title: Barrier of Thought (3 in a series of yet to be determined number)
Author: Elise
rating: G
warning: angsty!Charlie
notes: Charlie thinks, recollects, and comes up with a plan
feedback: yes please - thank you to ALL of you who respond. I live off of it. I really do.
III.
Charlie sat down against the wall, watching the laundry flip and flop in the dryer. He chewed his bottom lip, knees drawn to his chest. He had been there for - checking his watch - a half hour and had fifteen minutes left. He could hear the radio he left on upstairs in the kitchen and Alan shuffling around. The basement room was dimly lit, matching Charlie's mood. It had been this way for a few days. If there were ever a pet pieve of Charlie's, it was how he would randomly be caught in a funk of reflection. As natural as his analytical mind was, it still came with some curses. Resting his head on his knees, Charlie began to list the things in his life that seemed confusing to him. He remembered briefly a fight that he had started with Larry. The older man had visited him in his office, inquiring about tweaking some calculations. It had spun off into yet another lecture:
---
"Charles, I hate to constantly be bringing this up, but... your own work is suffering." Larry's voice warned.
Charlie turned from his chalkboard, mapping an equation. "Larry, I know what you're going to say."
Larry shook his head, "No, I don't think you do. I... I'm just having a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that you're not taking your genius to it's potential. Not to say that whatever you're working on is void of meaning, but if you remember Neil H. Abel, he died at 26, after solving a 300 year old math problem. The man made himself sick."
Charlie turned back to the board, glaring so that Larry wouldn't see him. "I'm not sick."
"You work on projects that are below your level at such an intense rate... did you even eat today?"
Charlie drooped his head, "I appreciate your concern for my health, Larry, but I'm fine. Everything is fine."
"You don't sound fine. You don't even look fine." Larry pointed out, looking at how the clothes seemed to hang from Charlie's shrinking frame.
Charlie coughed, then cleared his throat. He was fine. "Listen, Larry, it's a myth that there is a mathematician prime. Einstein lived many years."
"Yet came up with his theory of relativity at 26. Hardy wrote once, and listen to this, that no mathematician should ever allow himself to forget that mathematics, more than any other art or science, is a young man's game."
Charlie spun around, "Larry, then why are you so obsessed with physics? Why don't you just... give it up."
Larry inhaled deeply, letting the presumed unintentional insult slide. "Charles, I've seen better men then you or I burn out and collapse underneath their vast intellectuality. I'm not saying you should work harder, I'm just saying you need to prioritize before it is too late. You won't be one of the top scholars your entire life."
Charlie rubbed his face, "Are you done? I don't want to deal with this right now."
"Charles," Larry spoke, "I don't want to nag you but this is important. What is this on the board, right now? More work for Don?"
Charlie slammed his chalk down, "Stop it. I just... Larry... I'm sorry, but I'm sick of this pressure to be the greatest thing since... since sliced bread. I'm telling you right now, if I could rid myself of this, I would. I just want to be left alone. I'm sorry. Could you leave?"
Larry's jaw was slightly open, the only indication that he had even heard the annoyed mathematician. With a blink of his eyes and a sigh, Larry turned and left. Charlie looked on in horror, his throat too dry to call Larry back and apologize.
---
The laundry had ten minutes to go. Charlie then noticed that his red socks were mixed in with the whites. He sighed, echoing the frustration of Larry earlier that day. Charlie rubbed his eyes. He shouldn't have yelled at Larry. The older professor had done nothing but help Charlie through school. The resentment that people held for Charlie was blatantly evident. Larry helped ward off predators, put simply. Larry taught him, listened to him, helped him... He was invaluable. Charlie basked in the sullen cloud of his own humiliation. Larry was right and wrong, his own bastardized shroedinger's cat. Charlie was wrong to yell at Larry, but he wasn't anything special like the physicist schemed. In fact, his "gift" did quite the opposite of Larry's percieved dreams of grandeur, cosmos and humanity.
