Engineman - Eric Brown [36]
The very fact that he had undergone the mysterious transformation and survived convinced him that he had been affected for a reason - this and the fact that ever since his final push he had been blessed with a greater recollection of being united with the infinite. Usually after a push, the fleeting, elusive awareness lasted only hours, but with Bobby it continued, so that even now all he had to do was relax, meditate and concentrate, and he would experience again some measure of the rapture of the union. At these times he could almost hear the calling, a signal from the intelligence that had tried to ease him into the continuum ten years before.
He had come to Paris, moved into his brother's apartment, and after the sickening, sycophantic attention of the media during which he became a nine day wonder, eliciting pity, proposals of marriage - even death threats from a Muslim sect who considered his claims of contact with a higher force as blasphemous - he had settled down to a quiet life of study.
Over the years he had read widely of all the various mystical religions on Earth, and several from beyond, but always came away dissatisfied, aware that none of them addressed what he had experienced while in flux. Even the Disciples, who he had joined when becoming an Engineman, were too obsessed with ritual and dogma. He had stopped looking for answers in human religions, realising that he had experienced the ultimate truth in the nada-continuum and occasionally in meditation - and merely read Buddhist and Disciple tracts out of interest, a second best as there was no real codified treatise to explain the continuum; it merely was...
Now, Bobby saw what he had looked at yesterday - his vision dictated by the movement of his eyes almost twenty-four hours ago: the book, the carpet. As he watched, he saw his hands close the great book, its cover the size of a trap-door, and hoist it over the side of his armchair to the floor. He sat upright now and experienced his vision tilt dizzyingly as he had leaned over the arm of the chair. He watched his hands return and settle on his knees. He recalled that he had sat like this, in silent contemplation, for fifteen minutes. He thought back a day, and realised that he had been watching and listening to, from the previous day, a vid-disc documentary about the exploration of a newly discovered planet in the Crab nebula. He had stopped his reading when the programme started, to give his full attention to the vid-screen. He could not read normal printed books, newspapers or magazines; unable to see these in real-time, he could not train his eyes to scan the exacting lines of print. He fared much better with the vid-screen, where the visual target was much larger - he'd rest his head against the wing of his chair and stare straight ahead. He tended, though, to watch only hired documentary discs on the 'screen, bored by the combination of brutality and triviality of the networked programmes. He spent a lot of time listening to the radio and his own music pins. He remembered that yesterday at six he had put some music on the player, Tibetan mantras followed by a classical symphony, lay down on the bed in the corner and closed his eyes - while continuing to watch a news programme about the decline of Europe. Now he snapped open the glass cover of his wrist-watch and felt for the hands. It was almost four. In two hours he would get up, put some music on the player, and go and lie down, while listening to the music he had selected yesterday; tomorrow, he would repeat the process, and duly enjoy the music he would select in two hours... Unlike everyone else in the world, Bobby could not spontaneously gratify his desires - to see a film, listen to music, taste a certain meal, or whatever. If he wished to listen to a mantra or a symphony, or taste a favourite food now, this second, it was of course impossible. He would put the music on, or eat the food today, and listen to the music and savour the meal a day later. In