Everfree by Nick Sagan

Author:Nick Sagan [Sagan, Nick]
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science fiction, General, Fiction, Fiction - Science Fiction, Science Fiction - General, American Science Fiction And Fantasy, Thrillers
ISBN: 9780451462169
Publisher: Roc
Published: 2010-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

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Tinted glasses have never suited me, be they rose-colored or dark as the very center of an eye. Unreasonable optimism serves no one, nor does a jaundiced view of humankind. I have always believed we must see things as they are and then act from that awareness. Nonetheless, my vision has been shaded for years. I can admit it only now that I can see it, and I can see it only now that the lenses have been shattered.

It’s as if I’ve been wearing Beholder Spex. Do you remember that fad, Lazarus? Lenses that distort light into a famous painter’s style, and make the world a work of art. Fantasia favored them. One flip of a switch and objective reality slips behind a filter.

The old heart-to-hearts have been coming back to me today. Everything you said about a collective calling. How within each psyche lives the potential for abject purity of motive — the pursuit of the most good for the most people. And how some of us, some tiny fraction, will become the embodiment of this pristine thought, word and deed — and they would be the best of us, the transcendent pinnacle of human achievement. How deeply I believed this was Gedaechtnis, the architects of your destiny, mine and so many others.

Everything for a reason. Arab-African bloodline for genetic and cultural diversity. Male to even out the ratio of boys to girls. Raised Muslim to represent the populous Islamic faith. Raised Sufi to mitigate the perceived rigidity of Islam. Raised in IVR New York to furnish an appreciation of Western values, yet familiarize a wide range of cultures. Mother a UN Humanitarian Affairs Officer to teach negotiation, cooperation and compassion. Father a cultural anthropologist and a curator at the Met to teach the importance of studying ancient civilizations. Pushed to study those civilizations to be a link in the chain of living history. Pushed to study medicine to fight Black Ep. Sent to Idlewild to bond with my counterparts. Every major event in my childhood made for a specific reason. And so I asked why. Why the accident. Verisimilitude, came the hesitant reply.

Explain.

We wanted healthy, well-balanced children, so it made sense for most of you to hail from stable, two-parent homes. However, had all ten of you grown up in such a fashion, that approach would have been not only unrepresentative of society but also disrespectful to the large number of single parents who have raised successful children. Thus, after careful deliberation, the decision was made for two of the marriages to end in amicable divorces and one to end in a head-on crash. Drunk driver killed my mother.

Yes, we considered a disease. We even considered Black Ep. But we feared it might create undue pressure for someone we needed to combat microorganisms. To increase your personal stake like that could have been motivating, but might have been overwhelming. We couldn’t chance it. A traffic accident seemed more humane: tragic but sudden, scripted without gratuitous suffering. Without what?

Suffering. Her suffering.

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