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

“. . .”

“Well, what should we do? I mean, he didn’t have anyone here, right, no relatives here. Everyone was back in India. He said he had some friends from Oxford.”

“. . .”

“Yeah, that’s fine, let’s meet up. We can get lunch. Is it weird to get lunch? It’s weird.”

“. . .”

“No, thanks for calling me. Talk to you soon.”

Kierk sets down his phone. The air turns to stone. The birds of talk fall about him. All around the park the colorless green ideas are out sleeping furiously, making their beds amid the abandoned top hats of rain, spouting stalks, maybe Atif’s soul was out as well, out in that quiet haunting of mist, the sound of words on a tin roof. All around him dew evaporates, rising up to heaven. The old lady surrounded by pigeons is still looking at him from the bench opposite his. His migraine is no longer a migraine. It is something else. The interplay between the light and fine mist becomes a study in thanatology, as do the words, the heartbeat in his ears, the pain in his skull that he is suddenly so incredibly grateful for, the slow-motion movement of people, violins of thought going off quietly in the background, everything is rising into evanescent form, the world is a ballet dancer doing a slow leaping grand jeté as gravity lets go and then everything is rising, rising, and right then he feels the violent vibration of a passing subway train underneath him. The pigeons, their rounded bodies steaming with élan vital, make a collective decision and all arc to sky.

Kierk and Carmen sit in a local deli, the surreal bustle of customers around them. Hunks of white processed chicken glisten up at Kierk. His sandwich is a tombstone of meaning that he can’t stop staring at. They’d shared a quick hug when they both arrived. Carmen’s face is puffy from crying, her hair secured up in a short bun by a big blue hair clip, and she’s wearing a faded T-shirt that reads COLUMBIA. Her stainless steel water bottle sits next to her sandwich, which she also hasn’t touched.

“How did you even find out?” he asks.

“The local news sites were reporting that a neuroscientist at NYU got hit. My friend forwarded it to me. I don’t even think the department knows yet.”

“So, how did he . . . He was drunk?”

“The station was empty, there was nobody around. I feel so guilty . . .” She takes a long sip from her water bottle.

“Christ.”

“What time did we leave the bar, do you remember?”

“We took a cab, right? I think I remember a cab.” Kierk is rubbing his head.

“I think it was around two . . . I don’t really remember either. We took the cab, and Atif walked.”

“Right, he walked . . .”

“This is what I can piece together,” she says. “We get in the cab, and he walks. But the storm is really bad, so he takes the subway. He goes to the Bleecker Street Station, which is only like, a block or two away. He probably wanted to take the 6 uptown . . . and that’s where it . . . happened.”

“Christ. I mean, do you think he’d just never . . . like, what, taken a subway?”

“Listen, we all need to go to the police together and make a statement.”

“A statement about what? He must have fallen in. He was drunk. It happens to dozens of people every year. And he was just monstrously unlucky.”

“We have to tell them. Like, how are they to know he was at that hookah bar?”

“Why do they care?”

“So they can do their detective thing. So that they can detect.”

“Carmen . . . What are they going to detect?”

“So you think it was an accident?”

“Wait, so you think it wasn’t?”

“. . . He could have been pushed.”

“Don’t do this.”

“Listen, let’s just think about it. Okay, it’s like 4:00 a.m. in this station. There’s nobody around. Very few subway stations have cameras, by the way. I looked it up online. So let’s say somebody comes up behind him. Atif’s drunk. That person shoves him off the platform just as the train is approaching, just as it’s coming down the tunnel. It’s basically the perfect crime. Everyone thinks it’s an accident. The police don’t even investigate.”

“Jesus, thought a lot about it? I can barely deal with this hangover.” Kierk rubs at his face, massages his temples.

“No, but this is odd: I think there’s almost two hours between the time we left, or when I’m pretty sure we left, and when he gets hit and the ambulance responds.”

“How do you even know when the ambulance responded?”

“The police file everything online now. It’s all available. The ambulance responded at 3:47 a.m. but we left the bar at like 2:00, as far as I can put together.”

“Poor guy probably just stopped to puke.”

“I’m afraid that’s what the cops are going to think. But they wouldn’t—” Carmen leans in, whispering, “—they wouldn’t understand the sensitive nature of his work. So of course they’re not going to suspect anything.”

“What’s there to suspect?”

“Don’t do that.”

“No, I want you to say it.”

There is a stalemate as they both stare at each other.

“Fine, I’ll say it,” Carmen exclaims. “They won’t suspect he was murdered because of what he does, what he did, what we all do. He’s a scientist who studies consciousness. Was. Studied.”

“Carmen, this is . . .”

“How can you of all people say that? You saw what they’re capable of. And you heard about what happened to Melissa Goldman, right? She got that box of bomb materials. What if SAAR was involved?”

Kierk shakes his head. “Atif had just arrived. He was barely part of Melissa’s lab.”

“But that’s just one possibility. Like, we know a little bit about what he was working on what with our joint project, but what if he had been doing more than that? Maybe he wrote somebody an email with something in it, something