A COLD, SILENT NOTHING

Dr. Orson

Dr. Orson was under 24-hour supervision in a state-of-the-art mental health facility. He hadn't spoken to anyone in months, which was an improvement over the babbling that had consumed him in the weeks before. My understanding from speaking with his doctors was that he had somewhat recovered mentally, a testament to the man's intellectual strength, but emotionally he never would. Whatever he had seen changed his soul.

We had never met before I stepped into his room. Even in the good times, before he had traveled to the end of everything, he wouldn't have known me. But I knew him. Physicist, philosopher, time traveler—those were what most knew of his accomplishments. But he was also a writer, an educator, a father, a philanthropist—less flashy, but no less important, achievements. All facets that, in varying degrees, made up his personality. It was a shame that his intellectual curiosity got the better of his emotional reason and, depending on your perspective, his moral compass.

Despite knowing this of him, I was there to decide if I should follow in his steps.

He sat motionless in a chair that faced the window, his slack jaw and relaxed posture a product of the anti-suicide neuro-mesh that enveloped his brain stem. The early evening sunlight was harsh on his face, but he stared into it, unblinking. Pale to the point that one might confuse him for an albino, he nearly glowed in the sunlight. He was emaciated, like he had lost most of his weight within the past few days. I remembered the footage I was forced to watch of his return from the machine and couldn't help but think that he looked healthier as he crawled from it, tongue hanging from his lips and eyes rolling into the back of his head, than he looked now.

"Dr. Orson, my name is Wesley Stephens. I'm here to ask you about what you experienced at the end of everything," I said. I watched his face carefully. No change. If it weren't for the micro-movements of his pupils, the tiny vibrations of a soul spinning behind the eyes, I'd have thought he'd died sitting up.

Before entering I had been given a folding chair. Aside from the chair he sat in and a twin-sized bed along the edge of one wall, it was the only furniture in the room. I set it down and took a seat directly in front of him. "I'm asking because I, too, plan on going there. But before I do, I'd like to know what you saw. What happened to make you--" I stopped. His eyes had suddenly focused on me, his pupils snapping toward my own. He held my gaze for a long while before he spoke.

"That's not possible," he said. His voice was gravelly, dry, like it needed to be lubricated and warmed up before use.

"I found a way around the fail-safes," I explained. "Permission is an issue, but my colleagues have agreed to support me depending on the outcome of this conversation. No one else will know until its done."

"There will be no outcome," he said, voice strong in its defiance even through his clear emotional devastation and physical illness. He turned back toward the sunlight.

"Sir," I began, choosing my words carefully. Not because he would become defensive if my tone were wrong, but because I held him in such high regard. He deserved all the respect I could muster. "I'm afraid my intentions for this conversation are not to get your permission. If you refuse to educate me on what you saw, why you've ended up here, then I will simply move forward to find out for myself. The hope is that you'll be able to prepare me better than you were, so that I might come out the other side intact."

His gaze returned to me, the smirk a welcome if disconcerting addition. "You stupid fuck," he said. His crassness and dismissiveness pushed me against the folding chair. "There's no way to prepare for the end of everything. It just is."

"Dr. Orson..." I began. I had a list of arguments and talking points in my head. About the importance of discovering what's at the end so we know how to live through the present. Seeing the future as a way of saving the now. Satiating our immense scientific curiosity! But he immediately shot through anything I might say.

"The human mind is capable of a great many things. But it is incapable of a nearly infinite number of other things. Despite what you may think, what power you think you have over your person and the world because we've evolved to understand consciousness of consciousness and manifest beautiful creations with just a thought, does not mean that our brains aren't fragile. I assure you, Mr. Stephens, they are. The traumas we endure as children stay with us through adulthood. And on the scale of the universe, which is what we're discussing, we are still children and will remain children until the end of our species. Do not peek through the keyhole to witness the same trauma I have. I beg of you, let this mystery stay a mystery. There are things we cannot understand, let alone control, and are therefore not worth knowing. Lest they drive you insane."

I was shocked to hear this line of reasoning from someone like Dr. Orson. A man who had dedicated his life to understanding the most minute workings of our existence was telling me that there was no way to understand something. That our intellects were too fragile to comprehend any aspect of the universe was unconscionable to me.

"That's a coward's rhetoric," I said, standing. "The entire history of humanity is the pursuit of greater understanding in service of bettering ourselves. It's how we tamed the wilderness, conquered the stars, and expanded our footprint to possibly become the greatest beings to ever live."

"How arrogant and small-minded you are. This," Dr. Orson said, gesturing to the space around him, "Isn't the abode of an insane man, but is the home of an enlightened one. And if you travel to the end, you'll learn the same difficult lesson I have. You'll join me here to live in our enlightenment and nothing else until we're blessed with death."

"Maybe so," I said. "But without more reasoning than the ravings of a lunatic about children and trauma I prefer to learn those lessons on my own. Thank you for your time, Dr. Orson. I do hope the best for you."

Dr. Orson returned to his statue-like state, asif our entire conversation was something that had occurred only in my mind.Perhaps it had. Knowing what I know now, there is much about reality I can nolonger distinguish from imagination.