The Revelations by Erik Hoel (e ink ebook reader txt) 📕

“Category theory. It’s a branch of mathematics that—you know what, just give it back. Give me my, my, hey, give it—Okay. Let’s go.”

“Achoo!”

Walking to the East Village they slow as they approach some sort of commotion in front of the CNS. There are protesters outside the building, shouting, blocking the sidewalk, holding signs that say STUDENTS AGAINST ANIMAL RESEARCH. In the back, one student in a ski mask holds up: TORTURE FOR TORTURERS. A scene is already unfolding as a man, a researcher whom Kierk recognizes from the hallways of the CNS, is trying to enter to the increased rancor of the crowd. The researcher looks defiant, about to move forward, but then takes a step back in shock when an utter silence descends. One by one the protesters begin to collapse like a depressive wave spreading outward. Strings cut, the clatter of signs, the looseness of lifelessness, until all of them are splayed out on the ground in a hush, legs entangled, faces blank at the sky. The entire street is still as the organismal mass lies protoplasmic on the cement. Kierk, leading the way, is the first to move through them all, stepping gingerly around the limbs of the still figures. He looks down at their faces in vain, as if hoping to recognize one. Only their eyes move to watch as he and Alex and Carmen pass through to Broadway and beyond.

At first they can talk of nothing else, nervous about what they just saw, but then the easiness of the evening takes over and they relax into the day, moving abreast through the concrete and light and wail of passing ambulances, walk signals bleached out from the sun, sandals thwacking in synchrony, St. Marks Place a rush of small stores and trinkets and skateboarders and tattoo parlors and jangling beads. They try on hats from a display rack on the sidewalk, which is followed by laughter as the young woman secures on one of the young men a Mets cap, from which his hair sticks up in a willful column. They lean together too long before pulling away.—“Oh lady! For you lady, I will give your boyfriend the hat, yes, sir, you look good in the hat. Take care of your lady!” Laughter, cars, a bicycle whizzes by them on the sidewalk. Hands bend the bill of a Mets cap.—“Where are you taking us, where is this place?” The heat from an open brick oven compounds in the thick air as they handle paper plates made translucent from grease.—“You are destroying all my natural defenses against carbs.” Then the taste of garlic and cheese and artichoke.—“Give me a bite, pleeaase.” Waiting for a walk signal while a hundred pigeons take flight and swoop low against a sky so blue it has become a solid, blue through and through, an infinite bowl of blue.—“Did you see that guy? He had a cat balanced on his head. My hand to God.” Nudging and laughter, a cigarette is passed around, savored illicitly. That ache in the flat pads of feet from pounding around on concrete for hours. At a small terrace looking over First Avenue sighs of relief are breathed as feet are elevated and the three lounge around as a server brings beers so cold they must be from another planet. Sweating glass. Male and female fingers touch as they both reach for napkins at the same time. Did he notice? In the advancing day the hot liquid fishes of thoughts swim upstream with the traffic. One of her hands is laying on the tablecloth in the square of sunlight. Look at how small and perfectly shaped it is, moving by itself.—“Where did you get that bruise anyways?”—“I was mugged.”—“Oh.” One of the young men laughs heartily.—“See, I told you, coming in from the wild.” Smiling at nothing, why am I doing that?—“How do you manage to get so much ink on your hands?”—“Practice.”—“I’ll get the check.” Chairs screeching back. Footsteps. Streets becoming tinted with evening colors. A stall of fruit, buzzing with itself.—“Okay, where should we eat?”—“Come on, let’s eat oranges in the sunlight.” Fingernails pick away at the skin, fingers become sticky with pulp, orange peels are discarded onto the step below where they are sitting. Three figures are sitting on stone steps outside a brownstone apartment building. The sun is setting down the west side of the street looking like a drop of blood hung between the buildings. Everything is cast red by it. The young woman puts her sunglasses on, smiles contentedly. The occasional warm gust stirs everything like an idle chemistry set. The day retreats, and in the vanilla red of dusk the electric nightlights of the city come on in uncoordinated blocks, beautifully out of sync. Every surface radiates warmth when a palm is put against it. There must be a world beyond this world. In the waning red a young woman leafs through a Hello Kitty notebook while the two young men converse, throw pebbles, until one notices and snatches it back from her. A pink tongue sticks out. Dogs pass, their owners dragged along like afterthoughts. Pigeons retire, cede the night to the bats.—“Most of the neuroscientists I meet are just . . . really boring, actually.”—“Haha, same.”—“I’ve met a lot, and if asked why they’re in the field they say the mind-body problem. But none of them end up actually researching it. You two guys are the first people I’ve met who actually do what you’re supposed to be doing and it’s . . . I don’t know, it’s just really great.”—“Thanks, Carmen.”—“You too.”—“I’m just glad you’re in this program, is all I’m saying.”—“We know. Us too.” Smiling, the young woman sitting in the middle puts her arms around their shoulders, rocks back and forth. Breathe in. Breathe out. A thought swimming up over a young man’s head, passing by her resting arm on his shoulder—when was the