David was a historian at the institute.<\/p>\n
The machine had been cold, like the look on his father’s face when he cried.<\/p>\n
The noises that erupted from it felt uncoordinated and overeager, like the dreams where he could not stop\u00a0running and falling.<\/p>\n
The nurse had been friendly, like the voices in his head when there was no one else to tell.<\/p>\n
The doctor had been professional, like a salesman, like a monk, like a dictionary.<\/p>\n
The map of his brain showed terrifying patches of darkness and broken symmetries. But these only worried him. Everyone else only cared about a small smudge – more likely the thumbprint of an amateur in the darkroom, he had concluded. Space, progression, options, choice, determinism, time, death. It was unclear whether anything had changed. Except for a very particular prescience; mildly heightened; he had carried it with him for many years already as a concern with the lifespan of the sun, and the cold nothing promised by Einstein.<\/p>\n
On the way home he became distracted by the dangerous turns of another car, and the beautiful vision of a woman walking in sunlight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
David was a historian at the institute. The machine had been cold, like the look on his father’s face when he cried. The noises that erupted from it felt uncoordinated and overeager, like the dreams where he could not stop\u00a0running and falling. The nurse had been friendly, like the voices in his head when there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[159,90,114,106],"tags":[110,119],"metadata":[],"class_list":["post-803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-blog-posts","category-story","category-the-traveller-is-the-journey","tag-fiction","tag-madness"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":812,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2016\/05\/03\/story-of-a-slave-in-the-desert\/","url_meta":{"origin":803,"position":0},"title":"Story of a slave in the desert","author":"Pala","date":"May 3, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"He had been walking since before he could remember, and before that he had escaped. There had been dunes of fine white dust and shattered stones lining desiccated river beds. He had passed passages decorated by impossible fossils, decaying wooden signs and roughly hewn markers proving undeniable theses and directions,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1217,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2017\/08\/23\/warm-rays-in-cold-rooms-v1\/","url_meta":{"origin":803,"position":1},"title":"Warm Rays in Cold Rooms (v1)","author":"Pala","date":"August 23, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: This essay\/story appears in two versions (see also Warm Rays in Cold Rooms (v2)) and it is not clear which one is the later or more up-to-date of the two, hence they are both published here. After paying his respect to the anonymous pornstar, Professor Steven Stephenson, said,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2886,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/10\/07\/hegel\/","url_meta":{"origin":803,"position":2},"title":"Hegel","author":"Pala","date":"October 7, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Life: Born 1770 Stuttgart Cf. 1789 fall of Bastille Cf. 1806\u00a0Napoleon's\u00a0Battle of Jena Cf. French dominion over Germany (1806-1814) included substantial reform (incl. abolishment of serfdom, proto-revolutionary attempts) 1799\u00a0inheritance\u00a0(father's death) allowed him to stop being a family-tutor and join the University of Jena, where previously Fichte and Schilling had been,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1645,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2005\/07\/06\/the-eyes-of-the-dragon-br-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":803,"position":3},"title":"The Eyes of the Dragon (BR)","author":"meanwhile","date":"July 6, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The Eyes of the Dragon\u00a0by Stephen King One of King's earlier novels, this story is more of a fantasy than the horror he is best known for. The book's setting is in the kingdom of Delain, where King Roland reigns. Quote: Roland the king was neither the best nor the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":810,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2016\/04\/23\/five-ascetics-waiting-for-buddha\/","url_meta":{"origin":803,"position":4},"title":"Five ascetics waiting for Buddha","author":"Pala","date":"April 23, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The Pali cannon (MN 36) tells the story of the Buddha's enlightenment. Before his liberation, the to-be Buddha tortured himself by emaciating himself and restricting his breathing, in his search for ultimate liberation. Past masters had failed him in his ultimate quest, and so he strived to find his own\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":772,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2016\/03\/11\/when-i-first-met-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":803,"position":5},"title":"When I first met god","author":"Pala","date":"March 11, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"When I first met Adam he was picketing cigarette sales outside a convenience store. When I think of him now, I think of his bulging eyes, sweaty stubble, the smell of aniseed as he leaned in confidentially to whisper something he thought must be a secret, but back then he\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/padotI-cX","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803"},{"taxonomy":"metadata","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/metadata?post=803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}