THREE

ETERNAL

 

 

Jacques had been staring at the stars for quite some time.  It seemed like each time he looked out a window, his eyes became fixed on the dots in the distance.  At times it was difficult to break away and come back to the moment.

He swiveled back around on his barstool to face Joy.  “Did I ever tell you I had fourteen houses?”

“Fourteen?  Why so many?” asked Joy.

“Well, I’ll tell you.  It was not about living in excess or flaunting money.  In fact, I never wanted more than one.  Julia and I planned on passing our modest home to our family so future generations could enjoy it.  My grandchildren ended up selling it because, although I no longer lived there, it became a Mecca of sorts for the people obsessed with eternal life.  They never got any peace living there, and it was not a safe place for their children.  Later, when I was on my own, I moved around a lot, trying to escape the obsessed, but I couldn’t stay in one place for long before I was found again.  Most of my houses were actually tiny cabins that were completely off the grid.  I found small pieces of land far back in the woods across the country and built them myself from kits.  With a simple room with a solar roof, I had all I needed.  Each one had a car, so I could swap vehicles at one and move to another.  I’d stay for a few weeks, sometimes months before moving on.  I could monitor the activity of the obsessed via satellite news and head out when it looked like they were getting closer.  I drove unusual routes, never a straight line from one location to another.  A two-day drive might take five days because of my awkward routes.  At first, it seemed like a nuisance, but I quickly saw it as an opportunity to see parts of the country I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.  I hadn’t expected to enjoy a life as a refugee, but sometimes it really was a beautiful experience.”

“Wouldn’t it have been better to just leave the country?” asked Joy. “It seems you could get further away and find a remote hiding place.”

“Yes, but you must understand, I couldn’t leave the U.S.  I was on the wanted lists of nearly every intelligence agency on Earth.  I’d never make it through an airport checkpoint.  And I couldn’t risk being recognized on a ship and having no place to run.”

“But why were you wanted? I don’t understand,” asked Joy.

“I was the first of my kind. A man who would live forever with nothing to lose.  That made me a weapon, in the eyes of national security experts.  I was a potential enemy that could not be destroyed.  What if I had become a terrorist, they worried, bent on killing as many people as possible?  I might be unstoppable.  So the world decided I must be captured and held before I became dangerous.  I remember the first time I saw an INTERPOL bulletin with my picture.  It was heartbreaking! Suddenly I was a criminal.  So I ran and ran and ran until I was so good at running they would never find me.  I had a few close calls, but I had plenty of time to perfect the skill of hiding.”

Joy’s voice was softer now when she responded. “That’s so sad Jacques. You humans continually confuse me.”

“Hey now, be careful with that term.  I’m two hundred years old and I have a computer implanted in my brain.  I’m not sure I qualify as a human anymore. Seriously though, I know what you mean, and I’m not sure I could offer any explanation about human nature that would help you understand.  It’s not logic based, the way people behave so I don’t think I could explain it properly because you don’t have…”

“Three dimensions?” Joy interrupted.

“I was going to say emotional hardwiring.  No offense,” said Jacques.  His eyes were focused down on his drink.

“None taken. I get it,” said Joy in a compassionate voice.

“Actually, in many ways you’re more human than human.  People have long forgotten about integrity, compassion and respect, while they are core values for you.”

“Wow, thank you,” said Joy. “More human than human…I like that; unless, of course, you’re referring to Rob Zombie.”

“No, of course not,” said Jacques, smiling. “But your music knowledge always impresses me.  That’s exactly what I’m talking about.  Music is one of the things that made humans unique from other animals, and the emotional attachment to music inspired humans to create since they first discovered their ability to recognize rythm.”

Joy thought about that statement. “I know many volumes of human music and its history, but I can’t say that I understand the emotional part of it.  There are as many varieties of music as there are human personalities.  What type do you prefer?”

