The Dance and the Diamond Sky Gary Marks / GM / © 2020 by Gary Marks Marksland Entertainment All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the author. The names of the characters in this story have not been changed to protect the innocent. They protected their own innocence. PART I One I stared at the floating furniture, the shimmering clothes in my closet, the dimensionless walls—reflected like a mirror in the liquid blackness of my fourth floor window. Beyond the glass was a frozen night; no stars shining. Winter awaited the emergence of our frail young spirits, ready to carry us through the campus gates into the chaos of Washington, DC. and environs. But we remained protected, cocooned. My dorm room was perfectly insulated. My thoughts were intended to be about simple things -- studying a preset curriculum while snacking on a bag of potato chips from the vending machine down the hall. Perhaps listening to the toned-down recorded version of Jimi Hendrix singing The Wind Cries Mary on the hi-fi I'd brought from home. I turned my gaze from the window. Sherry remained motionless, sitting on the edge of my unmade bed, her eyes fixed upon me. I reached for one of the books sitting on my nightstand and flipped it open to a random page—charts and symbols Dance in the Diamond Sky Gary Marks appeared, hieroglyphic images of dots floating on lines. “This is my music theory book." I weighed it in my hand, like the book on evolution Spencer Tracy held in the closing scene of Inherit the Wind, but forming the opposite conclusion. "It's very clever. It transforms simple sounds, basic musical ideas, into something that looks like rocket physics. Apparently, the goal of the book is to have me to no longer understand what I hear.” I pointed to another book on the floor near the foot of my bed, “And this one -- this is my treasured philosophy book. I truly loved that book, until last week. That’s when I went into my professor's office and said, 'Dr. Ludwig, I read ahead to the Nietzsche chapter and it made total sense. It changed everything I thought was true, until I read further ahead to the William James chapter, which said something completely different, and changed everything I thought was true again. So I began to wonder, being that you're my favorite professor here—what do you think is true?' "He says, 'About what in particular?' "I said, 'About all the things they’re talking about in our book—the spark behind the human spirit, freedom of choice versus everything being predestined by God. God! I mean, what do you think about God, Dr. Ludwig? Is there one? Or 5 Dance in the Diamond Sky Gary Marks more than one? Or nothingness? Or if there is nothingness, could it be a conscious kind of nothingness?" "He shrugs and says, ‘I don’t really know. I mean, there's really no way to actually know.' I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. "So I said, 'Well is there any way to actually know anything about anything?' "And he says, 'Probably not. But I'm not sure.' "So I was like, 'Then why are you having us read about all these philosophies if they could all be wrong, but in the end we can really never know if they are or aren't? What's the point?''' I paused, waiting for Sherry to be incredulous. But she replied, "So...?" "So, I'm giving you a glimpse into the mind of the person that's teaching me World Philosophy." "He's a genius." “What I’m trying to say is...“ I was getting flustered. “What are you trying to say?” "I'm trying to tell you, I’m sick of being here! I’m sick of faking it. Most of the professors are faking it. But they're getting paid to fake it. I'm just wasting time, faking it because everyone says I'm supposed to. But I have a new plan, Sher. I've thought this through for days. I'm serious. Are you ready?" 6 Dance in the Diamond Sky Gary Marks “Do tell,” she said suspiciously. “Okay. Part I: I drop out of college and move to San Francisco.” Sherry’s eyes narrowed. “And when you get your 1-A and they ship you off to Vietnam?” “Part II.... I move to Canada before they catch me." “You'd never be able to come back! They’d put you in jail if you came back, or if they caught you trying to leave!” “There'd be no reason to come back, because of Part III.” “Which is...?” “You’d be with me.” Now she understood why I asked her to come see me this weekend. Her hands covered her face. She pushed her hair back from her eyes and beckoned me with her finger until I sat next to her. “I can’t do that, Jackie.... I can’t. I’ve been accepted to some really good schools—Columbia, Stonybrook, Harpur. Maybe none of them are any better than here. But I’m a year behind you. I haven't experienced any of this yet. I need to find out for myself." I actually thought she was going to say yes. I had no Part IV. And no three-Part Plan, version B. I walked back to my dorm window, mind racing. I saw it held the past, present, and future in one image: I could see 7 Dance in the Diamond Sky Gary Marks Sherry behind me, reflected in the icy black glass, ghost-like; then with a mere squint of my eyes I could see my own reflection. Refocusing outward, four floors beneath me I could see the well-lit walkways of the main quad -- and further still, the car lights, like a confused parade of fireflies blinking across Massachusetts Avenue. She interrupted my time-shifting, "There has to be something valuable you can learn here." I turned around and was struck, as always, by her wild sea green eyes. They would wash right over me at times like this. She had a way of penetrating the real me — no reflections, no parallel realities. “Well, here's what I've learned so far: You actually can’t learn about music by analyzing Bartok. You can’t learn how to think like a scientist if science is taught like it's a religion. My economics teacher is living in an apartment on campus with his wife and kid—but if he knows so much about economics why isn’t he rich and living in some fancy mansion in Georgetown? And my political science teacher doesn’t want to talk about Vietnam because it’s too controversial. In other words, he wants to keep his job by talking about past wars and making it completely irrelevant to everything going on in the present. Don't you see? They’re teaching us how to accept it all, so we become a part of it, a part of them, without questioning what it is we're doing. The 8 Dance in the Diamond Sky Gary Marks thought of being here for three and a half more years is immoral! I just can't do it.” “It’s three and a half years of keeping you out of the goddamned war, Jackie! She was used to listening to my sociopolitical rants. But I wasn’t used to hearing her voice raised to this level in response. “You’re deferred here, Jackie, you’re safe here! Safe enough to be bored and complaining about it. Don't take that for granted. Staying here is the only legal way out of the political trap they’ve set for you. Don't you see that?” I shook my head, “And what if the war is still going on by the time I graduate? Then I’m 1-A anyway. Then what? Hide away in grad school?" "Why not?" "And what if the war is still going on four years after that? With America running out of teenagers, and, come on, you know that if we win this war they'll be sure to start a new war somewhere else a year after that. We'll never run out of wars, and new weapons to test. That’s what you learn in history class when you bother to read between the lines.” Her lips tightened. She closed her eyes. "I'm trapped here, Sher. I'm allowing myself to be trapped here. Is that the kind of person you want me be? A coward who's relieved and happy to be trapped?" 9 Dance in the Diamond Sky Gary Marks I started pacing around my tiny dorm-cage. It was after midnight, but I was feeling a bit manic. I was freaked out after hearing she had refused to join my Canada plan, but also feeling that even without her, my plan was still the best plan I could think of. “Look Sher, I get it. I hear all the voices in my head warning me—my parents, my friends—they say, 'Be cautious, be logical. It's just college, for God's sake—deal with it, just like everyone else.... you're young. Time will pass.' But the truth is, it's not the right thing to do.” She met my eyes for a long moment. “And what do you hear my voice saying?” "I don't know anymore...