26/ 02/ 01
Diary,
Tonight when I had just finished my sanitizing duties, to my surprise, I found Dr. Knight waiting to talk to me.
She made both of us a cup of hot chocolate in the kitchen before motioning for us to sit at one of the tables in the empty cafeteria.
I sat and waited, almost cringing, waiting to hear what she had to say. I think I was worried that she would bring up my behavior over the past few weeks. I wasn’t far wrong, but what further surprised me, was how she wanted to discuss it.
“Your homework has picked up. I guess your study sessions with Maya and Brett are helping.” She smiled at me.
“Yes.” I said flatly, not wanting to go into it with her.
“It’s OK if you can learn better in a smaller group. That’s what we’ve tried to provide here at this college. But I just want you to know that if you ever need more help, you can always come to me. There’s nothing wrong with asking for help, Elisha.” She said seriously. “My room is on the bottom floor of Beta building, I don’t know if you know that or not. Most evenings I’m free. If you or Zack would like to come and ask me any questions, I’m certainly not going to turn you away.”
“OK.” I said plainly, still feeling a little uncomfortable.
“I also need to know where you get confused, or need help. There’s no point you sitting in class, lost, while the rest of us go on without you. You’d be surprised to know that you’re not the only one who feels left behind sometimes. But I need to know where you get lost, before I lose you behind me, so it won’t be hard for you to catch up.”
I didn’t say anything and I just stared at my marshmallow melting in my drink.
“Even if you don’t want anyone to know if you’re having difficulty, come and knock on my door in the evening if you can’t do it in class. I’d like to help you as much as I can.” She continued, trying to catch my gaze
But there was something else weighing on my mind, which I thought I’d try asking her instead.
“What were you and Professor Hamilton talking about a few weeks ago when you were talking about me? About the night Peter was sprung for the drugs?” I blurted out.
“The night of Halloween?” she asked back.
I nodded.
“We were talking about your ability to sense what Peter, Brett and Sophie were going to do, and what may have happened. We suspect that you sensed the ripple in time when we changed the time line and prevented Sophie from using the drugs and ultimately overdosing. We also suspect that was how you sense the ghosts, when you sensed us moving through time. Are we correct?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged and looked down again. I thought I might as well say it and say it now and get it over and done with. “I think you’ve all made a mistake about me.”
“In what way?”
“I don’t know… that maybe I can’t do all of these things that you think I can. I’m pathetic at Math’s, I’m hopeless at calculating space-time in Astronomy and me stumbling upon you as a ghost going through time was pure coincidence! Me seeing the Roman soldier was sheer luck! Me sensing what Peter, Brett and Sophie were up to was a dumb guess!”
Dr. Knight sat back and looked at me quietly for the longest moment before speaking to me again.
“When you saw back in time at Government House in Parramatta Park, when you were 12 years old, that wasn’t the first time, was it?”
“How do you know about that?” I asked her in surprise.
“A few years from now you tell me. You also tell me about the time you knew your mother would never recover from cancer, even before she was diagnosed. You also tell me about the strong feelings of deja vue you would receive when walking down the street and looking at a building you’ve never been to or seen before, or your way of just knowing about something you’ve never even heard before. Professor Myles has told me that you do struggle with the calculations in his class as well, but if he told you that space was green and not black, and which galaxies have black holes inside of them, that you would just nod as if you had already known that. You can see space time in effect Elisha, it doesn’t matter if you have difficulty working out the quantum mechanics in your head. We simply teach these principles because there are students here that want or need to understand the nuts and bolts of what they can do rather than just do.”
“Really?” I looked up at her.
“You simply know. You can see. You don’t need to pull it apart to see the grand picture. You don’t need to know what exact colors they used to paint the picture. And you have the ability to walk through the canvass with out cutting it first with a pair of scissors.” Dr. Knight stated.
“Can I ask your a question?” I asked her again. She smiled and nodded, taking a sip of her drink. “Is traveling through time, how we go all see-through, is that because our molecules are speeding up, and we can dissipate and rotate through the layers of time that way? Is time like this huge circle, with lots of other circles inside of it, like layers in an onion skin? And we move through the layers that way?”
Dr. Knight just looked at me.
“Did you get one of your ‘guesses’ from this?” she asked me.
“Yeah…” I slumped back into my chair, wondering if she must be thinking I’m talking rubbish.
“That is exactly right, Elisha.” She stated. “When did this idea come to you?”
“In Astronomy when we were talking about light speed and the Maxwell Water Ripple example.”
