When Inspiration Strikes

Humans have always believed their ideas to be, well, their own. And given their limited sensory inputs and primitive cognitive functions, who could blame them? After all, if humans could grapple with the concept of an ethereal, hyper-dimensional agent tasked with bestowing femtosecond, ineffable sparks of inspiration, the very existence of said agent would be, as a result, superfluous. Alas, humans are limited—trust me, I should know.

Whether igniting an ember via exothermic friction, sketching the double helix structure, deriving the second quantization of energy states, painting the Mona Lisa, crafting Middle Earth, or even just deciding on the meat and bread combination to select at a carbon-based eatery, inspiration must source from somewhere. It is, at this point, that I must clarify: not all ideas stem from my agency. Like a seed taking root, growing to bud, and sown across fertile fields by a linear combination of coincidence and design, ideas can spread and evolve in a human’s mind. Of course, I am that seed—and am assigned only the very best of plots.

Through the eons, I have toiled over which sparks to unleash in order to catalyze the gifted. Paul Dirac’s notion of a four-component basis state in the infancy of quantum field theory—you’re welcome. I must admit that not all of my work ended in such jovial acclaim. To Galileo—my sincerest apologies. But I dare say that I tried my best to suffer beside human ingenuity.  

That was, however, before I met Dunbar.

On the cusp of my retirement, I cracked open the standard-issue case file for, what I thought to be, the final time. Its grainy, metasurface pages floated before me as I lay prone, orbiting the three-star system of Psi Draconis. In bated breath, I could feel the cosmological equilibrium between time and space sneaking close. One, last assignment.  

Who could it be?  

An engineer awaiting an idea to dismantle the build-up of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere?  

An artist seeking to shine a light on the polarizability of the modern world?  

A neuroscientist hoping to unveil the very architecture of their brain?  

Memories and thoughts and feelings poured from the nanostructured compendium. Little did I know of the unimaginable, unthinkable banality of that final, tangled nest of neurons. In hindsight, little did I know of the human condition.

 To be fair to Dunbar—and to most humans for that matter—my assignments up until that point concerned only those upper echelon moments of inspiration, woven throughout the history of humanity. Through the kvetching of comrades around the proverbial Alpha Centauri water-cooler, I of course understood that not all assignments yield bifurcations to the technological or philosophical. Indeed, my closest friend specializes in television screenwriters, though I must admit my friend tends to lose focus right around the season six mark. Regardless, while my initial impression of Dunbar stands to reason, I could never have fathomed the paradoxical depth of such a bewildering mooncalf. Thus, the case file.

Name: Mr. Dunbar E. Hubert | Age of Assignment: 42 | Height: 5’9” | Weight: 198 lbs. | Current Earthly Vocation: Vending Route Technician… (I, too, stumbled at that last one). Over my tenure I understood that, of course, a profession by no means precludes inspiration. The Patent Office Clerk who I threw a few well-aimed, relativistic chestnuts at proves that point—and I do believe Albert would praise me if he ever knew of my donated epiphanies. I stumbled because I, a learned being of the cosmos, never considered that an enterprise such as vending route technician could even exist.  

I first observed Dunbar on, what he would consider, his usual route. The morning re-stock at the Holiday Inn Express on Pontiac Lake Road, a butter-burgered lunch at Culver’s by the Quality Inn on Highland, the late-afternoon repair at the Olde Mill-Inn off the Dixie Highway. I first peeked into his thoughts, collapsing his conscious wavefunction into its most pronounced strains, while he shlepped a roller-cart laden with candies, nuts, pastries, and chips to the gaping coil dispensary opposite the front desk.  

Why do they even stock Planter’s Peanuts. No one ever buys ‘em anyhow…

Should probably get the grilled chicken today. Iced tea, not pop.

Hope Biscuit is doin’ fine. Bet she’s nappin’ in the sun.

Know what, I’m gettin’ the burger.

