The Notion of the Vanishing of Regret
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1 THE NOTION OF THE VANISHING OF REGRET A Novel by KIP R. TAYLOR B.A. in Theatre, Truman State University, 2003 A CREATIVE THESIS submitted to Southern New Hampshire University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing School of Arts and Sciences May 20, 2014 This thesis has been examined and approved. _____________________________________ faculty name and title (thesis director) ______________________________________ faculty name and title (second reader) 2 The Notion of the Vanishing of Regret A Distinct Point of Jasmine 2036 New Kolkata, India Oskar Tigunait sat on a high stool, mug of chai held by his unsteady right hand, and watched the rain soaked streets of New Kolkata through the windows of Café Ciel Bleu. His black, thinning wisps of hair were tousled by the breeze of air conditioning; goose bumps on his skin played deceitful counterpoint to the steaming rain beyond the glass. A damned early monsoon season; it hadn’t relented for almost a week, now, and he had resigned himself. He had brought the rain inside with him, dripping from the sleeves of his jacket. Oskar’s other hand held a pencil over a forgotten notebook. Half-finished notes about Higgs Field Fluctuation and Variable Speed Neutrinos waited on the paper as Oskar’s mind pondered the beauty of the nautilus shell his niece had sent him from her vacation in Cape Town. The shell rested on the counter next to his barely touched quiche. The way such shells twisted deep into themselves had always mesmerized Oskar to a state of trance, his full understanding of Fibonacci sequences doing nothing to dull the wonder. Over visual chat earlier that morning, he had attempted to explain to his niece the way the twist of a shell or the spiral of a galaxy could be mathematically analyzed using the Golden Ratio. “You’re welcome, Uncle Oskar!” 3 The rather sharp twelve-year-old had rolled her eyes, chuckling at the impromptu tutelage session. Oskar had sighed, holding up the shell to the camera. “Uh, right, thank you, Nina. Call me if you have any questions with your Calculus.” She had disappeared from the screen already, replaced by the apologetic shrug of Oscar’s younger sister, Sierra. “It’s a bloody good thing your spawn has half a brain, Sierra.” “Scraggly hair. Genius in Maths. Social hermit. She has got all the same genes you got, you old bugger. Her dad hates it. Says it’s like he didn’t contribute at all!” Sierra had said, her British accent all the more pronounced than his own, as she had never moved away from South Hampton. “Let’s hope she didn’t get all the same genes.” Oskar had held up his awkward right hand in front of the screen at his sister. Sierra grimaced, but covered it with a sardonic cocked eyebrow. “She’s fine on that front. The one seizure’s all that’s happened, and that’s been years now.” “Yes, well, that ruined gene of ours has a nasty way of expressing itself.” Oskar had reminded her. “Keep an eye out.” “Um hm. Her chip will catch any irregularities. Don’t go fretting, Uncle Oskar. That’s her mum’s job.” Sierra at once had chided and reassured him. His sister had always been wiser than he, even at sixteen years his junior. She leaned forward and looked at Oskar’s neck and the necklace that he was wearing. “That looks familiar.” Oskar scratched his chin and reached forward to end the conversation. “Right. Carry on, then.” Oskar had winked back and closed his screen. Oskar decided to sketch the shell and see if he could capture it in all of its intricate detail, how each segment was double the dimensions of the segment that preceded it, forming the 4 classic spiral. He glanced at the tiny scar on his left forearm where his radio frequency chip had been for five years and wondered how his life might have been if he’d had one as a young boy, if it had alerted his parents in the middle of the night when he woke up scared and gasping and unable to move half of his body. The clunky lines and shading on his sketch of the shell displayed how truly right handed he was and that he would have been able to draw much better if his entire body worked. As he came close to finishing his sketch, Oskar noticed someone waving at him from the other side of the window. There were two students from the university, neither of which he recognized, gesturing with enthusiasm from under their dripping umbrellas. He put his pencil down and waved back at them, offering