Macaroni and cheese. Bland, mushy, and a waste of time. As Lisa stared at the meal before her, she held back urges to ask for dismissal. She found meals to be little more than a period of idleness in which she couldn't work. Whenever she tried sneaking an assignment to the table, Mom or Dad would always insist that she "socialize". For Lisa, that just meant sitting at the same table as another human, responding to occasional questions and comments. It was tedious work.
She picked at a piece. She briefly examined the slimy piece, anticipating the taste. She put it in her mouth and chewed. Chewing took the longest since the taste wasn't strong enough for indulgence. And finally, she unceremoniously swallowed it. How exciting.
Lisa wished she had something else to do, anything to pass the time. Sure there was Mom to talk to, but considering her lack of in-depth knowledge of the natural sciences, sustaining a conversation was difficult. Alas, she only had herself to interact with.
Now that she thought about it, eating this food one piece at a time was also difficult because of the irritation in her stomach. She dreaded that burning sensation searing along her intestinal organs. Of all the days, why was the eating process especially slow?
And that story. As if it hadn't already sucked away what little appetite she had to begin with.
The book must have been printed backwards or accidentally substituted the first part of an earlier draft for the ending. That had to be it. Cognitive regression was a phenemenon exhibited only in severe medical cases, such as amnesia, Alzheimer's, dementia, among others. Memories couldn't just slip away in this fashion. And so far as Lisa's narrow-minded expectations were concerned, rebounding was never a possibility. Once one's golden abilities were gone, that was it. Oblivion became a more ideal solution than living in a hollow shell of former glory.
For most people lacking these ailments, such a sudden deterioration of the cognitive capacities appeared impossible. Of course, Lisa could deduce this reality. But Lisa wasn't like most people.
As she choked down yet another sad piece of macaroni, Lisa's analysis turned inward. She understood all the skills and knowledge incubated in her brain. She knew 2,356 digits of pi, every minute breakthrough in physics since Issac Newton, the precise atomic mass of all 118 elements currently on the periodic table. She could even recite Einstein's Relativity manuscript, line by line, word by word. Collectively, Lisa possessed a powerful biological hardware capable of tackling any scientific conundrum.
How could something so great and impenetrable collapse into rubble?
Lisa looked across at her mother, enjoying a crunchy salad. Why must she chew so loudly? Doesn't Mom know how hard it is to concentrate with all this noise? Frustrated, she exhaled through her nostrils and stuffed her mouth with more food. At least the macaroni's soft texture minimized the potential sound.
There had to be an explanation for this. Lisa recalled the details of the story. Charlie didn't start out as a sophisticated specimen. Quite the contrary, Lisa assessed that he could make Leni appear above average in intelligence just by comparison. What a humorous thought.
"How are you doing, honey?"
She flinched. Now Mom decided to talk as well. Maybe it was necessary to break up this concentration a bit, although the last interruption was pretty recent.
"Fine," Lisa replied.
Her head leaned downward. Maybe if she cleared her mind of this irritation, she could somehow get back on track. No more distractions. Distractions only swayed undisciplined minds.
Charlie acquired his knowledge at a later point. And at least when he lost it at the end, he had a frame of reference to consider his decline. His development was a bell curve, or a "hump".
As far as Lisa could remember, her brilliance was already established. Her function resembled an upward exponential function with a large positive y-intercept. In that context, she and Charlie were nothing alike.
But that doesn't explain her life before she could remember. To Lisa, this notion humiliated her. How did her brain fail to retain the sensory stimuli and thoughts governing the earliest moments of her existence? A defect, indeed. Luckily, though, a particular noise manufacturer remained across the table.
"Mother," Lisa said, lifting her head.
"Yes, sweetie?"
"Could you provide a narrative account of my first three months of life?"
"Sure."
Lisa nodded. It was times like these where she appreciated the rapport she had developed in the household.
"You were born in the afternoon," Mom started, "At first, it was just your Dad and I there, but everyone came in the morning after. All your siblings, Aunt Ruth, Pop Pop, Gran-"
"My apologies, Mother," Lisa said curtly, "I am only interested in my intellectual and cognitive origins."
Rita held her mouth open.
"Sure, honey," she said, propping her lips into a grin, "Well pretty much from the moment you got home, you had your eye on books. I remember the first one you read was about different types of flowers. You were on the floor and you just crawled over to it. At first, I thought you were just playing with it, but then you started reading. And when you finished, you said your first word: More."