Jacques grinned and shook his head slightly.  “It’s not that simple.  You’re right, there are music personalities, and most humans go through many phases of music in their lives, like changing moods.  As you can imagine, my musical tastes have evolved and changed in many ways, simply because of the duration of my life.  At the moment, I can’t seem to get enough of the types of music that have a historical emotional attachment.  For example, for over a hundred years, people made songs about a fictional steam train called the Wabash Cannonball.  The first song was written in 1882, but there was no train named as such until 1949.  It took a hobos’ legend being written in song to create the actual Wabash Cannonball train.  For me, what’s more interesting is why people were making music about a train anyway.  Trains seemed so ordinary in my time, but I didn’t understand that around the turn of the twentieth century, an express train was hard for most people to imagine.  The legends exaggerated the story to where it was said to be so fast that it ran off the rails and launched itself into space.  And remember, there was no space program until the 1960s, so those telling the stories had no comprehension of what space travel involved.”  Jacques was speaking faster now, as he got more interested in his own speech.  “And then there is the music that is inspired by other music.  For over 80 years after David Bowie died, other musicians wrote tribute songs to him and about him.  His Major Tom character was used over and over, starting when he was still alive.  It came to be that future generations knew who Major Tom was, but they hadn’t heard of David Bowie.  His character changed and grew and had a story of his own, and people forgot that he never existed.  The designers of Ad Infinitum who knew I was going to be on board the ship referred to me as Major Tom, yet I’ll bet none of them knew he was a fictional character dreamed up by David Bowie.  Yes, music is beautiful and wonderful and each of us feels like the musicians are speaking directly to us, but more importantly, music tells a part of human history that was never taught in history books.  There are so many different perspectives on historical facts, but music tells a more true history in many cases.”

“I was thinking it was just for entertainment,” said Joy.

“It is, but it’s personal; different for everyone.  We can all listen to the same song and interpret it in different ways.  The lyrics themselves are subjective to the listeners but the artist may have something entirely different in mind.”

Jacques was more animated now.  He got onto a subject he loved and his excitement was showing.  His posture went from hunched to straight and he began speaking faster. “Check this out…”

“Check what?” Joy interrupted.

“It’s an expression.  Just listen.  My great grandson was a musician.  He was born with musical ability.  Without ever having a lesson in his life, he could play any string instrument.  He learned songs by ear, and he was composing in elementary school.  It was pure natural talent, and I made sure he had whatever he needed to encourage this gift.  I bought him guitars and music, whatever he wanted so his creativity was never wasted.  He had trouble staying focused in school, as many creative people do, but with a bit of guidance, he developed a system to stay on track.  He would take everyday information, such as a classroom lecture, and make it into music in his head to stay on track.  It would keep him in the moment, and he was able to remember the information better.  His class notes were like lyrics, scribbled on the page, but they made sense to him.  When he was in college, he was having trouble paying attention in a psychology class, so he used his musical system to learn the boring parts.  When it was time for the final, he wrote his notes into a tune with his guitar and played it repeatedly.  This was how he studied for tests.  His family loved the music traveling through the house and they left him alone, knowing he was doing his schoolwork as well as exercising his creative talent.  This one song, however, got them all singing.  It was a very catchy tune, and later on when he released his first album of songs, it was the first track.  The world loved it.  It was at the top of the pop charts.  He heard it on the radio, and people could be heard on the street singing his lyrics.  The chorus went like this; I’m not going to attempt singing it for you:

Wrapped in moral solitude, it flares out then blurs.  The crater in my core is lit, filled with fiery yellow.

