Goddard, Come Home

by Gary D. Snyder

Part 4:

Class the next day seemed to last forever to Jimmy. He looked as though he had been recently exhumed and felt it, as cleaning up the lab, disposing of the spilt genetic material, preparing a new batch of recombinant DNA, and setting up the incubator had taken him almost until it was time to get up for school. Much of it he had been forced to do alone as most of the technical details were beyond Carl and Sheen and also because they had be called home for dinner by their parents. Jimmy couldn't wait for school to end as much because he badly needed sleep as because he wanted to check on the status of his latest project. These two driving desires had kept him from even noticing that Goddard had not been there when he had finally gone to bed the previous night nor when he got up that morning. After what seemed an eternity in Miss Fowl's class the lunch bell finally rang and Jimmy stumbled to the cafeteria with Carl and Sheen, yawning mightily as the three found empty seats to occupy.

"Late night in the lab, huh, Jimmy?" commented Carl.

Jimmy nodded, still yawning.

"I'm sorry I couldn't come back to help," Carl went on, fidgeting nervously. "After dinner my parents wanted to play 'Llamas Day Out' and I couldn't get out of it."

Sheen gave Carl a skeptical look. "You're kidding."

It was perhaps a credit to Carl's honesty that any challenge to one of his suspect statements invariably caused him to cave in. "All right, all right! I admit it! I wanted to play and promised I'd wash the dishes if they'd play with me!" He covered his face with his hands and sobbed. "It took me until bedtime to finish them. Are you happy now?" he blubbered.

Sheen considered it. "Moderately." He glanced over at Jimmy. "I guess Jimmy is, too. See? He's agreeing with me."

Carl wiped his eyes and looked up. "He's not agreeing with you. He's falling asleep again. Hey, Jimmy! Jimmy! Wake up!"

Jimmy stirred fitfully, muttering in protest. "Just a few more minutes, Mom. I'll factor those conjugate primes in just a little while, I promise."

"Wow," said Carl, looking a little worried. "He's really out of it."

Sheen nodded. "I'll say. He's never missed a chance to factor conjugate primes before."

At this point Cindy and Libby passed by and noticed Jimmy with his head lying on the lunch table. Cindy couldn't resist getting a shot in. "That big head of yours finally get too heavy to carry around, Neutron?" she called. When there was no answer she looked quizzically at Carl and Sheen. "What's going on?"

"Jimmy didn't get much sleep last night. He was busy in the lab with his latest project," Sheen replied.

"Yeah, he's a real party animal," Libby commented dryly, causing Cindy to snicker.

"It's no joke," said Carl. "He's worked late in his lab before but he's never been like this. Maybe he's sick."

"Relax," said Cindy. "There's nothing wrong with him that a little humility and personality wouldn't cure." She looked down at Jimmy's slightly twitching form thoughtfully and frowned slightly. "I wonder what he's dreaming about?"

In his half-asleep state Jimmy heard each word the others were saying but they seemed remote and devoid of coherent meaning, like random words on a spelling test. He could recognize and perfectly define each word as he heard them but none of the sentences they formed seemed to say anything.

"Maybe he's dreaming about his first kiss," Libby joked.

Maybe. Expressing a condition devoid of certainty. He's. Contraction of he and is. Dreaming. An unconscious state characterized by visual and auditory perceptions, usually accompanied by rapid eye movements…

"Eww," said Sheen. "Wouldn't that be more like a nightmare?"

"More like a fantasy, you mean. The only place you'd find 'neutron' and 'kissing' together is in the dictionary," scoffed Cindy.

"If you say so, girl," replied Libby.

If. Expressing conditionality. You. Second person address form. Say. To express verbally…

"Here we go again," Sheen sighed, settling back in his chair.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" asked Cindy, placing her fists on her hips and looking from Libby to Sheen and back again.

"Oh, come on, Cindy," said Libby tiredly. "Do we have to go into this again about you and Jimmy?"

"Go into what again?" Cindy demanded loudly, although her cheeks flushed slightly. At the sound Jimmy muttered and stirred uneasily.

"Uh, guys?" said Carl. "I think maybe our noise is bothering Jimmy. Maybe we should get out of here and leave him alone."

Get. To obtain or attain. Out. Preposition expressing location external to a positional reference. Of. Preposition of relation. Here. Proximate to currently referenced location. Get…out…of…here… For the first time the words began to congeal into meaningful patterns.

"My pleasure," Cindy sniffed. "With six billion people in the world there I think there's a pretty good chance there's better company somewhere."

Leave…him…alone…

Jimmy's jerky movements became more agitated but only Carl seemed to notice. "Hey, guys?" he ventured.

"Oh right, Cindy. Can't face it, erase it," Libby responded.

Get out of here.

"Meaning what, Folfax?" snapped Cindy.

Leave me alone.

"I think you know, Vortex," retorted Libby.

Get out of here. Leave me alone! Jimmy's breath was coming in short gasps now and his brow shone with sweat. "No," he croaked hoarsely.

"I know you think you know, but I know what you think you know you only think I know I think you know!"

"Good one, Cindy!" said Sheen, wrinkling his brow. "I think."

"Hey guys!" Carl voice was now almost frantic and the others forgot Cindy and Libby's growing argument to watch Jimmy, whose thrashing was becoming almost violent. Thoroughly alarmed, Carl and Sheen threw their arms around Jimmy to immobilize him while Cindy and Libby pulled Jimmy's head up and back from the hard surface of the table. Jimmy's face was deathly pale and the skin felt clammy to their touch. Slowly his eyes opened and Cindy recoiled in shock. Jimmy's eyes, normally blue, were now red and heavily bloodshot. With a great effort he struggled to speak, forcing Cindy to strain to hear his faint voice.

"Goddard," was all she heard.

End of Part 4.