr. Sunlight finds the hole and spills out!” He opened his hands and let the imaginary Mr. Sunlight free.

  “Heehee! Like. Like the flour.”

  “Just like the flour.”

  “Then mommy is mad at the mess we made!”

  “Yes! So, we need to find a way to make the sunlight roll around in circles. So when we take a peek, most of the sunlight will stay inside. A man named Maxwell, who had a great big bushy beard, thought of tricking the sunlight into knots. Just like my shoelace, here see? I made a knot, so it won’t go anywhere.”

  “I can’t tie my shoelaces yet and that’s why I have scratch shoes.”

  “I know, I couldn’t tie my shoelaces either when I was little. But now I can, I learned the trick. And I am also trying to learn to tie sunlight into knots, so it stays there and does not spill out. I just need to find the trick.”

  “And then you can throw away the scratch shoes for sneakers with shoelaces, which are faster and then you can be faster.”

  “And?”

  “And then you can be fast enough to do the tricks to Mr. Sunlight to plup-plup around in little… in little knots, like the shoelaces and you can take a peek fast enough to close your hands again,” said Alex, peeking between his tiny hands.

  So this was how a Eureka moment looked like.

  “And then?”

  “And then the pro-scissor won’t be lazy and do the job fast and I won’t have to wait for the slow game!”

  Someone clapped. A slow, full clap. Yanni turned around and saw the smart-dressed woman from before. “Excellent Dr. Tsafantakis. Come with me. Don’t worry, they will come pick up the child in a moment.”

  Yanni waved goodbye to Alex. The child looked up and asked, “Are you allowed to bring Georgie to play with me?”

  “That is the first thing I am going to ask this nice lady. Goodbye, Alex,” he said.

  “Goodbye, Mister,” said Alex and went back to playing with his toy truck.

  Yanni followed the smart-dressed woman into the next room. At this point, he was prepared for anything.

  Chapter 2i^2

  The sun was going down, but it was still bright. Yanni enjoyed the wind on his face and the sound of old music on the radio. Nikos was taking the scenic route, going up to Parnitha Mountain. It got noticeably chilly as they went higher but it was invigorating.

  The casino was Niko’s idea, all of their old haunts had closed down anyway, and all of their new ones were kid-friendly, so Yanni wouldn’t even dare suggest them. Nikos brought the cabrio to the entrance, the valet greeted him by name and parked the car next to other expensive two-seaters.

  Nikos showed him in with open arms as if he was selling the place. “Now, isn’t this more manly? Look at the view,” he said and they sat down on luxurious leather.

  Yanni looked at the city below as Nikos ordered whiskey. The northern suburbs were pretty much the same as always, a place of relative safety and costly big houses with gardens or cozy three-bedroom apartment buildings for families. Athens extended in the south too, but faded out in the horizon, which was seemingly brought closer by the humid air and the gray smog. Peeking through the lowest level of the atmosphere were the new skyscrapers at the city centre, tall beasts of glass and steel getting erected with impossible speed, seemingly forming like crystals out of thin air. He thought of his light crystals, imagined how they looked in reality. Would they seem as beautiful, formed into lattices out of the foundation of a computer chip? Were these skyscrapers as ephemeral as his light crystals, or were they here to stay?

  “Which one is yours?” Yanni asked. Nikos lit the tip of a cigar and pointed at the skyscrapers, “The second one from the left. I’m all done with that, nothing more for me to do. It’s up to the contractors now to build it, and damn, do they work fast. Even I can’t believe it’s been only six months and it’s halfway complete. It existed only on my mind for so long and now it pops out of the ground and changes the landscape.”

  Yanni knew the feeling. The existing-only-in-his-mind feeling, not the popping out yet, because his work was still in progress. That is why Nikos liked coming up here so much. It must be thrilling to be able to see the progress on your work from so far away while sitting on a leather chair and smoking a cigar. It certainly took the term front row seat to a whole new scale.

