I didn’t know what that sound was, but I heard a shrill scream—the kind that conveyed desperation—almost as if the person was saying no, but in a different language. There was scuffling and commotion as if multiple people were simultaneously moving in the same area. One person, I didn’t know which one, started to complain about his leg—more scuffling and commotion. Car doors slammed. The engine started, crescendoed, and then faded as it sped down the street.
I got out of bed and finally looked out the window. The street was empty, except for a car speeding by on the road far in front of the house. A lonely street lamp sat adjacent to the other side of the road, illuminating a small portion of the center of the road just by the driveway. I stood there, mostly motionless, just staring at the circular shape that the street light produced on the road, and wondered if one could draw a distinct line between the darkness and the light. Could I find the edge of that circle at its last photon? It seemed to be a perfect circle. Better than a person could ever hope to manifest into the physical world. The trees were shaking back and forth from the wind’s ebb and flow on the property’s front half. Beyond that, everything around seemed to be motionless. I turned around and noticed that the digital clock at the other end of the room showed 3:17 a.m. A part of me wondered if I should call emergency services to let them know what I heard, but everything was silent again, and I would not know what to tell the operator anyway. I knew I would need to be up and fully awake in three and a half hours. I took a deep breath and, on the inhale, closed my eyes. Then, let it out slowly. I got back into bed
I noticed the carpet under my feet. It was slightly worn but still had enough comfort to enjoy more than a hardwood floor could offer. The nagging feeling of needing to go back to sleep flowed back into my mind. I rushed into bed, hastily gathering the blankets over my body. All of the warmth that was there before the screaming incident was now gone. It took a few minutes for the warm feeling to emanate under the blankets to replace the cold air. As the warm mingled with the cold and mixed, I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I was in a quiet place. Void of light, input, sound, vibration, and the forward motion of time. I didn’t want to let this go yet. When these moments revealed themselves, I never wanted them to pass. This was the place that brought peace and an opportunity to mull over ideas that were revealed before the rush of the day. For now, though, sleep was probably best.
My alarm pinged my brain at 6:15 a.m., and my body told me it was not ready to get up. Outside, the weather was cold. My initial guess was that everything was frost-covered. The blankets were heavy and warm, but my neck felt like it had been in the same position for hours. I turned off my noise machine via voice command.
Silence.
I rolled over and stared at the ceiling. It seemed far away. Farther than normal. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and exhaled for several seconds. The ceiling appeared to slowly move away as I felt my body creep lower into the mattress. I did not want to get up. I knew I would not have it again for the rest of the day. The room was dark, except for a greyish light coming through the wide window facing east. The combination of the fog and static grey clouds invoked melancholy, which made me reluctant to leave. Days like these were for being alone, not for emails and answering people’s questions.
Now that I had just thought about emails, I realized I most likely had at least a month’s worth to sift through. I had an idea of the proportion of emails that were response-worthy and ones that were just informational. After being away from work for an extended period, I easily forgot exactly what I was supposed to be doing. Longer absences in the past had rendered me inoperable for a few days after resuming work. I did not know if this was the case for others, but I could easily be immersed in another domain, which produced some amnesia in my real life. The hardest part was reintegration—especially the reluctant kind. Without a doubt, I was unwilling to leave this house to reintroduce myself to the mingling of minds, the proving of positions, and the cacophony of the corporate.
Time to get up.
As I opened the door, a rush of slightly cooler air flowed around me, through the doorway, and into my bedroom. The rest of the house was mostly dark and filled with that familiar grey morning light. I strained to see the detail of the objects in the large open room before me. My house was empty so I didn’t know who or what I was looking for. It had maintained the same number of occupants for almost a year. I turned and looked at the bay window through the dining room on the other end of the house. As I walked in that direction the opposite shoreline of the lake revealed itself in the window. The sky and its reflection in the water made it seem like one body, floating a short distance from the backyard.—This house was a midcentury-looking structure sitting by itself on two acres of land. It was situated on the back half of the plot closer to the lake, as all of the houses around here were. My initial attraction to it was the enlarged windows that looked to be added sometime after the house was built. Whoever designed it put a lot of thought into the house’s main space, while the connected rooms were fairly standard except for very high ceilings that ran with the angle of the roof above. Most of the space was an open floor plan so that you could see the end of the backyard that met the lake if you walked through the front door. The outer wall textures were mostly wood and stone to reflect the outside of the house while the interior walls were all wood paneling. Two rooms on either side of the main living area were identical in shape and size and had wall-to-wall windows that revealed a partial look at the lake at differing angles. The stairs to the two rooms above had no railing and were metal slats that pierced into the stone wall descending upwards with even spacing. I always wondered if these would fall out while I was not paying attention. The kitchen was the best representation of the architect’s sentiment for this structure, which had two parallel stone walls slicing through the open living space, feeling detached from the rest of the house at a harsh angle, similar to designs by Frank Lloyd Wright. Despite being surrounded by stone, this space gave off the greatest warmth out of any room in the house. Bronze accents peppered the kitchen to compliment the dark green painted cabinets and the pièce de résistance, a large bronze gas stove, which held more potential than what I could provide based on my minimal daily use. At the end of this unusually angled corridor was the entrance into the dining room which opened up back into the living space.
