Asimov is Wrong #4
It came to me while I was remembering my childhood.
#4
The nurse is black. She is very black. She has a heart of pure gold. Her name is Beverley. She takes my piss every morning and empties it.
“You had a good night, Mr. Hogg. Lots of urine, this is good. Keep it up, drink plenty of water. Did you do number two, yet?”
“I think I’m constipated, Beverley. Should I stop eating?”
“No, if you don’t pass anything by tomorrow, I’ll give you something. It’s the side effects of the anesthetic.”
The door opens after a light tap, and Steve walks in. “How’s it going in here?”
“We’re just talking shit, Steve.”
Beverley almost busted her very large knickers.
“I’ll be back in the morning, Mr. Hogg,” Beverley said.
Steve sat in a chair by the window. In the distance is the Arch, in St. Louis, downtown. “Jenny been in today?”
“She stayed the night. They wheeled a bed in beside me. She’ll be back this evening.”
“You don’t deserve that woman, Harry,” he said taking his ridiculous hat off, and sitting back in the chair. His hat falls to the floor from his lap and looks like something I could take a crap in.
“I know, she keeps telling me. So where are your thoughts regarding our discussion on the theory of time travel.”
“Can’t we talk about the weather, or how much you hate Missouri?”
“What is your earliest memory, Steve?”
“I guess not! I was probably three years old, playing on the kitchen floor. Mum had just put something in a cupboard and then gone outside to take some clothes off the line. At some point, the potatoes on the stove boiled dry and the resulting smoke set her off screaming, which frightened me into incontinence.”
“Admittedly, Steve, a terrible experience, but it was only a momentary embarrassment, was it not?”
“Maybe, but clearly I never forgot it.”
“You were three, right?”
“Yes, about.”
“How old are you now?”
“Old, and a lot older for knowing you, Harry.”
“Seventy-four?”
“Two!”
“So, let’s say sixty-nine years ago.”
“Where are you going with this?” Steve asks, picking up his hat. Wish I’d filled it!
“A memory from 69 earth years ago came to you instantly. How quick is that?”
“It’s my memory, not a racecar.”
“But listen, when I was around four, we were taken to the park, and taken on a rowing boat. Anyway, twenty feet from the dock, Billy turned over the rowing boat, falling out. By the time anyone realized something was wrong the worst-case scenario had been played out.”
I watched Steve’s reactions. It was rubbish of course, but I wanted to make a point. When someone chooses to tell that sort of story to someone else, they generally aren’t expecting a response. They usually just want someone to listen.
“So, here’s the deal, Steve. The idea of mortality set in early as did the feeling that God is a tinge of a bit sadistic. God is not to be trusted. All things did not work together for the good of that boy, holding on to a faith which had so desperately let him down.”
“Is it that you want to go back and ask God why?”
“Look, read here, I flopped the Bible open. I’ve marked it. Read it aloud.”
“I am the resurrection and the life.”
Okay, so here’s my thing, And I realize that blaming God was a very four-year-old thing to do, but it never seemed appropriate later in life to let Him off the hook. And because of the way my life was colored by that incident of neglect on the part of God, I still want nothing to do with Him. He’s back there, beyond the universe, sitting in His back garden, admiring his creation, which is huge, and not attending to the smaller things. God has to be made accountable, right?”
“And you’re thinking of being that person?”
“Who else wants to do it? We pray, don’t we? We ask politely, and still,shit happens, right? What do we do? We pray again.”
“I want to walk up to Him, ask what the fuck is all this about. I mean, he sends us off to church, and we walk or drive, take the bus, but what if we could get to Him quick enough? He didn’t know we were coming?”
“He’d be shocked, Harry.”
“Damn right, He would.”
“So, you’ve figured it all out. You, not Newton, not Hawking, Harry Hogg?”
“Exactly, because they were all looking at time. It doesn’t have anything to do with time. Your memory, how long in time did it take to come to you sixty-nine years later?”
“It was already in my head.”
“Exactly, Steve.”
Steve looked puzzled. “Exactly, what?”
“Oh my God, don’t you get it?”
“From the very start, actually. I haven’t a bloody clue what you’re talking about.”
“That’s because you believe in literature, Shakespeare, the Greeks, Moses, it’s all bullshit.”
“Well, now that’s sorted out, shall I ring for tea?”
“After this, one last question for today. You remember things at a speed unknown to the human experience, right?”
“If you say so.”
Okay, but where did the memories go that you don’t recall? They aren’t there, right?”
“Right, Harry.”
“That’s it, that the end of the universe, where those memories we don’t recall go to, that’s where God lives.”
“Oh yeh, that’s it. Do you want Earl Gray?”
“Wait, make a note for me, here’s some paper. You got a pen?”
“Yes, here in my jacket.”
“Okay, write this down. T= Moment of Big Bang T0= 3 *1⁰³⁸ seconds. All energy is in form of radiation. T1= 100 seconds. Helium forms. Nuclear reactions die out. T2= 1000 seconds. Shift from radiation dominated universe to matter dominated universe. Good, okay, you can put the pen away.”
“What was the last thing you did for me?”
“Bought the pizza, if I recall correctly. For which I am expecting to get reimbursed.
“Do you see the relationship between the two?”
“I remember you owe me money,” he said as the door opened.
“Hi darling, I see Steve is keeping you entertained,” Jenny said.
“Yeh, honey, that would be a miracle on its own.”
Part Five will reveal all. Harry will meet with God, in a garden beyond our universe.
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