  “They are throwing a lot of money into it, aren’t they?” Yanni asked, and leaned forward to light his cigar.

  Nikos replied, “A lot? Try boatloads. Let’s smoke some of that money.”

  “Thalia is gonna kill me for that cigar smell,” said Yanni and puffed out smoke slowly, enjoying the aroma.

  “Just blame it on me, say I smoked and dropped ash on you by accident or something,” said Nikos. “You need to take a pause and enjoy it! How is your apodeixis going?” he asked, referring to the proof Yanni was working on the last few years.

  Yanni sighed and gazed out the window again. “I don’t know man. I could be this close and not know it, or I could be a universe away. It needs to click, you know? If I am right and get the equations to work, they will snap perfectly like gears in a Swiss watch.”

  Nikos was looking at him with real empathy. “I get it, Yanni. No, I don’t get the theoretical math, no way, but I get it as a concept. You need to get the forces involved to play along or it will all come tumbling down.”

  Yanni laughed and said, “With a lot less rubble involved than in your case but yes, basically that’s it.”

  Nikos leaned forward and make him look him in the eye. “You don’t get it, do you? I make things that are already here, it’s nothing new. It’s a reapplication of things we already know, just put in a new context. You are trying to make something new. Your apodeixis is buried deep in your mind, and no one else can dig it out. Someone else can design my skyscraper. No one else can solve your apodeixis.”

  “I know, but these days it feels as if I am chasing the end of the rainbow,” said Yanni. “Demokritos has scheduled a review of my funding in a month. They might cut me off. We talked with Thalia, I might apply for a teaching job at the uni or…”

  Nikos put down his cigar and spat out, “Teaching? TEACHING? Fuck that. Fuck Demokritos, what do they know? You don’t do teaching! You will get a fucking Nobel prize for this proof.”

  His friend’s belief in him brought tears into Yanni’s eyes but he fought them back. “It really means a lot to me that you say that. But it might be time to cut my losses short and do something stable. I have a family now and I need to take care of them.”

  “That’s Thalia talking. That’s her words coming out of your mouth. You can do both,” said Nikos.

  Yanni replied, “They might cut my funding and I have nothing to show them. There is no way to do both.”

  Nikos exhaled thick cigar smoke slowly and said, “Actually there might be one. My new job is making a skyscraper for Hermes Information Technology. They make half the computers in the world.” He raised a finger on the left hand. “You have a proof that can make quantum computers possible,” he said and raised the right hand finger. He brought them both close and said, “I can get your presentation to the right person. Hell, I’ll make the CEO’s mistress serve it to him in bed if I have to. You deserve this. You have to solve the apodeixis.”

  Yanni leaned back as if he was exhausted. “I am not sure if I can solve it… It’s… it’s like I have no inspiration. Theoretical physics is basically imagination with a bunch of math involved,” he said.

  “Of course you can’t! You can’t even finish a phone call with all that noise and distractions, let alone a new proof,” said Nikos. “I have one word to say to you: Ellipsis.”

  “What do you mean,” Yanni asked.

  “Ellipsis. It’s the way I managed to find my
inspiration and work on the new skyscraper. I found my Muse,” Nikos said, standing up and opened his arms in a receiving gesture.

  Yanni said, “Oh yeah, you mentioned that on the phone. Why aren’t you dating anyone?”

  Nikos sighed and said, “You are not listening. I found my Muse. She is all I need right now and she is waiting for me back home.”

  Chapter 2i^3

  “No man. No.”

  “Come on!”

  “I said no. And even if I were to come present my apodeixis, I would need to get a presentation ready. Not everyone has your charisma, some of us need to actually work on stuff instead of just relying on our smile,” said Yanni and instantly regretted that last remark.

  Nikos did not really take offense but got the hint to back off. “OK. Sorry. I’m only pushy because I care. And I do actually work sometimes.”

