THE SEAL AND THE LAMB
John woke up bathing in sweat. He remembered his dream, the same dream every night for the last month. He stood on a mountain top and looked down at the world burning, fires engulfed the earth, nobody was safe. Next to him stood a child, bare feet, holding a lamb in his arms. He was dirty, his hair was heavy and rugged and his mouth was so dry his lips were cracked. He had a pox-marked face, his eyes were without pupils. Then a bright light emerged over the horizon. So bright it hurt John's eyes, from it he heard whispers, whispers he recognized. Then sounds like thunder, they spread around him. They became louder and louder until John could do nothing more but scream. Then he woke up.
He looked at the time, 3 AM. Well, that was better than yesterday. He looked at the empty pillow next to him. His wife had died 3 years ago, still he looked next to him every time he woke up. Sorrow filled his heart. He thought about the dream again. He couldn't find a connection, not now, so sudden. It must be his work. They were so close now, all that time in the lab, the workshop, in books. He got out of bed, put on his socks, and made breakfast.
He lived in a modest apartment in Hong Kong. He could afford to live bigger but he was only here to sleep, occasionally. Ever since he was alone he cared less about the place he lived. He lived for work and God. Today was sunday, time to go to church.
John was a devout Catholic. He lived according to the teachings of the bible. It dictated what he ate, what he read, what he watched on TV, how he lived, how he helped others all day, every day. His devotion to God was almost as important as his work. So important was his work that he almost couldn't afford to go to church, but every time he was reminded of his duty towards God.
The church was crucial in that, as it taught him humbleness amongst the poor and disabled that were helped with all the small things they got from the charity work of the church. It taught him diligence from all the hard-working volunteers around him and them working tirelessly to help, nothing but help.
When working he thought about it a lot, his work could help these people as well, and the church and everybody.
After breakfast he put on his shoes and coat and went out, he decided to go by bike today and not use his hydrogen-powered car. It was a nice day after all. The church was only 30 blocks away anyway, but sometimes his car could be used to transport some supplies or people over to other churches when they asked him. He rode his bike carefully in the streets of Hong Kong and abide by the rules as best as he could, his wife had died being hit by a drunk driver after all so he was always serious about traffic safety.
Arriving at the church he saw the first sermon had already started so he jumped off his bike, he never locked it, and sprinted onto the stairs but stopped rushing as he got to the doors. Calmly he walked through the already open door, he heard songs echoing through the entrance hall of the church which had typical goth architecture with its high lead-in-glass windows, arched doors, and rosary motifs.
Before entering the main hall he dipped a finger in the stoup and made the sign of the cross, touching his forehead to let a big drip of water fall down his nose.
"In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti." He whispered, listening with all his heart. He took his cross from under his shirt and kissed it, then he entered the main hall. He walked forwards along the brown benches which were nearly half full and took a seat at the front. The priest saw him, his name was Carlos, originally from Brazil. John knew him all his life. He had told him about his dream, Father Carlos naturally connected it all to God. John was a faithful man, but also a rationalist. He didn't believe everything was directly related to God, to the scriptures at least. God was everywhere, all-knowing. It was true that God sometimes had a message for you, but he would bestow that on you through your heart, not dreams. John had witnessed many things to prove his faith, but never that dreams were messages from God. It just didn't fit. He came here many times to have discussions with Father Carlos, he loved them, both of them did. Mostly about this but also about John's work, the world affairs, and chitchat about their favorite food.
"Good morning John." Father Carlos said as he approached him and shook his hand.
"Good morning Father. Quiet in church today?" John asked. The priest looked behind him as small amounts of people calmly strolled inside.
"It will pick up, it's still early. Will you be attending communion today?" Father Carlos asked, raising his eyebrows.
"I will most definitely. I do apologize I couldn't attend last time, my work..." John started to explain but Father Carlos grabbed his arm and shook his head.
"There is no need to apologize to me, of course. I'm sure God can forgive you for missing 1 communion after attending all of them for the past 10 years." He said. John let his shoulders sag. He didn't feel good about it regardless. He told Father Carlos he had that same dream again. They went into his office, Father Carlos shut the door behind them and pulled down the blinds on the window of the door.
The office was huge, filled with books and small paintings of saints and holy events. He had no statues beside the hanging cross of Christ behind his chair, John always wondered why he didn't own statues in his office. John sat down on the comfortable chair in front of the huge desk. Father Carlos sat behind it, picked up some papers, and tossed them in a drawer of the desk. He folded his hands and put his elbows on the table as John explained the dream more detailed, listening intently, thoughtfully. When he was finished Father Carlos sighed, tapping his index fingers against his lips.
