Written December 29, 2019

The sun and moon were in accord to be absent that day. The tides were churning aimlessly around themselves. Waves did not seem to know where to go, much like the wind that grew more intense and confused as the morning progressed.

Clouds huddled close enough to each other that it became impossible to tell them apart. It was easier not to think about them being individual at all, but instead as a second layer of sky.

There was something intriguing about the gray filter that so easily fell upon the world. The oppressiveness was tantalizing, the glassy film that overcame my eyes a wonderful reprieve from bright sensitivity.

I was walking with my hands jammed in my pockets and my chin beneath my coat collar, contemplating the colors of the cars flashing by, the people in them going about their business for the day as if the world would always turn. 

Immortality can only exist if you don’t think about it too hard. The thought flitted in and out of my mind like a reflex.

I had nowhere to go, nothing to do. I was perfectly happy roaming the sidewalks and going from park to park. My favorite pastime was watching the koi fish swim in patterns, slowly encircling each other. The essence of love.

Quite unconsciously, I made my way to the center of town and entered a bar. It was stuffy and had a warm glow to it the color of deep ale. I sat down at the counter next to a disheveled old man without ordering anything.

Looking around, I quickly found that the man was perhaps the most interesting person in the room. He had a scraggly salt-and-pepper beard, his hair was in disarray, and his knobby hands were wound like ancient vines around a beer can. Every time he put the beverage to his lips he reeled a bit while some of the liquid dribbled down his chin. Despite these less than charming qualities, I had the urge to engage him in conversation.

I resolved to let it come about naturally, so I made it obvious that I was watching him intently until he had no choice but to notice.

He frowned, pursed his lips, and squinted at me for a while. He turned back to his drink and sighed as if it was the last breath he would ever expel from his body. “What do you want?” His voice was gruff and rusty, crackly like burning metal. To my surprise, he did not sound very drunk. 

“Nothing really,” I said.

He turned to me, clearly annoyed. “Well then?”

“What’s your name?” I persisted.

Without looking at me, he replied, “Sir Isaac Einstein.”

“That’s funny. Are you a professor?”

“Are you a reporter?”
“No.”

“Well then would you let a man finish his drink?”

I had an inkling that our conversation was far from over. I was willing to be patient. I was once told that the best conversations were the slowest blooming flowers.

In the meantime, I stared at the window. Not the action outside the window, but the windowpane itself. It began to rain, and I gazed at the stationary droplets of water growing larger as they combined with their neighbors, until finally they rushed down the glass into the gloomy depths of the sidewalk to be absorbed by the pavement. 

“Miss?”

I swiveled around in my chair to look at the man. “Yes?”

“I apologize. Clearly I am not at my fullest mental capacity. Excuse me for my curtness.”

“That’s alright. I don’t blame you. Small talk is stupid. So I was being stupid. And, like me, I’m sure you don’t suffer fools gladly.”

He waved the notion away, “Please. Look at me. I am a fool.” He took a swig of his beer, as if to prove the point. “Anyway. You seem like a someone.”

“Pardon?”

“I said you seem like a someone.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“You know.”

“I don’t.”

“You know, a someone. Someone with gravity.”

“Gravity?” I found this a strange word to describe a societal position.

“Yes, gravity. Like a celestial body.”

“Well, that’s funny of you to say.”

“Why, pray tell?” He said, a bit sarcastically. 

“My name is Celeste.”

“Well, that is funny, isn’t it? It’s a good name.”

There was an expectant silence between us for a time until he continued. “I guess you want me to return the courtesy. My name’s Harrison. People who talk to me call me Harry or Hank. The daring ones call me Doctor Harrison. But there aren’t that many people who talk to me, so nothing’s official.”

“Doctor?”

“I knew you were going to say something like that.” Doctor Harrison sighed again, and I was beginning to wonder how much air the man had in his lungs. “You asked if I’m a professor. The answer is I was. Note the tense.” He held up his glass and stifled a belch. “Cheers.” He pointed an index finger near my face. “Don’t ask of what.”

