Blank Out

“The nervous system is made up of neurons, specialized cells that can receive and transmit chemical or electrical signals, and glia, cells that provide support functions for the neurons. A neuron can be compared to an electrical wire: it transmits a signal from one place to another. Glia can be compared to the workers at the electric company who make sure wires go to the right places, maintain the wires, and take down wires that are broken. Recent evidence suggests that glia may also assist in some of the signaling functions of neurons.”

Organismal Biology, The Georgia Institute of Technology

###

“You gotta be kidding me! Of all the times to get a new guy!’

“We need all the help we can get! Get him up!”

“He’ll only slow us down! We need to—”

“That wasn’t a suggestion. Get him up. Now!”

The sounds register before I can actually see anything. I feel myself being hauled up, then a stinging sensation on my face brings my vision screaming in. The light and the motion are too much to take in all at once. I blink, trying to make sense of this assault on my senses. Someone shakes me and miraculously everything comes together like two stacks of cards being shuffled into one.

There are two identical people standing in front of me. They both have somewhat pale skin, blue eyes, dirty blonde hair, and a short beard. Both are wearing heavy-duty coveralls and strained looks on their faces.

“Is he up?” asks the one farther away. He seems distracted by something ahead of him.

“Working on it!” says the one closer to me. He snaps his fingers in my face. “You with us, new guy?”

I realize now he was the one doing all of the slapping and shaking that woke me up. For the first time, I take in my surroundings. I’m standing in some kind of hollow tube, big enough for the few of us standing in here, but that’s about it. I feel an intense, steady rumbling under me. We’re moving, and very quickly from what I can tell. I feel my legs buckle slightly as if my knees suddenly became acutely aware that they exist.

The man in front of me grabs my head between his hands and looks me square in the eye. “Listen. I know exactly what you’re going through but if you don’t answer me right now I’m leaving you here because we are out of time. Are. You. Good?”

I manage to force a few words out. “Ok, yeah. I’m good. I’m good. What is going on?”

A look of relief washes over his face. “Perfect. Take this.” He shoves a long rod into my head with a trio of sharp curved prongs jutting out the end. Once I have it in my grasp he pulls me to my feet. “This is a zapper. If anyone gives you trouble, stick the pointy end into them. Don’t touch it unless you want to go out as quickly as you came in.”

I adjust my grip at the bottom of the zapper, careful to keep the business end far away from me. I follow the other man as he joins his partner. Before I can ask any more questions, he gives me the rundown.

“I’m Alpha. He’s Beta. You’re Gamma. You’re on a train that just missed its turn and we are running out of time to get it back on track. It’s our job to get to the front and redirect this thing to get it home. If we don’t, we die, and our cargo gets destroyed. Any questions?”

“Yes. Lots of them.” I answer.

“Too bad. We can talk later. Let’s go.”

We walk through the first door of the train car, it slides open with an electric whirr. As I step through, I have to steady myself again. This time it’s not my legs that are making me unsteady, it is the view. The car I woke up in was completely enclosed, lit only by a dull light on the ceiling. This one, on the other hand, has two long windows running the length of the car, and what lay beyond them was as exhilarating as it was terrifying.

Huge red thunderclouds roil angrily above us. Streaks of blue lighting dance between them; some blast down dangerously close to the train as we careen through space. Other formless shapes fly by. They reflect countless shades of red and soar through the air with a purpose I don’t understand. And everything — everything — seems to move and undulate with a life of its own. This place pulses with a hypnotic rhythm that I feel deep in the core of my being.

I could look out at this profoundly strange place forever, but a shifting of the light allows me to catch my own reflection in the window. I am not so much shocked as I am amused to discover I look exactly like the two men who woke me up. Same eyes, same hair, same beard. This revelation could be terrifying, but, in some strange way it is comforting. Whoever they are… whoever I am…we’re meant to work together. So, even if I don’t understand what’s going on, I believe I am compelled to help. I grip the zapper tighter.

Together, we walk through car after car. “Is it strange that we haven’t seen anyone else?” I ask.

“Yes,” answers Alpha without looking over his shoulder. “Very.”

I swallow hard, feeling adrift at sea, but with no choice but to swim.

Eventually, we get to the cargo area, which is much larger and more spacious than any car that has come before it. Rows upon rows of transparent boxes are stacked upon one another. They are aligned three deep so that we only have a narrow walkway to navigate as we continue toward the front of the train. Inside every box is a sphere, dancing with a vibrant golden light. Each sphere is a tempest, roaring with as much fury of as the storm that rages outside, but tucked safely into a tidy little cube. “What are they?” I ask, breathless.

“Beautiful, aren’t they? Beta smiles as he answers. “Individually, they aren’t much. But together, they create an idea.”

“An idea?” I try to wrap my head around the concept.

“Yes,” Beta continues. “And believe it or not, by the looks of things we are carrying a relatively simple one. I’ve seen cargo holds five times the size of this.”

I gingerly reach forward and tap the glass of the box nearest me. A spark erupts out of the ball of light and races to my finger. It feels warm. Soothing. This brief moment of serenity is interrupted when I notice that one of the columns has an empty space where one of the cubes should be. That’s probably not good. I scan the floor, thinking it might have fallen. Sure enough, I see the corner of a box poking out from behind a row a few steps ahead of me. I lean down closer, silently debating the best way to pick it up when I notice a crack running down the face. The storm inside the cube is reacting to it as well, sending tiny bolt after tiny bolt of lightning at the fissure. “Hey, guys?” They’re not listening. They’re nearly to the next car and have stopped, focusing intently on something on the other side of the door.

I decide not to risk picking it up, in case I make things worse. Instead, I hop up and jog over to the door. “Alpha. Beta. I found something I think you’ll want to see.”