Whoever had this house before us made an effort to modernize a fair amount of the interior so it looked new, but still reflected the decade it was built. For the most part, I did not care about the way it looked or didn’t look, but I did appreciate that it wasn’t plain. I had wanted to move, but the thought of figuring out what to take and what to sell seemed daunting. I did not need this much space, but I liked its open and inviting concept.
This place still had a good feeling even though it contained some memories of a specific time in my life that I was trying to forget. This did not mean that these memories were negative, but they did bring pain that I had no energy to bear. Especially now that it was time for me to place myself back into real life.
There was a heaviness that I now felt knowing that it was time to go back to the massive weight of expectations. They were substantial, burdensome, and considerably constant. Consistent pressure to perform. This type of performance was quite subjective as it was in the domain of ideas. Some ideas would get you into trouble. Some people didn’t like some ideas because they had strong moral boundaries. It wasn’t an issue to have a dedicated set of morals, but I thought one had to be open to changing perspectives. Especially ones that were implanted early in life.
After what seemed like 10 minutes, I realized I was standing in the middle of my house, lost in thought, staring out of the back window at the lake. Since I started living alone this became a regular occurrence. I walked to the kitchen in a hurry because I didn’t know what time it was, but didn’t care to look. My main goal after waking up was to get the percolator on the stove. I found it in an unassembled state on a towel next to the sink, remnants of the previous night’s attempt to prepare myself for the next day. Lately, I had been unsuccessful at this by wandering through my house in a half trance completing menial tasks and only getting halfway done. I quickly assembled the pot, except the lid, filled it with water and coffee grounds, started the stove, and placed it over the blue flames. I usually liked to watch the percolator until I saw the water begin to rise through the tube, but I was in a rush. This was the first day back. I already knew what they were going to say.
~
The corner of the fluorescent light where it met the drop ceiling was increasingly becoming stained and turning a yellowish brown. As time had progressed, the stain had moved along the white metal boundary of the light. I wondered when someone would come to address it. I pulled the bulbs out of this light two years ago, even though we were told not to do it ourselves. I closed my eyes. Silence. Except for the low-frequency hum of the building, an extremely low sensory vibration. Even though my neck hurt because the back of my office chair was digging into my spine, I didn’t move. If I moved, I knew that meant it was time to start checking emails. I wasn’t ready yet.
There was a knock at the door and in a split second my door was open and Malik was standing in the doorway. I knew because I could hear his breathing. Not that it was particularly loud, but I recognized it from working in the same room with him for several years. He was, or had been, my best friend. I didn’t look at him but continued to stare at the ceiling with my head back on the chair, slouching, and my feet on the desk in front of me.
“Uhhh, you’re back?”, he said. Wide-eyed and leaning into the doorway. He adjusted his stance so that he wasn’t a freeze-frame of someone falling forward into a doorway and leaned on the door hinge.
“Yes, I am”, I mumbled. “I’m back. What else am I supposed to do?”
There was a long pause. I was still looking at the ceiling because I knew that if I looked at him he was going to want to ask me a series of questions about where I had been, what I’d been doing, and if I was ok. I did not want to answer those questions right then.
“They are still talking about it. They still want to cut the program and are using the same tactic to bury us. I don’t know what to tell them”, he said in a pressing tone.
“Well, let them talk. Let them argue back and forth until they are blue in the face”, I said, increasing the anger in my tone as I completed each sentence. At this point, I removed my feet from the desk, sat up in my chair and looked at him. When I saw his face I felt a rush of sadness, then pity.
