Relativity

How am I? Better I’d say. Much better. Guess I had what some of you have been talking about, a moment of clarity, breakthrough, whatever. Because yesterday and this was totally out of the blue, totally unexpected, I had it out with him. Walked right into where he worked, this dry stuffy place with a lot of papers and these tall windows, went up to his desk and said hey I need to talk to you, let’s step outside.

Someone at the door tried to stop me, a guy named Friedrich who looked a lot like the Planters Peanut guy with the little monocle. But I’m like 240 and do CrossFit and this guy, he couldn’t have been more than what, 130? But he’s following me, saying oh sorry sir you can’t go back there, you’re not allowed, and all that. Do you have a patent pending?

And I said I don’t know from patents, but I need to talk to the man and so where is he. Friedrich wasn’t sure who I meant, so I told him, crazy hair, smart, probably quiet, keeps to himself, I need to speak with him IMMEDIATELY and so where is he? Then he stood up, second table from the back, the one stacked highest with papers. His hair’s not crazy though, not white like the pictures, you know, he looks well like a normal guy at work in a gray suit, dark mustache. I wouldn’t have known it was him if he hadn’t stood up.

Everyone’s staring. They’ve stopped working because we’re in the octagon now, eyes locked. But I don’t like to make a scene, you all know this about me. I prefer to handle things on the side and real calm. I don’t wanna cause problems where they don’t need to be, so I say hey bud, let’s you and I go for a walk. It’s nice out. We’ll talk.

But here’s the thing. He wouldn’t go and demanded to know who I was. I said, I’m John from Salt Lake and if you’re saying we have to have it out here, if you insist on it, then so be it. I mean, I rather it just be me and you so we can handle this like adults, but if you want a crowd, okay fine, have it your way.

And so he says, what’s the matter? What can I help you with? I was pretty blown away by how nice he was given I’m comin’ at him so strong. And I say I’ll tell you what’s the matter, pal. It’s this thing you put onto us.

You say you’re on a train and moving and I’m still at the station on the platform and you’re going, but for you time is sped up, what because, light reaches you faster if there was something like a lightning strike? And since you’re moving toward it and I’m on the platform left there with my thumb up my you-know-where, you’re going to get to the light first and time’s going to be shorter for you, and so I’ve got to wait longer and get older just standing there on the platform.

Like what, I couldn’t have gotten onto the train with you and we couldn’t have decided to sit in the same spot, near each other or one seat over and be even Steven. I told him, this idea of the haves and have-nots is a problem, not just for me, but for everyone, and will be for all time because of your paper—Ohhhh yes I DID read it, didn’t I?—Look at John who no one thought had two bits of a brain, reading your paper in the what’s it called, I’m going to butcher this—the Anna-len Der Phys-eek on the electrodynamics of moving bodies.

Now we all think in that way—you, me, Mary, Bob, Paul, Sally—everyone is RIGHT all the time because it’s all, as you say, “relative,” but really if you think about it one person is left standing at the station, on the platform, twiddling their thumbs, while the other gets to go somewhere cool on a train and get to the light first and have time be shorter and all that.

So you’ve really caused issues, don’t you see? Like it’s okay for you to get to the light first but not me because that’s just the way the universe works? Really? Like why isn’t it me on the train, or Sally or Bob or Joe on the train, and you on the platform. Who gets to decide? I mean you’re smart and all, so first off, I don’t get why you’re working here in this place, you should be like in a lab or something. I can tell them that if you want, they’d probably listen, and we can show ‘em your papers.

But here’s the deal, Al. Can I call you Al? Yeah? Okay. Well here’s the deal. I need you to say your paper was wrong, what do they call it? Retract, yes, I need you to retract it. Say you made a mistake in the math, a whoopsie-doodle, or you had to think about it some more and now you have a different take. If, like you say, the laws of the universe are the same everywhere at all times, shouldn’t we also be at the same starting block, up, down, or sideways, whatever? But no one having a head start on say a train and it being fair and square in the eyes of these universal forces—gravity, light, time?

He looks at me a while and the whole room is so quiet you could hear a mouse. Then he says, I don’t think you understand what I was saying in the paper.

I say Ohhhh okay, Mr. Einstein. Explain it to me like I was 4. He says, my good fellow, I love how he called me a good fellow. No one ever called me that before. He says, my good fellow, it’s not a matter of who is on the train or the platform. It’s a matter of how time works. Things happen sooner for some and take longer for others depending on where they’re standing. Spacetime allows both, you see? It can stretch.

But he could tell I still wasn’t happy with how he was putting things. And he still wasn’t willing to retract, no way from Sunday, not even a little bit. However, he says, if you would like to be on the train with me and not on the platform, I think we can make that happen. We don’t even have to look at the clocks as we leave, to see that the one on the train ticks slower for those on the platform. We don’t even have to think about that.

Wait, what? I say. So you’re saying time’s still not going to be the same for everyone? Everything’s going to take longer for those left behind? So what are they going to do? The train’s left the station. We’ve LEFT them there. How is that helpful? How is that fair?

And he looks at me and says, my boy, I’m a physicist. I’m not in the business of determining fairness in the physical realm, just the laws by which reality exists to each person, individually, depending on their location in time and space. And it made sense to me, it really did.

Now would you like to go and have some breakfast? he asks. I’m sure Friedrich wouldn’t mind if we stepped out for a bit. Friedrich was standing right there, looking nervous, but nods. Sure, the applications can wait.

But I look at my watch and realize that it’s stopped at 9:45 am, which was the time I stepped into the bathroom at my dad’s house, the one in the basement where I sleep, really just a utility closet with a toilet and exposed piping and wires, and I popped out here.

I think I have to be getting back, I say. So you won’t even consider changing what you wrote? I ask. The answer’s still no. I came ready to be rough and tumble with you, I say. Outside, not in here, because this seems like a respectable place of business.

Now, John, he says, do you think the physical universe wants that of you? He asks this with like a soft way in his voice.

So I think about it for a second and it occurs to me that the universe and its laws probably don’t give two flyin’ hoots one way or another. But the urge to knock him about has pretty much gone away because he’s right, what good would it do anyway? I tell him to think about it more and maybe he’ll wake up tomorrow and change his mind about it all. He says maybe yes. Maybe he will. And I feel good about that, like I did something important. I “moved the needle,” as my dad likes to say.

As I’m leaving, he says he’s got this new idea about mass as energy, something related to light, and would I like to hear about it, see the math.

I say no I don’t think that would be a good idea.

And he says all right then, goodbye John. Wishes me safe travels. And I’m still so amazed at how cool as a cucumber he was throughout the whole thing, and I thought, as I was heading to the tunnel to get back to the bathroom, I wish I could be that chill when someone’s pushing my buttons.

But then again that’s why I’m here sharing. Why I keep coming back. And so, yeah. I’m feeling better. I am. I mean, not completely. I still have these night sweats and places I want to go that I can’t get to. The bathroom only takes me to that one place and I don’t really understand why. But that’s all I wanted to share today. Thanks.

Note: Any seeming connection to a person living or dead is purely coincidental. This account was not based on any group therapy situation, or on any historical record of John’s presence in the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property. John is telling what he believes to be a true account of events as they happened. He never reported any delusions or hallucinations either, confirmed by his family. They did, however, say that John often went missing for two to three hours at a time. They couldn’t find him anywhere when they looked around the house and outside, but then he would appear back in the basement on the couch, acting like nothing was wrong, and when asked, claimed that he was just hanging out with his new friend Al in a place called Bern.