After Mind (7 page)

Cessini slumped quieted on the floor. He stared up at the tablet and waited. Daniel paused him with a finger, and then lowered his tablet back down to his grasp. He took it. Daniel was good.

Meg’s kicking and wiggling stopped as her lower lip pouted once more.

“So there you have it,” Daniel said. Cessini turned his back and hid the tablet from Meg. “And the funny thing is,” Daniel said as he rubbed his forehead, “Meg and I just started talking about this in the waiting room. If you ever want to make a computer more human, make sure it’s coded to be full of screaming mistakes.”

Robin’s eyes brightened. “Don’t worry. It does get easier, or so I’ve been told.”

Then with three taps on the door, a nurse entered their exam room. With her smooth, green clothes rounded the way she was, she looked like a big green apple with a little medicine basket in her hand. Zoo animals were all over her shirt.

“Hey, kiddos,” the nurse said. “Looks like it’s going to be two for the price of one today.”

“Thank you so much for squeezing us in,” Daniel said.

“Please,” the nurse scoffed and sat on the revolving stool at her desk. She unrolled her own tablet screen and entered some notes. “Something good’s got to come from being a single dad,” she said.

Robin grinned as she stroked back the bangs from Meg’s forehead.

The nurse whispered behind the edge of her hand. She pointed at Robin, then winked and smiled at Daniel. “She invented PluralVaXine5.”

“I didn’t invent it,” Robin said. She nestled her face into Meg’s soft hair and gave her a kiss on the back of the head.

The nurse disappeared behind the cabinet door above her desk, and by rote handed Daniel a couple sample tubes of cream.

“I just worked once for the man who did,” Robin said.

“Thank you,” Daniel said to the nurse. He uncapped a tube and kneeled in front of Cessini. He squeezed a white dab onto his finger and checked Cessini close up, especially his neck and behind his ears. He dabbed on a few circles of relief. Cessini paid him little mind and unfurled the keys of his tablet to play again.

“I’m sorry,” Robin said with a tsk to the nurse. “I guess keeping secrets isn’t one of our strongest suits, now is it?”

The nurse rolled on her gloves. “Oh, go on,” she said and huffed. She ripped open two clear plastic packs with a nasal-spray applicator in each, and then collected two little brown bottles from her medicine basket. She unscrewed the cap of one bottle, screwed the sprayer top on, and shook the bottle and cap hard between her two fingers and thumb. A rubber stem stuck out from between her two knuckles.

“If I didn’t know you both so well,” she said as she wheeled herself closer on the stool, “I’d sing a different tune, but boy oh boy, do I feel like the hand of fate today.”

“I think you made your point,” Robin said.

“Oh, please. ‘Minnesota Nice’ still exists, doesn’t it?”

“You betcha,” Daniel said.

The nurse pushed a hand on Daniel’s shoulder as she wheeled passed. “Good. Because I broke all the rules just to get you both in here at the same time. For that, you can thank me later.”

Meg was steady on Robin’s lap. The nurse was prepared and leaned in. She had the readied brown bottle of PluralVaXine5 in hand. She placed her pointer and index fingers on the tabs along both sides of the nozzle, opposed her thumb under the bottle’s base for seating, and shook the contents once more. She placed it under Meg’s nose.

“Ready, sweetie? I’ll count from three and you go like this.” The nurse showed her with a sudden and deep breath in through her nose, her head tilted back.

“Why?” Meg asked.

“This is the last booster you’ll need. It will fix you for all kinds of things. It will make you feel better if you’re sick, keep you better if you’re not.” The nurse moved the bottle up beneath Meg’s left nostril, then in. “Ready? On three, two, one. . . .”

Meg jerked her head back in exaggerated imitation of the nurse’s precise example. The back of Meg’s head butted Robin’s lip against her teeth and Robin yelped enough for them both. The spray entered Meg’s nostril at its periphery, but enough.

“Got it,” Robin said. She reached around and wiped Meg’s sniffle with her cuff.

Cessini was a perfect patient on the floor where he watched and waited. The nurse took the other applicator from her desk, leaned down, and placed it under his nose without his interest or movement. He didn’t care as long as it didn’t interfere with the clicking and clacking of his tablet.

“And three, two, one. . . .”

