ATOMS WITH AWARENESS

 

Once again, Major Richard Blaine finds himself forced to beard the mighty in their center of power.

ATOMS WITH AWARENESS

“Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.”

– Marcus Aurelius

 

After my question, there was a long moment of silence from Sentient, the alien entity who shared my consciousness, 

and then, as she so often did, she answered incomprehensibly:

‘This life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of the entire universe, but it is, in a certain sense, the whole of it. Yet, sometimes it is hard even for me to remember that you humans are merely atoms with consciousness, capable of music and of murder.’

‘I repeat: what have you done?’

‘What I said I would do: heal that tribal chieftain.’

‘How?’

“Have you not been paying attention? Repeatedly, I have told you how your body has been altered, its biochemistry enhanced, your very atomic structure bolstered and reinforced.’

‘And?’

Her sigh breezed through the corridors of my mind like a misunderstood ghost . 

‘And your saliva is no longer sterile nor chemically neutral. Your spit acted as a catalyst to trigger a healing cascade within that tribal chieftain’s body.’

‘He’s healed?’

‘Not immediately, of course. But within weeks, his legs, his heart, his lungs will begin to reassert themselves. Pity the poor maidens to whom he becomes attracted.’

‘Pity his poor wife, you mean.”

“No. That one has brought most of her grief onto herself by enlarging the normal isolation of a Gilded Age childhood and minimizing her reasonably required duties as a mate and mother.’

I quipped an echo Harry Hopkins’ earlier comment. ‘But do you like her?’

The President’s personal physician, Howard Bruenn, jumped up and glared at me. “What did you do to him, Major?”

“Nothing, doctor,” 

wanly smiled the President, showing the patience, fortitude, and humility that he had slowly learned over his long years trying to recover from the polio that was not polio but was really Guillain-Barré syndrome.

Dr. Bruenn produced a stethoscope like a medical Houdini and began listening to the President’s heart while Roosevelt’s second physician, Dr. Draper took his pulse.

Buzzie, his pale young face mostly wide eyes, asked me, “Is Grandfather going to be all right, Major Blaine?”

I nodded. “Yes, he is.”

The Major General snapped, “You can’t make promises like that, soldier!”

I winked at Buzzie. “I do it all the time, and I made you a promise, didn’t I?”

He bobbed his head in an enthusiastic “Yes.”

I dug into my left blouse pocket and drew out a glowing Spartan Helmet pin. “As long as this glows, you will know we of the Spartan 3oo still live.”

“Another promise you cannot possibly make true,” said the Major General.

I wrinkled my nose at the boy. “I’m beginning to think he doesn’t like me, Curtis.”

I was pleased how the boy’s chest swelled when I called him by his given name. I had guessed correctly.

Called nicknames by adults often make the young feel devalued, not worthy of respect ... inferior.

Roosevelt laughed along with the boy. I pulled a folded piece of heavy bond paper out of the same pocket and slipped it into Curtis’s left jacket pocket.

“Here is the address of the first young man I gave this Spartan Helmet pin to.  He lost his father at Dunkirk. I think he would appreciate you as a pen pal. His mother and he were mighty thin when I first saw them. The mother more than her son, Richard Widmark.”

Curtis frowned. “Why was that?”

Louise sighed, “She was giving most of her food to her son, wasn’t she, Major?”

“Yes, ma’am. But no longer. I gave her a leather bag that never runs out of silver dollars that were minted ….”

“On the year of Major Blaine’s birth,” finished the President.

I looked shocked, and President Roosevelt gave an almost back-to-normal chuckle. “Major, I read Agent Cloverfield’s dossier on you every night.”

“Why every night, sir?”

“I have quite a fondness for mysteries as you might know, and your dossier is the most puzzling mystery, I have ever stumbled upon, for it keeps changing night after night.”

Curtis swallowed hard. “I-It does?”

Roosevelt’s chuckle was normal. “It does … Curtis. I can hardly wait to read the new section tonight.”

Fala padded to me, and I felt a weight lift from my chest as I petted him. I was going to get a dog if I survived this damn war. 

I turned to the boy, no, young man.

“A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance,” I winked at the President, “and to turn around three times before lying down."

He rumbled, “You, sir, are incorrigible.”

“That was one of the kinder words Helen Mayfair had for me, all right.”

His face saddened. “I would not have sent those F.B.I. agents to her had I known she was still grieving for your apparent death.”

“It’s done and over, sir.”

His eyes grew hard.

“From what I have read in your dossier, I would not have been so lenient to General Eisenhower as were you had our positions been reversed.”

“I always thought of him as King Saul to my David, sir.”

“Do not lay hands of violence on God’s Anointed, is that it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You are a hero, Major,” murmured Louise.

“No, ma’am. But, just so you know, Sentient has healed your husband of cancer.”

“Why would she do that?”

Roosevelt looked at me oddly. “Because he asked it of her, Louise.”

Curtis cleared his throat. “Ah, what were your orders for Spartan Widmark?”

“That he obeys his mother and stand watch over her.”

“That’s it?”

“Trust me: in bombed out London that’s enough.”

“A-And what are my orders?”

I smiled. “That you obey your mother and stand guard over your grandfather and keep him safe from Cerberus.”

“Who?”

I smiled, “Your grandmother.”

Roosevelt almost choked on his laughter and managed  to get out,

“The hound of Hades, a three-headed dog guarding the gates of the Underworld to prevent the dead from leaving.”

His eyes were wet with tears of laughter. “You, sir, are quite the character.”

I shrugged. “St. Marok’s either built character in you or made you one.”

I smiled at Curtis. “I guess you know what it made me.”

Roosevelt gasped through his laughter, 

“And once or thrice this past week, Curtis, your grandmother has more than earned that particular sobriquet.”

Photograph by Oscar Jordan. August 1932

The entry door swished open. I looked up. I had never before seen a door swished open. But the doughty Eleanor Roosevelt had managed it.

With the two doctors still at his feet, the President looked up and beamed a beatific smile.

“We were just talking about you, my dear.”