The Past Is But A Wonder

It was while writing of an experience that Delmore Vargas first became aware of his mind. The assignment was to recount the first time he had found inconsistency in someone's words and actions. Unfortunately, Ludwig had an agnostic upbringing, so his locating a specific incident was more difficult than for many of his classmates. His memory, with its mysterious function, had posited an afternoon on the lake with his uncle Albert and cousin Kurt.

He had been nine years old at the time, Kurt three years his elder. Uncle Albert was grave and gentle, with distant German roots that had finally faded in his son. He took his pleasures as seriously as his burdens, the creases on his face charting a life with nary a smile. That is not to say that uncle Albert was a sad man. It was just his understanding that emotions were handled internally, and a brave countenance broadcast to the world, especially to children. Kurt's young world had been molded by his father's adherence to this pair of principles. Delmore's cousin was a cheerful boy, kind and shy. Any mischief Kurt made was out of curiosity, not mania, and his father understood and respected this when it came time for discipline.

On the water, he had observed their interactions, silent with happiness because his own father expressed a softer, warmer love to him. At the desk in his room, seven years later, Delmore imagined that he must have felt some type of pity for Kurt that day, as uncle Albert blankly corrected childish mistake after childish mistake, because of his ill luck in whatever process through which fathers are assigned. Kurt had just graduated high school, and was set to attend a good university with plans of becoming a biomedical engineer. He had a pretty girlfriend, and they would laugh modestly together. Uncle Albert was proud of Kurt's initiative and good sense, and knew that his mother was too.

Delmore stared through his paper, pencil hand trembling, as he realized that the cheerful boy on the boat and the prospective biomedical engineer were in some sense different. They were linked by the word “Kurt,” but in the way that a maple and an oak are both trees. He concentrated on melding these two images into what he knew to be his cousin, but it caused his head to hurt. It seemed that the cheerful boy on the boat was gone, and an imposter was laughing with his pretty girlfriend and preparing for further education. It took the better part of an hour at the piano for this fright to subside. After his parents and sister had gone to bed, he sat back at the desk.

While aboard the boat, Kurt had worn an old, oversized canvas jacket, with his father's initials modestly embroidered on the sleeve. Nothing seems more innocuous to a child than a son imitating his father. As they baited their hooks, Delmore had noticed his cousin struggling to pierce his earthworm. In fact, one the ends of the poor creature was split in two, dangling as Kurt's hands fumbled with it. Uncle Albert noticed the display, and stepped in, merciless. Within fifteen seconds, the line had been cast, and the pole replaced in Kurt's hands.

“You know, I wore that jacket on a trip with my father when I was your age. I am quite happy that you had the opportunity to do the same,” said Uncle Albert. Delmore had given Kurt a small smile, as if his cousin had taken another step towards one day being able to say the same thing to his son.

He was again struck. Kurt, the cheerful boy on the boat, was destined to grow into uncle Albert, and the jacket would be passed down to some Jesper, Fredrick, or Alexander, its tale recounted to them by an elder Kurt, armed with his brave countenance and emotional privacy. But this future was starkly at odds with the biomedical engineer. Uncle Albert had worked many years in construction, before his knees failed him just after he became eligible for his pension, never showing any interest in intellectual pursuits. Building things with his hands and tools made gave him great respect for the physical world, and that was enough for him. Kurt wanted to assist in the creation of the first mechanical kidneys. He was not on the path to become his father, indeed his path had split completely from the cheerful boy on the boat altogether. Another gap was emerging in Delmore's version of the history of Kurt.

Delmore breathed deeply, nervous at his thoughts. It seemed as though he were learning new things about his past simply through thought. He had never before considered these things about his cousin's and uncle's differences, but they seemed indisputably correct. However, the memory was beginning to feel strange, detached even. There was a person in his head named Kurt, but what “Kurt” really was was becoming fuzzier and fuzzier. Uncle Albert made sense to him, with his thin face, heavy eyes and solitude, eternal, but Kurt was somehow variable. A deep unease flowed over Delmore, as he thought harder about what “Kurt” consisted of, and things he had believed concrete only earlier that day unraveled further, or worse, revealed themselves to be empty. He repeated his cousin's name quietly to himself, until it began to sound alien and absurd, and all that remained were a few unconnected episodes like the fishing trip, and the young man laughing modestly with his pretty girlfriend. Thinking hard about his school work typically led Delmore to a solution, but now he was left flailing and confused about his experience, let alone the assignment.

As the fishing trip destabilized in his mind, Delmore made a final attempt to at least extract the relevant portion of his memory before it completely collapsed. What he was after was a particular exchange he had had with his uncle. Thankfully, it remained fairly clear.

