Part 1

I

Austin Coe negotiated the labyrinthine hallways of Horace Mann High School with a focused intensity. His headaches were becoming more frequent, and now occasionally starting even before the school day began. Rounding the final turn would put his classroom into view, and he hoped no students had gathered outside his door requesting assistance with some curricular issue. Observing a clear path to his room, and fumbling with his door key, he quietly muttered “Dear God, just allow me to enter my classroom without the realization dawning upon my students.” Succeeding, he elected not to turn on the classroom lights, as it might attract kids like moths to a flame.  Ambient light would be sufficient for him to finish the chemistry  lab setup he began the previous day. His headache was relentless however, pounding in sync with his heartbeat. Something had to give. Austin would on occasion change the day’s scheduled activity, but most often due to lack of preparation. Today, he simply didn’t have the wherewithal to administer a lab activity that required intensive monitoring. Today was a “short schedule” day anyway, he rationalized, so changing course might seem appropriate. Hopefully he could endure the scheduled afternoon staff in-service.

After taking questions about the previous classes homework assignment on atomic theory, Mr. Coe announced that the scheduled lab would be postponed. With 25 minutes still remaining in class, he asked his mixed gender class of mostly attentive students if they had any questions specifically about atomic theory. Austin attempted to elicit relevant questions with prompts, such as “any questions about the Cathode-ray Experiment, the Gold Foil Experiment, Neils Bohr, energy levels?” No relevant questions were forthcoming. Breaking the awkward silence, a typically taciturn student named Julian asked boldly “Do you believe in God, Mr Coe?”

Austin carefully considered the question before answering. He understood the potential repercussions when wandering into territory not part of his job description. He had been on the receiving end of blowback from an earlier indiscretion.  Throwing a measure of caution to the wind, he decided to reveal to the class in detail a related strain of his frequent philosophical musings.

“Well Julian, let me share something with you and the class that might get you thinking.”

“Just answer the question Mr. Coe”, Julian interrupted with characteristic adolescent impatience.

“Alright Julian. Yes, I believe in God. But I am a high school science teacher and I don’t ask anyone to believe in anything without evidence or at least some serious contemplation.” With that affirmation, Julian ‘high-fived’ the kid across from him in the next row. Austin suspected that perhaps they had a bet.

“Can I show you something”, Austin continued. “This is going to seem bizarre. Try to follow along. If any of you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.” Grabbing a dry erase marker, Austin drew a point on the whiteboard. “This point represents the zeroth dimension. It has position, or location, and nothing else. And how do you get a point representing the zeroth dimension”, he asked rhetorically? “By intersecting two lines you get the point. The ‘line’ represents the first dimension. So by intersecting two one dimensional structures (lines), you get a point. Does this make sense to you all?” 

Following a short pause, a girl named Rachel answered; “Yes, but what does this have to do with your belief in God?”

“I’m getting to that”, responded Mr. Coe.

Austin Coe surveyed the room to insure that the students remained attentive. On the rare occasions when Austin ventured beyond the curriculum, he had noticed that the kids had an intense, inherent longing for answers to questions that bridged the gap between science, philosophy, and spirituality. Certain questions, even if unarticulated, are apparently universal. He had the full attention of the class.

Austin continued by drawing a square on the whiteboard. “This square that I have drawn is the simplest representation of a two-dimensional structure. It has length and width, and when multiplied together, you get area. It is a plane”. Adding after a momentary pause, “Now if you intersect two planes with each other, you get a line. So the intersection of two two-dimensional structures gets you a one dimensional structure, the line”. Without missing a beat Austin extended the discussion to three-dimensional structures. Austin drew a representation of a cube on the whiteboard. Though in reality still a two-dimensional drawing, he gave it the appearance of being three-dimensional with his perspective view.  Pointing to the drawing of the cube he said, “OK now, this is a cube. It has length, width, and depth. When you multiple the three sides together you get volume. This is the simplest three-dimensional structure. And when two cubes intersect each other, you get a plane. Therefore, the intersection of two three-dimensional structures gets you a two-dimensional structure, the plane.”

“Do you see where I’m going with this?”, Austin asked with rising enthusiasm.

A chronically smiling cutup by the name of Josh ventured an answer. “OK, so Mr. Coe, you’re saying that two firsts get you the zero, and two seconds get you the first, and two thirds gets you the second. Right?”

“That’s basically it, Josh! And Josh, what do you think is next?” Josh gave Austin a quizzical look. Austin clarified, “just extend this same thinking to the next dimension”.

“You mean the fourth dimension Mr. Coe?” Josh asked, clearly puzzled by the concept of a fourth dimension.

“Yes”, Austin said. “Like you said, if two firsts gets you the zeroth, and two seconds gets you the first, and two thirds gets you the second……then what follows?”

Josh carefully considered his answer, then tentatively offered a response. “Uh, two fourths get you the third?” Lacking confidence, Josh answered the question with the tonal inflection of a question. 

“Exactly”, Austin said.  Also recognizing that the class might not know the identity of the fourth dimension, he asked “does anyone know the identity of the fourth dimension?”

A bespectacled, scholastic girl named Megan answered self-assuredly, “time”.

“That’s right”, Austin said.  “Time is the fourth dimension. We live in a three-dimensional physical universe with time as the fourth dimension. Time isn’t a physical dimension, but what if it was? Then two four dimensional physical structures, with time as that fourth dimension, intersecting,  would produce a three-dimensional structure.”

Digressing slightly, Austin added, “Did you ever stop to ponder time? And by that I mean the relationship between the past, present, and future? Do you realize that one-millionth of a second ago was the past, and that one-millionth of a second from now is the future? You see, the present has no ‘thickness’ to it. It’s just an interface or a boundary between the past and the future. We then exist on a constantly forward moving interface. Isn’t that kind of weird?”