Cessini breathed in a wicked breath, far too deep. He winced. He felt the rush of moist heat high in his sinus. His interior cavity burned and prickled the backs of his eyes. He coughed out his breath and squinted away the burn with a quick shake left, then right of his head.

Then he went back to counting.

“All done,” the nurse said.

“So, I guess we’ll see you around preschool, then?” Robin asked Daniel.

The nurse sat back at her desk and fastened rubber caps on the nozzles of the bottles. She dropped the secured bottles into two bags, and snapped off her gloves into the trash. “Final dose in twenty-four hours,” she said. She handed the marked bags to Daniel and Robin. “Call me if you need me.” She got up, cocked her head, pointed at them both, and saw her way out the door. “Take your time. No rush.”

The door clicked and Robin stood up with Meg. “I’m sorry,” she said as Meg grabbed the bag from her hand. “If you’re not too busy running around inventing magical play things for your son, maybe we could get together sometime for a coffee?”

“Share more little monster horror stories?” Daniel asked.

“Well, yes, since you put it that way.”

Cessini followed his tablet up from the floor in Daniel’s hands as he refolded its wings. “Or, we can get them together for a play date,” he said. “Either way, it’s my thanks for getting us in when I was running so late.”

Cessini stood behind Daniel’s leg and locked eyes with Meg, looking down from Robin’s arms. Meg looked away and rubbed her nose straight across Robin’s shoulder.

“I’d like that,” Robin said as she looked at her sleeve. She stuffed Meg’s bag from the nurse into her purse. “Fate works in mysterious ways,” she said as she twisted her neck to release her hair from the pull of Meg’s fist.

Daniel reached into a jar by the sink and handed an alcohol wipe packet to Cessini for having crawled around on the floor.

“’Bye,” Cessini said to Meg. He opened the packet and pulled out the wipe.

Meg watched him, but said nothing. She stuffed her knuckles back into her mouth. Robin opened the door and carried her out first. She stretched around the corner to the last moment, watching him unfold the towelette and rub his hands.

Daniel held Cessini’s tablet case as he followed out after Robin. Meg eyed the tablet’s dangle, and then glared back at Cessini. He pushed his finger into his ear and stuck out his tongue. They didn’t get along at all.

Cessini stepped on the pedal of a tall garbage can by the door, tossed the packet’s wrapper in, and then ran to catch up with Daniel’s hand. He followed Daniel, Robin, and Meg out, but only because he had to. It was better than being alone.

FOUR

COLORS AND CODES

T
HE GREEN GRASS fields of Silver Springs Elementary in the southwest suburbs of Minneapolis were stimulating and safe. The surrounding trees were stricken with fall color. First and second graders laughed and chased each other around their playground of structures and games. Recycled shredded-rubber chips cushioned their falls from metal apparatus and kept them contained within a safety border of play.

Six-year-old Cessini stood still outside one of the railroad ties that constructed the border. He tore a dry-rub towelette from one of the packets he carried in the front pocket of his fire-red, cotton hoodie. Water, as a recent phenomenon, had started to burn even deeper. He could have let his body go dirty for days without cleaning, but he became meticulous, instead. And as an extra benefit, his packets kept him a step ahead of the first grade battle with germs.

He was disinfecting as usual when a pack of immature boys one grade older darted by from the field. The dew-covered grass under his shoes was a sparkling field of unease. He took a step forward into the border’s ring. He made sure his heels stayed secure against the black railroad tie. The reddish-brown rubber mulch was dry. He dared to go no farther in. A cool-water sweat beaded ahead on the red, yellow, and blue jungle gym bars. Fits of chases and laughter swirled by as three older boys circled in, taunting.

“Cessini is a packet. Cessini is a packet,” chanted one second grader. The two older boys gaggled in behind him.

“Come on, wet wipe, why don’t you come in the ring and play?”

“All wet wipes are a packet. Not all packets are a wet wipe,” Cessini said. “That means I’m decidedly not a wet wipe.”

“That makes no sense,” the second grader said. He laughed.

“It does to me,” Cessini said.

“Come on, wet wipe, run,” the second grader said as the bell rang and another bully pushed him straight on.

Cessini tripped back over the railroad tie border and fell onto the morning dew. His hands touched down to break his fall. He sprang back up as fast as he hit. He rubbed his hands onto his rough pleated pants. They hurt. He patted them on his fire-red hoodie as a much softer cloth.

