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

and I assumed the cab dropped us off at our apartments. Now . . . Anyone in that cab could have gone back in the meantime, texted him to meet or something. Then pushed Atif in. Oh my god.”

“So you’re suspicious of everyone?”

“Think about it, Kierk. There are just two tenure-track positions available for eight Crick Scholars. And it’s not like those just come around, not at a place like NYU. Those jobs are once-in-a-lifetime offerings. And Atif was stiff competition. He had a great publication record, got along with everyone, and wasn’t white.”

“So now you think it was a Crick Scholar?”

“Listen, cui bono? Who benefits? I’m just saying that in some sense, everyone had a motive. Even you and me. Even Alex.”

“You’re willing to put yourself up to the same level of scrutiny?”

“But I have direct access to myself. I know I didn’t do it.”

“Do you? What if you went for some reason, somehow, and Atif tried to grab you? Grope you. And you got mad or scared and pushed him and he stumbled backward and fell on the tracks.”

Carmen pauses, thinking. Then she says—“I have no text messages. How would I have found him?”

“Maybe he said where he was going before but we forgot?”

“Fine. I’m on the suspect list. But I’m low on the suspect list.”

“What about me?”

“Give me your phone.”

Kierk hands it over. “If there was anything, I’d have deleted it.” Carmen shoots a glance upward before he breaks into a smile—“But I didn’t!”

She hands him back his phone and they both stand chuckling for a moment. “Alright, you and I are both very low on the list then.”

“Good to hear.”

Carmen, looking at him quizzically—“So what the hell were we doing in the lobby?”

“This.” And Kierk pulls her to him.

There’s a quiet gasp and the two are leaning into each other, Carmen on her tiptoes, their hands immediately clasping each other’s bodies, and in the wet glistening of the city at night their thoughts slipstream as their lips meet and everything becomes the violins of biology, the cool wet mouths provoking a spiritual déjà vu, like they’ve done this before, done this a thousand times in different ways and with different tongues—and suddenly there is just the opening of a mouth, just the electricity of a hand on my waist, touching the flesh under the clothing, yielding, the feel of a hipbone under my hand, hands designed to grip grasp and un-grasp, the heat of your body a whole other engine burning away in its chassis, how soft can anything be, the barest of her exhalations across my face, the contrast of his stubble on my cheek, a small trembling rhythm to it all, poetical flesh in the smallest friction, the exact center of reality has been located, it’s your mouth—the scent of her hair a beguiling scent from another land—the scent of his rained-washed body a sharp citrus, the bloom and decay of the rising blood, arterial trees inside each of them branching deep to the heart, the softness of her lips I could kiss forever, the foreign coolness of his tongue—

There is the sound of a trepidatious cough.

The two look over in the lamplight to the undergraduate research participant who is looking back at them, standing nervously, backpack in hand.

“Umm, Professor Green?”

Kierk and Carmen pull apart, but like trees coming untangled parts seem to catch, his hand by her waist, her one finger hooked in his belt loop. Kierk is stifling a laugh.

Carmen collects herself. “Hi! Sorry. You must be the participant. Thanks for coming in so late.”

She turns back to Kierk, who raises his eyebrows. Both of them smile and make gestures as if about to speak but neither do.

“So . . . Friday?” he finally says. “What if we got a drink. Just us?”

“Friday,” she says, smiling, and then as Carmen leads the participant into the CNS, she leans back out the door and yells after him—“So it’s a date?”

Kierk pauses in his walk—“Yeah it’s a date, professor!” and she laughs and darts back inside. As she leads the research volunteer she’s too preoccupied to register the CNS’s twists and turns as she maneuvers to the EEG lab, only minimally conscious of the veneer of small talk. Her mind is busy handling this new object: a feeling incarnated as a velvet red cube with no hinges and no latch that radiates an organic growing heat. Her analysis continues until even after the experiment has passed in a bemused blur and she has said goodbye to the sticky-haired undergraduate and she is sitting on a stool soaking the EEG cap in a bucket of water to wash it. Looking at her soapy hands she laughs aloud for no apparent reason, her laughter leaving the one lit room and echoing out into the surrounding dark labyrinth of the CNS.

All the lights are turned on. Fingers select music to play from the phone. A notebook is laid on the counter, along with Atif’s pen. The refrigerator is opened and three cans of Red Bull are laid out like ducklings on top of a bureau. A deep breath is taken. Kierk chugs all three cans in quick succession. Soon he’s standing over the sink, nauseous, splashing water on his flushed face. Looking at himself in the mirror he begins to dance to the music, first just his head moving, then his shoulders bobbing along, and then his whole body following. Leaping out of the bathroom into the living room, bouncing off the walls, spinning, arms and legs going along to the beat, grabbing his notebook to hold it like a dance partner, twirling it and dipping it and then taking it on a whirlwind foot-kicking dance all across his apartment, screaming along to the music at the top of his lungs. Then he is ready to write.

TUESDAY

Kierk wakes up and in a spasm of movement turns off the alarm clock on his phone and settles back into the heat and morning shadows, trying to