Ell Donsaii 12: Impact! (24 page)

Warren hadn’t encountered Stell since that time when she had met him at the doctor’s office. Every time he went back to the doctor, he hoped that she might be there again, but she never had been. He wanted to tell her how happy he was to be able to see. And to thank her for putting him on the list to be the first patient treated.

He’d even avoided looking at any pictures of her, wanting to tell her, when he first saw her, that it was the
first
time he’d seen her.

However, as time had passed, Warren had begun to despair. Stell was busy, and famous, and probably had a boyfriend. He hoped that she might remember him if they did ever encounter one another, but he no longer felt sure that she would.

At first, when his mother had given him the concert ticket, Warren had told her that he didn’t want to go. He told her he didn’t want to see Stell until it could be special.

This was even though in his own mind he had already despaired of ever seeing her one-on-one again.

Even though he’d decided that she had already moved on.

His mother said in a choked voice, "Maybe… maybe you should think that it’s something special to see her at this concert. Don’t break your heart over her. She did something wonderful for you and she’s a really special person. You probably care a lot more about her than she does about you and you should accept that.”

Warren had been staring down at the table, stricken with his own disappointment. Hearing his mother’s voice breaking up as she spoke, he looked up at her. His always cheerful mother, the one who’d gotten him through the depths of his despair back when he was blind, had tears pouring down her cheeks. Warren found himself wondering how many times she’d been crying in the past and he hadn’t even known it because of his blindness.

“You should go,” she said. “Live your life. Stell might come back into it, but don’t let your life slide into tragedy just because she hasn’t.

As Warren continued on into the concert hall he was surprised to realize that his seat was down on the main floor. His mother didn’t have a lot of money, and he had expected to be sitting up in the back of the balcony on one side. In fact as he followed the seat numbers he realized that he would be sitting in the middle of the main floor. It certainly wasn’t right down front, but it was a great seat! He was just one seat over from the main aisle.

Warren settled in to his seat finding it strange to be at a concert without his mother. In the past, he’d always had to have someone lead him in and that had almost always been his mother who would then sit next to him through the concert. He knew people usually went to concerts with someone else and as he sat there by himself he could understand why. Despite being in the midst of a huge crowd he felt lonely.

He wondered about the empty seat between his and the aisle. At first he had assumed that it had been sold to another person that wanted a single ticket, but as it remained open closer and closer to the start of the concert he wondered if they had been unable to sell it.

The lights dimmed in the hall and Warren considered moving into the empty seat on the aisle where he’d be able to see just a little bit better. He decided to wait until the concert had started. This was a fortunate decision because at the last moment a girl strode up, sat down in the seat and tossed back the hood of her little sweatshirt. Up on the dark stage, a guitar started to pluck out the opening line of Forgiveness.

The girl was a pretty blonde. Warren wondered whether he’d have the courage to try to talk to her, but then she turned to him, grinned, and said, “I’ll bet you were about to steal my seat weren’t you?”

Stell?!
The voice was right, but it couldn’t be Stell, she’d be up behind the stage getting ready to sing! A spotlight came up on the stage, but no one was there. The spotlight slid slowly down the main aisle to stop right beside Warren’s row. Then it slid over to light the girl sitting next to him!

She stood up pulled out a microphone and started to sing.

Stell!!

As she continued the first verse, Stell reached a hand out to Warren. He didn’t know what to do, but then she made a little wave evidencing her desire to have him stand up. Warren slowly stood, his heart pounding as he wondered what was going on. Stell reached out and took his hand pulling him out into the aisle with her.

She finished the first verse, but then began speaking as the guitar continued gently progressing through the chords. “I’d like to introduce y’all to my friend Warren Dawson.” She chuckled, “I’m sure most of you will remember that when I started singing I was blind. D5R gave me my sight back and it was during that effort that they invented the contacts with HUDs in them that many of you are wearing.” She started walking down the aisle towards the stage towing Warren along by his hand. “My handsome friend Warren here was blind too. But his blindness wasn’t a simple problem with the cornea and lens like mine was. He’d had his eyes removed for cancer! Now he’s D5R’s first patient who’s had his optic nerve hooked up to cameras to let him see again!”

Warren’s head whirled as she led him around to the stairs at the edge of the stage and then up onto it. They walked to the center of the stage and faced the audience. Stell continued, “But, I’ll tell you what. The most amazing thing isn’t that Warren is so handsome, and it isn’t that he’s a blind man who’s been given the power of sight. No, the
most
amazing thing… is that he can sing!”

Stell looked up at Warren and smiled. “Now Warren had no idea I was going to embarrass him in front of y’all. He didn’t know that I sent his mother a ticket so he could come to this concert. He didn’t know that she told me that he’d never even looked at a picture of me because he wanted the first time he saw my face to be in person.” Warren saw Stell’s eyes well with tears. Her voice broke, but she swallowed and then continued, “And he most certainly
didn’t
know I was going to drag him up onto the stage and ask him to sing. But I’ve heard him sing and he’s
good
, so I’m hoping you’ll give him a little welcome round of applause to encourage him to sing the choruses with me.”

Applause broke out and a man tapped Warren’s hand with a microphone. He took it, noticing that the guitarist had just about cycled the chord progression back to the beginning of the chorus.

Stell started to sing.

Warren cleared his throat, lifted the microphone and harmonized his rich baritone—like he had so many times before while listening to her sing that song.

There was a moment of stunned silence, then applause thundered over them…
 

***

Shan walked into the kitchen and found Ell eating her cereal. “Morning.”

Ell mumbled something in response, but Shan didn’t really understand it. He looked at her more closely. “Why the big frown?”

She looked up at him, “I think I told you that I was trying to measure distances in the fifth dimension and see how they correlated to the world we live in?”

“Uh huh,” Shan said reaching into the refrigerator for the milk.

Ell snorted, “Well it’s been incredibly frustrating. The distance ratio is either infinite, which I can’t believe, or it’s so big that millimeters there equate to hundreds of thousands of light-years here… Well, ‘there’ and ‘here’ aren’t accurate terms, but you know what I mean.”

Behind her, Shan dropped his bowl. It hit the floor, shattering into small pieces.

Ell snorted, “Ha, and I used to think you were well coordinated!” Shan thumped down into the chair next to hers. “Hey,” she asked, “you going to clean up that mess ‘fore somebody cuts their feet?

Shan held out a hand palm outward, “Wait…”

Ell looked at him. Though his eyes were pointed at the top of one of the cabinets, she could tell they were focused on infinity. She desperately wanted to give him some grief about his clumsiness, but forbore. After a minute he got up and, still staring off into space, made his way out of the kitchen and into the living room. More accurately, he staggered in there.

A bemused expression on her face, Ell got up and followed him. The big screen in the living room was lit up with some of his graphic mathematical displays. She remembered seeing the one in the upper left corner several times in the past and wondering what it represented “Shan?”

He put up a halting hand again, “Please… wait…”

Ell watched him. He spoke to his AI once, twice… a third time…” He sagged back on the couch like someone had suddenly deflated him. After a minute he roused like someone coming up from a deep sleep, looked around as if dazed, then focused his eyes on Ell.

A smile blossomed on his face.

“What?” Ell asked.

“What you just said! Millimeters, to a 100,000 light-years…”

“That’s not exactly what I said.”

“No,” Shan grinned, “but it’s close enough. What objects are in the range of 100,000 light-years across?”

“Galaxies.”

“Exactly. And it’s at galactic dimensions that gravity fades out a little faster than it should, leading to the galactic rotation paradox that had everyone postulating dark matter.” He grinned at her a moment, then stood up and threw his arms around her. “I’ve been trying to figure out why gravity fades for months… well, years now.” Shan pushed her back out to arm’s length and looked her in the eyes. “What if… what if gravity works
through
the fifth dimension? Could that be why it works over such enormous distances compared to the other forces? Is that why nothing can interfere with it? Is that why it only fades when you get up to galactic distances? His eyes turned to his screens, “tossing some rough fudge factors up there, so far it works!”

Ell turned to his screens and her eyes went glassy. A moment later she fell into the chair beside him like someone had cut her strings. Shan watched her anxiously.

After a minute she roused and turned her eyes to look at him. A smile broke out over her face, “I think that’s going to turn out to be a pretty big stroke of genius!”

Then she frowned, “You’ve still got to clean up that mess you made in the kitchen though…”

Pinehurst, North Carolina—the golf world is atwitter over the fact that Ell Donsaii has qualified to play at the U.S. Open.

