The Perfectionists

Chapter 11 Endogenous Opiates

It wasn’t until lunch time that she checked her phone. Half hoping, as always, for a message from Zelig, although the sharp anguish of that unmet expectation had faded by now to a dull ache. There was a text, but not from Zelig. From Melissa.

Ariel dropped the phone on her desk, sighed, and then took a deep breath. Ok, this was good. This could be progress. Maybe Melissa wanted to repair their friendship, that would be something. Or maybe she wanted to meet to talk about what had happened. Maybe she’d come to realize that she didn’t want to return to Zelig after all, that it had all been a big mistake…

Or maybe, she thought bitterly to herself, it’s just one of those long, angry texts, where people say all kinds of mean things to each other that they’d never actually say in person. Maybe she just wants to chew me out for what I’ve done.

What she couldn’t seem to help doing, even now, in her desire to be with him. Whether she acted on it or not. Hell, she’d broken up with Jake to be with Zelig.

Probably not a good idea to look at this right now, she thought. There was too much to do this afternoon. The trials with elderly and/or sick chimpanzees were already demonstrating a level of success that went far beyond any of the team’s expectations. Mitochondrial decay had been not only halted, but reversed. Oxidative stress seemed to have been greatly reduced, and the production of endogenous antioxidants had skyrocketed. Production of collagen had gone into overdrive. Telomeres were actually lengthening. And no negative side effects noted so far, other than what looked like a positive change in the brain’s reuptake of certain neurotransmitters, which, coupled with an apparent dramatic increase in the production of endogenous opioids and opiates, could (arguably) be viewed as a beneficial effect. It remained to be seen whether the product was actually able to extended lifespans, but there was little question that it seemed to improve quality of life, without any noticeable adverse effects. If the human version worked anywhere near as well as the chimpanzee prototype… Well, let’s just say that the lab’s work, which was generally viewed as controversial within the establishment scientific community, would be more than vindicated. They would be heroes. She’d been working for Naleg Inc. for almost a decade, and though she’d always loved the work, and was devoted to the lab and to its mission statement, this was, without a doubt, the most excited she’d ever been.

So yeah, best not to be distracted this afternoon. Progress had to be documented accurately in order for the experiment to demonstrate success, and she also needed to continue to keep her eyes open for other parameters that might be affected.

But after work, on the way home, having already forgotten her resolution to just focus on driving when she was tired, curiosity got the better of her. So she hit some buttons and listened to the car read Melissa’s text back to her.

“Hi Real”, read the computerized voice. (’Real’ was a nickname many of her friends used for her, both because it sounded like it could be short for ‘Ariel’, and because she tended to blurt out whatever inappropriate thought was in her head without warning, heedless of the consequences, when she wasn’t at work trying to be professional. And, sometimes, even then.)

“I need to talk. Want to meet up? I have time this weekend.”

And that was it. Ariel sighed. Apparently she wasn’t going to find out what Melissa was thinking until they were face-to-face. There wasn’t even a tone of voice to give her any clue as to Mel’s mood, just the flatline robot voice of the car. Sometimes she hated texting.

When she got home she returned the text:

“Yes, I'd like that. Friday night is out tho, working late. Sat and Sun available. When and where?”

Then she tossed the phone onto the kitchen counter, removed a package of lasagne from the freezer, stabbed it a few times with a fork, to be heated later, and went to draw a nice hot bath.

By bedtime the appointment had been set: brunch on Sunday at Einaudi’s. Works for me, she thought, It’s far enough in the future that I don’t have to worry about it right now. I’ve still got work Thursday and Friday; maybe I can put it out of my mind until the weekend, focus on getting things done at the lab.

But her dreaming self had other plans.

That night she found herself in the garden, standing solidly on the ground, between the two fruit trees, alone.

There was no sign of Zelig, or Melissa. But that wasn’t the only thing that was different. It was also the quality of the light. Every other time she’d been here, in every other dream, it had been full day, but now the air was thick with the shadowy, purplish luminescence of dusk. Stars sprinkled the sky, strange stars she’d never seen before, and more of them than she was used to, unusually bright. Also moons, planets, nebulae. Galaxies like great clouds of pixie dust, a thousand times brighter and more colorful than the Milky Way. Something that looked like northern lights played here and there, twisting and dancing sinuously, though the air where she stood in the garden was quite mild; the perfect temperature, in fact. Through the trees, a faint pinkish tinge brightened what she assumed, from force of habit, must be the eastern horizon.

The auras of the two great trees looked even brighter in this half light, almost dazzling. She considered taking a bite of one of the fruits, as there was nobody else here to see. Then she thought better of it. If this was the Garden of Eden, then certainly she was being watched by God, who kept a close eye on the place. An unsettling thought popped into her head, and she looked down at her own body. Yep. Naked.

Weren’t you supposed to wake up if you saw your hands in dream?

But she didn’t wake.

