chapter seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

            Maxwell immediately dashed into the depths of the woods in his backyard.  The water was rushing and splashing against the rocks of the creek as it flowed from the width of the mouth of the behemoth before it. 

            It was a strange transition to suddenly go from daylight into the impossible darkness of the cave itself.  This transition made Maxwell feel very different than what his normal, everyday demeanor would show.  By all accounts, he was a morose, angst ridden preteen, but when he found himself inside the cave, it was almost as if the weight of the world itself had been taken off his shoulders.  While it was indeed a sad thing that Ms. Butternut had passed away, and while it also looked as though her replacement was going to be a real hag, for the first time today Maxwell's prospects, at least for the moment, seemed to be looking up. 

            The cave, so vast and expansive, offered something  that was more ‘new’, something more exciting and unexplored than Maxwell had ever been able to conceive before.  Goosebumps began to raise up on his flesh as he exitedly inhaled the musk filled air.  Nothing it seemed, could reach him while he was in this very special place.  Echoes in his head from his misbehaved class became muted by the occasional plopping of water droplets against the now soft clay mounds.

            Maxwell carefully followed the directions he had prepared for himself, and had no trouble finding the apartment.  Right as rain, there sat Tom, cross-legged, smoking deeply from the pipe in his hand. 

            "Howdy-do deh missuh Maxwell," Tom said as a cloud of smoke poured out his nostrils.  Tom was smiling and looking extremely content in his empty apartment.

            "How am I doing?  Oh, I'm doing fine, but what about you?"

            "Oooeee, I guess you c'say I's-a-doin mighteh fine deh indeeed missuh Maxwell!"

            Maxwell smiled.  This strange old man was just about the limit of what he could honestly take.  The glow began picking back up around him as he spoke.

            "Well, I reckon we best be gettin-ta bin-ihs, eh?," and just like that, his voice transformed back into that of perfect enunciation, "We most definitely do have a lot to talk about."

            "How do you do that with your voice?" 

            "That isn't really important right now, but you can think of it as a kind of device, sort of, like a tool, but we're here to talk about other things than this."

            Maxwell understood.  He hoped that the old man might be able to shed some light on why exactly everything in his life seemed so bizarre lately.

            "The world isn't at all as it seems, Maxwell," he began, "you see, I began explaining frequencies to you the other day, and well, just let old Tom himself tell you that everything you hear me say is true, that I can promise you.  You can choose to believe me, or you can choose to disagree, but really it's totally up to you.  Doesn't make a dang bit of difference to me.  I won't lie to you but I want you to know that as sure as the ground you walk on, I know these things of which I speak, you see."

            Maxwell nodded, knowing that it was a little peculiar how he was trusting this old vagrant in the first place.  'Where had this supposed knowledge gotten him anyway?  He's a beggar and a squatter that lives in a dusty old cavern that doesn't even have two nickels to rub together.' 

            "Oh, so you think you can just judge me like that then boy, do you?  You think this cave is all just yours and I myself have no right to be here?" 

            "Are you reading my thoughts right now?"

            Tom just smiled and started laughing, "What in the world are you talking about?  What kind of question is that?  Are you 'crazy' or something, of course I'm not reading your thoughts!  No one can read someone else's mind!  You really are crazy aren't you!"  Tom started laughing out loud hysterically.  This, of course, caused Maxwell to start laughing along with him.  Tom continued.

            "Okay, but it's true, this really isn't your cave.  This is everyone's cave, It's everyone's property.  Who do you think was here first?  The white man or the native?  And is this the native's land?  No!  It's 'everyone's' land!  The native even knows this as well.  This is everyone's birthright, this planet, it's all right here, everything, before our very eyes!  All of it is all of ours!  It's no one person's, yet everyone's at the same time!"

            "I see what you're saying," while actually, Maxwell found himself very confused, but the intoxicating effect of the cave and Tom's lively way of explaining things proved to be very interesting as well as entertaining on the same level.

            "Good, so can we move on then?  This Earth that you now live on, well, there's something you might find hard to believe about it."  He then continued, "You know it's a planet, but if you stretch your mind big enough, and you really dig deep enough, you can think of the planet 'Earth' as an actual living organism."

            "Hogwash, it's not a living thing," Maxwell boldly explained, "It's a rock with a molten iron core spinning round on its axis as it circles the sun.  It's in no way a living organism!"

            "That's the prevailing assumption my boy, and let me tell you, believe it or not, I don't give two hoots about any so called prevailing assumptions!  What I'm telling you is important and might be of benefit to you some day, so shut your trap and listen while I talk for a minute."

