Chapter 77 — Charles Belfry
The Curve of Time, Chapter 77 —— Charles Belfry, in which Mica interviews another lottery winner.
Followed by some musings on connections between mathematics and writing speculative fiction.
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— 77 —
Charles Belfry
Mica parked her electric bike. It had been a solid ride to Charles Belfry’s house, and given the effort she’d spent anticipating this moment it was hard to believe that she was about to surprise him. Such was the nature of any celebrity encounter; and Charles was now a celebrity. Lottery winners all became that, even the dishonorable ones.
Rather than ask about his good fortune though, Mica asked him how well he knew Molly Witherspoon.
“I don’t,” he replied. “She was at a meditation retreat I——”
“As was Gary Holcomb,” Mica cut him off, with a significant implicit question.
“I didn’t know Gary before last week either. I mean, he’s oil, but its a big industry.” He made a wide gesture with his hands and gave a self-satisfied smile.
“You’re all just into meditation?”
Charles cocked his head to one o’clock and scanned the street behind Mica.
“Mr. Holcomb died about an hour ago. In a car crash. Did——”
“That’s not,” Charles interrupted her. “I spoke with him ten minutes ago.”
“So, how about you explain that to me.”
∞
Unlike Amara, if indeed he could slip in time, Charles was perfectly happy to discuss his newly acquired capability. Indeed, in contrast with Saskia, he was even perfectly happy to have Mica write it up and publish on it.
It concerned him, not a whit, that people might view his lottery win unfavorably. “Look, I can return the money. It’s not like I need it anyway.” Again, he flourished his hands, this time dismissively. “It was a convenient experiment. Besides, who’s going to care about a few million dollars when they realize I can time travel?”
Mica shrugged. She’d grown accustomed to Saskia’s more circumspect approach to slipping in time, and Charles’ bravado knocked her off balance. Here was a man, apparently unperturbed that someone he’d seen just a few days ago had been found dead before he spoke to them on the phone only twenty minutes ago. Was this just callousness?
Charles had an aggrandized sense of his own importance and a sense of entitlement, and Mica wondered how he functioned without empathy. “How does it feel?” she asked, as much to buy time to collect herself, as to hear his insights.
“Going back is like watching a football replay; one you already know the result of. Only you’re there. You know the players are all so invested. They’re trying so hard. You just want to shake them and tell them how it pans out. It’s impossible to feel as invested when you know what’s going to happen.”
While he was speaking, Mica reached into her pocket and extracted her phone. She opened her photo album and skimmed through quickly to find a neutral picture of Saskia. It was one she’d taken at the beach and she held the phone out to Charles. “Was she the one who taught you how to slip in time?”
Charles shrugged his shoulders. “It just sort of happened.” He seemed genuinely indifferent to how he’d acquired his gift. “One minute time travel was something I’d never thought about, and the next ...the next——I can only assume it must be how the baby bird feels when it’s tossed out of the nest.”
Mica blinked, surprised by his metaphor. “Did you all talk about it?”
“No. It didn’t even occur to me that someone else might have . . . I don’t know, made the same discovery.”
Mica flipped to the screenshot she’d sent Dalton. This was her chance to make ID’s. She went through the participants, collecting names, or in the case that full names weren’t possible, other distinguishing characteristics.
When she returned to Sienna, Charles independently confirmed that that was her name. “That other photo you showed me. Looked like it was taken in Venice. Do you know her?”
That was chapter 77, Friends, I hope you enjoyed it!
Before you leave today, though, we’ve been on a bit of a mathematical roll lately, so I wanted to take a moment to connect mathematics back to writing. Curiously, I happened to hear Terrence Tao, a Fields medalist——kind of the Nobel prize for mathematics——comment the other day that the only thing he could think of outside mathematics which deals in the ideas that are bound only by internal consistency is speculative fiction. That is, the other sciences, and human pursuits more generally, are rooted in empirical evidence. Specifically, that we try to match our theories to what we observe in the world around us. The fantastical worlds of speculative fiction and mathematics are the odd couple that buck this trend, since in both cases their studies often spring from the curious question of: what if ...?
Now, I realize that most listeners probably don’t think of mathematics as sharing much in common with literary work, but Tao’s connection is not the only one.
Both pursuits require planning and logistics. And, sure, planning and logistics are not sacred to mathematics and writing, but they are key to both.
You hear it in texts that describe how to write. Once people get past word choice, they realize writing is all about structure. Indeed, when you pick up a book at the airport and wonder how the writing in it ever got published, look past the words and start thinking about the structure. It will be well structured.
Similarly for mathematics. As Tao noted, much of mathematics arises from the idea of asking “what if …” and adhering to the rules you impose.
Sometimes, both disciplines beget real world applications, but that’s not really the goal. From mathematics, for instance, the security of the internet depends on the playground built up around the idea of “clock arithmetic”——the notion of what happens when you only keep track of the remainders after division by a fixed number when you apply mathematical operations; addition, multiplication etc. to numbers. While science fiction sometimes motivates scientists and engineers to usher inventions into the real world (hello, driverless cars!).
In both cases, the cornerstone of interesting work is an ability to pick the right sort of inspiration; to ask the which ephemeral element to tweak. Which magical thread to pull on, if you will.
So, my advice for today: day-dream away, you never know where it might take you. Whimsy is for everyone.
Until next week, be kind to someone and keep an eye out for the ripples of joy you’ve seeded.
Cheerio
Rufus
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