Probably best to put off tasting any of the fruit for now, and look for the other two people instead, find out what had become of them. She picked a direction and started walking, leaving the grove, and its two great trees, and their shining fruit behind. The Garden was indeed beautiful, even in the twilight. All of the loveliest features of the natural world on Earth were well represented, and many others she’d never seen before. There was an incredibly complex but intuitive order to it, as if, despite its look of wildness, the whole thing had been planned and planted by some intelligence, and power, far beyond human comprehension.

There were animals, too. Many that she was familiar with, and others that she’d never seen before. Some sleeping, and some waking, but all very peaceful and exquisitely beautiful. She noticed that none of them seemed to be hungry - or, at least, they weren’t stalking prey, or nervously keeping watch in case of an attack while they grazed on their feet, as she was used to seeing animals do in the wild. It was as if they were all on vacation.

A great monster of a lion crossed her path, slinking lazily through the shadows, almost invisible in the otherworldly glow of the half-light, so that she startled herself by nearly bumping up against it and had to stifle a yelp. The lion payed her no heed, but continued onward, turning, only after he’d reached the other side of the path, to raise his great maned head and look back at her with wide, shining eyes. Then he bent his head again to the task of walking, ignoring a herd of gazelle who were sitting under a nearby tree. He stopped at a bush full of reddish-purple berries, and ate some of the fruit, and then plopped down beneath it, rolling onto his back, and wriggling and frisking about in the grass like a house cat who’d been nibbling at a catnip plant.

There was a vividness and definition of detail to this dream that was of a different caliber than she was used to. Also, she realized all at once, she was fully conscious of the fact that this was a dream, which was odd, because at no point had this epiphany interrupted her sleep. She was moving through this dream as if awake, as if she were really here. It was a weird feeling. She’d never experienced anything like it, though of course she’d listened, bored usually, to people talking about lucid dreaming; if that was even what this was… It had a quality almost of the supernatural about it, and she wondered, suddenly, with a rush of adrenaline, if she were truly alone in this dream, experiencing it in her own head, or if the dream was in fact already over but had somehow transported her to and deposited her in a real place, an actual location somewhere out there in the universe, populated by other travelers like herself.

The path she’d opted for wound its way forward, through a strange and frighteningly beautiful landscape, which seemed to be ever-changing, reinventing itself moment by moment, and the creatures which inhabited it ever more wildly exotic and fanciful. And at the same time she noticed that the dawning light from the east, or from what she thought of as the east, which she now realized was ahead of her, and slightly off to the left, was brightening the garden all around her, touching everything with its rosy fingers.

Now, suddenly, she came to the edge of a great cliff, which fell away into emptiness, farther than her eye could follow, until it seemed to disappear into the strange dream sky, with its bright stars and galaxies and auroras. She caught herself just as she was about to step off of it, and standing there, she looked to her left and right, and saw that the cliff continued in either direction, as far as she could see. And when she looked out straight ahead from the cliff she saw no land on the other side, just a vast gulf of air and clouds and stars and planets and gigantic, flickering dragonflies. And then, as the dawning light gathered and stregnhthened, something else: a ship. A huge, old-fashioned sailing vessel, cutting a path through the luminous emptiness. And, farther still, what turned out to be a strange, fantastically enormous, impossibly elegant tower spiraling up from between the clouds, sprinkled with windows that were lit from the inside. And from this tower, supported by flying buttresses, and elfin bridges, and acrobatically spiraling staircases, and sometimes by nothing at all, other towers and rooms and galleries projected. And as the day dawned golden, and the clouds began to glow pink, and white, and the sky began to lighten to teal and cerulean, like a painting of Heaven, her eye was drawn to one of these, open to the air on three sides, wherein she thought she could see two people, a man and a woman, standing side by side, gazing out across the great space of air at the approaching ship.

It's National Novel Writing Month! Along with sixteen other freewriters from @freewritehouse I've accepted the challenge of writing an entire novel in one month (the others are: @amelin; @botefarm; @felt.buzz; @grow23; @improv; @kaelci; @kaerpediem; @linnyplant; @mariannewest; @ntowl; @stinawog; @carolkean; @byn; @kipswolfe; @aislingcronin; @nonsowrites).

Each of us must write 50,000 words total, which breaks down to 1,667/day, in the month of November.

This is not as easy as it sounds. Many experienced writers take at least a year, sometimes three or four, and sometimes much longer, to write a novel, and here I'm expecting myself, a newbie, to do it in one month. But I'm doing it anyway, because: 1. it's fun; and 2. it's helping me to become a better writer, which is really the point. My intent in doing this is to push my own envelope, and... yeah, let's just say that plan is working. Almost too well.

Word count for this chapter is 1,929

Thank you for checking out this ongoing story, I hope you've enjoyed it!

For a chance to WIN SteemBasicIncome, read and comment on my #freewritemadness posts For more information visit the @freewritehouse