Austin was now prepared to offer a potentially profound, yet hypothetical insight to the class. “Now, here is the great cosmic question I want to have you all ponder. What if our three-dimensional physical universe is the result of the intersection of two four-dimensional universes? ‘Our’ universe just being an interface of those two 4-D universes. And what if one of those 4-D universes is heaven and the other is hell?”

With that last utterance by Austin Coe an audible gasp enveloped the class. A moment later the bell rang, catching everyone by surprise. The class filed out orderly, but news had apparently spread about the topic of discussion in Mr. Coe’s chemistry class because as the next class entered, the students expected a repeat performance. Austin was not in the mood to again detail his philosophical musings. His headache had subsided, but he was feeling listless; a condition that, like his headaches, were becoming chronic, and occurring earlier in the day. So Austin just quickly summarized his views, leaving his more probing students with the task of accosting those from the earlier class if they wanted details.

II

 

Austin Coe had painfully endured the abjectly useless and irrelevant afternoon staff in-service. During part of it, he found himself worrying about potential fallout from having expressed his private philosophical views earlier in the day. He envisioned himself defending his actions to his principal should an irate parent complain that he had transgressed his authority, or that he was corrupting the children, or undermining a child’s traditional Christian teachings. Variations of this scenario played over and over in his mind.

When the in-service and school day ended, Austin briefly returned to his classroom, gathered ungraded papers which he placed in his book bag, and retraced his steps from early morning to exit the building. From there it was a half-mile walk to the elevated train terminal in the Wriglyville district of Chicago where he worked. Here, he would board the north bound Red line to the Howard Terminal, then transfer to the westbound Yellow line to Skokie. Austin had made this trip twice daily during the school year, for the past twelve years. He could do it in his sleep, though his recent headaches were intruding on his after work reverie.

Boarding the Red Line, Austin chose a forward facing seat near the rear of the car. His head pounding, he again contemplated seeing a doctor to seek a resolution to this growing problem that was now interfering with the quality of his life. He rationalized that at age thirty-five he couldn’t possibly have a life threatening condition. But he had a wife and two young children that depended upon him. Becoming a bed-ridden stroke victim was not an option. He would schedule a doctor’s appointment, when he had the time.

As the train reached each terminal, stopped, then accelerated again, Austin felt a growing unease. The feelings were amorphous and had no apparent point of origin; untethered to the realities of sitting alone in the back of the train car. He tried to determine the source of the unease. He asked himself “What is provoking this? Was it physical in nature?”  No answer. Austin increasingly felt that the other eight passengers on his train car were looking at him, or at least thinking about him when they looked away. He felt that they knew him, even his most private thoughts, though Austin didn’t know any of the other passengers. Austin felt a menacing presence that was growing and becoming unbearable. His heart began pounding with advancing intensity, further aggravating his headache. His respiration rate was also elevated and he recognized belatedly that he was having what others described as a panic attack.  He was beginning to feel a real sense of terror, and an unstoppable urgency to get off the train. He felt he had no control over these feelings, the feelings seemed to be controlling him.

At the Loyola Terminal of the Red Line, with his sense of panic and imminent doom reaching a crisis level,  Austin quickly and reflexively disembarked from the train. Staggering through the turnstile he collapsed to the ground hyperventilating, a cold sweat cascading down his cheeks and burning his eyes. He received stares from the other commuters as he attempted to regain his composure, but no offers of assistance. So much for the vaunted altuism of our fellow humankind, he thought. After regaining some semblance of composure, Austin walked the two miles along Lakeshore Drive to Howard’s Terminal where he caught the Yellow Line to Skokie. While walking, his respiration and heart rate gradually returned to normal and his headache subsided. He asked himself “What the hell just happened!?” He remained consumed with the question for the remainder of his journey to Skokie. He had never had panic attacks, and this one was extreme. “Can something physical cause a sudden release of adrenaline?”, he asked himself. Then while boarding the transit bus for the last short leg of his trip home, Austin made an astute observation: he indeed HADN’T known any of the other passengers on the train car. He had taken the Red Line twice a day, 190 days each year, for the past twelve years. He always recognized at least one passenger on the train. Even if he didn’t know them by name, or had ever talked to them, he recognized them. ALWAYS. No exceptions ever, until today.

Austin walked the two blocks from the bus stop to his home. Approaching his home he noticed the lawn desperately needed mowing. He hoped to complete the task one last time before frost, but would have to wait until the weekend. Now that it was early October, Austin rarely made it home before dusk. Day length was contracting noticeably, and an evening chill was becoming persistent. Opening the door, he was greeted by the older of his two children.

“Daddy’s home”, nine year old Mackenie said excitedly. Her younger brother by two years, Jack, barely reacted as he remained fixated on playing the video game Fortnite with a neighbor kid.

Austin migrated to the kitchen where his wife Heather was preparing dinner. “Prepare the salad Austin. All the veggies are on the cutting board”, she said, moving with such deliberate efficiency, he was momentarily frozen in awe.

Austin and Heather had been married for ten years. They met at Horace Mann High School in Chicago twelve years prior, where both Austin and Heather had accepted positions the same year. Heather taught general math and one section life science. She never quite adapted to effectively relating to unmotivated kids, which were the bulk of those enrolled in her classes. Heather used Austin as a resource for brainstorming ways to reach the kids. Implementing his ideas would occasionally work, but more often than not, she would be disappointed with the results. After three years of frustration, and lack of fulfillment, Heather resigned. It was a mutual decision between herself and Austin. Being pregnant with Mackenzie didn’t make her last year any easier either. Austin would now shoulder the burden as family breadwinner for a time.  Heather had a biology degree and long ago had considered nursing as a career pathway. She knew that just a few semesters of additional course work and clinical rotations would be sufficient to complete a BSN; a plan she would implement when Mackenzie and Jack were old enough.  Shortly before Jack turned three, Heather enrolled at Loyola University, completed her nursing degree, and had now been working as an emergency room RN at the University’s medical center for two and one-half years. The fit seemed ideal for Heather, who would often regale Austin with her bizarre experiences, though recognizing that she might at times be violating the Hippa  codes.

