Lisa always found comfort at night. Huddled around her desk with her beaming lamp. Even with the darkness surrounding her and her work, the light was her shelter. It made the world smaller, leaving out any distractions. And the relative silence rounded it out. With the exception of Lily's occasional purring, it was impossible for the world to invade Lisa with its noise. All that senseless, raucous, ear-piercing noise couldn't bother her.
Despite the late hour, her mind couldn't have been more active. She scribbled down equations and posed numbers, only for the solutions to be calculated seconds later. One step led to another. Write the expression, find the derivative, set it to zero, solve. Next step.
She rarely paused. Why would she? By now, Lisa was well on her way to a new breakthrough, a theorem on quantum mechanics. The anticipated outcomes from her ongoing labor were already illustrated clear as day. She knew that all those past notions of molecular behavior were completely wrong; one of her first solutions in this paper established that clear as day. Now it was a matter of writing, computing, and analyzing. If Lisa had it her way, she could have gone straight until morning with this process, turning over new stones in her intellectual inquiry.
Unfortunately, science itself had other plans. As she inscribed "QED" at the bottom of the page, her eyes widened. Dropping the pencil, Lisa stared at the final product.
Never in all her research did something jump out to her than this. Humanity had been fooled by its oversights. All these years, the most brilliant scientists believed that molecules were but tiny dots connected together by electrons and appropriate forces. What little hope they had before she came along to pinpoint and rectify all in the space of a few hours. She ran her thumb along the side of the handwritten pages. The packet was thick. Now her mind filled up with new possibilities. What inventions can be made with this knowledge? What existing technology could be refined? But most pressing of all: What this could mean for everything else humanity knows? Does it all need a rework too? Are these misconceptions creating a roadblock in the pursuit of discovery?
To think that Lisa was going to sleep after writing those three letters. She had already struck gold and her mind was only getting started. Finding a blank sheet of paper, she furiously scribbled down her thoughts. Hopefully, Lily wouldn't mind the light.
At last, she was ready. That's what little Lisa told herself in Vanzilla with her Mom driving. She stared at the blurred numbers and letters on the fuzzy pages. All of it was wonderful, she told herself. Soon, the world would be a better place thanks to her.
With her back on the soft, cushy seat, Lisa felt the car's smooth motion. The subtle shifts mixed with the nice material produced a sensory euphoria. This must have been the next step in her inquiry, she thought. First she learned that atoms are strange, and now she became acquainted with another earth-shattering reality. Before she knew it, she became attuned to the soft darkness that can be seen despite the daylight rays.
When she reopened her eyes, the movement sensation was gone. Why did her limbs feel so serene? Why was her sight blurry?
"Are you okay there, sleepy head?" Rita asked.
If she had the energy, Lisa would have sighed. She dreaded that high-pitched voice her mother occasionally used on her. It was so sickingly sweet, yet condescending to the point of insult. Not that that stopped her mother's smile. Lisa wasn't able to stop Rita from undoing her seatbelt and grabbing her. She was pulled towards her mother's chest, struggling to hold onto the important paper.
On other days, Lisa would have protested this lift. She would have clammored her to let her do her own walking. Little Lisa had already come too far to get help on something as basic as walking. But today, her mother's arms resembled that cushy car seat. Any bumps that might have been felt along the journey failed to register. Lisa wished such a journey could last forever.
What was she thinking? Shaking her head, she snapped back to reality. Now wasn't the time doze off. Remembering the precious paper, she pulled it up and tried gripping it with her other hand; there was no way she was losing this intellectual gem.
At last, her mother put her down. Lisa recognized the familiar white walls, fluorescent lights, and tile floors.
"I'll be waiting for you right here when you're done honey," she heard Mom say, "I love you."
"I second that sentiment," Lisa said.
By now, she was fully awake. Her short legs filled with energy, rapidly pacing down the corridor. As she moved, Lisa stared at the increasing room numbers outside he line of doors.
"100, 102, 104, 106..."
As much as she derived pleasure from the facility, Lisa dreaded the long commute getting from the lobby to Professor Glausman's office. For a physicist of his prestige, why did the University award him with such an inconveniently-placed workspace? Did they not know how important his work was?