“Well I think that’s very interesting.”

“A someone like you would think that.”

I began to think about the word he used earlier in the conversation. Gravity. “You’re a physicist of some sort,” I guessed.

“Listen, Cheryl.”

“Celeste.”

“Listen, Celeste. You think that I didn’t want you to ask what kind of professor I was because I’m a jaded old drunk. Not so. Or at least that wasn’t the reason. The reason was because astrophysics is a science of all sciences. It is an art form, a philosophy, a state of mind not bound by gravity like Someones are. It is as pure as crystal and raw as an occluded diamond mined from roughage. In laymen’s terms, it is not suppressed by pathetic job titles like ‘Professor of Astrophysics.’ Celeste, I was a Professor of the Universe.” Doctor Harrison nodded firmly one time as a gesture of finality.

I pondered his words before concluding, “You have a lot of faith in the universe.”

Doctor Harrison shrugged and studied the opening of his beer can.

“What does ‘gravity’ mean the way you use it?” I asked.

His responding words were slow and deliberate. “It is a word for people who have a place in the universe. However small. They bend,” he put his hands together, palms down and the sides of his index fingers touching to form a wide V, “The space around them.”

I nodded, thinking I understood. “And you don’t think you have gravity?”

Doctor Harrison grimaced. Out of what I was uncertain. “No. No, I don’t have gravity. I’m debris moving on an aimless trajectory through nothingness.”

“But doesn’t everything have gravity?”

He shook his head. “Everything and nothing has gravity.”

“Doctor Harrison,” I ventured, “You have a lot of faith in the universe, yet you despise humanity. You think you are useless, but even debris changes the fabric of space and time. Simply by being here, we are active members of the universe, actively participating in the progression of life. And you said something contradictory.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. At first, you made gravity a positive thing by saying Someones have it. Then, you said that astrophysics is not bound by gravity like Someones are, which would imply that it’s negative.”

“When did I ever say outright that gravity is a positive thing? Or that I despised humanity, or that I think I’m useless?”

My brow wrinkled. “Well, you didn’t.”

Doctor Harrison smiled, clearly pleased with himself. “Exactly. And I never said that being bound by gravity is a negative thing. It is simply a state of being. Like debris moving aimlessly through nothingness is a state of being.”

Everything was beginning to come together. “I see. Yes, I think I see now.”

For the following few minutes, we studied each other. I looked at the ridges, dips, and lines of his face. His eyes were deep and knowing and revealed a soul that was, to my astonishment, at peace with itself.

“We know each other,” Doctor Harrison said in a tone that deviated from his usual crude one.

“Doctor Harrison, I’m as lost as you are. Which means, when you think about it, we aren’t very lost at all.”

He reached for a glass resting on the counter nearby and poured the remaining contents of his beer can into it.

“Celeste, some people would say this glass is half empty. Others would say it’s half full. But really, if the glass is half full, it must also be half empty, and visa versa. Therefore, the glass can be described as neither or both. Therefore,” he picked it up and finished the beer in one gulp, “Everything is simply a state of being.”

I had walked into the bar oblivious to what the universe had in store, and I would exit the bar in an identical state. The wind and the tides, the sun and the moon, all of it simply was. I let the particles in the air seep into my skin, and the particles on my skin leech into the air. Life was a constant exchange with the universe. I was the bar, and the bar was me.

“Thank you, Doctor Harrison.”

Doctor Harrison did not say anything. He did not smile, did not nod, nor did he give indication that he planned to say goodbye. Because there is no such thing as goodbye. We are all connected, our lives are intertwined, I thought.

I turned to go, walking through a portal from the universe, into the universe. I would always be in the universe, but this did not give me a sense of captivity. It was more liberating than anything I had ever felt.

In some distant land, I sensed a desert sand dune heaving with the wind. The granules were born in the desert. To the desert they would return.

A Grain of Sand © Safira Schiowitz