“So, how was your day at work Heather?”, Austin asked, though he REALLY wanted to tell her about his experience on the train.

“Kind of uneventful, though we are sure getting a lot of kids coming in with strep throat” replied Heather.

“Jack, tell your buddy to go home. We’re about to have dinner”, Heather called to her son.

Heather resumed her recall of the day, “Oh, we had an old women who fell down her basement stairs. It left quite a gash in her head requiring forty stitches. Oh, and one middle age man who thought he was having a heart attack. He did have atrial fibrillation,  so we put him on meds to control it. Those were the people I had to work with today. Of course more people came into the ER, but I didn’t work with them. What about you Austin, how was school? And how’s your head today?”

“Off and on headaches all day, but it’s what happened after school that I want to talk to you about. Let’s wait till after dinner,” Austin said, trying to control his impatience. He wanted to recite to Heather to the best of his memory the exact sequence of events from just before boarding the train to disembarking. Perhaps due to her nurses training she could offer answers to his physiologic responses to the passengers on board the train. Perhaps she could explain his psychological issues: why did he think they all knew him?

After dinner,  Austin and Heather shared the duties of cleanup, while Mackenzie and Jack retreated to the living room; Mackenzie on her cell phone and Jack resuming his Fortnite addiction. “So what happened after school Austin? You seemed distant at dinner,” Heather asked with concern while packing the dishwasher.

“It was strange Heather. Just freaking bizarre,” Austin replied. Continuing, “This occurred as I was boarding the Red line to come home. At first as I entered the terminal, everything seemed normal. But when I sat down on the train, I immediately began to feel this terrible, and accelerating sense of unease. My heart started racing. My respiration rate went up. I could feel an adrenaline surge. But what was most weird was that I deeply felt that the seven or eight passengers in my car knew me, and knew me on an intimate level, though I didn’t know any of them. I felt that they could even read my mind. The feelings of dread became so intense that I disembarked at the Loyola Terminal and walked to the Howard Terminal.  I can’t tell you what came first. Did I have a physiologic response to my perceptions of the passengers, or did some unsolicited physiology trigger paranoid perceptions of the passengers? I don’t know.”

“Whoa! OK, yup that’s weird! And no wonder you were late getting home. Isn’t it about two miles from Loyola to Howard?”

“Yes, about two miles. Anyway, what do you think?”

“Well, uh, this is a tough one. OK, you’ve been having these headaches. Maybe a signal was sent to your adrenal gland due to pressure in your head. And then the adrenal gland released a huge amount of adrenaline. That’s all I got honey, and it doesn’t seem plausible”

“What about feeling certain that all those people on the car knew me?”

Well, I’m just hypothesizing, but I would say that when your body released all that adrenaline, that what followed was this psychological component. In other words, your mind was searching for some external explanation for the panic attack and conjured up this view of the passengers. I had a similar experience recently.

“Oh, what was that?”

“It was after working third shift a few weeks ago. I had a bad night. Before coming home I stopped at a coffee shop just to decompress for a bit. When I glanced around at the other patrons, I was convinced that they were judging me. It took awhile, but I realized that I felt this way because of my bad night at work.”

“So, basically you are saying that a physiological event, the release of adrenaline, caused the psychological weirdness. Right?”  

“Kind of makes sense to me Austin. It’s all I’ve got. Please make an appointment to see a doctor about your headaches. I’ll do it for you if you want. Just give me dates when you would be available. Please!”

“OK. Yeah, I’ll do it. I’ll make an appointment sometime in the next few days. I can’t stand taking off work on days I schedule a lab activity with my students. Substitutes can’t administer a lab, so I have to come up with alternative work. And since we have block scheduling, it screws everything up.”

Austin felt spent. Following dinner, he attempted to watch Episode One of a Netflix documentary series, but he couldn’t concentrate; his mind wandering back to the events on the train earlier that day. He seriously considered Heather’s interpretation of the events, but felt they were inadequate. He pondered alternative explanations, but they all seemed inadequate as well. Could the explanation have a supernatural component? Such a thought was anathema to his scientific training. He tried to force it out of his mind, but it intruded repeatedly. He was well aware of how practitioners of astrology, clairvoyants, magicians, and others purporting to possess supernatural abilities had all been debunked when scrutinized under controlled scientific conditions. Why should his experiences that day be any different, he thought? He would need to seek out a natural explanation, or just let it go as some bizarre, anomalous experience without an identifiable cause.

Unable to focus on the TV screen, Austin attempted to grade papers from the growing collection he brought home that night. Again, the required mental concentration was not forthcoming. Abandoning the task after one-half hour, Austin climbed the stairs to his bedroom and dropped into bed like a corpse, well before Heather and the kids. He had been sleep deprived, so reasoned that one night of sleep surplus might have restorative power. Tomorrow would be another day.

III

The next several weeks passed uneventfully for Austin, at least in terms of experiences without a clear identifiable cause. He resumed his routine and only rarely thought about the events on the train in early October. His mind occupied with the exigencies of the moment,  he had little time to obsess about past events. His classes had moved on from studying atomic theory, through a study of the periodic table, and were now studying compounds and formulas.