            Maxwell was simply taken aback by this comment.

            Tom began smiling again.  The glow around him grew ever more intense.  Maxwell looked down to see that his flashlight was no longer on.  The room appeared to be completely illuminated solely by this strange man's glowing aura.

            "I don't mean to offend you, Maxwell, but it's just that our time here is, well, its precious, okay?  Actually, for me to be completely honest, there's just simply no such thing as time in the first place.  We don't have 'time' to waste, literally, because time itself, is of the essence, you see?"

            Maxwell nodded, then shook his head ‘no’ in a very sarcastic manner. 

            "Time is simply an illusion, you see.  Show me time and I'll show you a crazy person!"  He pulled a mirror out of his pocket and showed Maxwell his own reflection.  I know you might be saying, 'but Tom, I know there's a real thing called time, look at my watch, you see it ticking don't you?'  Wrong!  Your watch merely indicates intervals or cycles of so-called 'time'.  It ticks and then tocks and never anything more.  What you think of as 'time' is really just that of 'change'.  Time is a figment of a crazy person's imagination.  If you can prove to me that there is in fact a past and a future, I'll show you a crazy person indeed!  Go right ahead, try to prove to me that there is actually a past and a future."  By now he was jumping up and down in an animated fashion.

            Maxwell laughed as Tom was clearly a character, a misguided character perhaps, but he was certainly very entertaining.  Maxwell was enjoying himself very much at this point, and was feeling quite happy that he'd stumbled upon this little treasure in the first place, 'and to think that all of this has been in my back yard this whole time!'

 

            "Okay, I'll show you proof of time," Maxwell said as he pulled out his wallet.  Inside it were a few pieces of paper, a couple wads of lint, a library card, and a couple  really small wallet-sized pictures.  "Do you see that?  It's called a picture!"

            "Don't talk to me like I'm stupid, boy.  I know what a 'dad-gum pictah is'."  His voice, by now, seemlessly changed back and forth between the two vernaculars.

            "It's a picture of me and my mother.  It was taken five years ago.  See how much younger I look?  And on top of that, it says here in the corner what date it was that the picture was taken, see?"

            The old man took the picture into his hand and put it closer to his face.  He squinted as he looked it over for a few moments, "Well I'll be damned if that doesn't look just like you, 'Christopher Maxwell', ... why, If I didn't know any better, I'd think that actually was you, but I guess it's just a picture.  For all I know, you could've just doctored it up on a computer to make it look like that."

            Maxwell shook his head, "No, I didn't doctor it up like that!  Why would I do such a thing?  You're being completely ridiculous!"

            Tom once again took the mirror out his pocket and showed Maxwell his own reflection, "You really are crazy!"

            Maxwell started laughing out loud at this.  The old man joined him. 

            "Can you believe this?  This young feller thinks he actually has physical evidence of his past!  Why, the only thing you're showing me is a picture of yourself!  Let me explain," Tom suddenly went silent.  All they could hear was the very distant droning sound coming from the creek as it rolled forward throughout some far away part of the cave.

            Maxwell looked at Tom as if he expected him to say something, "Okay, go ahead, explain."

            "I just did!  Listen to that ... can't you hear it?"

            "What, ... silence?"

            "Yes, it's silence, but what else is it?

            "It's, ... I don't know, It's just 'silence'."

            "It's the sound that resides inside the essence of the present moment as it actually comes into being!"

            "But now it exists in the past, doesn't it?," Maxwell retorted.

            "Prove it!"

            "But there's no way to actually 'prove it' because it's already happened!"

            "Bam!"

            "What in the hell are you even talking about?"

            "Maxwell, time itself is an illusion.  Everything that is and everything that was and everything that will ever be can only be found inside the singularity of this one present moment.  What we experience in this present state is an eternal flux of constant change.  The universe within itself 'is' this present moment, constantly undergoing a state of unending change. This is precisely what you perceive of as this thing called time."

            "I really think you should lay off the pipe a little bit, old man."

            "You still don't get it, do you.  Hmm, that's okay, you don't have time to 'not get it', but you'll definitely get it some day."

            "So you're saying in the 'future' I'll understand?"

            "Yes I am."

            "But the future doesn't even exist at all, only 'right now' exists!"  Maxwell felt as if he'd tricked the old fart.

            Tom smiled and said, "I think you're finally starting to catch on, Maxwell.  Time really is an illusion, and all we really perceive is that of change.  This planet, as far as anyone knows, is the only habitable place in the universe like this we know to even exist.  Think of it as a kind of living organism.  In fact, think of it like a meta-organism.  Like a cell, but a planetary sized one, where all the people are organelles.  Society, along with all the other plants and animals and rivers and oceans we see, are all essential to the organism's continued existence, just like your lungs, brain, stomach, and even your bones are all essential to your own continued existence as well."