But Lisa couldn't complain for too long. At long, she arrived at 124, perched at the end of the hall. She peered once more at her handwritten notes. Her eyes scanned the scribbles, making sure every calculation was precise, every step clearly laid out. But a surging, boiling sensation seeped its way through the otherwise cold calculations.
"Are you prepared for this? How will Professor Glausman react?"
Lisa nodded to herself. Of course she was ready. And while the old Professor wasn't one to crack jokes or smile from ear to ear, she knew when her work had impressed him. Something about his aging face crinkling up into a small, yet poignant grin. The white in his grizzled beard brightened up and the rim of his glasses inched ever so slightly up to touch his bushy eyebrows.
"What if you're wrong?"
Her noggin shook back and forth while releasing inaudible tsks. No way, Lisa told herself. She knew she was a brilliant mind with infalliable calculation and analytical skills. Lisa didn't make mistakes and she knew she couldn't.
Finally lifting her head to the door, she assertively knocked on the wood. After several pounds, she took a step back and stared at the door. Lisa gripped the paper. At last, the door swung open, revealing the much taller man in a gray suit.
"Good morning, Lisa," he said, his lips subtly curling upward.
"Salutations, Professor," Lisa said, nodding. She then propped up her work, "I present to you my latest findings on the state of molecular physics, along with all mathematical calculations, derivations, and conclusions."
She gazed up as the towering figure picked her papers and scanned them. Lisa understood as well as anyone the importance of patience and the fact that reading took time, even for academics as respected as Professor Glausman. Still, she found her hands clamped together, the nails clawing into the skin as they tried desperately to contain her anxious anticipation.
He couldn't have lowered the sheets soon enough. Lisa didn't hold it against him for not smiling since that was his usual expression. More time should suffice.
"Lisa, I can tell you put a lot of time and thought into these calculations," he said plainly.
"Well, it wasn't too much time," Lisa replied, readjusting her rims, "it was several simple exercises in multi variable calculus and linear algebra. Hardly any sleep was lost to the work itself."
She had to resist cracking her own grin. After all, with all the simmering anxiety brewing over, Lisa knew she had to maintain a degree of professional (at least until Glausman congratulated her).
"But you made a mathematical error on the second integral."
Her eyes snapped down to the paper.
"Pardon?"
"Look here," he said as he leaned down and presented the findings. The confused Lisa shuffled forward to gaze at her own writing while the wrinkled finger directed to one near the top, "right here, you solve the derivative of this function using the Chain Rule. This is a reasonable step, except that you forgot to multiply it all by the derivative of the interior component. You merely use the Power Rule for the exponent on the outside."
Lisa bit her tongue, desperately trying to keep her jaw from falling off. Her vision bore holes at the glaring error. It was such an easy problem and she resented having taken a concept as simple as the Chain Rule for granted.
"I noticed you made the same mistake for several other functions in your proof. This is coupled with some odd applications of theorems and conclusions one could only derive from yawning leaps in logic and assumptions. Altogether, the final product is sadly uncompelling."
The professor handed her the papers, leaving her only to scrutinize every detail. How could she have been so blind to all this? Her narrow eyes scanned through all the steps, seeking the connections like an astronaut in search of the Moon. Of course, the glaring "derivative" jumped out in all of its erroneous, sloppy character. It was times like these where Lisa wished her perceptions were narrower, capable of forgetting.
Now, she couldn't bear looking the Professor in the eye. Her tiny knees buckled as her usually unimaginative mind filled with vivid fantasies. Whether it was the scathing tirade or the emphatic disownment, Lisa found herself unprepared to deal with the consequences of all her mistakes. At long last, she felt as scared as a typical four year old after a nightmare.
"Don't despair, Lisa. You put forth a lot of great ideas in here," she heard him say. All she could look at, though, were the miscalculated derivatives, "I don't think your arguments are completely wrong. I know you can re-examine this and figure out a new approach to this whole matter. While I'm not usually optimistic at contrarian breakthroughs, I believe you are one of the few minds capable of achieving such a feat."
All Lisa could see now were those pesky problems. The 2x sandwiched in the parentheses ate away her pride. After all these hours pouring through the same problems, building off key conclusions, and in her prime working mentality, how could something so simple and pesky escape her awareness?