Lisa nodded. While it wasn't a term profound such as "hypothesis", she admitted it was a bit sophisticated compared to what other babies' first words were. "Momma" or "dadda" wasn't gonna cut it for this child prodigy.
"That was only the start, of course," Mom continued, "after you finished that book, you grabbed the next one and read it cover to cover. Then you did it for the next book, and the one after that. When it was time to put you down for a nap, you cried when we took the book away," she chuckled lightly, "We couldn't get you to stop unless you got that book back."
"Intriguing," Lisa responded, "So is that all? Aside from an incessant curiosity, are there other factors I should know about? More specifically, do you remember a time in which I was idle or no more active than a typical infant?"
Mom shook her head.
"Not at all. You got going almost right away," she said. And then she smiled, "And as your family, we couldn't be prouder."
"Why do you think that is?"
"What do you mean?"
Lisa hesitated. She hadn't adequately prepared that question before utterance. Taking another bite, she spoke.
"What distinguishes myself from other infants that would place me on an accelerated rate of cognitive development?"
Mom looked on inquisitively.
"The most important thing is that you put in the work," she responded, "sure, you got diagnosed with savant syndrome, but at the end of the day, it was you that strove to become what you wanted. You wanted to study and you put the time and energy into making that happen."
The macaroni tasted little better, nor was it more filling. The two features of meals that may have compensated for their drain on time were absent, leaving her with nothing but an urge to feel full. Lisa gazed down at the bowl, contemplating when to take the next bite.
"Do you think I did anything to deserve these skills?" she asked.
A pause. Lisa must have figured her Mom was stumped on that question. Why wouldn't she? By this point, Lisa realized why she was asking all these philosophical questions. She already knew how it was she could get so brilliant. She was even starting to recognize her differences with Charlie. But those nuggets of information didn't feel like enough. She needed more.
"Of course you do," Mom asserted. At this point, Lisa peered up and saw her mother's strong, direct stare, "Do you think that you don't deserve to be smart?"
Lisa shook her head.
"Negative."
She shrunk in her seat. Her eyes dropped to the macaroni. That was the last question. Lisa couldn't bear to put up with that look anymore. Even someone like her understood that her parents could be inquisitive crusaders, determined to find any insecurity or sadness and excavate it, mine her brain for all feelings of doubt. But Lisa didn't need that extra layer of security right now. There was far too much restraint accompanied with such a lifestyle. Any outstanding emotions must be dealt with on the side. Only then could she move forward. And so, she sat and quietly ate the bland pasta.
Having finished the meal, she felt a weight lifted from her tiny shoulders. Leaving her bowl on the table, Lisa retreated to the stairs. As she walked, the conversation continued.
As she confirmed, Lisa had all the markings of a natural, voluntary ascendency. Not to boast, but even she admitted it was a remarkable feat. Indeed, she found her abilities most extraordinary for someone of her age. It wasn't arrogance, Lisa told herself, but merely self-awareness.
There was nothing wrong with her. In fact, these prior assessments now turned out to be absurd, a silly mental trick. Work on emotional control was required, but not before some serious reading.
She entered her room and pulled out one of her physics textbooks from her desk drawer. Lisa examined the cover. Yes, this was the correct volume. She cracked it open and turned to the chapter on quantum mechanics. As she skimmed over the concepts, graphs, and equations, Lisa attempted to stitch an argument together. A refresher on the basics might recontextualize her work. What was the point of fixing a few derivatives when there were broader misunderstandings of basic concepts?
For the most part, that's all it was. Lisa found little point in rereading every single word, unless she wished to be here all day. All she needed were a handful of key words and numbers, which luckily popped out of the pages. Quantum mechanics were truly elementary.
Three minutes later, she proudly slapped it shut. She nodded confidently and slid the book back in the drawer. Gazing up at the desk before her, Lisa ran through all of the ideas she had compiled. It all made sense to her now, as if she had just witnessed the knowledge for the first time. That sense of wonder filled her veins with adrenaline and her brain with oxytocin.
Getting up to the top was always the hard part. Alas, as a hand-me-down from Pop Pop, it was the only "professional" desk she had. Swinging her arms for momentum, Lisa leaped up with all her might. Her tiny hands grasped the black cushion of the seat. She pulled her body, slogging her body up. Her abdomen dragged across the chair as she hauled her legs on.
