Page 50 - Vol. VII #1

Denatural Selection
Only about 5 percent of the mass-energy of the universe consists of ordinary matter...Vast halos of dark matter seem to lurk around galaxies...On even larger scales, the web-like topography traced by luminous gas and stars also hints at unseen mass...where all advanced life ends up or has always been. What better way to escape the nasty vagaries of supernova and gamma-ray bursts than to adopt a form that is immune to electro-magnetic ra- diation? Upload your world to the huge amount of real estate on the dark side and be done with it. — Nautilu
Why was such an extraordinary student silent in class, invisible in lectures, and indifferent to grades? After Berkeley’s Commencement on a sunny Mother’s Day weekend, final grades were now due. The professor intended to enter the student’s A+. He found that he couldn’t because ‘Foster, Lee’ was regis- tered P/NP in Current Cosmology - What do we know NOW about the Universe—and HOW? Vijay couldn’t call up the student’s image, but he could see that the senior’s work all semester had been, no other word for it, perfect. He frowned for not noticing sooner. What was he, the kind of teacher he never believed could actually exist?
Good Will Hunting was a film he despised for its in- credible depiction of genius overlooked. Neither
his school teachers in Massachusetts nor his wife Ruthie’s in California would’ve missed a Matt Damon. Vijay believed that from sea to shining sea, teachers rejoiced in rarity as much as any astronomer dis- covering a new star. He looked at the framed photos on his Campbell Hall desk: he and his wife had been recognized early. At four years old, Vijay had mapped constellations, and Ruthie astonished her parents by effortlessly “fixing” their Rubik’s Cube. And now, their curly-haired Dhanya (Thankful, Lucky) was only two years old; a pyramid ‘cube’ was the toddler’s favorite toy though its sharp apex worried Ruthie. But at five, their blue-eyed son David struggled to sit upright.
Fragile X syndrome is a genetic condition that causes a range of developmental problems including learning disabilities and cognitive impairment. Affected individ- uals usually have delayed development of speech and language by age two. About one-third of individuals with fragile X syndrome have features of autism spec- trum disorders. Seizures occur in about fifteen percent of males. Most males with fragile X syndrome have characteristic physical features that include a long and narrow face, large ears, a prominent jaw and fore- head, unusually flexible fingers, flat feet, and in males, enlarged testicles (macroorchidism) after puberty. — Genetics Home Reference
~
A decade earlier, Vijay and Ruthie had met and found 43
careers at Berkeley. Ruthie’s office was in the Math Department in the building beside Astronomy’s Campbell Hall.
Vijay wandered next door to a colleague’s office. Eve looked up from a screen similarly filled with grades.
“What’s troubling you on such a fine day in May? I welcome the clouds after such a blinding weekend. Too much of your Sun!”
“To being with, finding this student was like identify- ing a planetary transit. No social media, unanswered phone/email,” Vijay said. “The Registrar was bureau- cratically unforthcoming with anything additional.
I left her message after message, and finally ‘Foster, Lee’ texted. She was singularly disinterested in a grade change/status. Why?”
“And why do you care? Deux vrais mysteres! Ecce homo AND cherchez la femme,” Eve malapropped.
“She agreed to discuss it.” “Comment dit-on the plot thickens?”
~
Foster, Lee [how Vijay thought of her] appeared in his office the next day after lunch. He offered his hand, and she shook it and sat down without invitation. She removed the heavy course textbook from her back- pack and placed it on her lap. Chino shorts, a white shirt, new sockless running shoes. Vijay also sat down, trying to remember her, but his thoughts felt unset- tled, as did his stomach. Maybe the cafeteria sushi?
He felt himself blinking as he did when exhausted during overnights staring at screen data. He tried to get the graduate into focus. She gave the compact, taut impression of a pit bull or a Marine. Vijay felt neither attraction nor repulsion, only curiosity at the absence of both. What was s/he? ‘They?’ He knew he was clumsy with the steps of the current pronoun dance. Bound to step on toes.
She? Ze? They? What’s In a Gender Pronoun Mem- bers of the 127-year-old American Dialect Society
l. shapley Bassen