"Uh-um...sure," Lisa said, still looking at the mathematical terms. And just when things couldn't get worse, her hands grew sweaty. She didn't see Professor Glausman crack a window shut or turn up the thermostat, but her face heated up like a turkey in the oven. Desperately, her head jerked up to meet her mentor.
"T-thank you and I apologize for my blunder."
"If you want, we can work through this together," he said warmly. His eyes even lightened up, "we could discuss some of your ideas and really pull something together."
Lisa, though, shuddered at the prospect. Why was her mentor giving her that look? His gaze so absolved of the faux pas that would have been considered a disappointment. It should have been seen as such.
In Lisa's view, second chances weren't allowed. While science thrives on trial and error, it doesn't forgive fools shortsighted enough to believe simple conclusions laid just over the horizon. True scholars acknowledged that the existing theorems were devised by impeccable intellectuals over years (sometimes decades) of rigorous experimentation, repetition, inquiry, and calculation before one could even dare call it plausible. Here she was thinking she could flip all that work on its head over the course of six hours deep in the night, hunched on her desk with nothing more than paper and pen.
And now here Glausman was, showing her mercy?
Lisa suddenly found herself shuddering at that familiar face, leaning down just to meet her's. Her entire body threatened to collapse right there, before that downward gaze.
No, she told herself. She was gonna finish this conversation.
"Of course," Lisa said, "I will give it another ex-examination. I'll have something for you soon."
Still, those eyes wouldn't let off their golden, pitiful watch. And his head wouldn't lift itself to a well-earned position. Lisa felt herself paying the price.
"Well that's wonderful. I look forward to listening to your ideas," he said as his lips curled into a grin, "As always, it's a pleasure."
"T-thank you."
She turned her heel and paced out of the office, her body straight as a pencil and legs operating automatically. She jerked left and proceeded down the long corridor. How fitting, Lisa imagined. Now she had time to think about all those wasted hours, her misplaced confidence. That dreaded 2x.
"Sit tight, honey. Lunch will be ready in fifteen minutes," Mom said as they returned home.
"Duly noted."
Lisa retreated to a halt, watching her mother go to the kitchen. At last, the threat was lifted. No hard questions, no need to attempt lying, and no awkward emotional exchanges. With her brain already flooded with scrutiny and regret, the last thing she wanted was to amplify those difficult emotions with words and expressions.
Retreating to her room might allow her to process the outstanding anxiety and doubt. That hanging weight sagged over her mind and threatened to pull the whole thing down. She just needed to be alone. She loved solitude (at least what she could get with a baby in the room).
Maybe her calculator could ease her mind. While Lisa never needed it for computation operations, the routine tapping of buttons was a form of therapy. The rhythm of moving her little fingers might give her the control she needs to engage in more human interaction.
As she opened the door, her ears buzzed from the familiar cooing. Lily poked her hand through her crate's wooden bars, reaching in Lisa's direction. But her attention quickly drew to a more pressing issue. On the foot of her desk laid a black backpack. The zippers were wide open and some of the books, folders, and crumpled papers had slid out on the floor. And looking up, she noticed her beloved scientific calculator had been removed from its usual location.
Lisa sighed. Permission remained an alien concept for Lynn. Between throwing scrawny guys to the ground over a football and snatching entire bins of leftover meatballs from the fridge, Lynn always had a knack of just taking things. No please. No thank you. Lisa ought to consider herself lucky for figuring out where she could retrieve her necessary tool.
Flowers for Algernon, it read. The cover consisted of a typical rat standing in the middle of a sillhouetted brain. Was it supposed to be trapped, Lisa thought. Was the story supposed to expose the underestimated intelligence of the average rat? As Lucy would say, it's most likely about emotional responses. And given how emotions are the products of the brain's neurotransmitters sending off quantities of essential chemicals in response to stimuli, perhaps the cover was an appropriate representation of the volume's contents.
Jammed between the pages was a larger sheet, copiously crumpled around the edges. A quick scan of the sloppily written "Lynn Loud" across its top and an examination of the blank responses to guided reading questions solved the mystery.
