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THE UNKNOWN QUANTITY

"I have a cure for blindness," said the scientist. "All it will take is one drop in the eyes. It's literally a miracle formula." Dr. Nietzlawe was unfazed by the revelation. "Meh, we have already gone beyond that, Roger. I used to be blind in my right eye remember?" - "And?" - "And now I'm not. Because I'm blind in both eyes Roger." - "So your eye formula did nothing?" - "Oh yes, it did something all right, it made me go blind." - "But surely that isn't a good thing." - "You would be very surprised Roger. My perception has improved tenfold, I see things that other people are incapable of seeing." - "Like what? Blackness?" - "Imagination Roger, do you think that because my lenses don't work, it's shut down my imagination? You'd be very surprised if you knew where my thoughts were at right now." - "What are you thinking Dr. Nietzlawe?" - "I cannot see the real world, but it's still there. I know this because I can hear things, I can hear the birds twittering in the treetops. The Children playing in the garden. I can hear hosepipes spraying water on a freshly cut lawn. But what I'm hearing, more than anything else in the world right now is ELF signals." - "ELF signals?" - ELF signals Roger. I'm hearing voices on the ionosphere, particularly a little girl's voice that is saying, 'please help me,' I'm hearing bleeps, buzzing, I'm hearing humming." - "I've never heard anything like this Dr. Nietzlawe." - "Yeah, but that's because 'my' ears are super sensitive. In fact I'm getting real worried at what my ears are picking up. The worst part of it Roger... I'm receiving frequent death threats." - "But how can you? What the hell do you know?" - "All I can be sure of is that I know more than I know without really knowing it, if that makes any sense?" - "Partly, but that's only because I've been working with you for twelve years." - "So you 'do' believe me?" - "I believe there has to be an explanation for all this." - "Oh yes, me too, you didn't think I'd believe for one second that this was all happening by coincidence did you? - "Did anything unusual ever happen to you when you were a child?" - "Not that I recall Roger. Although, I do have a recurring dream where I walk into the dining room, I trip over a small plug and bang my head against the skirting board." - "What happened next?" - "Well, I felt concussed, but I'm actually not, then strange things start happening. I have a strong desire to get tied to a chair." - "That's weird." - "It felt as though that bang on the head altered something inside me, like a life-defining moment." - "For better? Or worse?" - "I'm not sure yet Roger, I mean you should never write your destiny off until you're officially dead. These things tend to happen for a specific reason." - "Or just by random probability." - "Oh no, I'm sure that there is some form of determinism involved or we wouldn't be here, residing on this big yarn ball of chemical elements." - "There has got to be some explanation for all this, a reason why you were chosen to be blind." - "Maybe determinism was setting me up, or preparing me for something." - "But why would a lack of vision help you? Surely it would only hinder your plans." - "Maybe TPTB want to shut down my eyesight in order to emphasise my other senses." - "Yes, but why?" - "Maybe I'm supposed to listen out for something and it's only something I can hear when my hearing is emphasised and heightened to my surroundings." - "The ELF signals, the little girl who told you to help her. Maybe that's a part of it?" - "It's a big part of it. But understanding that part is perplexing me, I just feel like a cat that's chasing it's own tail in circles." - "I'm here to help you Dr. Nietzlawe, we have been colleagues for a very long time. If there is anything you can tell me..." - "There are lots of things I need to tell you Roger, lots and lots of scary things that plague my mind at night and stop me from getting a good night's rest. You would think getting to sleep would be easy for a blind man, but it's not." - "I told you Dr. Nietzlawe, in my hand right now I'm holding a cure for blindness. The choice is yours." - "And yet I 'still' choose to be blind Roger." - "I have only one question... WHY?" - "Don't you get it? I'm supposed to be blind, for some reason." - "Take the cure Dr. Nietzlawe, if you want to play at being the man who can't see, wear a blindfold." - "That would be cheating Roger." - "Who would know? I promise not to tell if you don't." - "I'd know I was cheating, she'd know I was cheating." - "She?" - "Debbie, she was with me when we saw them burying that medallion." - "So what?" - "So... it means that she was there, using her bare hands to claw up the soil with me. More importantly, she saw what was written on that medallion, something we never imagined and now we are both up shit creek without a paddle, apart from the one I usually spank her with during some of our sexual role-plays." - "Ahh! Nice joke Dr. Nietzlawe! I thought you were being serious there for a moment!" - "Yeah... well... anyways... This... er... cough... medallion." - "Why wont you show me this so-called medallion you have found?" - "Because I have to be careful about what I'm getting myself in to." - "You can trust me, 12 years we've worked in this Research Lab together. Every conversation we have ever had has remained sacrosanct!" - "But you'll tell 'her'" - "I promise you she wont hear a word of this conversation, she's too busy sitting on her fat arse anyway. She keeps on giving me all this grief, saying that I'm never at home and that I love my job more than I love her." - "Tell me about it Roger, Debs is the same, sometimes I just don't think they truly understand the sacrifices we have been through, the depressions, the bipolar." - "Those two fat arses don't really appreciate where we've come in such a short space of time, 12 years ago we were hardened Ocean Dwellers. Now we are well in with Scientists, Military Figures and Governments, admittedly not willingly... we are doing top secret medical research for fuck sake!" - "I know I know, who would think that we would turn our fortunes around in such a short space of time, but that conversation we had back on the boat was life-changing. We can never tell anyone what we found at the Imperial building. It made us get up and do something about our dire situations." - "Tracking them down was a masterstroke, I mean who would think that we would get in touch with our female counterpart doppelgangers and marry them and then the revelations from last month." - "They have effectively turned into what we were 12 years ago. They don't do anything except gossip and eek through life." - "Maybe we don't give them the attention we used to, I mean we gave them more attention when we were tracking them down, than when we found them. It was as if the real fun was in the chase, the sense of adventure. Life is meaningless when you stand still." - "I think you're right. I think even if we became activists or helicopter pilots, we'd still get bored pretty quickly." - "We have been friends too long to change now Roger, since the College days. It's criminal what we have done, lying on our CVs in order to blag these fucking highly-paid Scientist jobs we have." - "Don't worry about it, we're in this together, you me, the two of them, it's the four of us now, from cradle to the grave. Now how about you show me that medallion." - "On one condition." - "And that is..." - "That you show me whatever the hell it was that you picked up when we were in the Imperial building that night." - "DEAL."

To be continued...