“And this theory gave you another sense of deja vu?” she asked me and I nodded. “Then Elisha, how can you have any doubt at all that you belong here?”
“Because I may be able to ‘see’ all of this crap, but I can’t explain how I see it. And when somebody tries to explain the mechanics of seeing it, I have no idea of what they’re talking about!” I said frustratedly.
“OK.” She sat forward. “I’m going to bring this up at our next teachers meeting. We will try to revise our teaching methods to explain the basics to you, and see how you go from there.”
“No, don’t do that! Everyone will know I’m an idiot!” I said, going bright red.
“As I said before Elisha, you’re not alone in this. I can think of at least four other students who are in the same boat as you. They can also ‘see’ and will become some of our most important Circulators. I think it’s more important that we cater our teaching to their learning techniques.”
“What do you mean, ‘your most important Circulators’?” I asked curiously.
“As we mentioned that night in the staff meeting room, there are students here at Hamilton’s who will be able to circulate through time, and there are others who will be able to calculate. Those who can see and calculate, work in a special place where they can monitor any changes in the timeline in not only just our planet but in the universe. Then there are those who are able to see and to circulate through time. Interestingly, not many of those who can Circulate can accurately use quantum mechanics with their seeing, which is much more than mere understanding. But in fact only a third of our community can actually manipulate time rather than just read it, which we call Circulators. All of the teachers here can manipulate time, only our counselor cannot, she can see through time.”
“So you have Circulators and Calculators?” I asked half jokingly.
“That is correct.” Dr. Knight stated. “Though we do call our organization of people the Circulate. In the Circulate, we all hold our members prized and esteemed. We are democratic community with elected council members.”
“What about the Roman soldier, and when you were going back in time to visit your family… you may have been traveling through points in time, but what about points on earth? How did you travel from 2000 AD Canada to 1700 AD England?”
Dr. Knight looked a bit hesitant to tell me at first, or was she trying to find the words to explain it?
“As you said before, when traveling through the layers of time our molecules and electrons speed up and dissipate. Now, on our own, we can travel freely through time. But using future technology that won’t be invented for another 100 years, that technology is able to catch our matter and transport it to another location. While that future technology can only move matter from one point to another, using our own ability we also change the time frame.” She told me.
“So is that like using wormholes or portals or whatever?” I asked her.
“No, because stable wormholes or portals have fixed locations or points. This is more like a fax machine that can send our dissipated matter to an unfixed location where it doesn’t need another fax machine to print us out again. Imagine yourself fishing from the ocean, but with technology so finely tuned that you know how to detect where the fish will be, and when the fish’s matter dissipates, you collect their electrons and molecules in a special net. Then you put that matter and molecules back into another point in the ocean, and the fish reform into fish again, just at a different time and place.” Dr. Knight used the analogy to explain to me.
I could almost see those fish going all see-through in my mind. And that would be me one day? A see-through fish being scooped up and put into another country and time? Wow… that thought is just too weird.
“But what if you just want to travel through time and not country?” I ask her.
“Then you travel through time.” She shrugged, taking another sip from her drink.
“But how will the machine know that you don’t want to change countries?” I asked her worriedly.
She let out this really loud laugh and looked back at me. “The Calculators operating this machine will know.”
“So they know what we’re going to do before we do?” I asked in surprise again.
“Not all the time, but they do have a 99% success rate. As I like to remind them, that another famous man once said, ‘the future is not yet written in stone’.” Dr. Knight smiled at me.
Then a thought struck me. “What about Sally? Did a Calculator see her leaving this college?”
“Perhaps.” She said elusively.
“So what’s going to happen to her?” I asked Dr. Knight. “What was she going to be? A Circulator or a Calculator?”
“Sally is going to be a Calculator. Just as Abdul will be, and then Sophie will be a Circulator, like yourself.”
“She will be?”
“Sally will one day decide she wants to learn more about this ability she has, and she does join the Circulate.” Dr. Knight said confidently, as if she was stating a simple fact. “So does Sophie, and so will Abdul.”
“So I guess you’ve seen this happen.” I watched her face to confirm this.
“Of course. Elisha, all of your teachers met you long before your father or even yourself ever heard of this college.”
“In the future?” I asked her.
“Yes.”
“How far into the future are we talking about?”
“Now that I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?” I leaned forward, impatient to know.
“That one you’ll find out for yourself eventually. I can’t give away everything right now. All I wanted to do was to assure you. You’re one of us Elisha. You are special, and you are in the right place right now.”
