Christian Clarity Review

Dmitri

At Ufa State Technical University, being blind had not been among the available choices presented to him.

Ever.

There had been physics and mathmatics, the security of a technical job in an advanced world and the love that security could buy from a girl. He had played it conservative and kept his money.

Strange the things that come baldly forced from outside the realm of choice. The forced things turn truth into lies and lies into truth.

He hears the thought quickly, in a rush even as it is brushed aside by others. There has been success and failure in something he never understands, but his mother and his teachers had assured him he will at the proper time.

The time is now.

His use of choice is the determining factor. It proves he is unique and therefore invaluable. He has different choices now; different availabilities.

He has handed his best to others and others to him.

But to no avail.

If everything is truth, why know it? Why be told about it? If everything is scripted, then words are just toys to make the time pass and the soul is on automatic. But if everything is not scripted then..

Dmitri brightened: ..then there is hope. If there are lies here and there, then there is escape from them. Invent the language of hope.

Dmitri sees Henry laughing in a spark of light. Invent the language of hope! Not the language of repetition, of Dmitri, son of another Dmitri, but you as being spoken into existence with no lies possible: unique. Civilization will perish without the language of hope.

It doesn’t work (never has), this device called civilization he is supposed to master. It is a Frankenstein of various parts pulling at a whole job and walking inside …something else.

Civilization is not broken in that it is made to do what it does and performs its function. It moves as something joins the various parts together and makes it run. But it isn’t what he is expected to do.

Dmitri sits in the chair and stares with the expression of rest only the long mental and emotional workout of being in the most rigid of straightjackets in an absolute prison can bring; a clarity that has gone through hopeless as seeing beyond the lies into at least a new set of words. Knowing it is a small glimmer of freedom.

His conversation comes automatically. He understands that all the ends and outs of it have already been written somewhere and he will only walk though them now as if surprised and unpracticed, but that there is hope at the end of the automatic.

Nurse: Why the long face?

Dmitri: I have never been blind before.

Nurse: It’s only temporary.Lack of visual stimulous can have some strange psychological effects. I’ve set you up with someone to talk to if you need it.

Dmitri nods.

Nurse: Do you have anyone you can stay with?

Dmitri: I have friend coming to get me.

Nurse: That’s good. I’ve put your meds in a bag ..

She presses a plastic hospital bag into this hand.

Nurse: ..and there is a foldup cane in it. Remember: the effects should only last a month or two at most. You’ll be back in form in no time at all.

Dmitri: A month. Or Two.

Nurse: Yes. Uh, can your friend sign for you when they get here? Or do you prefer to write it sight unseen?

Dmitri: Yes.

He hears her writing something; sees a clipbard from memory.

Nurse: Okay then. I’ll leave you alone for a while. The button is next to your hand. So..

Dmitri: Yes. Thank you.

DNA. A living language impossible to lie in. It must have been terrible for Henry. He hadn’t thought of it until he had blurted out what he had seen. But it is so ..urgent!

But of course, that is Henry later, not Henry now. Henry now won’t know what to say or do. Dmitri hadn’t thought of it that way. Now it is too late to take back. Henry can’t do it until he can do it. Pushing him won’t help. It cannot be spoken until it is made.

He understands what it must be like to be Henry.

“So this horse goes into a bar.” Henry’s voice drifts in from the hall.

Dmitri: And bar keeper says “Why the long face”?

Henry smiles: You ready to go?

Dmitri: I think it is not such bad idea to ride a cow every now and then.

Henry: Take it slow for a while. I thought I’d take you home with me. We’ve got the room, a housekeeper than comes in during the day. Monita, you’ll like her. She’s ..spirited.

Dmitri: Will it be quiet?

Henry pushes the wheelchair toward the elevator: If you don’t mess with her; maybe more than you want. But you can ride to work with me if you like, keep your hand in what’s going on until the sight comes back.

Dmitri: They want you to sign for me.

Henry stops and heads toward the desk: All your parts in place? Nothing missing?

Dmitri: I suppose. What do I know?

The nurse tells Henry the routine and gives him the prescriptions; appointment slips. He signs.

——

In the car, the sounds of traffic go by. Dmitri makes it a point not to turn his head suddenly at the louder noises; not to do the archtypical mannerisms of the blind.

Dmitri: I’m sorry I ..said those things.

Henry says nothing for a time, then tells him what he has heard from Tom.

It isn’t true. Creating Speech has not already been made. Invent it. Don’t let them deceive you.

Say it.

————————————————

Underground:

Hayt slams the pick to the rock face. Small chunks of the material fall off, only to be replaced by more in the spot from which they were torn

As he rests from the effort, the rock slowly grows over the hole; implacably solid with a dull shine. He wipes the sweat off of his face; takes in large gulps of air. “That’s what happened to them.”

Albrite slides down the tunnel wall onto the floor. “It just keeps coming back. They couldn’t get out.” He runs his fingers through his hair. “This isn’t supposed to happen. This isn’t right.”

Mike: You knew about this?

Albrite: I was just supposed to come and..

Gregg: (to Albrite) You knew about this?!

Albrite: No. I’m just saying ..of course not. I didn’t expect this. How could I know about it?

Izzy: Nothing we can do about it now. They went into the tunnels. For whatever reason, something wants us to go that way as well.

Gregg: Something? You mean that thing.

Mary: We don’t know that they are dead. It could be ..a good thing. Maybe they—and we, just need a little push in the right direction.

