The Elective

The parking lot is full, even on a Tuesday morning, 11:02 and the tourists are trying the new pub that used to be a row of fish cleaning stalls. The sand is piled up on the beach because the last storm brought the coast to its knees. Caterpillar tractors are trying to separate clean and sanitary sand from the prospect of barnacles and sea stones that might warrant an environmental inspection.

One must run past the people with fishing rods, the Domo Steak House, ignore the cooks trading greeneries, the vendors of truffles, and the planks that are coated in creosote. Some splinter as you sprint. At the end of the old Monterey Pier is a makeshift sign that warns that the area is allocated to CSUMB experiments. It’s not for tourists and lovers. It’s not even for residents.

The iron ladder is cold. Rusted in joints and the echo of foot-stomps giving weight to the rails proves that the ladder was hollow when built. One must commit to turning their back to the sea and descending the rungs carefully, even if they are late to the Ocean 11 lectern class and fear that they will be rejected from the course, and must wait another six months to complete their degree.

The ladder ends in a room that looks like the inside of a large wooden crate from China. You look to the entrance and wonder how high tide does not fill the crate-room with water. There is no particular lip around the entrance. It’s like being able to dive out of a submarine using the mysteries of water pressure, so long as the submarine has a pool within a pressure equalization system, the Ocean will balance itself in a bubble. One can move from one biosphere to the next, diving under the sea.

"Hello. Can I see your badge?”

There is no badge except for the Student ID. You give the person with the clipboard a random toss of the head, present the student ID, enter the next door, and take a seat in what should be the back of the lecture rotunda under the sea. It is difficult to concentrate on the speaker as all the blackboards have been replaced with looking glass. The kelp forest sways with the currents. It is like an underwater wind is present that sweeps leaves and moves thirty foot tall ferns. The view is constantly changing. Very alive.

Ms. Stivald has written her name on the looking glass in a red dry-erase marker. Someone raises their hand in the front row though with only twelve students it seems like they could have just called out.

“Should we call you Doctor Sti–vault?”

She stops passing out the syllabus papers. Her body is not quite erect, not ready for the challenge. Then she slowly explains that there are no Doctorates available for her field of study.

She’s wearing a skirt that is pressed and pleated and runs to the floor. Her blouse is a thin white material and this has been weighted down by a thick navy blue apron with two pockets. From these pockets, she takes out what looks like a business card and hands it to the inquiring student.

She explains to the class, “We are authorized under the Obama Administration’s Environmental Trust. If you take a moment to meet your neighbor you’ll notice that we have no particular Marine Biology Majors.”

How strange.

A dozen students introduced themselves through their studies. There was an Asian girl preparing for her Public Accounting test and a Student of Law had recently arrived from McGraw School in Sacramento. An architect from San Jose looked bewildered at being forced ninety miles south to recertify his existing license. There were two students whose studies focused on Kinesthetics, the modern description of Physical Training as a vocation.

There were two criminologists who had driven in from UC Santa Cruz and spoke among themselves about whether it was worth the ninety minutes round trip drive just for an elective.

Ms. Stivald put her red pen in her pocket. She looked at her class and wanted for them to come to attention. “The thing is… we don’t have anyone sign a Non Compete or a Non-Disclosure here.” Then the teacher nodded to someone in the back, probably the girl with the clipboard that checked badges. The lights in the room went dim and the glass windows that surrounded the class darkened.

“Hey. Is that Smart Glass?”

We were told nothing as the center window changed from a standard viewing window into a very large monitor that was translucent. The viewing screen expanded the scene to a fast-forwarded edition of the kelp forest before us. The center screen/window gave just a moment of expectation and then the entire room wailed and jiggled as the sound of a broken embrace engulfed our ears. The room started moving.

We were sorely frightened. Everyone, save the teacher and her helper in the back. There were no seatbelts on the chairs and the teacher only reached gently for a brass pole that went from the ceiling to the floor. She leaned on this pole slightly as if she were riding a bus instead of gaining speed under the Pacific.

