to a little café a few blocks away. “You need to get outside of your own head,” he had said. Apparently a faux-Parisian joint with all-you-can-eat poutine was his remedy for this ailment. I peered up at the sign as we got out of his car. I knew it well; kids at school loved to place bets on who would be bold enough to steal the marquee’s last ‘i’ and post a selfie with their conquest. I looked up at “Titi’s Bistro” and sighed.
“This place no good?” Uncle Seb said then, concerned.
“Oh, no. It’s not that. It’s great. It’s … I’ll tell you later. I hope Titi has a sense of humor is all,” I motioned toward a little table underneath the infamous sign on the sidewalk.
“Don’t know her,” Uncle Seb said and sat down.
We sat in silence for a long time. Twilight had come and gone and the moon’s sliver made a cameo at stage right, brilliant against its navy satin backdrop.
“Do you also think I can’t handle any of this?” I blurted out.
“Jesus. No small talk. Alright. Let’s get into it, then.”
“Dragon and Baert don’t want to push their luck with me more. Like everything I’ve done to this point has been a surprise, a fluke.”
“Well … has it?”
I know a server came; I know my uncle ordered some food, ate it. But I was lost. Lost in my own thoughts, in my own insignificance. How could I be numbered among those stars; how could I be of any worth to something that lay beyond this sphere, let alone this sidewalk?
A thousand thoughts tumbled upon themselves as I stared at the sky. In some other world I could hear my uncle talking now, excitedly, with his mouth full, about space travel and his plane and and … and ….and … So many ands. Opaque in the background.
It seems space is more infinite than I realized. What a funny observation – how can infinity be any more than infinity? I suppose I hadn’t thought about what infinity is. I hadn’t considered its vastness, its depth of possibilities, the notion that tiny curled-up dimensions could be deeply tucked into space itself.
I squinted up at the stars. Even without my glasses, it was like I was peering into a mirror held in front of a mirror held in front of a mirror. I stared down its infinitesimal reflective hallway. Uncle Seb’s voice grew louder for some reason. Startled, I refocused my eyes on him. He spoke passionately and I cocked my head as I tried to jump into his stream of expression.
“Humans want numbers to represent the superlative – something has to be bigger, more complex, the higher the number. The Seventh, well, I don’t think it’s anything like that. In fact, I know that it’s not,” Uncle Seb said, his eyes focused on a large napkin he was carefully unfolding and smoothing in front of him. “So if I take this strip of napkin, like this, and I flatten this strip, that’s time as we know it. But now, I fold it onto itself. One, two, three … seven times. See?”
He held up his work of art, smiling satisfactorily at the ribboned napkin in his hand. I knew I was supposed to be making a connection here. I looked at him and shrugged, embarrassed.
“Really?” he exhaled, frowning. “Ok, how about this.”
I used my finger to trace the wet ring my waterglass left on the table. My brain hurt, and I felt stupid. I wanted so badly to be able to talk on my uncle’s scientific level! Undeterred though, Uncle Seb grabbed a salt packet from the table, looking very satisfied again. He held the napkin bow up in one hand, the salt packet in the other.
“This,” he said, flourishing the salt packet, “is a UFO.”
“Ok,” I said, equal parts unimpressed and curious.
“So, the UFO can travel like this,” he swooped the salt unwittingly though the napkin’s loops, “and get from here to here. Just like my plane.”
“Ok … and then?”
“And then, you peel this apart,” his tongue stuck out of the side of his mouth slightly has he carefully pulled another napkin into a bunch of strips, “and you see you don’t have a flat plane, but instead a bunch of strings with their own frequencies interacting and creating new gravities and spaces. Together, they look like this,” he held up another napkin, untouched, “or this,” he paused to pull the torn napkin into a bow like his first visual aid, “but watch this. Even though it is tied up in a bow, I can still pass the salt packet through its individual strings, in and out.”
He dropped the napkin and the salt triumphantly and held his hands out. “Tah-dah! Your intro to string theory!”
I stared dumbly at the tiny white rectangle declaring SALT in diagonal serif caps lying beside the tattered napkin strips on the dirty bistro table.
“Wasn’t string theory, like, largely discredited?” I said, hating my own cynicism.
Uncle Seb shifted in the small metal chair. His brow dropped, and he grabbed the napkin and salt and crumped them up in his fist.
“Being unable to fully prove something with tests and equations doesn’t discredit the theory,” he said, dropping the crumpled visual aids onto his empty plate. They landed silently in the pool of leftover ketchup. “It discredits the minds who are unable to prove it.”
He got up and leaned thoughtfully against the back of his chair.
“You should know by now that most of life exists just beyond what we are capable of seeing.”
“If we can’t see it, how do we know it’s there?”
“Really, Egg? After everything you’ve done – everything you’ve seen – you’re seriously throwing that b.s. at me?”
“I just meant, some of this stuff is so out there.”
“Yeah, like your family. Maybe your new bestie was right to be cautious. Maybe you just got lucky.”
He zipped his jacket up and shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Don’t worry about the bill. I covered it already,” he barked over his shoulder as he trudged down the sidewalk.
“Well yeah, I don’t even have a bank account yet,” I shot back grumpily.
I slouched in the metal chair, which was not meant for slouching, and looked back up at the night sky. The twinkling stars seemed to dance about and mock me.
