The professor wrote equations on the blackboard. The chalk has made the tips of his fingers white. While he did write the symbols fast, they were poorly drawn, and almost impossible to read. Nearly half of the blackboard was covered in wavy white lines.
Steven’s attention wasn’t drawn to the professor or to the equations on the board. Steven was sitting in the second row in the amphitheatre with his face slightly tilted down. Hidden to everyone else’s eyes, colourful lines, squares, and figures appeared in whatever direction Steven was looking. It was as if they filled the very air around Steven. The shapes transformed and turned into different shapes and sizes. If they touched each other, they would both get annihilated, and another two would emerge somewhere else in Steven’s viewpoint. There were some that would start as a circle, then turn into a triangle, then a square, and so on. The colourful lines would gain more and more angles until they would eventually turn back into a circle. Then the trigonometric cycle would begin anew. On the other side of Steven’s view, lines danced as well. However, instead of remaining two-dimensional and gaining more and more angles, here the structures would rise in dimension. First, there would be a spot, barely noticeable. Then the spot would grow into a line, which would then become a square. Then, something both mesmerizing and thrilling would happen. The square would become a cube, carelessly floating in front of Steven. On some occasions, he would try to snatch it with his hand, but to no avail. After a few moments of being a cube, the colourful shapes would transform into something else. It seemed as if a cube would collapse into itself while retaining the original outline. What exactly happened then, and afterwards, Steven couldn’t understand. All he knew was that eventually, after a few minutes, the mysterious structure would revert back to being a single dot, from which the whole cycle would repeat. And further yet, there were some shapes that resembled twisting worms, spherical shapes that would stretch out and get thinner before bouncing back. And when these types of shapes collided, they could either double in size or disappear completely. They continued with this kind of dance until –
“Excuse me, Steven, am I that boring to listen to?”
The professor’s strict and loud voice filled the room, silencing all the chitchat in the amphitheatre. Steven lazily lifted his gaze, slowly regaining his wits.
“If you think your sleep has more priority than my teaching, then please, leave my class!” the professor’s face flushed.
“No, no. I am fine. Please continue,” Steven mumbled after a moment, his eyes still following the dancing lines.
The professor flushed even more and his head turned into a large tomato, with only his white moustache being a different colour. “Then, if you insist, could you remind the class what we were talking about?!”
Steven blinked, slowly realizing what was asked of him. “Yeah… yeah, sure.” He looked at the blackboard and tried to focus. At first, the lines and shapes seemed confusing, but there was a good side to them as well. After looking at the board for a second, the lines stopped with their aimless wandering and rushed to the writings and equations. They mimicked everything that was written, making up their own kind of equations. And, somehow, Steven could understand what they meant. “It’s a formula that describes the flow… of a fluid… that is incompressible,” the lines stopped buzzing as he said the words as if they were somehow content.
The professor’s lips turned into a line. “Well, yes, it’s the Navier-Stokes equation! I have been talking about it the entire day-“
“Something’s wrong, though,” Steven said as the lines started twitching again. The professor quickly glanced back at the blackboard looking for any mistakes. “If this were true, the particles in flows contradicting the main one would eventually gain more and more kinetic energy, until they reach infinite velocity. That can’t be right… The equation needs to be changed.”
The professor and the whole class went silent. Without noticing them, Steven continued. “You need to change the part about the forces that impact the fluid. The viscosity should be-“
The shapes and lines disappeared a moment before the bell rang. Then, they returned as if they were never gone. For some reason, ringing, and overall vibrations, seemed to chase them away. As for the equation, Steven didn’t care about it anymore. He stood up and walked out of the classroom, spellbound by the purple and blue lines, leaving his speechless class behind. The professor remained silent, constantly switching his gaze from Steven’s back and the blackboard.
#
The day was sunny and bright, but the sunlight didn’t bother Steven. He glared into the blue sky, while his feet moved slowly across the square. He had been renting a room for more than half a year. He lived above a small convenience store that was also a small dinner. It wasn’t so close to his college, but Steven didn’t mind walking. He had his shifting colourful shapes at his side.
“Are you worms?” he asked, but the shapes continued with their dance, unbothered to answer. “Can I call you like that? Worms?” A passing woman turned at looked at Steven confusingly, but he didn’t notice her. “I’m starting to like you, I think…”
It wasn’t like that at the beginning, though. When the shapes slowly started appearing, Steven was afraid of them. The doctor he had seen told him they were a product of stress and sleepless nights. They aren’t rare among students, the doctor had told him and saw him out of his office with a smile.
However, as time went on, the shapes got bolder. They appeared constantly. After some time, Steven got used to them. He didn’t know how, but he needed them. They guided him through the world, organized his thoughts, and sometimes even urged him to eat. And after a very stressful part of his life, he didn’t mind sitting some time out, while the worms did most of the thinking. Unfortunately, he had trouble understanding the worms. They would sometimes respond to him, by either twitching more vigorously or calming down. They would swarm around a thing he was supposed to be looking at. Even at that moment, as Steven walked across the square, he stared up, watching the worms dance over and around the Sun, while his legs walked, seemingly on their own.
On a bright day, the worms would shine stronger, and move more vigorously. Steven concluded they liked the Sun. Or the sky. He tried to get as much sunlight as possible. Unfortunately, he lived in the northern part of the country. The wind or rain would usher him back inside. The worms didn’t seem to like that, but Steven couldn’t stand being cold and wet.
Steven walked across a corner and stepped into his street. “Oh,” he whispered, realising he had already reached his home. “Well, you’ve seen enough sun today,” he said, and the worms rebelliously squirmed.
He pushed the door of Nina & Sons and a little bell rang above him. The worms retreated half a second before the bell rang, and returned soon after. A large, busty woman at a counter smiled, only to frown moments after noticing Steven.
“You’re late! A week more and I kick you out!” She screamed before returning to a stunned customer. She then continued explaining in her sweet tone why apple cider is best taken early in the day.
Steven walked around Nina and climbed the narrow staircase. The building where the store was located had 3 floors. The first one was turned into a large store and a diner, the second one belonged to Nina and her family, and the third one was used for renting. There were only two rooms though, which shared a crowded bathroom.
Steven’s last neighbour was another student, who decided his father’s business was a better option. Steven had already forgotten the man’s name. His new neighbour came a couple of months prior. Steven had seen him only once, as he walked into his room. His neighbour was a large man, who always wore a hood over his head. Even Nina, despite her nosey tendencies, didn’t know much, except that the man was a fisherman.
“He paid me a whole year in advance! How could I say no to that?” she once told Steven, while counting the bills of the day’s market. Maybe a week before or after his neighbour moved in, Steven started seeing the worms.
Steven reached his floor and unlocked his room. He pushed open the door, revealing a messy and stuffy crowded room. The bed was dishevelled, the pillow was on the floor, and there were sweat stains on the mattress. On the other side of the room, there was a small desk with a draped window above it. Steven removed the drapes and let some light in. He didn’t open the window, however. Immediately, he sat down at the desk, on which a neat stack of papers was placed. It contained writings and drawings depicting the worms. There were hundreds and hundreds of papers, some with drawings, some with letters, and some with unreadable scribbles.
“What are you…?” Steven mumbled as he started drawing the lines and shapes. His stomach defiantly murmured, but Steven paid no attention to it. He was busy drawing the worms. He wanted to learn their language.
#
Steven blinked. He raised his gaze. The Sun had gone down, and a sole street lamp was illuminating his room. His eyes hurt. Enough. He started adding his new drawings to the stack of paper and yawned. Only then did he realise how hungry he was. Nina was probably closing the store, but she might have some leftovers around. If she were good-spirited, she would give them to Steven for free. He grabbed the last piece of paper. It was completely white. With a white background such as that, he could see the worms better. What are you?
“What are you?!” he asked louder. The lines moved more quickly. Steven sighed. He felt frustrated and started biting the end of his pencil. It already had myriad bite marks.
Then he remembered how the worms mimicked the professor’s equation. Steven grabbed the pen and wrote: What are you?
Steven looked at his words, expecting them to change. Nothing happened. He sighed.
However, just as he picked up the last piece of paper to add it to the stack, the worms scattered. A few of them joined, forming a large one. They hovered over the word what in his sentence.
Steven raised an eyebrow. The worms perfectly covered the word what. He shook his head. The lines and worms moved. However, the space where the word had been was now blank. As if the word was erased.
Steven looked in disbelief. He touched the paper. There were no signs of graphite on it. Only ‘are you?’ remained.
Then the worms started moving again. Afraid not to scare them off, Steven sat still, looking at the paper. The worms swarmed all over the paper, concentrating on his writing. The worms started shifting into a fixed position just after his sentence.
are you? here
There was a knock on the door.
Steven nearly fell off his chair. Panting, he grabbed the paper again. The worms scattered everywhere, each going its own way. There was nothing wrong with the paper. His original ‘What are you?’ was intact. His eyes were tired and seeing things, he realised. He was tired.
Another knock came. Steven got up, wondering what Nina would want from him. He pulled the door, opening them…
…To find a strange man standing in front of him. The man was large and tall, wearing a black sweater with a cloak above. A hood covered most of his face, revealing only his mouth and chin.
“Are you here?” the man asked. His voice was low and slow.
Frightened, Steven could only nod.
“Good…” the man said. Then he turned around and walked through the door into his room. Steven remained standing for a while in the hallway, until he finally walked back into his room, locked his door, checked that the door was locked, and then jumped onto his bed. His stomach could wait until morning. He needed sleep to rest.
However, the worms didn’t seem sleepy or tired. They ran around everywhere. Even closing eyes didn’t help. Steven could see their silhouettes through the eyelids. And what was his neighbour talking about?
Steven sighed and stood up. It was the middle of the night, but sleep wouldn’t visit him. He remembered his neighbour. What did that man ask him again?
As if reading his thoughts, worms started buzzing faster. The ones that were always turning into different trigonometric shapes quickened their cycle.
“Should I go to him?” Steven asked, filling his lonely room with his voice.
The worms stopped. Then they moved an inch. Then they stopped again.
“Is that a ‘yes’?” Steven asked.
The worms repeated their stop-then-move dance. Surprised at his courage and the new discovery, Steven unlocked his door and stepped out. The boards on his floor creaked as he neared the fisherman’s door. He grabbed the handle.
And pushed the door open. A wave of stale air hit him, followed by a horrendous smell. “Hello?” Steven whispered, looking inside the room. There was practically no light in there. He called again, but nobody inside replied.
Steven went back to his room, got a matchbox from a drawer and returned to his neighbour’s room. He stuck a match. A faint yellow light bounced off mouldy black walls. There were papers scattered all around the room. The papers had some unrecognisable symbols on them.
The window was completely shut, allowing no streetlight in. However, with the little match, Steven could notice an outline of a large man kneeling in the middle of the room.
The match went out, plunging Steven into total darkness.
Gasping, Steven hurried and tried to light a new one. A few sparks appeared. Steven struck the match again…
Revealing the face of a man in front of him. Steven cried and fell backwards, tripping over his own feet. The man was looming over Steven. It was the fisherman, however, his hood was off. His eyes were blood red, without pupils. Above the eyes, where his forehead was, the skin was stretched and bloody and caved in. The bones of his skull protruded at different places, mixing with hair strands. But what caught Steven’s attention right away was a purple marble jammed in the middle of the man’s forehead. The worms stopped moving.
“Are… you… here?” the man whispered.
“Wh-what? Y-Yes, I’m here” Steven stuttered.
The man’s face was expressionless. Then he raised a hand. In the middle of his palm, there was another purple marble. The worms seemed to love it, as they started circling around it, just as they circled around the Sun. “Take… it” the man whispered.
“I…” Steven stuttered. He took a step back. The door was so close.
“Take. It.” the man said louder. All of the worms in Steven’s eyesight rushed to the pearl in the man’s hand, and they were running around it. The worms moved so fast that they looked like a slick circle. A halo.
Steven extended his hand. It was just above the man’s. Something was wrong, he felt, but at the same time, he felt thrilled. The stone would tell him, he knew. It would allow him to listen to the worms.
He touched the stone with his finger. It was surprisingly cold. He gently picked it up. A slight buzzing appeared in his mind. Then it turned into an eerie symphony to Steven’s ears. He was so focused on the purple marble in his hand, that he didn’t notice the man next to him falling lifelessly to the ground.
The worms sang. Steven smiled, ear-to-ear. The worms sang. And he could hear them.
#
“That’s him, professor!”
Professor Wilkinson looked where one of his students was showing. They were in the gardens behind the university’s library. On one of the benches, a young man was sitting, looking at the sky. It seemed as if he was staring at the Sun.
“Has he always been this…?”
“Weird?” one of the students said.
Professor gave him a glance and scratched his moustache. “Your words, not mine. But has he?”
“No, professor,” another student said. “He was just like everyone else. Maybe a bit… slower, if you understand what I’m saying.”
“Slower?” Professor Wilkinson looked at the man on the bench. It was the same student that had told him that his Navier-Stokes equation was incorrect.
“But ever since he’s started acting weird, he got straight A’s everywhere!”
“That is what happens when you study all night, Derry! It happened to my uncles!”
“What? That’s a pile of horse’s shi-“
Another student nudged him, gesturing at the professor.
“Everyone, back to your classes!” Professor said strictly, and nobody protested. After a moment, he was alone, looking at the young man. How could he stare so long at the Sun? Didn’t it hurt?
The professor walked towards the man. He held a rucksack in his lap, but his face was looking directly upwards, and his mouth was slightly open. The man was pale.
“Steven McAksley?” the professor asked. He jumped when the student turned to him. His eyes… seemed wrong. As if living worms were moving and digging in them, eating the flesh of his pupils.
“My God, are you alright?” he neared the man. He could see the outline of the worms.
The man grabbed his hand. A sudden coldness overwhelmed the professor, and he fell to the ground. He wanted to cry out but his mouth stayed silent. Then he realised the sunlight had disappeared. The sky was covered in dark clouds. However, it was the student that got his attention faster.
Steven McAksley looked different. His eyes and a large part of his face were gone, caved in, and yet, the student smiled. A beam of bright light swirled where his eyes used to be, looking like a small galaxy twisting indefinitely. A row of purple swivelling lines made a luminescent halo behind his back.
“Can you hear them sing?” Steven asked gently.
The professor looked in horror at the man.
“Listen! They are singing… they are singing to him!” the student raised his hand to the sky. “Is he not beautiful?”
The professor looked up as well. He saw a ceiling made of curling and twisting black clouds. “I-I don’t-“
Lighting struck somewhere, illuminating the clouds for a bit. The professor caught a glimpse of something monstrous moving above the clouds, with many bulging and extending extremities, looking like tentacles that covered the entire length of the sky.
The professor screamed in terror before feeling a sharp pain in his arm, right where the student had grabbed him. He finally got his arm free, and he stumbled back, falling to his knees, and making a splashing sound.
The professor looked at his hand. There was a small purple ball jammed in his flesh. It was sending black lines all over the professor’s body.
As the man twisted and turned in his agony, Steven looked back up. The professor would soon become a mindless one and he would serve. Steven smiled, spreading his arms. “Thank you!” he shouted and the halo behind his head glowed stronger. He loved his god. The god had taught him how to see.
The sunlight returned, and Steven was back in the university’s garden. His god has disappeared, albeit momentarily. He looked to his left. The professor was standing perfectly still, ignoring the blood running down his arm. Soon, after festering, the marble would grow in size and move to the professor’s forehead, where his front lobe was. When that happened, he would be completely bound to the will of the god. But until then, he would listen to Steven. And Steven had plans.
He wanted to make them all sing.