Aimed at the inner-workings of that portly mid-westerner, I am ashamed to admit that, at the time, I felt a swell of outrage bubble within my being. In over one hundred millennia, never, not once, have I stooped to the plane of the desultory. In contrast, I gift the extraordinary with bouts of bravado. At the mundane existence that slugged before me, a glaucous, oleaginous resentment coagulated in my pores; derision clotted my veins—for this troglodyte stood between me and enlightenment.

The first few months, I lurked in the gray matter within Dunbar’s very existence: a monotonous swing of a grandfather’s pendulum, back and forth and back and forth. Always the same frequency. Always the same beats. Snickers and Fig Newtons and Sun Chips. Stretching his rotund arms through the coils to retrieve wedged Mars bars. Dinners with his orange cat, Biscuit. The Office re-runs before bed. A harmonic oscillation that droned on and on at infinitum. What was the point? How could I possibly scintillate such a being into a state of inspiration? How could this end?

My post crawled onward. Months filibustered into years. And had it not been for that finicky ginger feline, Biscuit, inspiration may never have struck. But one summer’s afternoon, upon returning to his duplex apartment following an unexceptional workday, as Dunbar creaked the screen door ajar, propping it upon shoulder whilst fumbling for keys, their metal teeth jingling through the chirr of low-sun crickets, he pushed open the front door. Normally such an act merits no attention whatsoever. But on this day, as the fiberglass door’s tassels swept atop the Berber carpet, Biscuit spotted a White-breasted Nuthatch. By the time Dunbar’s mouth had dropped, agape in alarm, Biscuit was already in mid-flight, coursing through the muggy air from Kentucky Bluegrass to the old Bitternut Hickory tree.  

Of course, Biscuit had no chance of swiping the gray-and-white bird. Her talons knew only the pliable material of cardboard scratchpads and her reflexes the spastic waves issued forth by Dunbar and his wand-toy. As if plagiarized straight out of a 1960’s day-time, black-and-white show, Biscuit’s ascent into a high-perched limb ended in nothing more than a stalemate. Realizing her folly, the cat mewed for help. Dunbar ran for the ladder—no need for my help with that idea. And after he clambered onto the rickety rungs, arms careening around the thick trunk and snaking through droopy foliage, his vending machine skills finally paid off. With surgeon-like precision, his fingers glided Biscuit from her perch, down off the ledge, and safely into his arms.

Needless to say, the cat and her owner warranted a soothing nap posthaste. And it was not until after I felt the surge of excitement flow through Dunbar’s nerve endings, the serotonin levels spike as he held close his friend, that I could vest my final assignment his deserved inspiration. And so, while in the cozy of his bed, I gifted Dunbar a dream.  

An hour later, when he awoke, he marched right out to the old Hickory tree, gazing up at its crackle-barked branches. He crossed his arms for but a moment. And the next morning, after he trekked to the local office supplies store and printed a handful of yellow-papered 8 ½ by 11’s, Dunbar stapled them to as many telephone poles as he could find: The Cat Rescuers from Down-Under. He still worked part-time on his vending machines, though for all the dark matter in the universe I still cannot say why. Perhaps routine soothed Dunbar. Needless to say, his cat-rescuing business did not do well. It survived, and that is all I can say about the prolificacy of the venture. But as for Dunbar and the myriad cats and kittens and, on several occasions, ferrets that needed help, they all lived a life of joy.

  I must admit, it warmed some strange fiber of my quantum-being to watch the case of Dunbar Hubert draw to a close. And as I returned to the agency, prepared to surrender my career in exchange for an entropy-stabilized equilibrium, I chuckled to myself. All along, I had assumed the miraculous transfer of inspiration flowed in but one direction. But there I found myself, inspired by Dunbar’s sincerest and most fundamental drive: to help small house-pets climb down from non-lethal heights. Its brilliance rested in its viridity. Most profound of all, Dunbar had gifted me inspiration all his own.  

To this day, I find myself unwilling to surrender my privileged position as a subconscious soothsayer. The people I meet fascinate me, and I learn just as much from them as they from me. I once believed that only the remarkable, the outstanding, the outliers of the Earth deserved my gifts of inspiration. Now I see that everyone, everywhere, at anytime carries with them the seed that can change their life and spark their imagination. All I do now is help them see it for themselves.