Lisa panted with relief. Physical strength had once again defeated gravity and fatigue. Now, shall objective scientific fact triumph over blinding naïveté?
"Hey sis."
Sighing, she turned to the troublemaker herself. Shirt splattered with grass stains and her cleats leaving a trail of mud, Lynn snatched her messy backpack from the floor. Using her other hand, she plopped a certain calculator on the desk.
"Had to use this thing for my math homework. Hard as heck, but that thing did wonders," she said, grinning. Indeed, despite the dirt and sweat on her face, an unreflective joy was plastered on Lynn's face.
"Despite the absence of permission, I cannot remain upset due to lack of interest in such volatile emotions," Lisa said, readjusting her glasses.
Lynn kept looking at her with that frozen grin, not even twitching. It was only seconds later that she blinked. Of course, Lisa figured. Why even bother talking with this one if she knew she wasn't going to understand one word she uttered? She sighed.
"You are forgiven," Lisa added.
At first, she planned to simply retreat to her work. Lynn would grab her backpack and leave her alone. If she bothered to ask for help again, the occasion would come st a later hour, under different circumstances. She just needed to start.
Instead, she heard a gruff groan.
"I completely forgot about this," Lynn said. Lisa turned and noticed the familiar book and worksheet in her sister's hand, "sis, could you do this for me?"
Looks like correction and discovery would have to wait.
"Certainly," Lisa answered, taking the assignment. Luckily, Lynn's face lightened up.
"Thanks! You're the best."
Leaving the backpack on the ground, Lynn headed for the door.
"Wouldn't you like me to inform you of the story's plot, characters, setting, themes, and rhetoric?" Lisa asked.
She stopped and turned to her. Once again, Lynn gave Lisa that blank stare. Her eyes lacked any understanding or a desire to figure it out herself. At least this time, it remained brief.
"Nah," Lynn said, flicking her wrist, "I gotta power nap after that killer game," she paused to give a dramatic yawn.
Lisa sighed.
"In that case, proceed with the activity," she said.
All she got this time was the door clicking shut. Perfect. Now she was left with a difficult dilemma. First she turned to her own beloved work. Sure enough, she went to the dreadful derivative and adjusted it. With the proper solution, she sighed. Lisa proceeded to fix all the other problems, ones that existed on false foundations. She had to grab a new sheet of paper just to clean up the scribbly mess her corrections produced.
At one point, she had to put down the pen and crack her knuckles. She grumbled As she used her nimble left fingers to apply pressure on the beleaguered, ink-stained right palm. Despite knowing that the math was correct, none of the numbers were clean enough to create a correct conclusion. It felt like she was descending down an arcane, numerical rabbit hole with no end.
Lisa sighed. Of course it was too good to be true. If new breakthroughs just grew out of trees, humanity would be at least a millennium ahead of its current trajectory. Even average undergraduate students could finish their term paper with a new nugget of knowledge.
Her hand was still sore and smudged with wasted ink. Normally, she would have scoffed at such a negligible factor and proceeded with what really mattered. But for whatever reason, the look and feeling wouldn't stop bothering her. Right now, she wanted to race to the bathroom and wash it clean. Maybe while she was at it, she could take some ibuprofen for her cramp.
Eventually, she took a deep breath. It was only from this mental buffer that Lisa could take a figurative step back. She realized that this whole time, she had been woefully unproductive. She just sat there, overwhelming herself with trivial concerns while the pen laid flatly on the table. When did that ever happen?
Shocked by her lack of activity, her eyes turned to the now familiar book and paper. Lisa recognized that at some point, she would be required to complete this task. And ordinarily, she would have postponed it in favor of scientific pursuit. But gazing at her current work, all of it seemed daunting. Before, all of it was so clean and organized, as if the laws of the universe had neatly aligned to the subjective ideals that facilitate human comprehension. If that work proved fruitless, then the corrections weren't coming any sooner.
Now turning back to the book, it was at least something she could understand. Eighth grade English was a subject well within her grasp. Indeed, upon slipping the paper out from the book, she quickly noticed how simple and straightforward the questions were.
"So much for setting high standards," Lisa thought as she smugly grinned.
"1) What does Charlie want in the story?
2) How does the spelling, grammar, and word choice change? Why do you think this happens?"
Lisa scoffed as she scribbled down her responses. By then, who cared about washing her hands when there was nothing unclean about them? Writing the answers exhilarated her. All her worries dissipated, a sensation that could easily be described through metaphors.
