An excerpt from my novel, Diary of a Heretic: Click here to read the previous episode, and here to start from the beginning.
The café was almost half full: old men, students and professors—and Carlos leaning on the wall behind me near the rest rooms. Feedback from the microphone concealed the catch in my voice as I opened the meeting. “Welcome to the New College of Complexes. Where everyone gets a say. To get things started, we have as a topic: ‘How Can We Know Anything When We Only Believe What We Want to Believe?’”
Everyone was looking at me. No one spoke or moved and I had to conquer my panic that this might never pass. I might waver there forever, staring at these people.
Carlos broke the spell. “Who wants to go first?” he asked, arms folded.
A man and woman stood up, and I hastily added, “The main thing is: No rules. Anyone can talk about anything. ”
The couple introduced themselves as university professors. He tipped the mike his way, and she wrestled it hers, as they argued about the tribulations of their chosen fields.
At this point, I—suddenly—suffered a digestive attack, requiring me to tighten up for all I was worth. Edging toward the rest rooms, I suspected Carlos of deliberately blocking my way. He stuck a thumbs-up in my face.
“If there’s a lull,” he whispered, “want me to improvise?”
The woman professor swayed at the microphone after a spiel by her husband. Connie Llewellyn announced that although she taught public policy, her real interest was microbiology. Pear-shaped in a fitted suit, Professor Llewellyn stamped her foot. “Everything is spelled for us out by deoxyribonucleic acid.” Her words reverberated. “We’re born with a map, DNA, and anyone of normal intelligence who can’t solve the puzzle simply isn’t trying.”
Dr. Victor Smith, having relinquished the mike, harrumphed on the sideline. He yanked his beard, and when his wife finally stepped aside, he hopped back, fiercely spurting, “DNA doesn’t explain why a child has to die, struck by a speeding SUV out of nowhere.”
Red-faced, Connie Llewellyn shot back, elbowing her husband off stage. But before she reclaimed her ground, a voluptuous blonde woman in a black dress and fringed shawl slapped her palms on a table. She twisted in her seat, saying, “Sorry, but the only reason we know-slash-believe anything is to make our lives bearable. No one can bear the unadulterated truth.” Hands flying, she railed against how unreliable our eyes and ears are, let alone our minds!
The married couple had sat down and was now blatantly playing footsie under their table, as if airing philosophical differences was a kind of “talk dirty to me.”
Carlos called to the blonde woman, “Don’t you want to use the mike?”
She twisted more in her chair. “Everyone can hear me, right?”
“If you’re honest,” she said, “you can tell when your senses are fooling you. When the truth is all but beating against the box in your brain, demanding to be let out.”
She bobbed her head and blinked. There was a moment of throat clearings and the tick-tock of monosyllables from various people.
Tipping back in her chair, she said, “If we’re not obsessed with trivia; if we don’t overload ourselves with busyness, we already know more than we can stand.”
Extricating himself from his wife’s toe-hold, Victor Smith half-stood. “Re-enroll, Ms. Townsend, and for this alone, I’ll give you an A.”
Ms. Townsend shook her head and exhaled in a rush. “The thing that’s so hard to convince ourselves is that we matter: Not just ultimately but constantly.”
I could not follow what she said next. Two old guys were waving for more pink fructose water, which I grabbed from the case. My perspective as I crossed the room jumped wildly, as if I were watching a series of overwrought camera angles.
Ms. Townsend shared a table with two girlfriends, both of whom studied the ceiling and floor as if they only happened to be sitting with her. Her voice rose; she grew agitated, but I did hear what she said at the end.
“And what if we do make a difference?” she asked. “Isn’t that even worse?”
She covered her face with both hands. What made the meeting perfect was the feeling of life being such a palpable struggle, for everyone, all the time.
(Click here to read the next episode.)