a curt but pleasant smile and making sure to keep his right hand as unnoticeable as he could. The students grinned back then continued on their way down the street, nudging each other and chatting. For almost thirty years, he’d been well known the world over for his theories in Particle Physics, Astrophysics, and Theoretical Physics. But he had never acclimated to the random attention he was paid, so sporadic and undeserved as it seemed. It wasn’t as if many people actually understood the work he did or the theories that he had posited or proved; the reality was that the world had simply wanted a second Hawking, a title he had been called far too fucking many times. There were plenty of people smarter than he, and even a few smarter than Stephen Hawking, roaming the planet. But none of those people added the romance of coupling intellect with disability. Oskar would have much preferred obscurity. Oskar didn’t hurry out of the café to get to work. He had long since been relieved of teaching actual classes. Instead, he oversaw a few post docs and developed experiments for the 5 Collider down in Australia, giving the occasional seminar on advanced topics. The office could wait for him to complete his sketch. An hour later, Oskar walked into his office in the physics complex. He left the door half open, hoping one of his students might come in with a tough question to break the monotony of the morning’s work. He hung his rain covered jacket onto a hook, and sat down in his chair. He hated the idea of crunching numbers that his post docs and colleagues didn’t have the chops to crunch. Being the smartest guy in the room wasn’t always a boon. He snapped his fingers and the screen woke up. He gestured at the sensor, finding the file that he wanted, and brought up a diagram of the Massive Hadron Collider that resided in the Outback, buried deep into the ground. It used fifty times the piping and tunnels of the old Cern Collider and had already yielded two successful tests, one involving a rather wayward route to achieving dark matter detection. There was a pulse of guilt that Oskar felt as he thought of leaving India in a few weeks to return to working at the Collider without first visiting his parents in France. He decided to book a brief flight west to remedy the problem. Oskar began to mess with some numbers on a neutrino test when he heard a firm knock. Roshan Jankar appeared in the door and sat down in the chair on the opposite side of Oskar’s desk. Oskar slid his screen to one side. “Oskar! Hello, beautiful man. What’s going?” Roshan, never fully free from his thick Hindi accent when he spoke English or French, smoothed his hands over his tech pants and grinned through a thick strand of mostly silver hair. “More calculations, as always. How’s the research?” Oskar asked, smiling at his friend’s loudness. 6 “Good, good. Making progress as always.” Roshan said.”But it has been a ridiculous morning. Prime Minister Chadha phoned about some nonsense or other and he prattled on for over an hour. But, whatever. Damn, man, it’s good to see you! I’m happy you’re having wine with us, tonight. Finally; you never take a break from your work. Do you have anything to drink?” He immediately stood back up and walked over to Oskar’s small fridge, snatching a cola. “Have a drink, you spry old bastard.” Oskar felt his high British slog over his clumsy tongue in comparison to Roshan’s fast talking. “Cheerful as always, in the mornings.” Roshan took a swallow. He peered and gestured at the necklace around Oskar’s neck. “Is that?” “Yes, it’s the one Teresa gave me.” Oskar said, more sharply than he had planned. “Uh huh. I haven’t seen it in a while.” Roshan’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve been told it looks flattering.” Oskar slipped the woven hemp under his shirt. “Still looks good, I suppose.” Roshan drank his cola, but kept his eyes on the necklace for a moment. Then, with little warning, her turned on his heels and headed toward the door, motioning for Oskar to follow him. “Come on. We’ve got to run somewhere.” Oskar frowned. “Roshan, you’ve been here less than a minute.” Roshan nodded. “Mhmm. Yes. But I’ve got some things to show you. Bought one of them last week.” Roshan immediately led the way out the door. Oskar struggled to shut down his screen, gather up his coat and umbrella and follow his manic friend, lurching and dragging his right leg behind him. They crossed the campus and came to the library parking lot.