D. Wilson - Primordial - An Abstraction

“Give. Want. Understand. Yes.”

My youngest daughter gets on phone. She sounds happy.

“Daddy! Daddy! Last night I had a nightmare about the shadow of the moon! I miss you.” She begins to cry. I tell her it’ll be ok — there are no such things as shadows of the moon.

I decide to spend the holidays on campus, in my dorm room, alone, smoking clove cigarettes, drinking green tea and red wine, and doing push-ups, sit-ups, and chin-ups. I quit smoking years ago but cloves aren’t like real cigarettes and I only inhale them during moments of extreme anxiety.

Before the holiday break, I am required to visit with an academic advisor to discuss my progress.

He’s about twenty years younger than me.

He’s overweight. He’s unattractive. He’s going bald on top.

“All bald spots are guilty-looking,” I note.

“Pardon me?”

I don’t think he maintains a healthy diet. I ask him if he works out and he says no.

“So how have things been going?” says the academic advisor, studying my papers.

“All right.”

“I see that you got an A in astronomy. That’s good.”

“Thank you. I like stars and nebulas and so forth.”

“You also got an A in business mathematics. Well done.”

“Thank you. I like percentages and amortization schedules and all that.”

“Well it looks like you got As in all of your classes. That’s a 4.0 grade point average.”

“I’m not altogether sure I needed to take most of those classes. Any of them, in fact. My Ph.D. is in a very particular field, although I am not particular myself.”

“Don’t worry about that. Everybody has to take electives and core courses. Or retake them, as it were. You’ll be fine. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

I nod.

“Well everything looks good. Good grades are a good sign. Any questions or concerns? How has college life been treating you?”

“Very well,” I confess. “I must say that I don’t like my roommates or my professors or the hall monitors and janitors or anybody really. But I have become an expert in the pornographic industry. Everywhere I go there’s something new to learn. I had forgotten how much college students enjoy fornication. Give young people a taste of modern technology and there’s no stopping them. I’ve seen more copulation in real life at the University than any magazine could ever hope to show me. There are so many kinds I don’t even know where to start. Transsexual porn is just the beginning of Vanilla Death. There’s Darjeeling porn. Buckwheat porn. Refrigerator porn. Entropy porn. Diglossia porn. Black supremacy porn. Arch-donkey porn. Evil genie porn. Apornal porn. No-bones-or-joints-in-corpses porn. Synchronic analytical dithyrambic bad motherfucker porn. So forth. You know. There’s, like, everything. The list is truly endless. There are formal, scientific names for all of these subgenres. But who cares about names? The sky’s the limit. In addition, I have begun a new research project based on my rereading of a so-called ‘forgotten’ Greek mathematician whose algorithms and modes de vie have presented themselves to me in a new light. I can barely sleep I’m so excited about it; the moment unconsciousness threatens to extinguish me, I stumble upon another idea and have to turn on the light and write it down. My brain is an electromagnetic earthfucker. Furthermore, my bench press has exceeded 300 pounds. That’s a lot of weight for an ectomorph, not to mention an academic.”

I remember that I’m no longer an academic. It hurts me.

“Let’s see what else. I haven’t made many friends, but I don’t want any friends, and I don’t like people because people just get in the way with their bodies and their words and so forth. I just want to do my work. I’m a bit of a stereotype that way. I was a stereotype, I mean. But I’m adjusting to the reality of my situation.”

“It sounds like you’re adjusting,” says the academic advisor, putting my papers aside. “I’m glad.”

“I’m glad you’re glad.”

We wait for something to happen.

I say, “Is there anything else?”

“I guess not.”

I think he’s going to say something. He doesn’t.

He’s scared of me, I think.

I have large biceps with big veins, but I try not to hold my arms at ninety-degree angles so as to diminish the swell of my vascularity. I have a tendency to overtrain.

Despite myself, I miss my roommates over the break.

I go to the Union to get a coffee and a bagel and contemplate the fate of the noösphere.

A writer stops me in the entranceway and asks if I will look at his manuscript. “It took me, like, five years to write this book,” he assures me. “I think you’ll really like it. Enjoy!”

I grab him by the neck and slam his head into the wall. “Fuck your book! Fuck your book! Fuck your book! Fuck your book! Fuck your book! Fuck your book! Fuck your book! Fuck your book! Fuck your book! Fuck your book! Fuck your fucking book! Fuck your book!”

During my diatribe the writer tries to bite me. I keep a firm grip and I keep yelling and slamming his head into the wall until he loses consciousness and flops over.

In the Union café, I decide to order a turkey wrap instead of a bagel. Less carbs, more protein, although processed meats are high in sodium, which retains water in the body and is bad for the heart.

Two years pass like refried dreams.

A lot happens.

For instance:

I develop a meaningful relationship with the R.A. in my dorm. It collapses.

I develop a meaningful relationship with my psych professor. It collapses.

I develop a meaningful relationship with the President of the University. It collapses.

I develop a meaningful relationship with at least six of my roommates. They all collapse before they ever happen.

I develop a meaningful relationship with several members of the opposite sex. They never happen.

I realize that relationships are doomed to entropy and failure. I don’t talk to anybody for months unless a professor calls on me in class or I get drunk and call my wife and kids or a writer gets too close to me.

More happens.

And more. Two years is a long time no matter how you quantify and experience it.

For instance:

I get a part-time job at the library to supplement my income from book sales and help pay for my (re)new(ed) Ph.D. The job involves data entry and various organizational skills and techniques. Payment is a partial tuition waiver and a modest stipend.

On my first day I walk into the head librarian’s office. Nobody’s there.

Somebody left a note on the desk.

“The laminator in the learning center is broke,” reads the note.

I go to the learning center to see what’s happening with the laminator.

There are several ex-Ph.D.s I recognize from one of my classes trying to figure out how to use “the Internet.” They’re huddled around an old computer, one of those dirty, ochre-colored Apples with the green numerals and the cubed miniscreen that sits atop a hard drive the size of an anvil.

“What’s the problem with the laminator?” I ask.

They don’t know.

“Well it’s broke. Broken. It’s not working.”

They don’t know what a laminator is.

I’m not sure I do either.

“Well where is it then? I’ll give it a shot.”

The ex-Ph.D.s shrug. They’ve forgotten what I’m talking about and they want to know what I’m talking about.

I find what I think might be the laminator and take it apart. There are how-to-dismantle directions taped to the door of the cabinet beneath it, but I don’t care for the tedium of reading through directions, and I always try to do things myself first, even if it means botching the job beyond repair.