 Austin had also finally seen his family doctor about his headaches, and requested a referral to see a neurologist. He managed to schedule an appointment to get an MRI just before the Thanksgiving break, and would see the neurologist in early December to discuss it’s interpretation and the causes of his headaches and possible treatments.

Other than the nagging concern about his headaches, Austin’s life was normal, and his relationship with Heather and the kids was very positive. Heather would occasionally complain about work, but most of the time her experiences were positive. On the rare occasions that she worked with a semi-retired doctor with the bedside manner of a rattlesnake, the patience of a toddler, and nonexistent respect of co-workers, she could return home with hackles raised. “Doesn’t he realize that we are a team!?”, she would say along with juicy, descriptive epithets.

Mackenzie was doing well in school as a fourth grader, though complaining almost daily about having to relinquish her cherished smart phone at the beginning of each school day. She was demonstrating a growing flare for writing and the arts in general, having begun playing the flute at the start of the school year. Jack, on the other hand was experiencing some academic difficulties as a second grader; focus, concentration, and a willingness to see tasks through to completion, being his teacher’s critique at parent-teacher conferences. She suggested that he be tested for ADHD. Heather and Austin chose to address this issue with a less invasive strategy by restricting his video game screen time to a maximum of one hour daily. At least for now this would be their mode of intervention.

All in all life was good, Austin concluded, while musing during the school lunch break about the trajectory of his life on a cold, cloudy December day. He had friends and a supportive family that he loved. Beyond his persistent headaches, his biggest worry was his mortgage, whose monthly payment consumed forty percent of he and his wife’s combined monthly income. Austin realized that he needed to break from this reflective contemplation, since his early afternoon class was about to arrive.

“Hey, Mr. C. What are we doing today?” inquired a freckled faced sixteen year old named Levi, as he entered Austin’s classroom.

“First, we will review how to combine ions in the correct ratio to determine the formulas for ionic compounds. Then we have a lab where you will be asked to demonstrate that skill using ion cards”, Austin replied.

Austin’s demonstration of the combining rules for compounds, and the following lab activity went off smoothly with more time to spare at the end of class than he had expected. One of the important skills of educators is to accurately determine the time requirements for different activities. Sometimes Austin got this wrong and would have to improvise. Today was one of those days.

“We have some extra time so let’s review the similarities and differences between molecular and ionic compounds,” Austin said, knowing he had a greater than twenty minute void to fill. Austin added, “So what are some different properties of molecular and ionic compounds?”

“Mr. C, remember back when Julian Adams asked you if you believed in God?”, blurted a student named Josh, in a not so seamless sidestepping of the question Austin had just posed.

“Yes Josh”, Austin responded, carefully considering if he wanted to wander down this road again. He knew he needed to fill twenty minutes, and if he got off script again for only the second time this semester, it could be excused.

“So, you said that you believe in God. And you indicated that you believe in an afterlife. Is this right?”, Josh asked.

“Yes”, Austin replied with no additional clarification.

“So, what happens when we die?”

“I think that you are asking is if I believe that people have a soul, and what happens to our soul after we die, right?”

“OK, yes. Do we have a soul and what do you think happens to it when we die ?”

Tentative at first, Austin decided to elaborate. “Yes, I believe that humans have a soul. I believe that the possession of a ‘soul’ is a uniquely human attribute. You asked what I believe happens to us when we die. Well, I believe that our soul separates from our physical body and drifts beyond or outside the constraints of our three dimensional universe. Think of the universe as contained within a fabric that has tiny pore spaces. Within this enclosed fabric is all the matter and energy of the universe as well as the physical laws of the universe that govern the interaction of matter and energy. And none of that matter and energy can escape to outside that enclosed fabric. The laws of physics keep it all enclosed within the fabric. But the soul is not constrained by the laws of physics and can pass through the tiny pore spaces of the fabric, into a multidimensional universe, probably a four dimensional universe, where time becomes a physical dimension.”

Austin glanced around the class to see many glazed over faces; eyes seeing, but minds not comprehending. Attempting to clarify, Austin added, “remember, what I’m calling ‘the fabric’ is metaphorical. I don’t know what else to call it. The soul can somehow ‘pass out of’ our three dimensional universe into what I believe is a four dimensional physical universe when we die, and hopefully that would be heaven and not hell. Anyway, this is what make the most sense to me. Does that answer your question?”

“Cool!”, Levi said, offering a response after a pause. Adding, “It gives me hope.”

“Why is it that science teachers always get these sort of questions anyway?”,  Austin said, directing his question to the whole class.

“Because science teachers are the most trustworthy”, answered a smiling girl named Amber, seemingly intent on provoking controversy.

“Science teachers are no more trustworthy than anybody else on issues of faith, God, or the meaning of life, Amber,” Austin said, immediately challenging  Amber’s assertion. Austin wanted to promote harmony within the ranks of his coworkers and the community at large, so challenging an assertion that some naïve individual might regard as orthodox thinking was essential. Beyond a better understanding of the natural world, science teachers had no greater claim to knowledge or wisdom than anyone else on any other subject or issue.

The bell soon rang, and as the next class filed in, Austin expected the incoming students to request a repeat performance. Apparently his revelations about the nature of the soul and it’s destiny failed to elicit the same level of excitement as his views about the nature of our universe. This was just as well. It meant that he was less likely to receive angry e-mails from parents, or to be called to the office to explain himself. Austin’s natural instinct had always been to maintain a low profile and not disseminate controversial views that some felt challenged their most cherished notions. He understood the inherent human desire for comfort, including the comforting narratives that people latch onto as a shield to protect themselves against the onslaught of inconvenient truths.

Austin stayed late after school to finish grading lab reports from todays classes. It was Friday, and he wanted a weekend free of the nagging need to grade papers. He and Heather were scheduled to meet friends at a local tavern that evening, so he kept one eye on the clock.