  “I know you do, I didn’t mean to say that. I meant that I need to be prepared to get my confidence up,” said Yanni.

  Nikos acknowledged in silence. He turned the car around.

  “Just pull over here and let me walk. It’s just a couple of blocks,” said Yanni and got off the car. He was more embarrassed than offended, ’cause of the earlier slip of the tongue. They didn’t say anything and that was okay. Men can depart in silence and leave things unspoken. Next time they met they would be old pals again. He walked back to his house, taking the longer route through a park he liked.

  It wasn’t a long detour, a mere five minutes longer. As he was about to turn around to his home street he heard familiar voices shouting.

  He ran to his house and saw a few of the neighbours gathered in the yard, a bit of smoke coming out of his lab/office window.

  “Oh, skata! The laser…” he said and dashed through his yard.

  His heart pounded for a couple of seconds that seemed like weeks. He was about to grab Miss M… (Margaret? Molly? What’s her name, who cares?) by the shoulders and shake her to find out where his family were but moira saved him some dignity and Thalia came around the house with the baby in her arms and Georgie holding tight onto her skirt.

  He raised Georgie in his arms and hugged Thalia, feeling relieved. “Thank God you are ok, I couldn’t see you in the yard.”

  “Yeah, I was checking the back of the house. It’s ok,” she said calmly.

  “What happened? I-I know what happened, I’m such a vlakas. What did you do?” he asked, slapping his forehead.

  She pointed at the man coming out of the house with a fire extinguisher in his one hand and holding a greased t-shirt over his mouth with the other. “I took the kids out, shouted for Mr. Andreas next door. He had a fire extinguisher nearby and rushed up the stairs.”

  Yanni walked next to Mr. Andreas and thanked him. The neighbour took a whiff of fresh oxygen and said, “Heh, its fine. I had the fire extinguisher in my toolshed,” while raising the red canister high. “I hope that makes up for all the noise I make with my power tools!”

  “It sure does!” said Yanni and laughed in relief along with the good man.

  “The fire was small, especially since I got it in time. My fire extinguisher is not suitable for electronics, but I tried not to spray your setup too much. As soon as I pulled the plug the fire pretty much went out. I don’t know a lot, but that thing looks expensive.”

  Yanni did not care about the laser at that time. His family could have been hurt, but any harm was avoided. That was all that mattered. He told the good man so and sent him off with a promise to pay for the refill, an offer Mr. Andreas of course refused. That is the Greek way.

  He told Thalia to stay in the yard and he went up to see if the smoke had cleared. Mr. Andreas had opened the window, leaving just the smell behind. Some burnt wiring was especially irritating, but it was safe. He leaned out the window and said, “OK, come on up. The smoke is gone.”

  As soon as he nodded to her that it was ok, his wife took the kids and came inside. She had to reject various offers of help from old ladies, replying politely each time. Miss M-what’s-her-name offered to put them up in her house. “We are fine, Miss Meropi, thank you very much. It was more smoke than flames, we will be okay,” Thalia said and finally managed to get inside.

  Meropi. Yes, that’s her name. Yanni never could remember the damn thing.

  The rest of the neighbours waited around for a while but slowly dispersed, since the couple had nothing more to show. Yanni could swear he saw two of them whispering to each other, as if this was his fault.

  Which it was, actually.

  Oh, what a dodged bullet that was. Yanni left the window wide open and closed the door behind him to contain some of the burned material’s smell. Thalia was oddly calm about the whole thing, but her patience was sure to run out after the initial shock. He didn’t dare look her in the eye and he said, “I’m sorry honey, I really am…”

  Chapter 2i^4

  The laser’s cooling fan whirred a bit and then died as well. Nothing happened. Yanni turned it off, wore the old blanket around him like the world’s most pathetic superman cape and sat down to accept the anticlimactic reality.