Her veins filled with the life (that of intellectual achievement) faster than sound, while her heart raced relentlessly. Those bespectacled eyes bore holes into the sheet's printed words, witnessing her penstroke's inevitable domination. Lisa didn't care that the homework was mere child's play, a far cry from the daunting challenge sitting less than a foot away on her desk.
But it felt so therapeutic. The ease in which she answered the questions, lifting samples from the work with the cold calculation of a surgeon. Any raw emotion the prose had elicited from her had been stripped down to impersonal analysis, properly transposed in words. Perhaps ironically, this process excited Lisa to new highs.
At last, it was finished. Lisa gazed at the elaborate responses she had prepared for each question. Her scribblings were often cramped between the page's physical dimensions, ignoring the invisible margins. Of course, Lisa had few doubts that Lynn would blindly turn it in without reading what had been written. But for once, Lisa felt at peace with this reality. Even she needed to dabble in elementary play on occasion.
She felt better. That story she read was now viewed as no more than a cheap work of fiction, substituting harmful substance with prose that simulates genuine human emotion. It was fun while it lasted, but Lisa now knew better than to think her life was changing. Perhaps she could reflect upon the premise as a funny counterfactual.
Assured of herself, Lisa slid the book and paper back into the bag and leaned back in her chair. Everything was fine. The abrupt feelings of doubt had passed.
Lisa appreciated that dinner was of a higher quality than lunch. A fresh hot plate of "Lynn-sagna" hit the spot, culminating in a juicy, spicy, and filling material simmering between the tongue and palate. Any initial doubt or dark clouds over her mood had been lifted. At last, she could enjoy even simple pleasures. And the rest of the table seemed to agree, with long pauses separating small bursts of small talk. Silence and good taste made up a euphoric environment suitable for proper development.
She turned to Lily, who fumbled with the food-splotched plastic bowl on her high chair. Lisa couldn't help but look down on her baby sister with a paternal fondness. Someday, Lily would come to appreciate the benefits of balanced meals and spend more time eating than treating the food like play doh.
And of course, proximity required her to acknowledge the rest of her family. Nine older siblings and two parents towering over her, forming enclosing walls around her. Not that that was a bad thing. While it occasionally rendered her uncomfortable in moments of high stress levels, Lisa found merits to having such a numerous familial support system.
For one, their preoccupation in non-academic areas insured that she was always needed for tutoring. It felt nice knowing that her skills carried utility for others. Second, their empathy extended to bestowing gracious acts and gifts upon her. Although her own monotonous demeanor seldom displayed it outwardly, Lisa was grateful that even after locking herself in her room much of the day, her siblings could still find it in them to show their love. One could certainly deduce other reasons, but these two are the central ones from which all other explanations are derived. Individual cases of affection from others or affirmation of her own abilities stemmed from these concrete roots.
Upon finishing her meal, Lisa reclined in her chair. The hard part of any dinner was waiting for the slower subjects to finish their consumption. Oddly enough, conversation slowly slipped in from the ranks, slowing the process even more.
"You'll never believe what happened during the brunch shift today," Dad said as he cracked a grin. Looks like a story was in development, "This big biker dude crashes in and orders the Lynn Special. So I go into the kitchen and prep up the omelette like usual. But then for whatever reason, I throw on blue cheese instead of American!"
He chuckled to himself, hoping others would follow. Only Leni joined after taking several seconds to process what Dad was doing. Oh Leni, Lisa thought.
"I didn't know what I was thinking," he continued, his voice struggling to remain composed. It didn't help that his mouth was stretched virtually from ear to ear, "I got the Special all the way to the table 'cus I didn't know any better. And seconds later, and the guy's face is like this!"
Dad twisted his face into a sheer sign of disgust. With the puckered lips and winced eyes, Lisa had to admit it was a decent acting job, even if it wasn't a necessary means of conveying the information.
"So what happened after that?" Mom asked eagerly.
"He then shouted out 'And I thought Vegas was full of surprises'!"
Both the parents chuckled. Leni mimicked their laughter several seconds after. But Lisa shared the sentiments of the rest of the table: a mixture of eye rolls and uninterrupted food consumption. Her Dad could be a difficult person to find pleasure in. While he went about his day with a sunny demeanor, his attempts at comedy often produced mixed results. Lisa knew she seldom laughed at jokes, but even she recognized that such jokes often failed to meet average people's standards of comedy.