Finishing the papers, Austin glanced toward his windows to see that it was dark outside, though still only 4:30. An overcast December day in Chicago does indeed mean darkness by 4:30. His chronic headache had diminished in intensity all day, perhaps due to his elevated mood, which in turn was due to his expectations of a fun filled evening. Grabbing his coat and gloves, he left the building and began walking to the train terminal.

Upon entering the Red Line car, Austin took his favorite seat, a forward facing seat at the back of the car. As the train began to move, Austin sent a text message to Heather to let her know that he was on his way. It was 5:00PM, and based on experience he could calculate precisely when he would arrive home. Only if the Yellow Line train out of Howard terminal was delayed, was there ever any deviation from his estimated time of arrival. Austin then looked at his Facebook account for a couple of minutes but didn’t find anything that sustained his interest, so put his phone away.

When Austin looked up from his phone, three of the passengers on his car were looking at him. He had relaxed to the point of momentarily nodding off and felt his head violently jerk as he recovered from his fleeting slumber. Could this be why the passengers were looking at him?  All three had the same faint trace of a smile; a smile that seemed to convey something mysterious, something knowing, something intimate. Three other passengers glanced furtively, and in sequence at Austin. There were eight passengers on Austin’s car and he was unable to identify any of them. Looking to the front of the car, he saw a man facing forward dressed in a bright white shirt and dark gray slacks. Austin felt that he had seen this man before from the back, though like the others, was unable to identify him. He was the only passenger in the car with which Austin didn’t make eye contact, yet like the others, Austin deeply felt that this man also knew him.

Austin began feeling a heightening sense of dread, just as he had in October when riding the Red Line toward home. Panic was setting in quickly and accelerating. Recognizing this, he took deep breaths in an attempt to alleviate the panic, but to no avail. His heart began pounding harder and harder, making his headache worse. He began taking quick shallow breaths that he couldn’t control. A cold sweat spread across his face and neck. Just like in October, he was convinced that all these passengers knew him. He was certain that they knew him on the most intimate level imaginable; that they knew of every deed and misdeed he had committed throughout his entire life. He even felt that he might be on trial and these passengers were the jury. Feelings of panic were now ratcheting up to an unbearable level as was nausea. He had to get off the train. As in October, when the train reached Loyola terminal, Austin disembarked.

Outside the train terminal, Austin began to dry wretch. If he stood up straight he felt postural hypotension, so he stood with hands on knees for a few minutes until the nausea passed. He then began the two mile walk to Howard terminal. This time in the dark and cold.

“What the fuck just happened? Not again! God damn it! Now I have to walk two miles to catch the yellow line! And in the dark! And it’s fucking cold!” Austin screamed, mostly angry with himself, and his submission to irrational thoughts for the second time. Then realizing that he and Heather were scheduled to go out with friends, he yelled to the night sky, “Fuck, I’m going to be late!”

Austin walked a few hundred yards before realizing that he needed to call Heather. “Hello Heather. Well it happened again.”

“Austin? What happened again?”

“I had a panic attack on the train and had to get off. Got off at the Loyola terminal. Just like last time.”

“So you’re walking?”

“Yes. Go ahead and eat dinner. And could you call Brian and Glen and let them know we will be late tonight? About an hour late. I’m just too flustered right now to do it myself.”

“Of course. But what happened?”

“I’ll talk about it later. Just do this for me, OK? I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

Austin continued walking northward parallel to the Red Line toward Howard Terminal. Shaking his head, angry with himself, he was in disbelief that an almost identical sequence of events would again happen on the train, and more importantly, that his reaction would be the same: a completely irrational interpretation of events, leading to a debilitating panic attack. How could this happen? Thinking back to his discussion with Heather about the first incident; could the panic attack have been something physiological that led to a twisted psychological interpretation of the passengers? What came first? “It must be physiological,” Austin said to himself, hoping that the shear repetition of a proclamation would yield a steadfast belief in it. “I’ve GOT to get the MRI and find out what’s going on with me! Why do I keep postponing it?”

Austin drug himself through the doorway of his home at 7:30PM, more than an hour later than his usual arrival time. After hanging up his coat and gloves in the foyer, he slowly walked to the living room where he saw Heather reading by lamplight, seated in their recliner. Standing directly in front of Heather, her eyes rose to meet his. Austin lifted his arms and with a hint of resignation said, “I don’t get it! I just don’t fucking get it!” Sheepishly glancing over at the babysitter they had hired for the night, Austin apologized for his vulgarity. “Sorry Megan. I had a rough trip home. Long story.”

Austin motioned to Heather to get up and move to the kitchen where they could have some privacy, and where he could recite the bizarre, unsettling events of the trip home. Megan stayed with the kids in the living room. She was already ‘on the clock’, though Austin and Heather had yet to leave home for the evening’s festivities.

Sitting at their breakfast bar, which served as an arbitrary boundary between the kitchen and the dining room, Heather asked gravely, “So what happened Austin?”

“Almost exactly the same thing that happened in October. Remember?

“Yes, I remember.”

“I started having this horrible panic attack. My heart was racing. I was hyperventilating. I looked around and people were looking at me. They weren’t staring at me really. More like spying on me; looking at me furtively. Just like last time. And I felt that they all knew me on a very intimate level, as if to say ‘you’ve been a naughty boy Austin, and we all know it.’ The feelings got so horrible that I had to jump the train. I mean disembark. I Just….don’t….get it.”

“Did you schedule that appointment with the neurologist? Wait, did you ever schedule to first get the MRI!? Heather asked this with the full expectation that Austin had procrastinated.

“Uh, not yet.”

“God damn it Austin!” Heather said in frustration.

“I had been feeling slightly better the past couple of weeks, so felt that maybe it wasn’t urgent after all.”