Charlie couldn't pinpoint a specific reason for his current depression. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. The dim room was therapeutic and the general cacophony of his now ruined whites drying created a cave of refuge. One that would end soon. There were many concrete things that Charlie had been overanalyzing as of late. His brother was working extra long hours, and seemed to dismiss him a lot more. Alan was growing more and more frustrated, not that Charlie blamed his father. He had been using his father's good will for almost thirty years now. There were small hints that Alan wanted his youngest son to grow up, get his own home, and move on with life. Charlie knew he had to move on from his mother's death, from the hardships of his childhood, from the curse. He had to start something, and end something in order to do that. Charlie just didn't know what that something was.
His mothers death was difficult, and he didn't like to think about it too often. Charlie felt his palms getting sweatier as his mind drifted off to her last days. Charlie wasn't sure if he believed in an after life. Further, he didn't think the human body, in all it's dimensions and atomic particles had any space or coding for things like souls. Humans were merely forms of energy to then return to being pure energy after death. A small voice crept into Charlie's mind, whispering to him that life, enjoyment, passion and intelligence were more than just chemical reactions in prefrontal cortex. Was that the soul? Was his mother merely replaced energy, or was she a free soul? Charlie shook his head as if it would rid his head of the thoughts.
Checking on the timer again, Charlie noted that he had five minutes left. He sighed and began to fill his head with his lecture topics. He was needed in LA for the weekend. There was a conference on Complex math systems by the National Applied Mathematics Organization's annual meeting. Charlie was the guest lecturer on the use of the Fourier Transformation in Levy distribution to aid in Levy Flight. Basic Ergodic Theory that Charlie had a hard time understanding the need and significance for such an important meeting. Charlie rubbed his face. Perhaps if he put the timer back ten minutes, every nine minutes, he'd never have to leave and lecture or talk to Larry, Don, Alan or the real world ever again. If anything from these thought processes, Charlie felt embarassed. He remembered being in highschool and thinking these same thoughts. It was a tiresome cyce of 'why me' and 'i wish it weren't so..'
Charlie thought back to what he had told Larry. 'If I could rid myself of this, I would.' Charlie had always wondered what it was like to be normal. Perhaps he could take his mind and try to find a way to get rid of it. It would be ironic to use one's applied math skills to get rid of one's applied math skills. Charlie sighed again, hating the caved in feeling in his chest.
Jumping at the sound of the timer, Charlie realized that his ruined laundry was done. He hadn't even noticed the smell of the dryer sheets filling the small room. With creaking bones, Charlie stood up and fetched the warm clothes, tinted pink. He sighed, his body moving mechanically. He'd have to get rid of it. He had to find some way to make himself normal. The only way to do that was to completely change his life and to unlearn his life. He vaguely remembered a theory in an old psychology course from his teens. It stated that by the age of four, all children learned their basic emotions: fear, anger, shyness, gladness, disgust, guilt and interest. How much of that was skewed by his brain, his upbringing, but most of all by himself?
Charlie grabbed the clothes and brought them upstairs. Alan was waiting with dinner, eyebrow raised, "Enjoy the comfort of the musty basement?"
Charlie nodded, not truly hearing the question. He instead put the laundry basket into his room and came down stairs. He leaned against the kitchen doorframe and observed his father.
Alan looked up from his seat and indicated that Charlie should sit. Charlie cleared his throat, "Dad... do you... do you believe we can change the ugly things in ourselves?"
Surprised by the question, Alan paused before speaking, "Well, Charlie, that depends on what you mean by ugly. I don't see anything ugly about you."
Charlie ignored his father's statement and moved to the question, "I mean to say, do you believe that we have the ability to change things about ourselves that were... previously thought of as permanent or a definite part of our personality?"
"I'm no psychologist, Charlie, but I can tell there's more to this question then you're letting on." Alan indicated that Charlie should sit again.
Charlie took a deep breath and looked at his feet, "I'm not hungry."
"What's wrong, Charlie? This isn't your normal deep in thought line of questioning. What's going on?"
Charlie's breath hitched and he damned himself for it. Charlie turned away to the kitchen, "I need to clear my head, Dad. I'm fine, I promise... but... I thought you should know, I'm going to be moving out."
Alan hadn't had a chance to express his shock, because Charlie had already shut him out, walking to the garage.