The boys skipped backward toward the door as the bell rang. They left him standing on the playground alone.

His hands were dry, but sore. The grounds were almost empty. He reached to the back of his neck with reddened hands and pulled his hood over his head.

The bell stopped ringing and the bullies were gone with a last taunting call. “Cessini is a packet, Cessini is a packet.”

He pinched closed his hood around his face and hid. He held back the tears that he didn’t want to fall. He waited a moment in silence, and then looked out through the slit of his hood over the green fields of play. He sniffled to dry his nose. He took another packet from his pocket and rubbed the remaining bit of soreness from his hands. He followed a stern wave-in from a teacher at the door, and hurried on his own back to class.

He hated being alone.

*

As Cessini fought the urge to be scared, long-term memories of bullies on a field bubbled up in his mind, but on October fifteenth he was full of strength and pride as he climbed the steps to a stage. The University of Minnesota hosted a pod session and pushed it live for broadcast. On the small stage set with five chairs around a semicircle table, Cessini grabbed the front bottom of his assigned seat and pulled himself in. He sat beside Daniel, who was next to Robin, then two other men, all of them invited experts, including him. The host, who hadn’t yet arrived, was expected any minute on a pedestal screen.

Meg sat alone in the front row of the empty theater, waiting and swaying her feet as she began a game of Sea Turtle Rescue on Cessini’s borrowed, handmade tablet. She began at its most basic level and took control of a hatchling to cross a dangerous beach and enter the ocean tide. The game had become a fascination, but also an annoying obsession. Nurture a turtle every day as it grew and sought life or leave it unattended as it starved, was attacked, or was lost to the sea, all in a manner of swirls.

Cessini fidgeted in his chair up on the stage, anxious to get his tablet back.

The host arrived on the pedestal screen, sitting in his own private cubicle. An airplane logo scrolled by at the bottom of the screen, followed by
“Origination from the Sea-Tac International Airport at the Port of Seattle,”
and then the complete captioning of their recorded session.

“Okay, then, we’re on,” the host said. “My apologies first for why I was late and not there with you in Minneapolis-St. Paul. I missed my plane. I’m still at the airport in Seattle. But, welcome, and let’s jump right in.”

The toes of Cessini’s shoes scraped the floor and he stopped his chair from twirling.

“My first question to you is: Does free will exist or are we bound by fate? Did I miss my plane because I’m afraid to fly and busied myself on the way to the gate? Or by the simple fate of traffic snarl? Andy Fisher, let’s start with you at this end of our table of experts and go around, ending with a special question for you, young man,” the host said to Cessini, “so get ready. Professor, you’re our panel’s evolutionary psychologist. What do you think?”

“That’s a fair question to start,” the professor said. “Physically, I think we’ve reached the height of evolution as a species. But now, I think we’re taking the next step forward from our ancestors. Now, what do I mean by that—”

“I’m asking why I missed my plane, not how do I look in the walking lineup of man,” the host said with an awkward smile.

“My point is,” the professor said, “that various fears developed across the span of history in order to improve survival. Humans developed fear during the Paleolithic Era, or early Stone Age. We had to. And any complete discussion of ‘free will versus fate’ must throw the evolution of fear into the mix. I think we’re evolving psychologically as a species with a new set of fear associations. Fear of too many people, fear of technology. Fear of death itself, thanatophobia. Death fear is surprisingly common today across religions, ages, cultures, and backgrounds. We’re evolving a fear of death that’s affecting a greater percentage of the population with each successive generation.”

“So, you and I are alive today because early humans developed a healthy fear of being eaten by saber-toothed tigers, and they lived to pass on that fear?” the host asked.

“Exactly. During the Mesozoic, mammals developed a fear of heights. Then during the Cenozoic, ape-like creatures added a fear of snakes. And when we humans in the Neolithic Age discovered rats and bugs were carriers of disease and destroyed our food, we became afraid of them, too. Continuing to evolve our fear of death is essential for allowing our species to live.”

“So, then, why did I miss my flight?”

“Technology is our next evolution of fear. And as a species, it wasn’t only you caught in that traffic snarl. The difference with technology this time around, though, is that we can use our minds to solve where and how far we want it to take us.”