“God damn it Austin! How does your head feel now?”

“Well, a little worse since the incident on the train.”

“Do you want to cancel going out with Brian and Glen?”

Hesitating, Austin finally said, “God, I hate cancelling again. A month ago we cancelled because of my headaches. If I go out tonight, I will be shitty company. I’m just not in the mood. I need some closure, somehow. I hate to ask, Heather, but would you call Brian and just tell him I’m not feeling well. I’ll pay Megan and send her home.”

Heather walked around the breakfast bar, embraced Austin, and said in a spirit that introduced a little levity into their conversation, “That’s what wives are for, Austin”. Austin managed to produce a pained smile in return.

The function of this evening was now simply to decompress. Austin collapsed into the living room recliner, with Heather and the kids nearby. They decided to watch one of the endless series of Disney CGI animated features on Netflix; something primarily to keep the kids entertained. Austin wasn’t engaged with the movie and instead thought about the missed opportunity to go out with Brian and Glen. He understood that the maintenance of healthy relationships required regular nourishing. He flashed back to the events on the train and tried to identify patterns and similarities with the first similarly bizarre event in October. Austin closed his eyes, but the harder he attempted to concentrate, the sleepier he got. The droning audio of the Disney flick acted as white noise for Austin, and soon he was fast asleep. Tomorrow would again be a re-set day; rebooting the routine that he, Heather and the kids depended on so their lives could proceed smoothly.

IV

Over the next couple of months Austin finally got the much delayed MRI, and saw a neurologist about his headaches, who hopefully could determine their cause. Austin particularly wanted to know if the MRI could reveal any pathology. The neurologist’s interpretation of the MRI was inconclusive. Unable to attribute any clear cause for Austin’s headaches, the neurologist just prescribed a baby aspirin a day, Ibuprofen as needed, and a follow up appointment in four months. Austin felt ambivalent; happy that he didn’t have a brain tumor, but disturbed by the prospect of having to endure the headaches for at least another four months.

Austin religiously followed the doctor’s instructions about taking the baby aspirin each day, and added a multivitamin, fish oil, and several herbs. For a few weeks he had become a regular fixture at a health food store near his school. Austin also began an after school low intensity aerobic exercise routine. This combination of strategies seemed to relieve the worst of Austin’s headaches, while simultaneously lifting his spirits. Perhaps these were the secrets to sustained good health.

It was late February. Though still quite cold, the days were getting noticeably longer. Austin could almost make it home from school now before the last traces of evening twilight faded into total darkness.

Austin’s classes were going well. He was immensely grateful that he taught an elective course. Most of his students were there by choice. Rarely did he have to experience the class management challenges that contributed to the burnout of some of his peers. Even Heather had to endure many apathetic and willfully obstinate students, contributing to her early departure from the profession. Nursing however fit her like a glove. She thrived on the sometimes chaos of the emergency room, something Austin found incomprehensible.

Austin arrived early to his classroom on this seasonably cold morning, in order to test the potency of two solutions he had prepared the night before. He was going to have his students perform “the Iodine Clock Reaction” experiment to test the impact that concentration had on chemical reaction rates, and the initial solution concentrations had to yield a reaction time of no more than fifteen seconds. In the follow-up class they would conduct the same experiment to determine the effect temperature had on reaction rates. The “Part B” of this experiment takes much longer to complete and requires fresh solutions, explaining why it would have to be delayed. But “Part A” can be completed quickly, creating the dilemma of what to do with the remaining class time after the lab is completed. He didn’t want to move beyond Le Chatelier’s Principle in a class discussion until both parts of the iodine clock experiment were completed. Austin settled on another assignment over the same material. Redundancy sometimes is beneficial as it reinforces concepts, but is viewed contemptuously by the more advanced students who see it as “busy work”.

Austin completed the lab setup with time to spare. He walked to his first floor classroom windows and looked out onto the campus lawn to a spot where he new that daffodils would be blooming in the spring. To his surprise, he could see yellow-green stems protruding about one inch above the still frozen ground. “Daffodils are certainly tenacious and impatient”, he thought. “Why must they get such a jump on the new growing season? Is it a competition for resources that become depleted at a later time? A competition for light or space?”

Austin’s thoughtful musings and relaxed reverie were abruptly interrupted by the morning bell. Students filed in and took their seats. Part A of the Iodine Clock Experiment concluded successfully and seat work was assigned.

Austin had the strange feeling that someone was again going to ask him about God, religion, heaven and hell or some related question. Rising to the occasion was Julian Adams who had started the stealthy query into Austin’s philosophical belief system last October. Julian raised his hand, and with an emerging smirk spreading across his expansive face, asked “Mr. Coe, I have a question”.

“OK. What is it Julian?”

“Um. Well, it’s not about chemistry.”

“That’s alright. Let’s have it, Julian.”

“What is the meaning of life?”

At this point the entire class was looking straight into Austin’s eyes. Austin smiled and said, “Everyone seems to think that this is the most difficult or unanswerable question known to mankind, but it is really simple , at least for people who have strong religious or spiritual convictions. The meaning of life is spiritual salvation, or the salvation of the soul.”

“You know, I thought you might say something like that,” Julian said, interrupting Adam’s train of thought. Adding, “I go to church. That’s what they tell us. But I still don’t really know what it means.”

Austin noticed at least half his class nodding their heads in agreement with Julian. “Our mission in life is to save our soul,” Austin continued. “Like I told you before, the soul is immortal. It is the one think not constrained by the laws of physics. Remember how I told you that I believe that at death our soul drifts beyond our three-dimensional universe into a four-dimensional universe where time actually becomes a physical dimension? And that we exist on an ‘interface’ between two four-dimensional universes? Anyway, to put it simply, our mission is to do what is necessary in this life to achieve eternal life in the more “favorable” of the two 4-D universes.”