Lisa remembered all the times her siblings had asked her for help in their own studies. Despite finding much of the content tedious, she always accepted the busywork either out of habit or to avoid disruptive retribution from those physically larger. Out of all the Louds, though, Lynn had a particular habit of coming to her to slog through the material. In other words, no input at all came from her own mental capacities.
While Lisa found it frustrating to do all the work while being unable to get a single morsel of the curriculum to stick to her sister's brain, it was days like these where she appreciated Lynn's lack of motivation. Her sister was too busy at a soccer game anyway, so there was little chance she'd pick it up once she returned. And besides, a little read could clear her mind.
Snatching the book (and the worksheet), Lisa retreated up to her room. During the day, Lily was usually with whichever parent was home playing or eating whatever they threw at her. As much as she loved her baby sister, she enjoyed the isolation. It was always refreshing having the silence and open space to think, to absorb, and to open up.
"Progris riport 1"
Interesting start. For a school trying to teach its students proper English spelling and grammar, this selection wasn't helpful.
Despite the odd style, the content itself wasn't hard to follow. Charlie (the narrator and protagonist) laid out his background. With his descriptions of how he "couldnt find the picturs" on the Rorschach test, he laid out in plain language his below average intelligence. Figures she would be reading about him right now. Lisa sighed as she read on.
All was not lost for poor Charlie, though. A respected researcher that monitored him developed a new operation. While the details were unfortunately neglected, Charlie was told it would raise his "eye-q of 68", rendering him an "intelek** superman".
Lisa raised her eyebrows. She knew lobotomies were originally thought to improve the brain's functionality and even improve mental imbalances. But case after case demonstrated that severing the brain's connections to the prefrontal cortex often produces the opposite effects. The only evidence of this particular experiment working is evidence from a rat named Algernon. After the operation, the rodent experienced tremendous intellectual expansion. The odds of such an operation working on a subject as large and complex as the human brain was dubious at best. Still, she read on, hoping to discover what would come from this "new" procedure.
In the days following the surgery, Lisa noticed a shift. The "progress reports" showed dramatic improvement. Of course, the operation didn't yield immediate results, but Charlie's progress was staggering. Lisa found herself nodding along. Education was such an important pillar of human development. Being able to learn rapidly and get a sense of the world were her two most significant achievements in life.
She turned to Lily, who watched her from the crib. The baby still had much to learn if she wanted to accomplish anything in life. Just last week, she tried teaching Lily basic calculus. Despite her best efforts, though, Lisa realized the hard way that Lily was more preoccupied with her teddy bear than the chalkboard. Lisa couldn't even get her to learn derivatives.
Lisa paused. Not now. This was supposed to lift her spirits.
Peering down at the book, she continued investing herself in Charlie's development. First, he was able to beat Algernon at a race (that's something). Then he's able to read Robinson Crusoe (interesting next step). Then he becomes aware of the pity everyone else has for him.
She paused again. How could she forget the more painful aspects of learning? Then again, it didn't feel painful when she was reading. Everything from theories on how the universe could end to brushing up on the bloody brawls in the animal kingdom should have frightened even adult minds. But for her, no tears were ever shed from these harsh realities. What could she have done? Ignore them?
Much of the middle saw the continued rise of Charlie. He picked up new interests, opened his eyes to what others thought, improved his spelling, and (apparently, above all) discovered love. Lisa never understood romance the way others could. Was this story trying to make her feel like there's a realm in which she lacks even an inkling of knowledge. Even in fields she finds unusual or useless, she had at least one or two facts to point to. But maybe she was underestimating herself. It wouldn't have been hard to think lowly of herself in a moment like this.
Who cared about romance anyway? Lisa remained fascinated by Charlie's ability to read as quickly as she could: a brief glance was all the time either of them needed to cover a page full of text. Reading was a process so natural and automatic, it hardly felt like work at all. Most days, the words flowed into her brain like air into her nostrils. But this particular piece of literature felt different. What was it with a story like this that made Lisa sense each word, forcing her to internalize it before moving onto the next? Was the text really so dense that she had to read it one word at a time?
Charlie seemed to feel the same way too (and then some). Writing was slow for him, as it is for her. Lisa sighed, wishing there were times where her thoughts could just be magically transcribed on the page. Her eyes became glued to the page. Now she had to read on. Who cared about lunch?