“Whatever it is, I think it can—” Alpha is interrupted by loud voices coming from up ahead. Whatever is happening, it is angry and violent. There’s a cry, a flash of light, and a crash.

Beta nods toward the door, “C’mon let’s go!” They charge ahead and I go right in after them. Whatever is threatening the safety of these precious things, this idea, it must be stopped. I know I must protect them. It’s what I’m made for.

We burst through the door and I nearly collide with my leaders as they skid to a halt. We’ve arrived in what I can only assume is the control car. Countless dials and levers fill the far wall. There’s one particularly bright red light flashing insistently. I know we need to get to that control panel. But between us and our destination is another man with his back to us. He turns slowly, a zapper in each hand. I know what he looks like before he even turns around.

“Phi!” Alpha yells. “What are you doing?!”

Phi scowls and I see my own furious reflection in his face. He raises his arms and brandishes the zappers at us, fists shaking. “Don’t come any closer! I’m doing what I must!”

“What are you talking about?” Beta holds up his own weapon, but I see his eyes dart back to the panel lights going berserk. Whatever else happens, that is our goal.

Phi shakes his head. “You don’t understand! The idea…it’s bad! It’s a bad idea. We can’t take it. We just can’t.”

“What do you mean, it’s bad?” I didn’t understand how something so beautiful could ever be considered bad.

“I was in the cargo room and tripped. I caught myself on one of the boxes. And…it fell.” Phi chokes back a sob. “I broke a box! It’s not complete!” He wipes away a tear with the back of one hand while keeping the other level at us.

I put my zapper down slowly and raise my hands. Just got to keep him talking. “Phi, right? Listen, I saw the box you knocked over. It’s not broken. It’s cracked, but it’s not broken. It’s going to be ok.”

For a moment I saw a ray of hope in his eye. But that light was quickly extinguished by fear and guilt. “No! No, we can’t risk it. I know I should’ve been more careful but it’s too late. Everything has to go.”

Alpha is done listening. He charges at Phi, zapper raised and screaming the whole way. He catches the saboteur off guard, but not by enough. Phi lets Alpha swat one of the zappers away and it clatters harmlessly to the floor by my feet. But the aggressive move left Alpha open. He stops dead in his tracks and is filled with a white-hot light. In a fraction of a second, he’s reduced to little more than iridescent dust floating in front of us. I recoil at the raw destructive power of the weapons we’ve been flailing around so casually.

If Beta is grieved by the loss of his colleague, he doesn’t show it. He honors his memory by following his lead. Beta and Phi clash, swinging wildly at one another. Sparks fly each time the zappers connect with the train wall. In the chaos of the fight, Phi shoves Beta up against the window, shattering it. The roar of the outside world rushes in on the wind.

It is only now that I appreciate just how fast we are going. The sound filling the cabin is deafening. I shake my head to recover my senses and see Phi bearing down on Beta, holding his zapper with both hands, the points of the prongs hovering dangerously close over his chest. Beta clutches the shaft of the zapper pointed at his chest with both hands, struggling to keep it aloft. He’s fighting a losing battle.

I want to charge. To be the hero. I want to run and disintegrate Phi the same way he had done to Alpha. But between the disorienting swirl of the wind around my head and the raw fear filling me, I can’t get my legs to move.

“Save the train!” Beta yells at me. “Get it to the station!” He keeps a tight hold of the zapper and kicks hard with his legs, leaping backwards out the window. His body becomes a blur as it whips past the window and out of view. I’m dumbstruck. I can’t believe he’d sacrifice himself and leave me, to figure this out by myself. But that’s when I look down and realize — he’s taken Phi’s only other weapon with him.

Phi realizes it at the same time I do. He looks at the floor, searching for the zapper he let fall in his feint to kill Alpha. I kick it to the back of the car.

“Give it up Phi!” I yell over the din of the air rushing in the cabin. “Tell me how to fix it and I’ll let you go!”

Phi doesn’t answer. Instead, he looks out the windshield facing the front of the train. And he laughs. His body shakes with the mad laughter of someone whose purpose has come and gone. He turns back to me, eyes wide. “It’s too late! I have made my mistake right. I may have failed in my duty, but I have kept my honor.”

I look beyond him out the window and see the thundering death that we are headed for. In mere moments, the clear air the train is racing along will come to an abrupt end against angry clouds that have descended to form a gargantuan wall illuminated by the near-constant flashes of lighting. We won’t survive it. Nothing could.

Phi raises his fist and smashes the control panel.

“No!” I hear myself cry out.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I truly am.” And with that, he leaps out the window, following Alpha into the crimson abyss that surges below the train.

I run up to the controls, desperately searching for a kill switch or an emergency break. I find nothing. The few buttons and levers I frantically test have no effect whatsoever. I look again out the front windshield and realize Phi was right. I couldn’t slow this train down even if I knew how to. I decide I’d like to spend my last moments with something beautiful. I turn and walk back through the train until I make my way to the cargo area.

I sit on the ground and pull the nearest box over to me. I sit it on my lap and admire it for a bit. The waving gold surface of the orb inside is mesmerizing. The way it reaches out and connects with me when I touch the glass feels like a miracle in and of itself. I feel the train lurch as the nose collides with a red wall of clouds and fury.

###

“John, you ok?” my wife asks from the side of our bed. She’s folding our laundry and laying it in neat piles beside her.

I shake my head and look around the room. “Yeah,” I answer. “I just can’t remember what I came in here for. I totally blanked out.”

“Wallet? Phone?” she offers, trying to help.

I shrug. “No idea.”

“That’s ok,” she says as she hands me a pile of t-shirts. “You’ll remember it if it’s important.”