"You told me the dream before, exactly the same. Do you remember anything different?" Father Carlos asked, pointing his fingers at John. John thought about this for a moment, he didn't like recollecting the dream, it gave him shivers.
"Mostly it's the feeling I get during the dream. Details are blurred, but the feeling is very vivid." John said.
"What feeling is that?" Father Carlos asked.
"Well, fear is what comes to mind first. But no that I think about it, it's more like being overpowered. Feeling, overcome." He said. Father Carlos nodded.
"Can be terrifying, realizing you are unable to control your emotions, to be overwhelmed. Does this persist throughout the dream?" He asked. John simply nodded.
"Yes, the dream starts with the child and I immediately feel like I have to let my emotions go, as they are going all over the place. Then I see the world burning and I can do nothing but weep." He says. Father Carlos nodded.
"I see. Dreams repeating themselves isn't a rare thing John. Many people have the same dream over and over again, mostly related with stress." He said.
"You think this has to do with my work? With the machine? I suppose that's possible, but a dream is supposed to give you hints, to show the nature of the problem. I've always been able to find help through dreams about how I feel about something. But this, this isn't telling me anything. It is so wild, so overwhelming." John said.
"Isn't your work overwhelming?" Father Carlos asked bluntly. John sighed and rubbed his hands over his face.
"At times, but the work is nearly finished. Why now? Why would it bother me now? Now that we are so close?" He asked.
"Perhaps you are worried about the result." Father Carlos continued.
"Father, with all due respect, you don't know what it means, what we have created. The calculations, the time we put in it, it is nearly working. Doesn't matter, doesn't matter now what it implies. We can't stop, we are obliged to continue. We are obliged by humanity, by God himself." he said, then stopped. He looked at Father Carlos, whose eyes had gone smaller for a second.
"The machine. We spoke about it before of course. Tell me about it again, describe it for me." Father Carlos asked.
John could do that of course, he had described it before. He had to avoid telling certain details he agreed with his team, but he wasn't worried Father Carlos was some kind of industrial spy trying to steal his work. The workings of the machine he couldn't explain though, you had to be a quantum physicist to understand it, and even then. John sighed and leaned back.
"It is, incredible, Father." He started. "It's everything I wished for, everything my research and work all these years have been coming to. And it works. I know it works." He said. Father Carlos gave a small smile.
"You told me, it is like a time machine, no?" He asked, trying to remember their last conversation about it. John laughed a little, shook his.
"It's not a time machine Father, there is no such thing." He said, he leaned forward again, looked around. So many books, Father Carlos said he had read them all. A surprisingly lot of science books were among them. He cracked his knuckles.
"Look Father, time travel is not something, fantastical. It's not, paradoxical. Even right now, we are moving in time yes? We are moving forwards in time, always. Yes, so time travel in itself is not impossible, it's necessary even. But, the idea to build a machine that can take you to certain points in time like so many science fiction, is preposterous. In reality, it can't be done. You cannot go back in time." He said, Father Carlos frowned.
"But you said in our last conversation that this machine will take you to the past." He said.
"Yes, I did. This can be interpreted in many ways. Who are you when you do go back? What are you? You can't be actually present, not in the real sense. It's impossible, trust me, I have done the calculations with dozens of the smartest minds on the planet. The grandfather paradox is very real indeed. But we believe it will, project, back in time. Something, an essence. But we can't point it anywhere, we can't tell it to go to a certain point in time, that's impossible. What year? What month? What day? That is simple, but then comes what hour, what minute, what second, what nano-seconde, etc. We can't tell it where it exactly will need to go. We can simply never pinpoint an exact location in time since time is, unlocatable. No, the machine will decide. It will have to decide..." John sighed again. "Between all of time, where to take us, or it, or me actually. It will pick a time between the beginning of time and the end." He said. Father Carlos shook his head.
"No, no. You said to me that time is infinite, that it has no beginning and no end." He said. John nodded.
"Exactly," He simply said, looking at Father Carlos for a reaction. Father Carlos sighed though and didn't say anything for a while. So John continued.
"The machine does not pick in the rational sense of the word. In our three-dimensional world, you cannot pick a point, a moment, in something that is infinite. There is nothing to choose from. Imagine an infinite amount of parallel universes. This would imply there are an infinite number of parallel universes that are exactly the same as this one. So where are the different ones, how do you find them? The machine doesn't pick. It shoots in order not to miss, it answers without there being a question. It will produce results without solving the problem. It is directed and wired right now in this way that it will do what we want it to do. Exactly that, give a result. Its chaos theory at its finest." John said. Father Carlos looked at him calmly.