Gregg: (as he drops the sledge hammer to the floor): I don’t trust it. And I thought you didn’t like it.

Mary: It doesn’t make any difference how I feel, does it? First it wants us to learn from it, as if its got something to teach us based on how we feel; then it forces us no matter what we feel.

Albrite: Like God.

Jimmy leans on the wall, watching them: “..oon inder seal.” What does that mean?”

Albrite doesn’t look up: It’s “und in der Seele”. It means
“and in the soul…”

———————

Jack watches as they walk toward the opening. Mike is the last inside. As they step in the rock seals them in and the video goes blank.

———————

Underground
In the Megalith:

The sound of their steps is swallowed quickly. They walk into the darkness, lit only by the lights in their suits.

No one says a word.

Thirty minutes passes. Then an hour.

Izzy: Pace count?

Hayt: Twenty seven thirty four. O two at normal levels. This thing is laid out on a north south axis. Magnetic.

Mike: It was set up to float in the surrounding rock as it waited. The magnetic poles shift over time.

Jimmy: Waited for what?

Gregg: For us. For lucky us.

Hayt: That means something.

Gregg: What?

Hayt: I don’t know.

Izzy: What do we know about our speech? What is it about our speech that it knows?

Mary: The words are sounds.

Albrite: Compression waves.

Jimmy: It’s not us.

Gregg: We are more than just what we can say.

Albrite: It could be that thing is just arbitrarily doing stuff and we’re associating intelligence with it that isn’t really there. The way we unconsciously try to force meaning onto every sound we hear—like there is really no such thing as gibberish; no such thing as lack of intelligence.

Mike: After you’ve seen what it has done? It’s a little late to be playing the objective doubter. We need to know what it knows about our speech and what it is doing with it.

Hayt: You mean lack of meaning? It’s a tool.

Albrite: How do you know?

Hayt: I’m talking about our speech. It’s a tool.

They walk in silence for a time.

Mike: It is less than us. Our speech is less than us.

Mary: The way a component is less than the whole.

Hayt: We use it to let other’s who understand our speech know what is in our minds and hearts.

Izzy: That’s the textbook answer.

Mike: It is less powerful than us. It’s powerless enough to be useful.

Albrite: And powerful enough to get the job done.

Gregg: It was already here when we were born. Its older than us.

Hayt: We learn more of it over time.

Izzy: But what is the job that’s being done? What are we doing right now?

Mary: And those that can’t speak it or learn it are retarded. If children haven’t learned a certain amount by a certain age, we know they have organic ..inaccuracies in the brain.

Jimmy: Can we stop this? This isn’t a normal place and you’re all saying things that aren’t normal on top of that. Can we just get out of here?

Everything looks the same. Columns extend into the depths of the light to the right and left and now behind and in front of them.

Izzy: This thing didn’t turn on for us. It turned on for our speech.

“Whilst the elephantine faires tiptoe around us.” Gregg smirks. (to Hayt) “I’m telling you, you’re a rennassance man in disguise. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Hayt: I’m a complex person.

Izzy hears less noise behind him and turns to see Mary and Mike by Jimmy’s side: Let’s take a break.

Hayt and Albrite walk toward the wall on the right. Their voices drift through the hall; their lights play over the wall in quick search for whatever comes to their voice.

Izzy sits on the floor. Greggs, Jimmy, Mike and Mary lean against a column.

Mike: You can’t stop them. That’s what it wants.

Izzy: Why can’t they see that?

Mike(to Izzy): How long have you been with NASA?

Izzy: A few years.

Mike: How many missions do you know of where a group of people are not picked from inside the programs?

Izzy: This is the first.

A light plays over the wall. “Cool!” Hayt’s voice and their laughter erupt several minutes later. Hayt comes running back.

Hayt: You gotta see this!

Izzy: What did he say?

Hayt shakes his head, with hands on his knees to catch his breath. “Uh uh. You gotta come see this.”

Izzy: I’m sitting right here.

Hayt: ( to Gregg ) C’mon. You haven’t seen anything like this!

Gregg frowns as he gets up: “I’ll be right back.”

They walk back over to the wall. Hayt shoves Albrite. “Say it again.” He stands getting his breath back, almost under control.

(wall reacts with a shape of sharp angles but no discernable utility)

Albrite turns, a glow on his face; intoxicated. He turns to the wall. “All men are created equal.”

Nothing happens.

Hayt hits the wall: C’mon!

(The wall produces a shape of angles unrecognizable as any object.)

Hayt: Do it again!

(A blob with a yellow light erupts on one side and recedes.)

Gregg: Yep. Gotta admit– that’s cool.

Hayt: But it didn’t do it. That’s not it. It was a big triangle with lights. The lights went over the whole wall!

(wall reacts with shapes that look like alphabets that rise to the surface and recede.)

Gregg: I believe you. We saw the lights from over there.

Another blob appears and recedes. “But I’m tired. Get some rest.” A blob vaguely resembling a spoon comes and recedes as Gregg walks away.

“Some rest? How can you rest now? Think of the possibilities, man! This thing could give us—anything! It’s just like a .a lock—a combination. They were right.” Hayt bounces alongside Gregg: “I’ll show you, man. You’ll see.” He turns and walks back to the wall, staring up at it with fascination.

Albrite sits cosslegged on the floor, trying to concentrate and annoyed at Hayt’s antics.

—————————————————-

Psalm 19:2,3 Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech and there are no words, yet their voice is heard.

In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen