Fermi lay in bed on this chilly morning in New York. He did not want to wake up. He was a part but never belonged to the city. Fermi lived in a nice apartment overlooking central park. He was happy to have inherited this nice home from his parents.
Deborah and Jim were not happy but retired, and lived in airplanes traveling monument to monument. It was not unusual for his parents to return from long trips unannounced.
He never seemed to mind, and welcomed this interruption.
He felt complete with them despite there individual and collective flaws. He was able to see through and not notice the shortcomings and he truly adored them especially his mum. To him the only monuments were living ones and his parents were the most important monuments that mattered.
He had never been religious but believed in the sanctity of Godliness and saw his parents as a proof of existence of the almighty. He did not have worship or ritualistic lifestyle and thought that simplicity in living and living simply was all that was needed to reaffirm the work of god.
Despite having simply philosophy, he was unhappy.
Unhappy with the outcome of his existence as a man, as a journalist as a citizen, as a lover, as a friend, as a co-worker as a soul mate.
There was something lacking.
His mind kept racing even though he stood still, his soul stirred in the lake of rubbish thoughts and his eyes looked and looked with and without the cooperation of his mind. To no avail. He was a believer of miracles and it was a miracle that all these years of learning and artificial experience did not engulf his mind with darkenss of ignorance completely.
He knew that in logic, he could not find the truth, and in irrational actions also the path was dead end. Only option was for him to remove thought from action and sheer effort and action was enough to stay on the right course.
Fermi would often think of this enigma, and would fall into a happy state, and dream that he was abandoned in a forest on a hillside - by his loving parents. All around him were furious hot springs that vented and vexed, tons of steam and outcame gushing waters that stilled his pain.
His cries dampen and the space gets filled by the rivers of silence.
He walks a few miles and discovers a shallow stream. Walking along the banks of the stream he finds himself at the mouth of a enlarging river with nine tributaries. With no boat nor a flotilla, Fermi climbs a tree and discovers a plume of smoke. He hurries to the spot and finds an aged swami in deep trance. Fermi finds himself in deep conversation with the swami in a language he did not have a clue, but is proficient in his dream. Swamiji declares that he has the answer to Fermi’s nagging questions. At this point Fermi wakes up from his dream.
Fermi is disappointed coming so close to his conscious and not getting the clue.
His usual routine was to get up and take a walk in the park but today he was restless as if he had some hidden task ahead of him but not knowing what it was.
He got of the bed and limped over to the kitchen and turned on the coffee machine and listen to his answering machine.
The first message was from the local Jewish charity that invited him for a fundraiser for children with terminal disease. He skipped over to the next message from his mom “ Fermi hello…I hope you are ok. Have not heard from you. Stop scratching your arms and call your mother”. Fermi had this childhood habit of scratching his arm when he was restless.
He knew that his parents may stop by today. That was ok. At any rate he did not have a busy day and he welcomed the idea. It was his habit that he would prepare the choiciest meals his mum relished and he planned the dishes he would prepare for the meal that night. In his effort would assist his charming heartbeat Angelina.
Looking at the copy of the Times he saw all the articles in the comic section – the front page, looked dull and mundane.
He moved on to the serious section – that is the comic section, his favorite part was to read the obituaries. He always thought that choice of having funnies and exit news on the same page was really sarcastic metaphor.
Fermi always used the sports page for picking up the dog poop. He was annoyed at the glorification of egoist bastards and their sponsors. This page essentially said that you could by pass all the hard work regular folks on Main Street did and it was a slap on the face of millions and a consistent driver of millions into insanity.
He always thought the obituaries to be really funny since generally they said nicest things about all the people even if they were rotten. This was the best page to see who was whom that made it to the pearly gates.
The stinking lies, cheating the deceit was hidden and forgotten and folks were glorified only after death.
In most cases, dignity arrived after death followed by eternal rotting in the grave.
Fermi had always thought that dignity which was a fundamental right of all living beings, and that it had eroded from living rapidly and had grown posthumously. This he always reminded to his girlfriend as Fermi’s Rule. Not to be mistaken with the famous Italian physicist who said this phrase aptly that electrons occupying the same energy state had to have different spin.
He took out his red pencil and started keeping score on deaths and the reported leading cause. It looks like cancer scored nine to three compared to strokes followed by two shock deaths or better known as heart attacks.
Cancer was the fastest growing disease and was relentless as Fermi’s stats showed that it was affecting all age groups.
He got online and walked through the major online newspapers across the country. Always looking at the obituaries first, and then he painstakingly worked the details and gathered the stats.
This obsession was so gross that Angelina had warned him of a mind that was rapidly going down a slippery slope. She did not believe any glory after death and was convinced of the finality of the event.
Angelina was unhappy but satisfied.
Fermi rejected this as an angular behavior. Fermi always viewed currently life as temporary, merely a journey to the final destination where lay all the beautiful options.
Fermi imagined this to be similar to all trains arriving at a grand central station. All the travelers arrive with lot of fatigue but big smiles because of what lies ahead. So many choices and so many destinations making past lives look like dull and past relationships ethereal.
He chose to amuse himself in this fashion every morning and Angelina just accepted this and ignored it as an eccentric characteristic of an otherwise perfect friend.
Twelve thousand eight hundred eighty kilometers away another person was thinking of death. Not his own but of others.