TUESDAY EVENING, AFTER spending the day cleaning Gray Gables’s rec room after Mr. Harcourt’s colostomy bag broke, Harry began researching the University of Chicago, the school Timothy said might have someone who would be interested in his paper. Navigating the university’s website had proved maddening. Every time Harry clicked on what he thought was a class schedule, he was led to a website advertising CBD oil for rabbits. He tried to outsmart the site by clicking on a link for the chemistry program and was sent to a page detailing how to cure ayahuasca, then a description of the shamanistic ritual involved in taking it, and finally a section where students could document their experiences by uploading low resolution videos of themselves staring at a wall.

Frustrated, Harry was about to give up, when he finally found a map of the campus under the heading Follow Your Own Path.

The campus was laid out like a fractal spinning in upon itself. Large halls had been designed to look like pinwheels; smaller buildings shot out of them, and finally porta-potties and kiosks spun away in an ever-decreasing pattern of civic planning psychedelia. The amoebic roads and sidewalks, with names like Timothy Leary Drive and Flower Power Way, flowed and warped between the buildings leading to a massive park that hosted hourly drum circles.

Harry traced a road to the science building simply named Out There. He clicked on the building and a list of classes and faculty appeared on the screen. Among the classes teaching astral projection and ecstatic dance he found Intro to Quantum Mechanics taught by Dr. Christopher Peterson. Clicking on his name led Harry to the professor’s full biography.

A picture had yet to be added, but at the bottom, after a list of advanced degrees and awards, several books were listed: Alternate Theories on Quantum Mechanics, The Einstein Paradox and the Search for the Theory of Everything, and Crowd Sourcing Physics: The Importance of the Layman in Research. Harry had never read any of these books, but he was encouraged by their titles.

Dr. Peterson’s full schedule had been placed underneath the bibliography, detailing the traditional science courses he taught, as opposed to his new-age colleagues. Harry also found Dr. Peterson’s office hours and was pleased to see there were some on Friday afternoons.

Now, it was approaching midnight, and Harry still hadn’t contacted Dr. Peterson to arrange a meeting. The reason for his procrastination was simple. Harry had spent his day writing fifty drafts of an introductory email, but none of them captured his paper’s importance, the urgency for their meeting, or the financial gain Dr. Peterson would reap for championing his paper.

Harry was thinking his best option was to drop in unannounced and surprise Dr. Peterson with his genius work. He imagined himself knocking on the professor’s thick, wooden door. Dr. Peterson, with his bushy eyebrows and wild gray hair (because every scientist who contemplates the universe has bushy eyebrows and wild gray hair), welcomed him, saying he had an open-door policy for new ideas. Harry presented his paper. Dr. Peterson was silent and somber as he opened a door in the back of his office—one Harry hadn’t noticed when he first arrived. He ushered Harry into another room where men and women in caps and gowns were waiting to give Harry an honorary doctorate—the first of many he would receive.

Sitting on Sarah’s couch, Harry smiled, watching himself accept the award. Then a question popped into his mind: how would Dr. Peterson have time to assemble the university’s staff if he didn’t know Harry was coming? This massive plot hole in his fantasy made Harry reach for his laptop. If Dr. Peterson was going to have time to arrange the presentation of an honorary doctorate, Harry would have to send him an email.

He found Dr. Peterson’s email address and started typing. 

 

Dear Dr. Peterson,

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Harry Erickson. I’m a gigantic fan of your oeuvre. Your seminal work Alternate Theories on Quantum Mechanics was a revelation. I shall be in Chicago on Friday and would like to rendezvous to discuss a project I’m working on and possibly get your input on said project. Let me know if this is a possibility.

Sincerely,

Harry Erickson

Harry hit send and let the internet work its magic. Then he began preparing for the dinner party he’d be hosting the following evening. He pulled out his notecards and rehearsed his speech, updating it to include Dr. Peterson’s conversion to Omnicalcumetry. A line toward the end had been giving him difficulty. Harry repeated it a few times, emphasizing different words to hear how they landed. The sentence became a mantra, hypnotic, and he conked out on Sarah’s couch, mumbling, “I wish I could be someone else and be blessed to witness this momentous occasion. I wish I could be someone else and be blessed to witness this momentous occasion. I wish I could be someone else…”