“He’s trying to explain science – really cool science – and all I respond with is that I don’t have a freaking bank account,” I grumbled to myself. “Smooth, so very smooth.”
“You got something tuh say tuh me?” the server on the other side of the table looked up from the dishes she was bussing. I turned seven shades of red – one color for every dimension I didn’t understand.
“What? I, uh, no,” I said lamely. I leapt out of my chair, embarrassed, and kicked it over in the process. It made a terrific rattling on the sidewalk.
“You kiddin’ me? You insult how I’m cleanin’ up, and now you’re throwin’ stuff?” the server cried. I didn’t want to meet her glare.
“Sorry, I, um, sooorrrrrry,” I warbled as I scrambled to set the chair upright and get the heck out of there. I pulled my hood over my head and scurried down the opposite way I needed to go; I didn’t dare walk past the angry server and all the people now staring at me.
“And you didn’t even leave a tip? Classy, girl! You better not come back here!” I heard her voice calling after me.
I kept walking straight, head down, looking up only to check the lights at the crosswalks I came upon. I don’t know how many blocks away from Titi’s Bistro I was, or even where I was in relation to my own house. I looked up, facing unfamiliar buildings whose shops and offices were shuttered for the night. I looked behind me, expecting to see Titi’s tacky neon façade glowing in the distance. I saw instead a row of poplar trees and some charming brownstones. Oh dear.
I checked my pocket for my phone. I felt its smooth cover; victory! I pulled it, smug and relieved, but was immediately met with disappointment. It was definitely dead. I stared at it, wondering how long it had been in my pocket, uncharged. Days, probably. I sighed and shoved it back in my pocket. At least I can’t be accused of being one of those teens whose always in their phone.
I looked around again, wondering what Dr. Eve Archer, Ph.D., Dragonologist, would do in such a pickle. Not panic; Dr. Archer is much too cool and collected for that. Take samples? This is neither the time nor the place, Dr. Archer! Use the scientific process: I lack a charged phone. Ergo, I must find a charging source. My eyes brightened: up ahead, I saw a familiar lit-up logo announcing a 24-hour coffee shop. Someone there would surely lend me a quick phone charge.
As I walked, though, my optimism waned. I yawned and felt an unwelcome heaviness settle upon me. It was dark, yes, but it wasn’t especially late, particularly for my warped sleep schedule. I frowned, uncertain why I would feel so overwhelmingly drowsy. I sojourned on, focused on the green and white lit marquee a few blocks up. With every step, my legs felt denser. My breathing turned shallow and pained.
“You look like you need a nap,” a voice stopped me in my slow, labored tracks.
My head felt too heavy to lift. On the sidewalk below, I saw two familiar black Adidas shoes facing me. I gulped and forced my eyes upward.
“Jonah? Why are you here?” I slurred. “Wait, you have peri … you have peri …. No!” I started to fall back in a dark swoon but something deep within me roused and fought back.
“Oh? Are you asking about this?” Jonah pulled a gleaming yellow hexagon from the pouch on his sweatshirt. “An old friend wanted to say hello.”
“Ugh, who talks like that?” I grimaced, swiping my palm at Jonah. He leaned casually away from my clumsy advance.
His eyes darkened and he squared up his shoulders.
“Everything’s always a joke to you. You won’t be laughing when you’re just another minion doing its bidding.”
I cast my arm straight out. My jaw tightened. I held the stone’s biting beam expertly, practiced now in this very strange craft.
“Is that what you are? It’s cute little minion?”
“You have no idea what I am.”
“Ahhh!” I lost my focus; I dropped my hand and rubbed my palm. “Your stupid rock burned me!”
Jonah’s eyes flashed yellow. He thrust the stone in my face.
“NO ONE CALLS US STUPID,” he bellowed in a dark, foreign voice.
“Egg! Egg! Thank Christ!” Uncle Seb’s panicked voice suddenly arrived with squealing brakes and burning tires. His little black car bowled to a stop and nearly hit us on the sidewalk.
“You’re lucky my uncle showed up. I—Jonah?” I looked around. He was … gone? Dark empty sidewalks over there, Uncle Seb’s confused face leaning out his car window over here.
“Egg, you ok? Gosh, I’m sorry. Hold on, where you with someone?”
“Did you see that? Where did he go? Wait, what are you doing here?”
“I felt like such a heel leaving you at the table like that. I just up and left like a pouty kid. It took way too long to occur to me that you’re just a kid, that it’s night … that any guy with half a brain wouldn’t leave you to walk home alone. Who are you looking for?”
“Uh, yeah, nobody, er … did you see him?”
Uncle Seb’s eyebrows went up as he studied me.
“Him?”
“Ew. No. Definitely not that. For so many reasons. But mainly because I think he’s the earth link for peridiote.”
“Sure. Nice cover.”
He gave me a smirk and nodded to get in. I gave the quiet street a last look, skeptical that Jonah could have escaped so easily. As we sped away, I looked up at the stars again. A few twinkled in mockery. Again. And then a million more joined them. As we drove back to my house, the entire sky was alive in a grand dance at my expense. But they seemed happy. So I let it slide.
“Tell me more about this earth link punk,” Uncle Seb said.
“Tell me more about Kaluza,” I responded.
He smiled. I won.