======================================================
Diary,
Tonight when I had just finished my sanitizing duties, to my surprise, I found Dr. Knight waiting to talk to me.
She made both of us a cup of hot chocolate in the kitchen before motioning for us to sit at one of the tables in the empty cafeteria.
I sat and waited, almost cringing, waiting to hear what she had to say. I think I was worried that she would bring up my behavior over the past few weeks. I wasn’t far wrong, but what further surprised me, was how she wanted to discuss it.
“Your homework has picked up. I guess your study sessions with Maya and Brett are helping.” She smiled at me.
“Yes.” I said flatly, not wanting to go into it with her.
“It’s OK if you can learn better in a smaller group. That’s what we’ve tried to provide here at this college. But I just want you to know that if you ever need more help, you can always come to me. There’s nothing wrong with asking for help, Elisha.” She said seriously. “My room is on the bottom floor of Beta building, I don’t know if you know that or not. Most evenings I’m free. If you or Zack would like to come and ask me any questions, I’m certainly not going to turn you away.”
“OK.” I said plainly, still feeling a little uncomfortable.
“I also need to know where you get confused, or need help. There’s no point you sitting in class, lost, while the rest of us go on without you. You’d be surprised to know that you’re not the only one who feels left behind sometimes. But I need to know where you get lost, before I lose you behind me, so it won’t be hard for you to catch up.”
I didn’t say anything and I just stared at my marshmallow melting in my drink.
“Even if you don’t want anyone to know if you’re having difficulty, come and knock on my door in the evening if you can’t do it in class. I’d like to help you as much as I can.” She continued, trying to catch my gaze
But there was something else weighing on my mind, which I thought I’d try asking her instead.
“What were you and Professor Hamilton talking about a few weeks ago when you were talking about me? About the night Peter was sprung for the drugs?” I blurted out.
“The night of Halloween?” she asked back.
I nodded.
“We were talking about your ability to sense what Peter, Brett and Sophie were going to do, and what may have happened. We suspect that you sensed the ripple in time when we changed the time line and prevented Sophie from using the drugs and ultimately overdosing. We also suspect that was how you sense the ghosts, when you sensed us moving through time. Are we correct?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged and looked down again. I thought I might as well say it and say it now and get it over and done with. “I think you’ve all made a mistake about me.”
“In what way?”
“I don’t know… that maybe I can’t do all of these things that you think I can. I’m pathetic at Math’s, I’m hopeless at calculating space-time in Astronomy and me stumbling upon you as a ghost going through time was pure coincidence! Me seeing the Roman soldier was sheer luck! Me sensing what Peter, Brett and Sophie were up to was a dumb guess!”
Dr. Knight sat back and looked at me quietly for the longest moment before speaking to me again.
“When you saw back in time at Government House in Parramatta Park, when you were 12 years old, that wasn’t the first time, was it?”
“How do you know about that?” I asked her in surprise.
“A few years from now you tell me. You also tell me about the time you knew your mother would never recover from cancer, even before she was diagnosed. You also tell me about the strong feelings of deja vue you would receive when walking down the street and looking at a building you’ve never been to or seen before, or your way of just knowing about something you’ve never even heard before. Professor Myles has told me that you do struggle with the calculations in his class as well, but if he told you that space was green and not black, and which galaxies have black holes inside of them, that you would just nod as if you had already known that. You can see space time in effect Elisha, it doesn’t matter if you have difficulty working out the quantum mechanics in your head. We simply teach these principles because there are students here that want or need to understand the nuts and bolts of what they can do rather than just do.”
“Really?” I looked up at her.
“You simply know. You can see. You don’t need to pull it apart to see the grand picture. You don’t need to know what exact colors they used to paint the picture. And you have the ability to walk through the canvass with out cutting it first with a pair of scissors.” Dr. Knight stated.
“Can I ask your a question?” I asked her again. She smiled and nodded, taking a sip of her drink. “Is traveling through time, how we go all see-through, is that because our molecules are speeding up, and we can dissipate and rotate through the layers of time that way? Is time like this huge circle, with lots of other circles inside of it, like layers in an onion skin? And we move through the layers that way?”
Dr. Knight just looked at me.
“Did you get one of your ‘guesses’ from this?” she asked me.
“Yeah…” I slumped back into my chair, wondering if she must be thinking I’m talking rubbish.
“That is exactly right, Elisha.” She stated. “When did this idea come to you?”
“In Astronomy when we were talking about light speed and the Maxwell Water Ripple example.”