  To be perfectly honest, the broken laser was not the problem here. The problem was his broken proof. Theoretical physics doesn’t really need anything physical to work with. His proof, Dr. Yanni Tsafantakis’ proof in what would be named the Tsafantakis Apodeixis could work in an imaginary machine with gears made of advanced mathematics and powered by academic peer pressure.

  He had an available solution for the broken laser, he could reach out to that researcher in New Zealand who helped him sketch out the specifications for the gen-two laser. That man would certainly be able to gain access to a similar configuration and run the test for him. He would even act as an independent empirical validator that way.

  All he needed was to send the man the right variables.

  But the right variables were the gear that was missing.

  Lost in thoughts, he fiddled with his phone. He saw the last text message he received, from Nikos: "A person who has not made his great contribution to science before the age of 30, will never do so. Albert Einstein."

  He called him. It was late, but his friend always performed better at night so he would surely be up.

  A gentle woman’s voice answered the phone. “Hello Yanni. Please wait while I pass the phone on to Nikos.”

  Yanni didn’t really expect to hear a woman, so he fumbled for some words but basically replied nothing. He heard some soft steps and then she said, away from the phone, “It’s your best friend Yanni. It must be important.”

  “Ela,” said Nikos.

  Yanni remembered of course what he had told him about his no-more-dates-policy, but he couldn’t really believe that. “Was that her? The muse?”

  “Yes, that’s her. Did something happen? Don’t worry, you didn’t interrupt me or anything, but you mister, are a family man, you don’t get to stay up late. I’ll tell Thalia!” Nikos joked.

  “Come on, that’s not her! She didn’t sound… you know,” said Yanni, thinking that if it was really her, she would be able to hear them. Androids have super-hearing, right? They must have.

  “Sound like an android? You can say it, you know; she doesn’t pretend to be human. Yeah, you can barely tell the difference actually,” replied Nikos with a strain in his voice that meant he was turned around and shamelessly checking her out.

  “And there is another? I mean, your offer. If I were to accept that Ellipsis project, isn’t she booked with you?”

  “Don’t worry man, you won’t have to share. You’ll get your own muse. It’s not like Hermes has a legion of them or something, but I told you, your apodeixis is good enough for them to spare one,” said Niko, with innuendo dripping all over that sentence.

  “Fine, whatever. I changed my mind. I want to present my proof to these guys, I can do it as soon as possible.”

  “Huh. Ok, tomorrow morning then.”

  “That early? I’ll have to stay up all night and prepare! How can you b
e sure they will reschedule so soon?” asked Yanni.

  “Then stay up all night. Oh man, you don’t get it, do you? These are not Demokritos turtle-paced guys! They do stuff and they do it big and they do it fast. Plus, I explained a bit of your proof to the chief R&D of quantum computing and she was drooling for it.”

  “You did? But I told you I would think about it.”

  “Literally. Drooling. Seriously. I have never seen a woman do that. Except when… you know.” The pause in the line told him to stay on the subject. “I knew you would change your mind,” he said.

  “Ok. Thank you. If this is so, I really need to get ready and maybe I’ll manage to catch an hour of sleep or something.”

  “Just like back at the university,” said Nikos and hung up.

  Yanni tucked his superman cape around his frozen legs and thought about what this meant.

  It’s your best friend Yanni. Those were her exact words. She couldn’t have known this from anywhere else but the man himself. Nikos thought of Yanni as his best friend, even though their lives were forcing them away from one another as years passed. And if this opportunity was the lifeline it promised to be, he would be a real friend, one which Yanni could never hope to repay in kind. He would need to sit down and talk with his wife about this, about how much they would owe to him if this went through.

  But he needed to get ready first. Minutes fly away so fast when you have a finite supply of them.

  Chapter 3i

  Yanni sat across Ourania. His wife had left this morning, taking the kids to her mother. He had said goodbye to Georgie and the baby, but mostly Georgie since he was old enough to miss him. It was unceremonious, they didn’t want to make a big deal out of this. It would last at most a couple of months. That was what he told his son and that was what he was telling himself.