There’s an ancient trench in Monterey Bay used by the World War II military to sneak submarines to shore. The civilian maps had always said that the trench was about a mile deep and acted as a highway conveyance. That is to say: you can enter a large crescent-shaped bay that hides the coastal towns from the wild ocean, above. We found that this trench connected the US Navy’s Master School to the largest mass of water on the planet. It was probably a mile deep if you went in a straight line. As soon as the class had reached the lower depths, we found from the ceiling windows that there was actually a land shelf above, like a biodome with the ceiling made of earth but all the sides were water.

Some of us got out of our seats though the vibrations of movement should have caused us fear. The teacher had a nonmoving grin, a poker player who refused to tell. Her eyes lazily watched those who could not sit and wait.

The Asian girl that was practicing accounting seemed to be praying to herself. The lights from the classroom vehicle had only a fifty-yard effect so we felt the movement of steady travel but had to assume which things we would see moments before they came into view. A constant surprise at something hitting the outside of a window.

The room shakes. The submersible vehicle that was supposed to be a lecture class shook.

There was some faith that this woman and her assistant did not want to die. Some faith that she had gathered a group of random professionals for a purpose greater than kidnapping. Her syllabus was frantically read by the dozen students as they wanted to know the future but dared not get her attention. She was our captor and captain

Day One: Introductions

Day Two: Examination of Cause

Day Three: Monetization of the Singularity

Day Four: TBD

We had no rocket scientists. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to notice that the syllabus was given in days and not in weeks. The Syllabus targeted money from a singularity? How odd. Whoever heard of academia making money? Well, not to the point of talking about it.

The velocity of the vehicle seemed to increase. There was no comparison to moving past objects to tell our speed. Just the darkness. Always darkness. What ocean people describe as the Deep Blue Sea.

“Are we still in Monterey?”

The ride was not tranquil because the rush of movement suggested that we were traveling far enough to spend some great fuel on speed. It was not a tourist lull at all. We did not go in circles and look out for whales and dolphins. We did not seek complimentary wine glasses and did not discuss any romance.

Then the class came to a sudden halt and all of the LED lights of the class interior went to full brightness. The class was an underwater buoy without an anchor, relying on unseen propulsion to avoid the jet streams. We probably looked like a large lantern to the passing shark.

There were jarks. Momentary jerks reminded everyone that our position was tenuous. The teacher seemed to look at her pupils and judge their consternation. No one asked for a vomit bag or pretended that it was a good time to sneak to the toilet. How strange.

She just stood near her brass pole and moved her body with the occasional drift of the craft. Like she was waiting for the jaunts and jiggles to pass through her person. Were these underwater “sea legs?” I couldn’t say. It seemed like we were all intended to become human kites and just roll with the motions.

Ms. Stivald hit a button and the windows took on shades of white. Like whiteboards. We could still feel the lull of underwater currents, the way our craft tried to stay in one position but constantly had to adjust against nature’s will to move it to another course.

“Thank you for your patience. It’s time we prepare for what comes next.”

No one spoke. It was immediately conclusive that our lives were at her whim. Did we even have the protection of World Justice anymore? Seemed we were too far from anything for anyone to take ownership of what they considered a suppression of free will.

We felt further from civilization than the first explorers to Antarctica. At least they had the stars.

Then Ms. Stivald stepped in the middle of her students. Stood among them so we might smell her person. We might stand to overcome her privilege, take her by the arms and restrain her neck. She didn’t seem to fear us.

“I can tell you that we are beyond the laws of man. We are beyond the protections of the coast. We are… maybe like Adam and Eve just thrown out of the Garden. “

She let that sink in for just a moment as the man that said he was from McGraw School in Sacramento took a gulp.

Then Ms. Stivald leaned down right to him, the lawyer was chosen first. She said in an even tone: “We are going to need each of you to rouse your senses. We are creating a new world to save the old.”

Then she lifted her chin and cried “Mary!”

A button was pushed? Maybe a lever. Alls that can be said is that the teacher took a chair and it felt like we were on the world’s largest and worst roller coaster as the classroom dived further with all engines. The sound of exhaust hissing? Definitely, some shipwork to make the billions of gallons of water diffuse. Each gallon is eight pounds and being that low is like a giant stepping on your trachea.

.

.

