The Ross Theory
993 Words
Ross opened the door before Jonathan's knuckles could make contact with the wood. The old man's eyes were bright and alert, his weathered face creasing into a knowing smile. "Been expecting you," he said, stepping aside. "Saw you talking to yourself out there."
Jonathan hesitated. "You were watching?"
"Time's funny that way," Ross said, leading him into the workshop attached to the house. "Sometimes you see things before they happen, sometimes after. Doesn't much matter in the end."
The workshop smelled of sawdust and varnish, with hundreds of wood shavings catching the late afternoon light like golden snow. Half-finished carvings lined the walls—faces emerging from burls, animals taking shape from branches, abstract forms that seemed to twist in impossible directions when viewed from different angles.
*HE KNOWS MORE THAN HE SAYS,* the voice whispered. *WATCH HIS HANDS.*
Ross's fingers traced patterns in the air as he walked, leaving faint trails of light that only Jonathan could see. The orange cat leaped onto a workbench, its shadow falling across an unfinished carving that looked remarkably like Christine's face.
"You're still seeing her," Ross said, not a question. He picked up a piece of cherry wood and began working it with practiced movements. "In here, in the wood grain. In the spaces between things."
Jonathan sank onto a stool, the methamphetamine making every detail crystalline. "How much do you know?"
Ross's hands never stopped moving as he spoke. "About the voice? The cat? The way time stops sometimes?" He smiled without looking up. "Son, I've been carving the face of God out of dead trees for forty years. You think you're the first one to see through the cracks in reality?"
The wood in Ross's hands seemed to flow like water, taking shape without losing its essential wooden nature. Jonathan watched, transfixed, as a small figure emerged—a man standing at a crossroads, his shadow stretching in multiple directions.
*ASK HIM ABOUT THE PRISON,* the voice suggested.
"In the prison," Jonathan said slowly, "when you taught me to carve... was it just carving?"
Ross set down his knife and held up the finished piece. In the dying sunlight, the wooden figure appeared to move. "Nothing is just anything," he said. "Every action contains all actions. When you carve wood, you're carving time itself. When you shoot meth—" he glanced pointedly at Jonathan's arms, "—you're trying to carve a hole in the universe big enough to climb through."
The cat's shadow stretched across the workshop floor, touching each unfinished carving in turn. As it did, Jonathan could see what they would become—not just their finished forms, but their eventual decay, their return to earth, the new trees that would grow from their decomposed matter.
"It's all connected," he whispered.
"Now you're getting it." Ross set the carving in Jonathan's hands. "Everything that exists is just energy wearing different masks. Love, hate, addiction, sobriety—they're all patterns in the same cosmic dance. Christine, Mickey, that voice in your head... even that cat. All of it was carved from the same block of reality."
*SHOW HIM,* the voice commanded.
Jonathan concentrated, and time slowed again—not stopping completely, but flowing like honey. He could see the dust motes swirling in complex fractals, could see the cellular structure of the wood in his hands, could see the quantum probability clouds that made up Ross's form.
Ross nodded, unsurprised. "Been a while since I've seen it that clearly," he said, his words stretching out in the thick time. "Used to happen all the time when I was using. That's the real danger of meth, you know. Not what it does to your body, but how it lets you see too much. Humans aren't meant to perceive everything at once. That's why we exist in time—to experience things gradually."
The cat jumped down from the workbench, its shadow now moving in perfect synchronization with reality. The voice spoke, and this time Jonathan could tell that Ross heard it too:
*THE TRUTH IS A SCULPTURE BEING CARVED FROM INFINITY. EACH CONSCIOUSNESS IS A DIFFERENT TOOL, CREATING A DIFFERENT FACET. SOME USE CHISELS OF LOGIC, OTHERS SANDPAPER OF FAITH. YOUR ADDICTION IS A TORCH, BURNING AWAY LAYERS TO REVEAL WHAT LIES BENEATH.*
Ross picked up another piece of wood, this one dark with age. "Question is," he said, "now that you can see how it all fits together, what are you going to do about it?"
Jonathan looked down at the carving in his hands—the man at the crossroads, his multiple shadows now seeming to point in every direction simultaneously. The methamphetamine clarity was beginning to fade, but the deeper understanding remained.
"I'm going to keep walking," he said finally. "Keep seeing. Keep carving my own path through time."
"Good answer." Ross smiled, his teeth flashing like stars in his weathered face. "Just remember—the path you carve affects all paths. Everything you do ripples through the fabric of reality. Choose wisely."
The cat meowed, a sound that seemed to contain every frequency in the universe, and time resumed its normal flow. Jonathan stood, tucking the wooden figure into his pocket. He could feel the weight of it against his thigh—not just its physical mass, but the weight of its potential futures, all the things it might yet become.
"Come back tomorrow," Ross said, already turning back to his work. "I'll teach you how to carve time properly. Less dangerous than what you've been using to peek behind the curtain."
As Jonathan stepped out into the gathering dusk, the voice whispered one final time: *THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO TOUCH INFINITY. YOU DON'T HAVE TO BURN YOURSELF UP TO SEE THE LIGHT.*
The orange cat led him home through the purple twilight, its shadow now just a shadow, while overhead, stars began to emerge—each one a chisel point carving meaning from the darknes
- Writer