“So what do we have to do to get their Mr. Coe”, a normally shy girl named Jessica asked.

“You know, I can’t really give you specifics”, Austin answered. “I’m sure that you can figure that out for yourself. It may even be different for every person. But let me tell you something else that I believe. As always, you can take it or leave it. And as always, I don’t claim to have any special insights. What I’m telling you is what I believe, and I reserve the right to change my opinion should I have additional insights. OK?”

Adam surveyed the room to determine if any students potentially could be confrontational or offended by what he was about to say. Everyone seemed genuinely curious and respectful.

“I believe that God is all powerful. That truly means without limits on his power. An all powerful God is not only capable of intervening in our lives, he intervenes in our lives continuously, without interruption. To say anything else is to put constraints on God’s power. The all powerful God intervening in our lives continuously is trying to lead us to salvation. But reserved to us is free will, that permits us to act contrary to God’s wishes. God’s only concern is that we achieve salvation. Are you all alright with what I’ve just said, even if you don’t agree?”

Austin observed many silent nods from a group of wide-eyed teenagers.

Austin continued, “OK, one more thing, and I KNOW many of you will disagree with what I’m about to say, and that’s alright, just please respect my belief. After a pause, Austin resumed, “If the all powerful God is continuously intervening in our lives to try to lead us to salvation, then he is also doing precisely what is best for us at all times. When you consider petitionary prayer, it presumes that we humble humans can redirect the pattern of God’s intervention in our lives. But if the all powerful God is already doing what is best for us, that’s not possible. Human desires trumping God’s will? Not possible. So I have to tell you that I don’t believe in petitionary prayer. I know that people instinctively want to believe in petitionary prayer. They desire the comfort that it provides. The meaning of life is not about comfort, it’s about achieving salvation. Anyway, that’s what I believe. I hope no one was offended.”

Austin’s last comment left the class silently ruminating. There was much to digest. Austin wondered how his students would respond to his rejection of petitionary prayer. Might he experience an uptick in behavioral issues in future classes? He had couched his argument in a manner that made it almost beyond reproach; the inability to simultaneously believe that God is all powerful, yet can be manipulated by human whims.

After a significant pause, Austin, feeling embarrassed that he may have crossed a line, quietly asked, “any questions before the bell rings? Anything? Remember, we will be doing Part B of the Iodine Clock Reaction next class, looking at the effect temperature has on reaction rates, and how it is consistent with Le Chatelier’s Principle.” Austin’s return to the chemistry curriculum just prior to the bell was meant to diffuse any tension that accumulated during the digression into metaphysical topics. With his last utterance, the bell rang, and the students filed out, heads down and far quieter than they had entered ninety minutes before. “Were they offended?”, Austin thought. “Will there be recriminations this time? Damn, why did I feel the need to go into such detail with my beliefs? Just because a kid asks doesn’t mean I am required to answer. I should have kept this to myself this time.”

As Austin’s next class began filing in, he noticed that his head was hurting more than it had in weeks. His diet and exercise regimen had reduced the frequency of severe episodes, but apparently stress can overwhelm its benefits.

Austin completed the remainder of his day in a stupor; an automaton on automatic pilot. Likewise, he made his way to the L train like an expressionless zombie. Taking the forward facing seat near the back of the car as always, he couldn’t help but notice a young women sitting opposite him. Her hair, parted down the middle, was bright green on the left side of her head, and bright orange on the right. Considering that it was late February, she was very under dressed; no coat, just a long sleeveless red dress, that resembled an evening gown from the 1940’s. Also, she had many tattoos on both her arms and neck.

As the train began to move, Austin checked his phone for text messages and emails from Heather, a routine he had completed countless times over the years. When he looked up, the multicolored, tattooed young women was smiling broadly and making very deliberate eye contact with him. She then quite deliberately directed his attention to a tattoo of the Earth on her upper left arm. A clear, identifiable outline of both the north and south American continents could be seen within the tattoo. Over this was a sideways figure eight, actually an infinity symbol.

Austin looked around the car and now saw others smiling and making tentative, furtive glances in his direction. The young women waved her arms in an attempt to restore his focus on her, which succeeded. Austin felt his heartbeat and respiration rate increasing. The young women directed Austin’s attention to her left forearm. There he saw a tattoo of a large teardrop. But next to the tattoo along a prominent vein, was a sequence of scars and scabs that were unmistakable evidence of heroin use. Austin’s sense of unease escalated. He had cottonmouth. He was visibly shaking. His heart rate soared and he could feel it beating in his head. Having experienced this before, Austin was determined not to bale from the train again. He looked around the train car again, and all but one individual was looking right at him. As before, he felt that they knew him at a most intimate level, though he couldn’t identify anyone. Austin consciously tried to make careful observations despite his growing desperation. At the front of the car he noticed the one individual who wasn’t looking at him. Wearing a bright white shirt and tan slacks, he recognized that this was the same individual, dressed in the same way, and sitting in the same seat, as the last time the odd assemblage of bizarre experiences led to an overwhelming panic attack.

Frantically waving her arms, the young women was again determined to restore Austin’s focus on her. She was also determined to show Austin more of her body art, for whatever reason. The colorful young women briefly lunged toward Austin, who instinctively recoiled, though she posed no real threat. The effect was again successful at getting Austin to concentrate his gaze on the young women. Again broadly smiling, she then directed his attention to a tattoo of a butterfly on her upper right arm, with an infinity symbol over it. Following this, her left hand motioned to the right side of her neck, where she exposed a tattoo of Einstein’s famous mass-energy equivalency equation. Austin was perplexed as to the meaning of the apparently unrelated assortment of body art. As he attempted to comprehend any meaning, the women slumped in her seat and began laughing manically.