The minutes slowly proceeded. Lisa anxiously awaited the moment in which Leni finally finished her meal. With the social obligation lifted, Lisa excused herself. She hurriedly paced up the steps to her room, ceremoniously shutting the door once inside.
At last, she could work. Lily's absence from the room was but an additional blessing; not only could she work in pure isolation, but she didn't need to consider an audience of any critical capacity (not even average infants).
Lisa briefly scanned over the work she had already done. Of course, the derivative had long since been resolved. Furthermore, the numbers and variables that filled up the other portions of paper seemed to be consistent with her results. There was no need to double check, Lisa thought. Now that she was back on track, she could continue where she left off.
She stared at the last line, where she had written some general hypothesis. Yes, that statement ought to be proven somehow. All she needed was one equation to get her going.
But the longer she looked at it, the more she realized that nothing came to mind. The engraved ink stood there, demanding that it be followed up rather than subject the researcher to endlessly repeat the same thoughts.
Of course, Lisa needed another look at her work. She glazed over the '2x' and all the subsequent equations. She knew she had done them all correctly, even if their results were riddled with fractions, square roots, and multivariable terms. Her mind easily wrapped itself in the material already presented, but blanked when it came to producing something new.
Lisa groaned. Just minutes ago, she felt like she was on the cusp of making progress (however minimal it was). But now, as her head filled with the familiar figures, endless review was increasingly turning into her lot for this evening. Maybe she was just being impatient again. After all, it was that very character flaw that led her down the original error. Glausman most certainly wouldn't have tolerated making the same mistake twice.
As she sank further into her seat, Lisa ran through everything she knew about quantum mechanics. Dense volumes, timely articles, enriching lectures all fused together into a vast, sophisticated web of echoed facts and lonely arguments. All she needed was one idea to bounce off it. It didn't even have to be correct. So long as she had a starting point, she could run the math and go to the laboratory to conduct experiments.
Her lips tightened and her eyes fell shut. Lisa concentrated all her intellectual prowess into the web, shutting out all non germane thoughts. In the darkness, she sensed what felt like a connection. One was a tidbit from a book she once read at the library and another was from one of Glausman's lectures. Perfect. The ideas seemed like they were made to be wedded. How could no one have seen it before?
But just as quickly, the ideas vanished.
Her eyes snapped open. What happened? Lisa liked to think that it was just never meant to be, that the ideas turned out to not have any relevance to one another and her visceral desire to produce results interfered with their rational connection. But unlike before, Lisa felt her stomach hollowing out. Despite having enjoyed a hearty dinner, the nutrients failed to fulfill her.
She desperately tried to bring the two memories back together, to re-examine them. But while she could remember the sights and sounds, they no longer shone like they did mere seconds ago. They had been relegated to the cold, isolated boundaries in which they had been experienced. Alas, Lisa was no closer now to any certain conclusion than she was before.
Lisa sighed. Turning back to the paper, she realized that all she could do was more math. After all, if math had led her down the path she had already traveled, then maybe mere experimentation could move her forward.
She wrote down "42x57". Multiplication was never a difficult task for little Lisa. It merely consisted of mental computation, with a simple answer coming out seconds later. It was the most rudimentary of pick-me-ups. Lisa knew she could multiply.
But as she stared at the two numbers, they were unable to transform into a fused product. Such was preposterous. Lisa knew she could take virtually any two numbers and her brain would do all the work. Now, even that appeared a Herculean task. What was going on?
In her desperate search for answers, her eyes turned to the calculator sitting on her desk. Her calculator. Lynn just had to use it today, the same day Lisa made a complete since of herself in front of her esteemed colleague. Lisa never needed that tool anyway, dismissing it as a lazy device for any slobbering moron to skip out on doing basic addition. She only had it because her parents bought it, arguing that she was a member of that abominable group of "scholars". At best, it served as a desk ornament.
And now, here she was, staring down that accursed device like it has answers. Answers that she needed. She couldn't get them anywhere else. Her mind was now dependent on technology. Lisa recoiled at that thought, refusing to cave into such convenience.
However, the two numbers disagreed. They refused to come together in her mind, only opting for digital transcription on a screen. That was to be the only way she could get anywhere.
Understanding this, Lisa sighed. There really was no other option. And with that, she did the unthinkable. Her little hand reached out and grabbed the calculator.
Lisa looked at it, gripping the plastic brick so tightly, it threatened to snap in her little hand. This was the only way she could do anything.