Delmore had gotten his first bite of the day, and was carefully following his uncle's instructions so he could complete the catch. Even in the moment, he remembered thinking how odd the whole experience must have been for the fish, empathizing a little, at the thought of finding himself unwittingly hooked by the cheek after tucking into a cake or doughnut. As he slowly brought in his line, the tension from the fish became reassuring, an acknowledgment that he was succeeding and capable. The moment when the fish broke the plane of the water was hectic, his comfort vanishing beneath anxiety at the fish's movements. In an act of instinct, Delmore had brought the fish into the boat.

The peace of fishing had shattered once a fish had been introduced. Now, in a struggle with death, the small trout was the center of his universe. Its arrhythmic motion induced a mild trance in both Delmore and Kurt, uncle Albert enveloped in a deep disappointment in the boys.

“Delmore, you must kill it. Hit its head with this hammer. It's the right thing to do.”

“But shouldn't we put it back?”

“No. The humane thing to do is kill the fish. It has been out of the water too long now.”

“I don't want to.” Uncle Albert ran his hand down the line towards the fish, pinning it with a large hand. One swift blow sent the fish to face its reckoning. A thin stream of blood ran from the base of its head, toward Delmore's damp shoes. His uncle laid the corpse softly in their plastic cooler, and once again assumed his distant stare.

“The right thing to do, Delmore.”

At the time he hadn't been able to name it, but it was audacity nonetheless. His uncle was self-assured, as he reigned down death on the creature, all the while holding the belief that his actions were pure. It was a welcome solution to the problem Delmore had created, and his fear had made him grateful for his uncle's actions, even if this gratitude was hidden deep beneath his shock at the rapid finality. But in this more mature recollection, he found disdain where the gratitude had been, anger at his uncle's callousness. The disregard for life was so vile, from the safety of his desk, that he hated his uncle, hated the memory too. How uncle Albert went through his adult days with the asymmetry between righteousness and fish slaughter was unclear to Delmore, yet Albert showed no signs of being torn in two by guilt.

Yet again, new information had risen from his past. Perhaps it was just a more subtle understanding of “audacity,” but there seemed something else going on. It was like the raw memory was being run through some processor again, which extracted latent truths from the memory's fabric. What was this processor, and what were its processes? He had been drawn to this specific memory, but he hadn't understood its relevance until only a few moments prior. The access did not seem random, but as if guided by a prophet. Or some tank of ideas in his head, a slow leak gradually granting him wisdom.

Whatever this function was, it was making Delmore terribly uncomfortable. His head was sore, so he closed his eyes and breathed deeply. The confusion didn't subside, his thoughts looping over and over, such a strange, foreign loop. Delmore wished there was something he could examine to help him understand. But what? Could he turn his eyes around and look back into his brain? Saw off the top of his skull and strategically place a video camera? Even then, it was just a brain, gray and wrinkled. He could see his fingers move, feel his heart pump and his muscles flex. His brain just sat, spurring forth mystery, questions and emotion. How do you examine the examiner?

This final thought haunted Delmore, hanging before him like some unspeakable evil. He drank some water, brushed his teeth, cleaned his face, undressed, and lay in his bed, lost. There was something irreparable about the evening, as if the world had been fractured along a line he could not mend. The complexity of it all had spiraled away from him like a rodeo bull, and he could see no way to wrangle it. His eyelids hung heavy as his brain slowly exhausted, the fierce inner storm ebbing as he faded away for the night.

Roused unexpectedly, a thin light beam shot right at his eye, creating a red opacity behind the lid. Muttering a profanity as he noticed his alarm was due to go off in three minutes, he thought how strange it must have been for the first person who realized that they had awoken and were still alive. Stretching, yawning, dressing and blinking away morning tears, his eyes came to his assignment. A recollection of the stresses and anguish of the night brought a smile to his lips. He felt fine now.

The fears made so much sense. He was becoming better at reading people and situations. His understanding of abstract ideas was becoming greater. His conception of Kurt was disjointed because he only saw his cousin several times a year. And all of these strange events were happening in his head, in his mind, and this was all a very weird process. His smile turned to a small chuckle, amused by his recent past, by his naivete, by his immature thoughts. A wave of confidence flowed over him as it dawned that he seemed to finally have figured himself out, finally figured out what being alive was like. What a sweet morning.

Delmore Vargas had an immense sense of well-being throughout that sweet morning, and on throughout the day. Doom hung over him though, the fate of the arrogant thinker. Our world has yet to meet she or he whose mind it cannot test to its limits. In fact it seems to relish the opportunity to do just so.