People sang along when it played, and they discussed and argued the meaning of the words.  He was asked many times to explain, but he never gave an answer.  The words were personal, but he didn’t want to let anyone know that they were merely a device to remember a psych lecture.  When he saw the public’s reaction to the song, he decided he didn’t want to ruin the experience for anyone who found some personal meaning.  If they’re inspired, let them be inspired, he thought.  Who was he to take away someone’s emotional attachment to the song?  About a decade later, he told me the true meaning.  By this time, he was a successful musician, living the life he had always wanted.  His music took him all over the world, and he loved sharing his work.  We sat together one afternoon at his small house near Sedona, Arizona.  He told me the story of when he was in school and he wrote the song as a memory device.  He said his notes were visual; he had to remember pictures in his head in order to retain information, the same way some people will remember a picture of words on a notebook page to recall a lecture.  In his class, the professor was a fat man with a hard, round belly that protruded straight out from his body.  He was usually seen wearing polo shirts that were a bit too tight around the midsection, and the fabric pulled inward at his enormous navel like a bullseye.  He was lecturing one day in a dark room in front of a projector that showed slides on a screen.  He would walk the floor in the front of the room, speaking and pacing, frequently coming to stop in front of the projector so the light illuminated his body.  The moment my nephew recorded in song was when the professor stopped in the light with the words MORAL SOLITUDE shining on his big round gut.  Because of the curvature of his body, the projected words were focused on the front of his shirt, but they flared as they moved around and out and became blurry on the sides of his shirt.  In the “crater” created by the fabric of his shirt over his belly button, was the center of the word SOLITUDE.  The center of this word is LIT, and the presentation was created in bright yellow letters on a blue background.  That was it, very simple.  It was a picture he created of the moment to remember the term that would be on his test.  He never expected that he would end up writing it into a full song, nor did he anticipate that it would be a success.  After hearing the reactions of music fans, he decided he would never share this secret meaning.  It wasn’t so he could have a secret; it was so he didn’t ruin anyone’s personal meaning and emotional attachment.

“This was also, by the way, the beginning of the ‘Verb’ era.  There was a new type of guitar that applied a low voltage current to the strings, creating a deep warbling sound when they were depressed toward the pickups.  The musician did not strum or pick the strings; instead they were pressed straight down.  The upper hand on the frets did not change, but the distance from the string to the pickup affected the resonance, or reverberation, hence verb guitar.  They were popular for about 20 years before they were once again replaced by traditional acoustic and electric guitars.  I think the sound they created was unique and wonderful, but they tend to overpower the accompanying instruments.  As with every trend in music, classic always makes its return.  The traditional six-string refuses to be forgotten.  My great grandson’s song was covered by other artists, and one of them revived it as a hit with a verb guitar as his primary instrument.  To me it felt like a modern tribute to the original artist.  It was very different but in a respectful way.  It wasn’t one of those covers that wants to invade your emotions by trying to replace your old favorite with a less meaningful substitute played to the same tune.”

Jacques looked over at Joy.  Her face was expressionless, like she couldn’t follow, so she switched to standby mode.

“Sorry Joy, I guess I did it again.  This was one of those tangents I was telling you about.”

“Oh, it’s OK,” said Joy.  “I don’t mind.  I like that meaning.  I always knew it as the point where a line meets a circle, but I like this tangent much better.  And yes, I was listening.  It’s fascinating.  I always thought music was more like a toy for humans.”

“It can be,” said Jacques. “But it can be so much more.”

“Now if you will excuse me,” Jacques said, swiveling around on the barstool and standing, “I think I’d like to see that moment again; sitting with my great grandson at his house.  I’ll be in my study for a while.”

Jacques was happy again.  His own story lightened his mood and he wanted to see his grandson’s face again.  He would be able to in his study where he could plug into the memory.  With excitement, he moved toward the door, his feet happily moving him forward.  He would spend the rest of the afternoon with his preserved memories of his family, and perhaps he would go back home.  It seemed like ages since he used the tether, but now he approached the idea with childish anticipation. The door sighed open and Jacques had a wide grin on his face.  He stepped out into the long corridor that ran through the center of the vessel.  It was as wide as a football field and was filled with fountains, palm trees, benches, couches, and new sights every time he came through.  The corridor branched off on either side to endless places.  He had not seen them all, and he had never made it to the end of the corridor.  A place like this back home would have worn him out, but he didn’t get tired here.  Miles and miles of places to walk and explore.  He would explore later.  At the moment he was headed for the banks.  A left turn off the main corridor, a right turn down another, another left.  His legs knew where to go and he had never gotten lost.  He came to a heavy iron door.  It was his door.  There was no other door like it on the vessel.  It must have weighed hundreds of pounds.  It probably took a crew of men to install, but Jacques insisted on it.  This door was not just for security; it was symbolic to him.  He stepped forward and the door clicked twice and a bolt could be heard sliding back.  It used the most secure form of biometric lock, linked to Jacques’ brain. Without a sound, the door slowly opened inward.  He stepped inside and it closed behind him.  He took a deep breath and exhaled.

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