Tuesday, October 14, 2008

jamie and eric-33-alternate universes

Eric was in fact sitting in the hall of the South Tower. He had walked sheepishly down every hall of this level twice. Feeling that he had just overlooked a door that would reveal the hall that would take him closer to Jamie. But the doors were only labeled with numbers. Some with welcome mats before them. And small daily life sounds filtered into the hallway when Eric stood still.

He was hugely aware of how he might appear to the inhabitants of this structure. But he had only seen two tower entrances from the main lobby. And having climbed up and down the stairs past this level a few times, he was sure Jaime was at this height above the ground. Eric now sat in front of a window that brought him the closest to Jamie as possible. He could see another tower out the window to the west. It was almost like looking through a portal into a parallel universe.

Maybe Jamie had stumbled upon some ancient spell in the library archives that he accidently cast that took him to that other universe. It would have to be activated just by reading it. There weren’t many spells like that. It look a lot of work and energy to create a text that circumvented normal incantation preparations. But maybe if Jamie was in a mysterious parallel universe, it granted Eric a window into that universe because they were bonded. Most spells, though, didn’t include handling of special cases. Instead the energy chose the least energetic path for unspecified variables. That’s what made it dangerous to try out spells in old forgotten spell books.

So dangerous in fact that most people stuck to the canon spells. Through generations of use the same spells had resulted in a large body of published articles detailing their effects and what factors were most important and how to deal with them. Everything. Thick tomes with decision trees, so dusty that Eric sneezed just opening them. New spells barely have a chance. That was another thing that bothered Jamie. Unnecessary loss of information because all of the federal funding went to researchers developing new spells. And most people have innate abilities that they can develop without needing elaborate incantations every time.

Like Eric’s telekinesis.

Eric reached his hand towards the other worldly building, to help focus his concentration, and tried to move something on the other building. He felts the mental whack connect but nothing moved. A large maple tree stood serenely in front of the building and Eric settled for moving its branches. Surely if the building was in an alternate universe the tree would be as well. But the branch clearly moved towards Eric’s universe as if being cocked back, and then sprung back as he let go, slapping the side of the building.

2 comments:

sunshinejellyfish said...

Interesting and bizarre!

This comment by me kind of encompasses the last post by you as well... Your characterization of Eric is pretty good, especially taking into account how chaotic his world is. But, I feel like your characterization of Jamie is stiff AND I don't get it when I read his portion every time. He thinks so rationally, so clearly, that inconsistencies/shifts in narrative confuse me. Like, I am having trouble telling his flashback(s) apart from current reality. I thought, at first, that the section when he tried to mind message Eric was a flashback, until I read Eric's part and realized it was contemporary.

Also, this "test" that this is all precipitated by is not making much sense to me... how could Jamie possibly expect the two of them to perform well together when this "rebonding" thing is obviously a catastrophic experience, untested (how un-Jamie!), and so close to the test that it could possibly be detected in itself? And, if he noticed that Eric put a boiled egg in his oatmeal, how can he think that Eric has enough presence of mind to get to the appt. while dealing with the same pain that Jamie is working through?

But, like I said, interesting and bizarre. I love the image of Eric slapping the other tower with a tree!

Esther Gregory said...

What I'm trying to portray with Jamie is not that he's logical, but that he stifles his emotions. So he still acts out of emotion but he doesn't acknowledge his emotion. Although Jamie's flashback should have a different tense...