            "I think that's a bit of a stretch, sir, although I guess I can see how you might be able to come to such a conclusion."

            "Oh no my young friend, it most definitely is not a stretch, not at all, in fact.  Think of it this way, the earth is made up of many different kinds of things; living things, like human beings such as yourself, other animals, plants, bacteria, insects, fish, reptiles, elements, sand, rocks, mud, etc., you get the idea.  You're made up of many organs, and your organs are made up of many layers of tissue, the tissue is made up of cells, while the cells are made of many tiny organelles.  Organelles are made up of mainly several different kinds of proteins, while proteins themselves are made up of amino acids, its own essential building blocks, and in turn, amino acids are made of molecules which are made of wholly intact little atoms, which are themselves made up of subatomic particles which are even then made of quarks and gluons and other bizarre and tiny things that some believe are ultimately made of a sort of string like ‘thing’ of pure energy.  Then you catch on that all of these tiny parts are actually part of some form of a larger 'whole', namely, that being you!  That thing continues to grow, even from that point, extending outwards into something on an embarrassingly universal scale.  This 'even greater thing' is contained by the entirety of the pervasive cosmos within and of itself, completely and inherently as a fundamental whole.  It's both everything that there is, and nothing at all, all at the same time."

            Maxwell's brain was swirling at this point, but he was doing everything he could to stay with the old man.

            "I don't want to overload you too much right now my boy, but our visit here is almost done.  Consciousness is a field that plays and interacts with itself in this vast sea of so called cosmos-ness.  The interaction of this play, this drama within itself, is actually consciousness in and of itself orchestrating the complexity of the dance of 'organized yet infinite and inherent 'change'.'  Consciousness has literally been involved in a constant state of evolution since it came into existence, and it has always been a part of this existence.  To many, this means that all of existence came out of a singular gigantic burst of creative consciousness 'stuff', all extending from this one great divine source within an ultimate and original singularity, from the stars to the planets, to the organic molecules themselves, even to the replicating nucleic acids from which form the basis of the proteins that make up the fundamental building blocks of all the cells in all of the living life upon this planet!"

           

            "Okay, so what exactly is your ultimate point?"

            "Wisdom, information embedded deeply into the very fabric of the cosmos itself, has been systematically guiding the changing path of the evolution on this planet, and the universe itself for that matter, for literally billions and billions of years!  It has unwaveringly and unceasingly changed to form ever greater and increasing degrees of complexity.  Only recently has it come to such an ever so critical junction.  So when you go back home to do your research for your class project, know this;" and the old man reached out and touched Maxwell directly upon the center of his forehead. 

           

            A burst of pure white light, possibly the purest whitest light ever to have been known, filled Maxwell's line of vision in every possible and conceivable way.  What Maxwell experienced in that very moment was nothing short of absolutely miraculous in every possible way.  Information, vast extreme amounts of pure and unending knowledge and wisdom instantaneously flowed inward through every orifice of the fundamental core of his very being in all of its ancientness, filling him up in ways that were unimaginably ‘more so’ than he could ever have deemed even remotely possible. 

            Maxwell could have read a hundred million books over a five billion year span without ever having stopped, enough to make the Library of Congress turn inward upon itself in utter embarrassment, and it still wouldn't have come close to amounting to the tiniest sliver of anything compared to the sheer volume of data and awareness that began coursing through the very fundamental reality of Maxwell's initial essence in that very moment.

           

            His eyes suddenly fluttered open again.  Seemingly, it was as if they were opening for the very first time ever in his life.  He found himself lying dirty and shivering upon the steps of the front of his porch.  He had no idea how he'd managed to end up in this position, nor had he really even a care for that matter.  Nothing, it seemed, would really matter ever again at this point.  His mother, who just so happened to open the door, in a sudden fit of worry and panic, called an ambulance to come to her son's aide. 

            Maxwell couldn't even open his mouth to form the necessary words in order to assure his mother that he was going to be alright, that everything for that matter was going to be quite alright.  He was simply so much more than anything anyone could possibly hope to conceive of or explain.  In that particular moment, and from that moment on, Maxwell had completely transformed into something much greater than he'd ever known of himself to be, knowing with utmost certainty and confidence that he'd never be the same Maxwell that he once was, ever, ever again.  He finally ‘knew’ what Tom had been trying say.