I tried to make an effort to soften my tone and said, “I am not cutting this project.”
He sighed, crinkled his mouth in frustration, and said, “Ok. I hear you. But, if that’s the case, then you know what’s next.”
“Yes Malik, I know. You know that I know.”
“Well, I’m just bringing it up, because I know you have been out of it for almost a year”, he said.
“They have already started their ‘investigation’ and are saying that I misused research funds, but haven’t come up with any concrete examples of it happening. We all know who started this and maybe even why. My guess is that they won’t have to come up with examples, but they will be able to use their authority to cut the program anyway.”
“But, you don’t know that it’s going to end like that. You don’t”, he blurted.
“Well, if I know one of them like I think I do, it will. So fuck it. I don’t care. They will use their positions on the board to keep projects they deem necessary, but we all knew they keep the ones who play the best game.”
“Ok, it’s your choice. You know I will back you in whatever direction you decide to go I’m just making sure that you are in the right mind to push this.”
“Honestly, I don’t think I am in the right mind for anything. What else do I have though?”
After 13 years of research, time, and effort, it was all I had. There was no other part of my life, only this. The other things I did have were gone now. I chose a path and I pursued it. With vigor, persistence, and even obsession. My life was singular for a considerable amount of my adult life. That effort towards something singular, that motion, forward, a seemingly infinite tunnel. Nothing else mattered. Not the people closest to me, my parents, colleagues, friends, or lovers. I eschewed the possibility of future connections. It was probably on purpose. I knew nothing else, or more so, chose it. It was easier than figuring out how to mesh with other people. It was easier than fixing myself. It was easier than becoming someone suitable for someone else. So it seemed.
Malik knew I was right. I could see it on his face. He knew he couldn’t say anything in return that would refute the fact that this was all I had. He just nodded.
“Well, I stand by you. I’m still here for a reason. I believe in what we are doing”, he said, with an honest tone.
“I know… I know”, I said, in a descending, concrete, but sincere manner.
We had been through a lot together. The meaning and weight of the last “I know” could only be felt after a decade of friendship and heartache. This type of connection bordered on the unconditional. Our lives had seemed to be parallel to one another. One was not moving faster than the other. There was no spoken understanding of maintaining the same speed through time, nor the type of transportation. We had almost mirrored each other’s path, and so, when one of us failed or the hardships of life crashed over us, we shared that pain. I had known, for a very long time, that we were bound by something we could not describe.
“I understand that our research is not life-changing or groundbreaking in the transitional scientific sense. It’s niche. I get it, but we’ve proven practical applications that would immensely affect and improve modern consumer materials. This is the start of something that will echo and grow into the future. I can feel it. This is not just an aesthetic project.”
Malik gave me a slight smirk, “I agree with you. Oh, there was something else. Fei wanted to see you. She was a bit worried about you but was afraid that you were not ready to see anyone, but was also still mad at you. I told her I wouldn’t tell you that she felt that way, but I thought you should know. At least go let her know you are alive. She can show you what she has been working on while you were out. I thought you would be happy with what she had been testing.”
“Oh… oh, yeah, ok. I will go see her”, I said, trying to mask the fact that I had completely forgotten about the project I asked Fei to start before I left. It had been 4 months and It seemed like I was living in another universe. I had always been surprised at my ability to compartmentalize and separate.
As much as I was wary to see faces and communicate, I had to go see her. We had also been through a lot together.
~
Nervousness set in. My breaths were shallow and short. Once I entered the room I was now walking towards, the inevitable would begin. There was no dreadful feeling, but a deep reluctance to reacquaint myself with her and everything else filled my chest. When it started, the pressure would bear its weight upon me again. Did I want this? Did I want to keep going? Was it worth it? In the past, it had taken many things from me but also brought about things that I would never have dreamed.
I had to convey to Fei that I was all in on this new endeavor. She had sacrificed a lot to work with us. She gave up her postdoc position to be a part of this. I did not have to fake my feelings, but I had to at least give her a sense of participation on my part. I owed her that much.