"Look, John. I appreciate what you are doing, you know I do. But this, it sounds like you are moving ahead of yourself. You have to take a step back and look at this more clearly I feel." He said. John frowned. He hadn't thought about that, he had been fully on top of the task. Maybe Father Carlos was right, maybe he should look at the big picture, take a breather. The machine is working, they can activate it any time they want. The idea was next week when they had the power supply timetable ready and plans finalized about what to bring and record.
He was going, of course, he would enter the machine himself. They had test animals ready though, maybe they should actually use them.
"We have test animals..." John muttered. Father Carlos crossed his arms.
"Really? You never told me about them." he said. John waved with his hand.
"Oh, I was never planning to use them. When the machine is activated, which will be in a couple of days, I will go in. I won't have a monkey to be the first to go in." He said.
"A monkey you say?" Father Carlos asked with a raised eyebrow, a bit amused.
"Well, an ape to be exact. We also have an eagle, an ox, and a lion. Don't ask me why, that was my team's choice. They wanted certain types of animals to test, 4 creatures so different, well one of them as close to human as possible. I get that one."
"What do you feed the lion? Local butcher shop got some meat ready?" Father Carlos asked comically.
"The ox if I can help it, that animal stinks like no other. We have no proper habitats for them, it's cruel really. Well, the eagle and chimpanzee are doing okay, but the other 2 need space, which we don't have." He said, laughing. Father Carlos laughed too, a great sound.
"That's really funny. If it were up to me I would let the animals go first. Might be a good idea to test it first." Father Carlos said.
"What is there to test? The machine works, there is nothing to calibrate, nothing to aim for, can't go wrong actually. And this is not a Delorean, can't give the ox a stopwatch and compare the time. Doesn't work like that. My team doesn't seem to get that either, they just delay. I know, I employed them and bless them and all that, but it sometimes seems like they have a different agenda from mine." John said.
"How so?" Father Carlos asked. John shifted his weight in the chair, mass was going to start soon, they needed to wrap this up.
"Well, like me they are deeply religious. Scientists, like me too. But, the machine gives them a different, vibe. They have a feeling something actually can go wrong, but when I ask them what they don't answer." He said.
"So, it's not going to be one of them entering the machine then." Father Carlos stated. John laughed.
"No, not one of them. Yes..." John trailed off again, muttering. But he recuperated. "Well you see, I have been working so long with them, Nick, Mark, Benedict. I know their, convictions, they talk a lot about the possibilities connected with this project. God comes into the conversation, more often than I like. Not that I don't want to talk about God and the Bible, but they seem to connect the machine and project too much with the works of God, like we are doing God's work. Feels a little bit like..." John hesitated.
"Blasphemy?" Father Carlos suggested. John's eyes went wide, then he shook his hands around.
"No, no, no. God, I love them to death you know. They are devout Christians, nothing wrong with their convictions. No, they talk like God isn't guiding us, but we are, capturing him, into the machine. Does that make any sense?" He asked. Father Carlos raised his eyebrows.
"Well." He started. "Can't really say that I do. If they feel they are somehow manipulating God, or some form of conjuring or seance is happening they should stop. Magic is against God according to the oldest texts of the Bible, no messing with powers you can't understand. But I'm sure you think differently of this." He finally said.
"No, I don't believe we are conjuring or using sorcery. This is all within the limits of the Bible. The machine, is, overwhelming at times. So much power. Electrical power though. I mean." John gave a smile. "It's easy to be distracted by what we are trying to do and then look at the machine and see it as something more. No, I'm not worried about what God thinks of it." John said. Father Carlos nodded.
"Neither do I. John. There is one more thing that comes to mind. Something that might have to do with your, obsession." Father Carlos started. John knew what he was going to say. He nodded slightly.
"My wife's death." He said, more like a whisper. Father Carlos just looked sad. John put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Sure, it was a big influence on his devotion to the work. It helped distract him from the pain of loss. But he didn't feel like it influenced him in such a way as other things might, which was quite frightening. His wife, Mary, he loved her so. But, John was also a realist. She died in a car accident, nothing criminal, nothing conspiratorial. Just, that night he drove to the hospital, to identify her body. That's all that remained inside him now. Anything else, and he hurts so bad his mind wanders to dark places. God and work keep him going.
"I don't talk much about my wife. It hurts too much." He said. Father Carlos nodded.
"I understand. You don't have to. It was just a thing to consider. I'm not here to tell you how to live your life, John. Just, be careful when treading on thin soil. That's what I want to take with you, on your journey. Mass is about to start, will you join me?" he asked. John rubbed his face and stood up. He nodded with a small smile as Father Carlos came out from behind his desk. John put an arm around his friend's shoulders as they exited the room.