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

the way. There is nothing. The long empty corridors mock him, turn corners on themselves. Closing the door, cloaked in shadow, Kierk is silent for a moment, head cocked. He chuckles once, standing in the dark with the knife hanging at his side.

Then he hears the tinniest ding from far away.

He whips the knife into the wood floorboards by his feet and, still only in his boxers, he sprints down the length of the corridor and to the elevators just in time to hear the soft shut of the doors as he approaches and to catch the blinking numbers start at his floor and tick all the way down to the ground floor, where it stays.

Kierk leans against the cold surface of the elevator doors, breathing hard, thinking hard. He hears the click of a key down the hall and when the young woman turns toward him she freezes at the sight of the nearly naked young man breathing heavily against the elevator door, his hair straight up, his eyes changing from alarmed to amused. Kierk smiles at her, bows, and pads to his room. As he enters he pulls the knife out of the floor. He spends a little while pacing back and forth in the dark before he gives up, and, finally too tired to care anymore, he lies back down again. But he doesn’t return the knife. Instead he slips it between the mattress and the box spring so that the handle sticks out on his right side, well within reach. Staring at the ceiling, he closes his eyes and there is time enough for three heartbeats before the revelation comes. The revelation is similar to one you would have if, in a museum examining an ancient mural containing a painted scene of great clutter and activity, you had, in browsing across the different sections of the enormous painting, discovered that one of the tertiary figures, arrested in some pose in the background, was a precise facsimile of a childhood friend of yours. The man with the red baseball cap in the tan trench coat that Kierk had seen vanish into the tunnel on Saturday had walked out of the subway entrance earlier that night hidden among a small group of people and had turned directly toward Kierk, watching him back, his face still obscure, just for a moment before vanishing up a side street, and this all comes to Kierk only now.

THURSDAY

Kierk wakes up with memories of last night bearing down on him. Rubbing his eyes, naked and now standing, he glances down at the hilt of the knife protruding from between the mattress and the box spring. In the morning light all the inanimate objects and spaces, conspiratorial at night, have become a toy set of innocence, sapped of intentionality, obvious. Alone but still embarrassed Kierk takes the knife back to the kitchen before going to the bathroom to urinate his way into the start of day.

Approaching the CNS the streets are full of small children heading to different NYU departments and buildings for community engagement. There is also a college student holding up a sign with a picture of a vivisected monkey on it, and one of the teachers has stopped and is arguing with him as the other teachers shepherd the children away. Next to him a girl with dreadlocks whom Kierk recognizes from SAAR holds up a placard that says DOUBLE TROUBLE LIVES. TORTURE FOR TORTURERS. He passes them while coughing to hide his face.

In the CNS Leon is waiting for him patiently, holding in his ursine arms a cardboard box labeled BRAINS. Kierk apologizes for being late as they make their way to the conference room that the original meet-and-greet for the Crick Scholars had been held in, a room that Kierk has searched for a few times during his walks and never found. Carmen and Karen are manning the next table over. Max comes in, raises up two fingers, and then leaves in a hurry—Kierk notices he avoids looking at Karen. Then the students flood in. Words and phrases used descriptively in emails surrounding this event: socioeconomic choices unavailable, urban, minority, pre-college enrichment opportunity, students of color, scientific exposure. Leon is lifting the brains out of Tupperware like caught fish, Kierk is snapping on his nitrile gloves surgeon-like, and the kids split off and make their way to the individual stations.—“So Leon, how about this. You play the mute, gravely German giant and I play the wordy and handsome court jester introducing you?” Before Leon can respond:—“Hey boys and girls, my name is Kierk and this big European guy right here is Leon.”—“Are those brains?”—“Yup, these are human brains, but they are from people who wanted us to have their brains after they died, so that we could do science with them.”—“They’re gray.”—“Yup, but in the skull they’re actually very pink. Leon, can you hand me a . . . Great, thanks. Okay, let’s get started. Just to begin with, the brain has got two big parts, this part in the back of the brain is called the (Kierk affects an over-the-top Italian accent) cerebellum. “Everybody say it with me, just like me, cerebellum.”—“Cerebellum” (in chorus).—“Wow, you guys are so smart and you all have wonderful Italian accents, it’s all very impressive” (Carmen is looking over, smiling above rows of heads in motion).—“The cerebellum helps you to move, like, if I throw this brain at you (mimes throwing brain to giggles and shrieks) then your cerebellum would be what helps you catch it. Everybody stand on one foot like me” (eight little sneakers lift off the floor). “Now say (faking balance loss to giggles, arms pinwheeling) ‘cerebellum,’ everybody.”—“Cerebellum!”—“Wonderful! So the cerebellum has a tough job, and it does that by having as many neurons as all the rest of your brain! Do you guys know what neurons are? You haven’t gotten to that station huh, well, who’s fault is that” (making a face, Kierk points to the