Malik and I wanted to get her involved after we caught wind of her research on molecular bioelectricity. Specifically, we were interested in a topic she explored that was of secondary importance to her, which was new biologically based materials. The connection, she said, was what she called “ecologically integrated materials.” This caught our attention. It tapped directly into what we were thinking but had not yet applied. We had done our initial work in bioelectricity but believed there was a more applied way to explore this area. Academically, we were evolutionary biologists but got swept up (like everyone else) by AI, and the biological computation space opened up for us. Also, I had always been interested in material science so the addition of Fei seemed apt. Malik and I wanted to research how to integrate biology into modern materials. It seemed like the nexus between two worlds, which was now mediated by an AI system. The purpose was not to create a variant of ‘eco-materials’ but groundbreaking, deeply ecological materials that could withstand its long-term environment. We began the project with a focus on computation chemically and biologically, then started to brainstorm ideas on how to combine them to create a bespoke living material. We were still in the beginning stages of research when I tasked Fei with making an initial model of what we might work on soon. I knew this was just busy work, which was probably insulting. In any case, we had to start somewhere and needed visual proof for the board.
I walked out of my office, along the raised second-story path, through the half-domed atrium, and a set of double doors. There was a long corridor before me that felt similar to a hospital. Rooms staggered on both sides of the hallway. Expansive glass windows gave a clear view into each room as I passed them. All were dark and empty except desks, chairs, and computers. The hallway was dark and only lit by the red exit sign at the end of the hallway. I heard some chattering from a room down and to the left. The door was open, and fluorescent light spilled into the hallway in a distinct geometric shape. As I passed by, I glanced over to see who was in the room. It was another research group, but I did not recall seeing them here. They did not notice as I walked by. I was relieved that I did not have to make introductions. Maybe another time. I kept walking and looked for the last room on the right near the exit door. The door was closed, and the room was dark. I could see the light from Fei’s lamp and half of her face as she stared intensely at the four monitors in front of her. She had headphones on and didn’t hear me as I walked in.
I walked a few paces into the room and stopped.
“Fei”, I said, in an even tone.
She turned her head while still typing, and then her fingers stopped. She slowly pulled off the headphones, and they slipped around her neck, getting lost in her long jet-black hair. She smiled. Her eyes showed relief, a slight tenderness, and acceptance but with an underlying sadness. She did not know everything that had happened, but what she did know, she could relate to. I could tell she wanted to ask me the same questions Malik would ask. I did not want to answer questions right then. She opened her mouth to say something or to ask a question but took a breath instead. Then, she let out a long exhale through her nose. She chose another avenue of approach.
“How are you?” she says in a caring tone. “I didn’t know when you would be back.”
She was now looking at me with a penetrating, curious, and slightly angry look. I could feel it shooting right through me. I sensed the judgment of my actions and the stress I had put on her the past few months. She took the headphones off her neck and set them down slowly on the desk as she turned toward me.
“Honestly, I did not know either. I almost didn’t…”, I paused, looking at the ground, “but I knew I couldn’t just leave you and Malik to sweep up my mess and continue the work.”
“You’re right”, she said, “we have a lot of good work ahead of us. If we play it right.”
“You mean if we play the game?”, I said sharply.
“Essentially, yes. We don’t have much of a choice. You know I’m right. If we want research funding, we have to play by a certain set of rules. Unfortunately, we still need them. They cut the checks.”
I sighed long, looked away, and focused on the large TV screen on the wall before us. “You’re right”, I said. “This was why I wanted to go private, but I knew we had absolutely nothing to show to prove that sort of jump.”
She was usually right about things like this. She had this ability to be practical in the midst of turmoil and chaos. I hadn’t told her everything, but she understood what I’d been through. She might even have known what I’d been thinking. We had been friends for many years but had always had this distance, possibly due to our independent personalities. This distance suited me fine, and I never felt she had a problem with it. We were together then, in the same room, after almost four months, and there was a tension in the air. I assumed I caused it, but tried to play it off.
Fei smiled and gave me a nod, “Just sit down, you have a lot to tell me.”
“Oh… ok. Yeah, you’re right. I do.”
She leaned back in her chair, rested her head on her hand, and looked at me. For a moment, she paused and said, “Where have you been?” This was said not in a curious tone but in an interrogative one. “… and don’t say ‘you know where I’ve been.’”
I laughed under my breath and gave her a smirk. There was no change on her face. Her piercing eyes were looking for an answer.
“It’s not funny”, she said.
“I know, I know. I… just missed being around you.”
