The Time on the Gravel Roads

The auspicious day of the class demonstration arrived. The students looked intrigued, wondering why I brought a basketball and a tennis ball. First, I briefly explained the idea of the “collision accelerator” principle. Then, it was time for the demonstration. I dropped the balls from the height of my chest, the way I had practiced. The ceiling of the classroom was much higher than that in the hallways, and the tennis ball rose high, uninterrupted. Multiple exclamatory sounds, which together sounded like a deep hum, rose across the room. I repeated it once more. I had the undivided attention of the whole class. Then, I had an idea. I stood up on the teacher’s counter so that I could drop the balls from higher up. The first time, the alignment was not right, so the tennis ball bounced at an angle. Then I tried one more time. This time the tennis ball rose higher than ever before—easily the height of some four or five adult humans, and much closer to the ceiling as well. After a brief pause, came the loud roar of applause, this one beating the one I had received after reciting the Greek alphabet weeks before. When the applause finally died down, I started talking about the gravity assist maneuver. Its humble origins as merely a fanciful idea in science and science fiction decades before. And the fascinating fact that, through time, the maneuver had become a means to change the speed of real spacecraft on a regular basis. Indeed, truth is often stranger than fiction. Then I talked about the adventures of the Voyagers and the Golden Record, and their impending interstellar travel. The students listened with a degree of attentiveness that I had not achieved thus far in any of my classes. At the end of class, as I stepped into the hallway carrying the basketball and the tennis ball back with me, I heard an enthusiastic shout from behind, “Soovs! Soovs!” I turned around. It was John from class, the student I had spoken to on my flight to Fordham. He went on to say, “Soovs, that is so cool. We humans made a spacecraft and managed to drive it out of the whole solar system!” I said, “Yes, it is, indeed! Although, technically, it is not out of the solar system yet.” John asked, “By the way, how did your Fordham interview go?” I told him that it went well but I had not heard back yet. He said, “I hope you get the offer, Soovs!” Late that night, I was lying down on my couch, with the many boisterous moments around the class demonstration still scintillating within me. However, along with that, came a stark reminder of impermanence that accompanies the story of the Voyagers. With a sigh, I got up, and looked up the contents of the Golden Record that was inside the Voyagers. There was Mozart on it. There was Beethoven too. I decided to play myself some Beethoven. My own personal favorite of Beethoven. “Adagio Molto e Cantabile,” the slow movement of his ninth symphony. Soon, a heart-wrenching loveliness filled my little studio apartment. A delicate utterance, where the jubilation of the greatest celebration and the pathos of a profound adieu merge into one. While I listened to the music, pacing back and forth in the room and shaking my head like a madman, a simple thought brought a deep pang. The thought of the human journey. A long journey on a rough road. A journey made worthwhile with exploration and hope. And yet, a journey that would meet its inevitable destiny at the end of the road adorned with pure gravel. I was trying to come to terms with the harsh realization that there will be one last time that this Beethoven melody will be heard by any human, however far in the future. Long beyond that moment though, the Voyagers will keep traveling forlornly yet majestically through the dreary void of space, carrying the Golden Record. A vinyl record with an engraving of sublime music, which will be rendered nothing more than a dumb, lifeless reminiscence of something promising that once arose in a far corner of the cosmos. Something promising, but something that was just not meant to be.