Cristal
Chapter 1
New York, 2008
COINCIDENCE? HARRY’S MOTHER always told him that there were no such things as coincidences. Only fools believed in that garbage.
This may explain her erratic behavior when his father, Aaron Doub, a respected quantum physicist, collapsed in front of them. A simple, impromptu, after-work dinner party, which his mother Bina was hosting at their home, had turned into an unforgettable nightmare.
His father’s last words were, “We have the theoretical and experimental capabilities to build a time machine to the future. We have also discovered a scientifically feasible way to go back into the past...”
He remembered how his father’s marble brown eyes bulged out of their sockets; his mouth opened as if to finish the sentence. Then, in slow motion, Aaron fell forward, his face landing into the pile of whipped mashed potatoes on his plate in front of him. The glaring bald spot, which Aaron meticulously polished and combed over every morning, was all that Harry could see from his end of the table.
What would Dad do if he had built his time machine earlier? Would he be here right now?
Harry glanced over his shoulder wondering if there was the slightest possibility that an ‘Aaron Doub from the past’ was standing in the shadows, observing the circus freak show unfolding at this particular point in time.
His father’s colleague, Dr. Saeed Nariman, also a quantum physicist, lifted his father’s head from the plate while another guest helped wipe the mashed potatoes from his father’s face. They both lifted his father and placed him on the floor. In a daze, Harry stood up and walked towards his father’s inert body.
His mother was on the other side, waving her arms in the air, and wailing at the top of her lungs, “They killed him! They killed him!” she cried. Who killed him? Harry thought.
Thankfully, a wife of one of his father’s colleagues came and guided his mother away. Harry stood motionless, watching in awe as Dr. Saeed placed his mouth on his father’s lips. Aaron’s chest rose up and down with every breath Dr. Saeed blew into his mouth.
Dr. Saeed glanced up at Harry and glared at him, saying, “Don’t just stand there, Harry! Call 9-1-1!”
***
His father was pronounced dead an hour after they arrived at the hospital. Harry was walking back from the vending machine. The ER doctor came out of surgery and found his mother and Dr. Saeed in the waiting room. Harry could read from the grim expression on the doctor’s face that the news was going to break his mother’s heart.
“We found a small clot lodged in your husband’s brain,” the doctor said to his mother. “It caused hemorrhagic damage to the surrounding tissue. I’m sorry, Ms. Schwartz…we did all we could.”
His mother, Bina, pushed the doctor away, screaming, “No! It’s not true!”
The doctor waved to a nearby nurse who went to get help. His mother stepped forward and grabbed the doctor’s scrubs with both hands.
“He’s not dead! What did you do to my Aaron?”
When he didn’t respond, she turned wildly towards the other people in the waiting room, and pleaded, “They took my husband! Please help me!”
Harry wasn’t surprised with her reaction. She was an Israeli wife and mother who tended to be over dramatic when she expressed her emotions. But something in her eyes made him wonder if she was right.
Three nurses came rushing back, grabbing hold of his mother’s arms. “Let me go! Let me go!” she wailed, as one of the nurses stabbed a needle into her arm.
“You need to relax, Bina,” Dr. Saeed said in a soothing tone. He helped guide Harry’s mother down into a chair. “Everything will be just fine,” he told her.
“Saeed, you need to find Aaron,” his mother said, before passing out.
Harry had observed everything from a distance; not fully comprehending what was happening. Funny how a tiny blood clot could bring a man as brilliant as Aaron Doub to his demise.
***
Harry was only seventeen when his father died; a university senior writing his thesis, Mind-Reading Computers: Intelligent Assumptions of Complex Thought Processes.
Besides the fact that his father was an atheist and that his mother pretended to be one too, growing up in Harry’s home had been anything but normal. The rare times Aaron was home, Harry might as well have been invisible. When Aaron did acknowledge that Harry was alive, he would rattle on and on about his theories, asking Harry what his opinion was on the matter. If Harry even tried to respond, eight times out of ten, his father would spin around and say, “Where is Saeed? You’re not Saeed!”
When Aaron did not confuse him with Dr. Saeed, Harry could actually have a profound conversation with his father. But those moments were so infrequent that Harry had to mentally accept the fact that he didn’t really have a father.