October Challenge

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

The diary was well worn and the handwriting was poor. The theme was memories and the author had paused over this one for some time before continuing his work.

I cannot deny that I was flattered by his approach, it had been some years since a member of the academic community had directly contacted me for any reason other than to reject my latest paper. At the time I was working on predictive systems, looking for some connection between divination and random set sampling. I always seemed to be on the verge of a break-through with one system or another but every time I tried to use it another week’s wages would be wasted on bets that I couldn’t afford.

So there I was, a young man with foolish dreams, desperately trying to combine random set sampling with theories that would be perfected by better men decades later and suddenly this Professor asks to meet and discuss my work. I remember being so nervous on the way to the café where he asked to meet that, clutching tightly to my notes I spent a full 5 minutes searching the little place before realising he had been sat right in front of me the whole time.

He had an extraordinary manner about him I must admit. When I had entered he seemed so easy to overlook but the moment he started speaking I could not have imagined simply passing him by. He was a larger than life man, quick witted and evidently pleased to meet me. He seemed like the charming, warm hearted uncle I never had and I felt quickly at ease with him.

He turned out to be a doctor of Anthropology, but his range of knowledge seemed to far surpass even that expansive subject. Wherever our conversation might turn, he had some anecdote or fact, some hidden piece of history to add, always leaving me to wonder what else he wasn’t telling me. In later months I would joke that he was just making up stories so he could keep the truth secret but whenever I checked his facts they were almost always correct.

He looked over my latest work right there in the café and to my surprise understood exactly what I was trying to do and not only encouraged me, but seemed to approve of my ideas. He took my notes away to read in greater detail and recommended that instead of trying to predict outcomes I should start by looking at the changes that might cause them.

Over the next few months we met regularly around the city. I would arrive with armfuls of notes from the latest project he had directed me to and in turn he would bring me all manner of books and notes to help me; leather bound books on divination written in old English, translations of ancient Arabic texts and papers on fringe mathematic theories which seemed to have no names or references on them. As time went on I grew to genuinely enjoy Professor Scott’s company and he continued to feed my growing obsession with uncovering some marriage between the Occult and scientific.

After a while I began to think I could see connections between things before I had even started the research, ideas would seem to come into my head by some divine inspiration as I began to realise that ideas of a universal theory were heralded by the work of ancient alchemists and the supernatural explorations of the Victorian age. Uncovering the hidden truths that seemed to connect the texts that the Professor had given me seemed to be the most important thing in my life and I was eager to prove my own intellect to be the equal of his.

The author paused in his writing and looked up at the big blackboard in front of his chair, his eyes running over the long and complex equation that sat unsolved on its surface. The clock chimed the hour and the author turned back to the diary in his hands.

The last time I saw Professor Scott he said that he was leaving the country on an ‘expedition’. He asked me to come with him, said that he had so much more to show me, that if I would trust him I would be able to uncover the real truth behind the world. I asked him what the purpose of the expedition was and how he expected me to be able to help him.

Sometimes in life you must be careful what you wish for, because the Professor told me. He told me about legends of blood-drinking savages in the jungles of Boneo who could walk through fire, he told me that a man could become immortal if he observed the right rituals, that legends of demons and werewolves and magic were not pure superstition.

I walked back to my house in a state of shock. Looking around my living room at the piles of tarot cards and graphs, diaries of witches and text books on advanced physics I realised what a fool I had been, listening to the ravings of a mad man. The ‘Professor’ was nothing more than some fortean kook or worse an undiagnosed psychiatric case.

My suspicion was confirmed when a friend at the university explained that the documents the professor had given me were fakes, his credentials clearly copied from a list of deceased Alumni.

I still wonder sometimes whether he really did go to Borneo and got lost in the jungle, or if he’s still wandering around Cambridge somewhere looking for some other fool to coax into his mad games.

The author closed the book and ran a hand through his thinning gray hair as a middle aged woman placed a cup of tea by the table next to him and smiled.

“Milk, two sugars and stirred twelve times clockwise, just as you like it.” She kissed him gently on the lips. “Now then Nicholas, those lecture notes aren’t going to type themselves and I expect you to be joining me in bed before midnight this time. Give the equation a rest.”

The author smiled and gave a well rehearsed “yes dear” to the departing figure. When the footsteps died away he quietly walked over to the blackboard and picked up a piece of chalk with a wry smile.

He was close to a breakthrough, he could practically feel it.