MOAB

Chapter 2i^2

Chapter 2i^2

The sun was going down, but it was still bright. Yanni enjoyed the wind on his face and the sound of old music on the radio. Nikos was taking the scenic route, going up to Parnitha Mountain. It got noticeably chilly as they went higher but it was invigorating.

The casino was Niko’s idea, all of their old haunts had closed down anyway, and all of their new ones were kid-friendly, so Yanni wouldn’t even dare suggest them. Nikos brought the cabrio to the entrance, the valet greeted him by name and parked the car next to other expensive two-seaters.

Nikos showed him in with open arms as if he was selling the place. “Now, isn’t this more manly? Look at the view,” he said and they sat down on luxurious leather.

Yanni looked at the city below as Nikos ordered whiskey. The northern suburbs were pretty much the same as always, a place of relative safety and costly big houses with gardens or cozy three-bedroom apartment buildings for families. Athens extended in the south too, but faded out in the horizon, which was seemingly brought closer by the humid air and the gray smog. Peeking through the lowest level of the atmosphere were the new skyscrapers at the city centre, tall beasts of glass and steel getting erected with impossible speed, seemingly forming like crystals out of thin air. He thought of his light crystals, imagined how they looked in reality. Would they seem as beautiful, formed into lattices out of the foundation of a computer chip? Were these skyscrapers as ephemeral as his light crystals, or were they here to stay?

“Which one is yours?” Yanni asked. Nikos lit the tip of a cigar and pointed at the skyscrapers, “The second one from the left. I’m all done with that, nothing more for me to do. It’s up to the contractors now to build it, and damn, do they work fast. Even I can’t believe it’s been only six months and it’s halfway complete. It existed only on my mind for so long and now it pops out of the ground and changes the landscape.”

Yanni knew the feeling. The existing-only-in-his-mind feeling, not the popping out yet, because his work was still in progress. That is why Nikos liked coming up here so much. It must be thrilling to be able to see the progress on your work from so far away while sitting on a leather chair and smoking a cigar. It certainly took the term front row seat to a whole new scale.

“They are throwing a lot of money into it, aren’t they?” Yanni asked, and leaned forward to light his cigar.

Nikos replied, “A lot? Try boatloads. Let’s smoke some of that money.”

“Thalia is gonna kill me for that cigar smell,” said Yanni and puffed out smoke slowly, enjoying the aroma.

“Just blame it on me, say I smoked and dropped ash on you by accident or something,” said Nikos. “You need to take a pause and enjoy it! How is your apodeixis going?” he asked, referring to the proof Yanni was working on the last few years.

Yanni sighed and gazed out the window again. “I don’t know man. I could be this close and not know it, or I could be a universe away. It needs to click, you know? If I am right and get the equations to work, they will snap perfectly like gears in a Swiss watch.”

Nikos was looking at him with real empathy. “I get it, Yanni. No, I don’t get the theoretical math, no way, but I get it as a concept. You need to get the forces involved to play along or it will all come tumbling down.”

Yanni laughed and said, “With a lot less rubble involved than in your case but yes, basically that’s it.”

Nikos leaned forward and make him look him in the eye. “You don’t get it, do you? I make things that are already here, it’s nothing new. It’s a reapplication of things we already know, just put in a new context. You are trying to make something new. Your apodeixis is buried deep in your mind, and no one else can dig it out. Someone else can design my skyscraper. No one else can solve your apodeixis.”

“I know, but these days it feels as if I am chasing the end of the rainbow,” said Yanni. “Demokritos has scheduled a review of my funding in a month. They might cut me off. We talked with Thalia, I might apply for a teaching job at the uni or…”

Nikos put down his cigar and spat out, “Teaching? TEACHING? f**k that. f**k Demokritos, what do they know? You don’t do teaching! You will get a f*****g Nobel prize for this proof.”

His friend’s belief in him brought tears into Yanni’s eyes but he fought them back. “It really means a lot to me that you say that. But it might be time to cut my losses short and do something stable. I have a family now and I need to take care of them.”

“That’s Thalia talking. That’s her words coming out of your mouth. You can do both,” said Nikos.

Yanni replied, “They might cut my funding and I have nothing to show them. There is no way to do both.”

Nikos exhaled thick cigar smoke slowly and said, “Actually there might be one. My new job is making a skyscraper for Hermes Information Technology. They make half the computers in the world.” He raised a finger on the left hand. “You have a proof that can make quantum computers possible,” he said and raised the right hand finger. He brought them both close and said, “I can get your presentation to the right person. Hell, I’ll make the CEO’s mistress serve it to him in bed if I have to. You deserve this. You have to solve the apodeixis.”

Yanni leaned back as if he was exhausted. “I am not sure if I can solve it… It’s… it’s like I have no inspiration. Theoretical physics is basically imagination with a bunch of math involved,” he said.

“Of course you can’t! You can’t even finish a phone call with all that noise and distractions, let alone a new proof,” said Nikos. “I have one word to say to you: Ellipsis.”

“What do you mean,” Yanni asked.

“Ellipsis. It’s the way I managed to find my inspiration and work on the new skyscraper. I found my Muse,” Nikos said, standing up and opened his arms in a receiving gesture.

Yanni said, “Oh yeah, you mentioned that on the phone. Why aren’t you dating anyone?”

Nikos sighed and said, “You are not listening. I found my Muse. She is all I need right now and she is waiting for me back home.”