Completely overwhelmed by the experience, with heart and respiration rates soaring, with sweat pouring down his face and a pulsating headache, Austin disembarked from the Red Line of the elevated train at Loyola Terminal. He had tried to make it further. He privately hoped that this time he could make it to Howard Terminal where he would catch the Yellow Line to Skokie, but to no avail. As always when this unexplained and terrifying sequence of events occurred, he disembarked at the Loyola Terminal. And as always, he would hike along Lakeshore Drive to Howard Terminal.

As Austin walked quietly northward along Lakeshore Drive, he felt weak and noticed that his throbbing head hurt worse than he realized. He walked quietly, head down, for several minutes. Then suddenly, and unexpectedly he felt empowered. “Never again!”, he shouted to the darkening sky. “Never again!”, he again shouted, determined to be louder than the waves crashing along the shore of Lake Michigan, as both he and the lake fought for auditory dominance. “Next time, and there will be a next time, I’m going to challenge those motherfuckers! Fuck them! Fuck them! Never fucking again!”

V

Austin arrived home thoroughly spent, his mood matching the cold gloom of early evening. He wasn’t sure how to broach this most recent experience to Heather. She had been supportive so far, but all relationships have their limits. What might she recommend this time as a response? Regardless, he couldn’t withhold information. He would have to talk.

“Well, guess what happened?” Austin asked this of Heather, with an air of resignation.

“You’re kidding right. Not again,” Heather responded incredulously.

“Yup. A little different this time. Let me tell you about this very colorful tattooed girl.”

“Oh! Before you get started, let me talk about my morning. Speaking of colorful, tattooed girls. We had this girl come into one of the trauma rooms about 10:00AM this morning. Another person to join the twenty-seven club I’m afraid, though she wasn’t famous like Hendrix or Cobain. She had just overdosed on heroin or fentanyl. We gave her naloxone to counter the opioids, intubated her, and had her on a breathing machine for awhile but she died anyway. And you said colorful, right? Get this: this girl parted her hair down the middle, and it was bright green on the left side and bright orange on the right side. And she had the strangest tattoos; the Earth and a teardrop on one arm, a butterfly on the other arm, and an physics equation on her neck. Plus she was wearing this sparkly red evening gown.”

“Wait! That exactly describes the girl I saw on the train this afternoon!! She must have survived and been discharged.

“No! I was there. Dr. Weiss pronounced her dead. We worked on her for two hours. The girl you saw couldn’t possibly be the same person.”

“The equation, E=mc2. Einstein’s equation for the equivalency of mass and energy. Right? And on the right side of her neck, right?”

“Well, yes it was.”

“And an infinity symbol over the Earth tattoo and over the butterfly!! And track marks from her heroin use on her left forearm next to the teardrop tattoo, right!!

“Yes. Yes, Austin! But you must have seen her yesterday, because she died this morning. I know. I was there!!

“I saw her Heather! On the train! Late this afternoon! No mistaking it. The chances of two different people having ‘that’ combination of traits and tattoos is remote in the extreme! And Heather, she was constantly trying to draw my attention to her tattoos. She didn’t want me to forget them!

“Austin, you must be describing an experience you had yesterday. The girl died this morning.”

“No, Heather!! Fuck no!! I saw her just ninety minutes ago on the Red Line before Loyola Terminal. I know this for a fact. Full stop.” After a short pause, followed by a quizzical look, Austin continued. “Oh God, Heather! I just realized something. Every time this happens follows a day in which in one of my classes I discuss my faith in God, or spirituality, or heaven and hell, or something similar. Heather, I think it’s all related.”

“What?”

“Yes. Every time I have one of these bizarre experiences that lead to a panic attack and being forced off the train, it follows some kid in class that day asking me about God, faith, religion, heaven, hell, or something similar. I swear, these episodes always follow these class discussions. Always the same day. I never noticed it till now.”

“You are scaring me Austin! You are scaring me. The kids are looking at us from the living room. They think we are fighting.”

Austin placed his hands on the dining room table to steady himself as he began to sob. “I know it all sounds crazy! I don’t know what to think! I can’t take it Heather. I can’t take it! I feel I’m going insane.” Austin forced the words out through tears and a voice strained by the emotional upheaval.

Embracing in a symbol of love and solidarity, Heather said “We’ll get through this Austin. It’s going to be alright.”

“It’s going to happen again, Heather. And when it does, I’m going to be prepared to go ballistic on all those people. I now know how to make it happen. I will MAKE it happen, but in my own due time. I won’t recoil. I won’t be shut down. I’ll assert myself like never before. I will have answers. I will have answers.”

Austin called in sick for work the next two days. With a normal weekend to follow, it would provide him a four day holiday to get his mind back in order. Austin ruminated extensively about the meaning of his bizarre experiences. Despite his scientific background, he had come to the unsettling conclusion that his repeating experiences were supernatural in origin. He settled on this conclusion after exhausting all other plausible scenarios. There were just simply no natural explanations that sufficed. “The girl”, he thought. Why was it so important to her that he see her tattoos? Was there any significance to them? Was this just her strategy for linking him to Heather’s experience with her? A way of letting him know that she was dead perhaps? And she WAS dead. He had seen a dead young women on a train making every attempt to get his attention. Then what about all the other people on the train? Why did they look at him with that all knowing smirk? Were they all dead too? What about the guy in the front of the car that never looked around? So many questions. But Austin knew the experience would happen again, and he would be prepared next time. He had been a boy scout as a preteen, and their motto was ‘be prepared’, a value he had adopted long ago. HE…WOULD….BE…. PREPARED next time.

End. Part One.