"Contrary to my earlier impressions of him, I realize that Dr. Nemur is not at all a genius. He has a very good mind, but it struggles under the spectre of self-doubt. He wants people to take him for a genius. Therefore, it is important for him to feel that his work is accepted by the world."
As she nodded her head, Lisa recalled her previous interactions with Dr. Glausman and other colleagues. Self-doubt threatened their minds as much as any other. Lisa herself had inklings of it surface from time to time (and even now). It was an inevitable bondage, inseparable from the brain's intellectual capacity. In her mind, it was always meant to be overcome in some way.
For her, that solution came from doing more research, to develop an intellect powerful enough to overcome even the most profound of emotions. In simpler minds, such a solution meant reassurance, that no matter how loud the naysaying voice got, it was simply lying. They, according to these people, were better than they thought. All they needed was to give themselves a pick-me-up and the world would become their's for the taking, regardless of where their actual abilities lied.
Lisa seldom bought into such flimsy excusemaking. Some people were just smarter, faster, and stronger than others and those inferior to her just had to live with it. A harsh truth, indeed, but honest in her estimation. Still, a part of her emotional capacity related to such sentiments. Even when working through her troubles, Lisa likes to believe that she had it in her to do anything. She was the golden genius that defied all the odds, broke barriers, and persevered to become something extraordinary. Lisa knew who she was, so a reassurance must have been warranted when she pulled it up. If she broke one expectation, it was inevitable she would do it again.
When Charlie declared the brilliant man not a genius, that couldn't have been a permanent label. Right? That man was a genius. He had been to school, done his work, and his proven himself just like she. So if he wasn't a genius in the eyes of a comparable fellow, what did that say to her?
Despite her apathy to emotional reasoning, Lisa dared to say no. She refused to accept the statement. Dr. Nemur was a genius. So was she. Because if they weren't, then what were they left with?
Charlie had truly emerged as something similar to herself. He had broken all those barriers, leaped all those obstacles, and had become something extraordinary. He shouldn't have come from a level so rudimentary and ascended to one above the clouds. Lisa cringed forward as this fact flashed on the pages.
But before long, Algernon died. It wasn't a pleasant demise. Rather, it was preceded by weeks of rabid regression; he bit Charlie's finger and rendered himself idle. As Charlie struggled to cope with the lost of his companion, he recorded his statistical findings on paper. His curious mind strove to make discoveries of its own, using his and Algernon's personal experiences as the subject.
"Artificially increased intelligence deteriorated at a rate directly proportional to the quantity of the increase."
Her eyes widened.
"As long as I am able to write, I will continue to record my thoughts in these progress reports. It is one of my few pleasures. However, by all indications, my own mental deterioration will be very rapid."
Lisa gazed at the ceiling. She shuddered as she looked at the blank white space, devoid of any substance or color. Her lips tightened. Before long, she found herself looking down at Lily. By this point, the baby had given up her fight to win Lisa's attention and had plopped down on the little mattress, hoping to slip into a refreshing midday nap. Taking a cold inhale, Lisa pressed on.
As she feared, it was all downhill for Charlie. Concepts entered his ears while his brain had transformed into an incinerator, burning away at both the new information and the data already incubated inside. The fine skills, impeccable memory, astonishing self awareness. All of it vanished in the matter of weeks.
And at last, Lisa tensely turned to the last page. By then, the task was difficult given her shaky hand. Why was she letting her silly emotions get the better of her anyway? She was better than this. Or so she thought. This affirmation, though, didn't keep her eyes steady as she read that cursed final "progris riport".
"If I try reel hard maybe Ill be a littel bit smarter then I was before the operashun. I dont know why Im dumb agen or what I did wrong maybe its becaus I dint try hard enuff. But if I try and practis very hard maybe Ill get a littl smarter and know what all the words are."
Squeezing her eyes shut, she closed the book and plopped it on the ground.
Was that real? Did Charlie really exist? And why did Lynn have to lay all this on her? If only her big sister didn't need her stupid calculator. If only she cared enough to do this cursed homework by herself. Her lungs felt like they were made of steel. Lisa's hands gripped the fibers on the carpet. Why? Why did she read that?
"Lisa, honey! It's time to eat!"