The lights in our cabin had to blink. There is no low voltage that can stay constant with the changes in depth, pressure – the velocity of movement. The truncation of a new dimension that did not exist some hours before. The entire class shook and some had to heave out their fears. Most of us grasped the small tables attached to our chairs, white-knuckled and silent children waiting for Mom to say the consequences.

It was a little less than a eulogy prayer if you’re catholic and prefer the Latin, a little less than the time it takes a thousand people to escape an amphitheater — the whiteboard window shades came up slowly and we from the utter darkness of depths and the feeling of endless suffocation – we all suddenly got out of our seats and pressed our noses to the smartglass windows. There was no longer fear and misgiving.

From the far we saw gold light as a volcano, no, a furnace glow; we saw sparkling embers, and…. tractors? Yes, bulldozer tractors, perhaps drones, perhaps very small drivers, they were all pushing large piles of clumps into the fire.

There is nothing more beautiful than a tractor in the middle of nowhere. Like telephone lines when you are lost in the forest. As soon as we saw those tracts on the side of those vehicles pushing clumpy matter into a fire we jokingly asked:

“Are we in Hell?”

Ms. Stivald dared tap on the window. We followed her hand’s direction and looked past the tractors and the underwater fire. Just a volcano? Then it moved.

That is to say: a large circle of fire, nearly a circle but fringed with shadows of shapes, and some hundred bulldozers apparently feeding the fire with clumps of matter. They pushed their loads near the fire and then the clumps just sucked in. Gravity? Vacuum? One couldn’t say. At first, the clumps were pushed to a place near the fire and then the clumps were “swallowed?”

Creature. Yes. It must be a creature. Definitely, not an underwater volcano that sat and took sacrifices from the people on the tractors. No, this was a moving thing and just as Ms. Stivald tapped the window, the circle of fire definitely closed its jaws. It closed it jaws because you could verify this from the shadows and the shapes and realize that the fire was not a perfect circle at all. It was maybe a slight oval. A geometric shape that corresponded to this creature’s mouth.

As it changed postures, the drivers of the tractors waited. They did not show angry white smoke from their stacks. In fact, they had no discernable mufflers. We know that the creature was in contact with our teacher because the fire came closer and closer to our craft. It came so close that people put their arms over their eyes. Someone screamed. Our safety was over.

Ms. Stivald just stared frontal face to the aquarium glass that secured her class. The creature moved its fiery mouth from the front to the side so that it was like looking at a circle from the side. We had some notion of shape, by the shadows, the trembling shadows since the fire mouth was the only good light.

And then our craft convulsed. Obviously contacted by some motion wave. Ms. Stivald stepped even closer and put her entire palm to the window Like she could touch the outside. At what depth? Obviously too deep for divers. She could not touch the creature but it brought its face around so that we could come to view the whole and eternal beauty of the new world that was its eye.

If one ever wondered that these two loved each other, they didn’t have to wonder for long. Ms. Stivald put her lips right up to that smartglass, separated by a trillion pounds of seawater. She kissed into the nethers.

The creature blinked its eye and seemed to smile? It seemed to be enamored with our instructor. It can not be known why two, unlike items, could ever find attraction. I suppose it's like God finding favor in a Saint or a prophet. One could look at the human and wonder. It is not our place to understand.

After some time of unspoken affection between the creature and our teacher caressing the glass, pantomiming her affection as if it should be heard and known to that outer world thing; she remembered that she was not alone and said, “Mary, the lights!”

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The classroom lights did dim. It was almost pleasant. Some of us had stopped our breathing and we could not believe that Mary was serving coffee and it smelled like a premium brand of Peet’s.

Ms. Stivald took a cup and thanked Mary. She was a purest and sipped it black, waited for the dozen of her students to receive their drinks and then she began.

“This is Satan.”

She pointed out the glass and Satan blinked its eye.

“Think about this: Satan eats trash.”

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.

Miss Stivald put her entire mouth over the opening of the sippy cup and tilted her head back slowly. Almost erogenous, the heat of the beverage didn’t scald her throat at all.

She wanted

us to think about our unique form of study.

The creature moved outside our craft and the lights in the room flickered.

Epiphany