“Yeah… I… same here”, she said, with a slight smile.
“I’d been at home, trying to live. I hadn’t gone anywhere else in four months. It felt like I was in Bardo. My mind was disconnected from my body, and I experienced every day in another world.”
“I knew where you’ve been physically. I was asking mentally.”
“Oh, well, I haven’t been here, that’s for sure. I walked around my house looking for something to do. I’d feed Cora, water the plants, and tidy up. After that, I sat on the balcony over the water, and before I knew it, hours had passed by. My mind transported me somewhere else. It’s been like that since she left. I’ve been better about walking, but that was only recent.”
Fei continued to stare at me as if she was waiting for me to say more.
“Uhh… so… yeah, I have been going through the daily motions and doing the minimum to keep myself alive. Cora has been my only tie back to reality. She has to eat. At the beginning of this, I tried to maintain both home and work, but without realizing it, I completely let go of everything up here. I’m not sure exactly when, but there was a day when I woke up and realized that I had completely left you all in the dark. Basically, I left without saying a word.”
Fei still looked at me with her piercing gaze and said, “I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know”, she said
“I’m not sure how I could ever make it up to you. I was not a good friend for the past few months. I was going through a lot, but I shut everyone out. That wasn’t the right thing to do.”
“I’ll be honest. We were completely understanding at the beginning—even a month in. At a certain point, we wondered if you would tell us what was happening and if we needed to pause these projects. Malik was very reluctant to reach out to you. Of course, you knew me. I was ready to reach out the minute Malik and I talked about what was happening.”
I smiled because I knew it was true. There was not an ounce of hesitation in her body, ever.
She continued, “I thought about it for a while, then realized I was selfish. It was hard to set your life’s work aside. I knew you could understand that.”
“I absolutely understand that.”
She looked at me, and for a moment, that constant intensity turned into care. Rarely did we see this side of her.
“Ben, I was sorry you had to go through all that. I wish I had known her better. What I did know of her, she was a great person.”
Again, I looked away at the monitor on the wall. “She was better than anyone I’ve ever known—immensely better than me. ”
“At this point, I don’t see a reason to compare yourself to her. She’s gone, and I think remembering the good things about her would be best for you. Living life would be the best way to honor her memory.”
I looked back at Fei, pulled a chair out from under the desk, and sat. “As frustrating as that sounded, you were right. I was just so angry about it all, so being okay felt unreachable.”
She looked at me as if to say something heartfelt or meaningful. I could see it in her eyes. She almost took a breath to say something, stopped, looked away at the large monitor on the wall, and said, “I thought this might be a good time to get obsessed with research again.”
I knew what she meant and that this was her way of helping, but I felt a twinge of sadness in my chest. I couldn’t help but think that I was leaving Aria behind.
“It’s hard to imagine being in that mode again”, I said.
“For your sake, you have to find a way. To be honest, what else do you have?”
I laughed and said, “Damn, well, I guess you were right about that. I don’t have anything else.”
“I’m not saying to forget about everything, but we have work to do. We have to get out of this hole for the sake of the rest of the team.”
This meant I had to confront the looming investigation, which, according to the board, was ‘probable misuse of research funds.’ I believed this was an excuse for Jensen Maris, the Director of the Ethics and Safety Board, to get back at me for something that may have happened years ago. According to his telling of the story, when we started the private lab, we were looking for funding, and in one of the meetings, I commented on him not being a hard scientist but more of a leader who could find the right people. I meant it as a compliment. He took it as an insult, and from that day on, unbeknown to me, he was making plans to bury me. He couldn’t do it with research projects, but he could do it with the heavy hammer of administration. This was my best guess at his vendetta, and I could not recall any other instances in which I may have offended him. This was all a significant distraction. It was politics, and I despised it.
“Well, in that case, I have things to deal with. I will get a project update from you later.”
Fei looked up at me as I stood up, leaned back, and crossed her arms. “That sounds good. We’ll talk later.”
As I walked out, I noticed the wall adjacent to the door was covered in a collage of colored sticky notes, all filled with illegible scribbles. There seemed to be layers of sticky notes, but a pattern emerged from the paper-covered wall. The conglomeration of notes resembled a colored map, with each territory distinctly separated by border and color. I wondered how long she had been working on this. I realized this may have started well before my crisis, and I didn’t notice.
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