I tried unsuccessfully to contact the Professor and after a few tries I finally left him a somewhat cryptic voice mail:
“Hi Professor, it’s Ray calling on Sunday at 2:20 in the afternoon, please give me a call as soon as you can. There’s been a new development that you should know about. Come to think of it, it would be better if instead of calling, you could stop by my apartment. I’ll send you the pin. I’m not going anywhere, so anytime will be fine. Thanks.”
“Well, that’s that,” I told Gina, who was getting ready to leave.
“I have to stop by the office to make sure everything’s in place for tomorrow’s Chronologix presentation. Please keep me in the loop. I mean that Ray, whatever’s happening with you is really serious.”
I escorted her to the door and as soon as she was gone I heard his voice again.
“Zat young voman is special to you isn’t sche?”
“Yes she is,” I said smiling.
“I like her, sche’s ein Princetonian. From 1933 to 1955 I vorked at zee Institute for Advanced Schtudies in zee town of Princeton und lectured regularly at zee Univerzity, vich, by zee vay, has produced zirty-zeven Nobel laureates. Mostly phyzicists und mathematicians.”
“She knows you’ve been here. The pipe smell gave you away.”
“Hmm ja, zee lingering scent of pipe tobacco. I uzed to step outzide zee room vere I’d been smoking zo I could reenter it a few minutes later und enjoy zee aroma better. It feels different vile one’s smoking. It is ein rather pleazant smell ven compared to zee very much offenzive cigar und cigarette stench.”
“Forget about the pipe smell. Listen, all this time I’ve made my peace with the fact that you could very well be a figment of my imagination, but now…”
“Relax Ray, I’ve come to zay goodby.”
“What? Why? Where are you going?”
“There’s nothing elze for me to do here. It’s all your doing from now on.”
I was about to ask him what was it that I was supposed to do when he simply raised his hand signaling me to hold my tongue and listen to him.
“I’m not good at farevells zo I vrote you zomething in your compuder. It’s been ein real pleazure knoving you Ray Young. Now if you’ll excuze me I’ll find mein vay to zee door.”
And just like that my strange visitor, the one I had come to believe was truly Albert Einstein, turned around and walked away through the same door Gina had used a few minutes earlier. I stood motionless staring at it for a while, hoping that it was all a joke and that he would come back. I had grown fond of the old man. After a while I slowly turned around and went to my computer. His message was on the screen.
Dear Ray:
It will probably be hard for you to accept the true nature of what has transpired here this past week. I know my presence has defied all logic and made you question your own sanity. Everything will become clear in due time and regardless of what others might think in the days to come, rest assured that all will be well in Ray Young’s mind.
You are a creative director, a concept man. Viewing situations from a new or unexpected angle is what you do for a living. Imagination is what fuels your everyday life. As you may know, I believe that imagination is everything. Without it there would be no new inventions or new developments. The raising of new questions, new possibilities, requires creative imagination. Knowledge is what we already know, but imagination is a preview of life’s coming attractions. Unfortunately the establishment many times values knowledge more than it does creativity. It will always fight new ideas that promote change because it feels threatened. It perceives the acceptance of a change in paradigm as an acknowledgement of having being wrong instead of it being part of an evolution process.
During this process you have come up with a new hypothesis for the nature of time. But you’re not a physicist or an astrophysicist, so the establishment will not take your ideas seriously. In the beginning it will ignore you completely. If compelled to acknowledge your ideas then it will ridicule them and try to discredit you.
Remember that when you rattle a cage, the creature inside feels threatened. That’s why some members of the establishment will even call you crazy and disregard your ideas as those of someone who knows nothing about how the universe works. They will say that I must be turning in my grave, but we both know that’s a physical impossibility ;-). They will call you many names and discredit your ideas. But somewhere there’s going to be a young physicist who will come in contact with your concept and think that there might be something there. That physicist will follow the procedures accepted by the establishment, will do the math the way it should be done, discard what doesn’t work, keep what does work and someday that person will present a solid thesis inspired by your story.
It’s been a pleasure working with you Ray, and if anybody tries to make you feel like an unknowledgeable clod, tell them that the true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. Tell them Albert Einstein said so.
After reading his message I was convinced I lacked the knowledge of the language needed to express how I felt. I got up and walked zombie-like to the kitchen to get me a cup of much needed java. The canister where I kept the ground coffee was empty so I opened the cupboard where I stored the extra coffee. A small plastic bag was peeking out from behind a new can of a Puerto Rican gourmet brand. Pulled the can out of the cupboard and there it was: a pipe with a bag of tobacco.
I felt nauseous. I heard a knock on the door but the whole room started to spin and I lost consciousness.