Reactions are mixed, with some excited about the attention her celebrity is bringing the sport. Others are offended that a spot in the tournament has been offered to a woman when, as they point out, only a few women have ever played in it and none have done well. It should be recognized however, that while many call it the “Men’s” U.S. Open, it is actually titled the “U.S. Open” essentially a tournament to determine the best golfer, no matter their sex.

Dr. Donsaii has only recently established a handicap, however that handicap is a plus four and certainly made her a legitimate entry into the qualifying rounds. She shot a sixty-seven in her local qualifying round and a pair of sixty-sixes in the sectional qualifying stage.

Some expect her admittedly good game to collapse under the pressure of the actual tournament. They acknowledge that she has done well so far, but point out that many other golfers have had brief “in the zone” spurts where they played extremely well, however those spurts were unsustained.

The other camp points out that she has already beaten men in the Olympic sprints. Over the next few days, we’ll find out which group is correct.

“Okay Dale, here we are on Pinehurst #2, beginning our coverage of the U.S. Open. As everyone knows, the big story is the fact that Ell Donsaii, a well-known celebrity who is totally unknown in the world of golf has entered, qualified, and appeared here to play. The pundits are mixed, with some calling her qualification a ridiculous travesty and others waiting anxiously to see what the ‘world’s greatest athlete’ can do in our sport. Where do you fall on the spectrum?”

“Well, Nigel, I’m afraid I’m a bit of a doubter. Like other skeptics, I admit that she played surprisingly well in the qualification rounds and that she is certainly a good player. But many’s the amateur who’s strung together a few good rounds to qualify, but couldn’t sustain it when the pressure mounted.”

“But Dale, she built herself a +4 handicap! Surely that tells you that she’s not just a good player. She’s an
excellent
golfer! I’m not saying I think she’ll dominate
this
tournament, but one would certainly expect her to compete at a high level!”

“Yeah, yeah. We’ll see, won’t we? Personally, I doubt that the Donsaii aficionados are going to be cheering at the end of the day, much less at the end of the entire tournament.”

“Well we won’t have long to wait. As someone who went through local qualifying etcetera, she’s going to be teeing off in this second foursome that’s approaching the tee box now. Do you want to tell us about this first hole?”

“Sure. At 402 yards it’s a healthy par four. It’s defended by a couple of traps just short of the green and another one lies along the green’s left border. It isn’t considered to be a terribly difficult hole and we can expect quite a few birdies today by these tournament-quality players.”

“Well, what do you think? Is Ell Donsaii going to be one of those people who gets a birdie here today?”

“If she’s going to get a birdie, this would be the hole to do it. I’m more concerned that it will be her first bogey when reality comes home to roost.”

“Well, reality has certainly come home to roost for Jamie Hixson, the first player in that foursome, his drive tailed off to the left and wound up in that fairway bunker. It looks like Donsaii is next. She’s teeing up. Does she look nervous to you Dale?”

“Well I can’t tell if she’s nervous, but I’ll bet her heart’s going pitter patter Nigel. Look at this! She’s addressing the ball without even taking a practice swing! I heard she didn’t hit any balls on the range this morning either. That’s a pretty cavalier attitude. Here she goes…”

“Oh my God! Dale, she absolutely
crushed
that ball. It sounded like she fired a shotgun when she hit it! I wonder if she’s got some kind of strange club that to make that sound.”

Dale quietly said, “Our cameramen have lost the ball, but it appeared to have started down the center of the fairway.”

The producer had cut the video feed to show the two sports announcers while he waited for one of the cameramen to pick up the ball. Dale said, “Ho, apparently some joker in the gallery has thrown a ball out onto the…” Dale put a finger up to his ear and tilted his head as if listening, “No! Really?” He looked back and spoke solemnly to the camera. “Ladies and gentlemen, it appears that Ell Donsaii has just driven the green on this 402 yard par four.” The video feed cut to a camera focused on the green which showed a ball rolling to a halt approximately eight feet from the pin. “Some of the big hitting tour pros are well known to be
able
to hit it this far, but they
don’t
because they know accuracy is more important. I’ll admit, I never dreamed a woman
could
hit it this far, but, given that she did it, she had to have hit it with everything she has. Hitting it that hard was foolish and actually getting it on the green was very, very lucky.”

Nigel cleared his throat, “I don’t know Dale. What if she can do it routinely? That’s a pretty easy putt for an eagle!”

The End

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