“And this theory gave you another sense of deja vu?” she asked me and I nodded. “Then Elisha, how can you have any doubt at all that you belong here?”
“Because I may be able to ‘see’ all of this crap, but I can’t explain how I see it. And when somebody tries to explain the mechanics of seeing it, I have no idea of what they’re talking about!” I said frustratedly.
“OK.” She sat forward. “I’m going to bring this up at our next teachers meeting. We will try to revise our teaching methods to explain the basics to you, and see how you go from there.”
“No, don’t do that! Everyone will know I’m an idiot!” I said, going bright red.
“As I said before Elisha, you’re not alone in this. I can think of at least four other students who are in the same boat as you. They can also ‘see’ and will become some of our most important Circulators. I think it’s more important that we cater our teaching to their learning techniques.”
“What do you mean, ‘your most important Circulators’?” I asked curiously.
“As we mentioned that night in the staff meeting room, there are students here at Hamilton’s who will be able to circulate through time, and there are others who will be able to calculate. Those who can see and calculate, work in a special place where they can monitor any changes in the timeline in not only just our planet but in the universe. Then there are those who are able to see and to circulate through time. Interestingly, not many of those who can Circulate can accurately use quantum mechanics with their seeing, which is much more than mere understanding. But in fact only a third of our community can actually manipulate time rather than just read it, which we call Circulators. All of the teachers here can manipulate time, only our counselor cannot, she can see through time.”
“So you have Circulators and Calculators?” I asked half jokingly.
“That is correct.” Dr. Knight stated. “Though we do call our organization of people the Circulate. In the Circulate, we all hold our members prized and esteemed. We are democratic community with elected council members.”
“What about the Roman soldier, and when you were going back in time to visit your family… you may have been traveling through points in time, but what about points on earth? How did you travel from 2000 AD Canada to 1700 AD England?”
Dr. Knight looked a bit hesitant to tell me at first, or was she trying to find the words to explain it?
“As you said before, when traveling through the layers of time our molecules and electrons speed up and dissipate. Now, on our own, we can travel freely through time. But using future technology that won’t be invented for another 100 years, that technology is able to catch our matter and transport it to another location. While that future technology can only move matter from one point to another, using our own ability we also change the time frame.” She told me.
“So is that like using wormholes or portals or whatever?” I asked her.
“No, because stable wormholes or portals have fixed locations or points. This is more like a fax machine that can send our dissipated matter to an unfixed location where it doesn’t need another fax machine to print us out again. Imagine yourself fishing from the ocean, but with technology so finely tuned that you know how to detect where the fish will be, and when the fish’s matter dissipates, you collect their electrons and molecules in a special net. Then you put that matter and molecules back into another point in the ocean, and the fish reform into fish again, just at a different time and place.” Dr. Knight used the analogy to explain to me.
I could almost see those fish going all see-through in my mind. And that would be me one day? A see-through fish being scooped up and put into another country and time? Wow… that thought is just too weird.
“But what if you just want to travel through time and not country?” I ask her.
“Then you travel through time.” She shrugged, taking another sip from her drink.
“But how will the machine know that you don’t want to change countries?” I asked her worriedly.
She let out this really loud laugh and looked back at me. “The Calculators operating this machine will know.”
“So they know what we’re going to do before we do?” I asked in surprise again.
“Not all the time, but they do have a 99% success rate. As I like to remind them, that another famous man once said, ‘the future is not yet written in stone’.” Dr. Knight smiled at me.
Then a thought struck me. “What about Sally? Did a Calculator see her leaving this college?”
“Perhaps.” She said elusively.
“So what’s going to happen to her?” I asked Dr. Knight. “What was she going to be? A Circulator or a Calculator?”
“Sally is going to be a Calculator. Just as Abdul will be, and then Sophie will be a Circulator, like yourself.”
“She will be?”
“Sally will one day decide she wants to learn more about this ability she has, and she does join the Circulate.” Dr. Knight said confidently, as if she was stating a simple fact. “So does Sophie, and so will Abdul.”
“So I guess you’ve seen this happen.” I watched her face to confirm this.
“Of course. Elisha, all of your teachers met you long before your father or even yourself ever heard of this college.”
“In the future?” I asked her.
“Yes.”
“How far into the future are we talking about?”
“Now that I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?” I leaned forward, impatient to know.
“That one you’ll find out for yourself eventually. I can’t give away everything right now. All I wanted to do was to assure you. You’re one of us Elisha. You are special, and you are in the right place right now.”
======================================================
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