Love Story: In The Web of Life

today, so I called her home phone and left a message,explaining that I had finished a case, was taking a few days off,and everything was fine.
On the way to the desert, I felt very alone anduncertain. I wished Tina had come with me. Zaza was right, 'I amunemployed.' Fortunately, I still draw a salary. Settling a case islike landing on a dry lake, stopping short.
It was just beginning to get dark when I got toCrystalAire. I parked the car and got my bag from the trunk.Glancing at the sky, I said to myself, 'Good evening, Hesperus!'Most people referred to the evening star as Venus. I like the Greekmale version, Hesperus, because he is the leader of the stars asthey march into the evening sky, obviously a great leader with thatmany followers, He has great organizational powers and getseveryone in place in the clear desert sky. I wondered if he was onFacebook.
It was already chilly. I hurried into themobile home, put my bag in the bedroom, and went to the closet toget a down jacket, choosing the lighter one of two. I kept thewarmer down jacket in a plastic wardrobe bag, bathed in the aromaof cedar chips and sage in the bottom of the bag, placed there tohide the scent of whoever had worn the jacket last, latelyTina.
I poured myself a brandy, went out onto thepatio with the view of the desert, sat down in one of the whiteplastic chairs, put my feet up on a table, rocked back and lookedat the zillions of stars in the clear desert sky. Despair was myonly companion.
"Space-time," I said to myself, "there is a lotof it out there. Spaces are measured in millions of light-years.Time is measured in billions of years." I remembered thatEinstein's theory of relativity and space-time had first beensupported by measuring the bending of light from a distant star asit passed the sun during an eclipse. 'I don't see how there is apatent law case in the subject,' I said to myself.
I felt lonely.
I called Tina on my cell phone. She answered,and I said, "Hi, Tina, I am calling you from the desert. How areyou doing?"
"Oh, thank you for the flowers. They arebeautiful, my favorite kind; they were there when I got home fromschool."
I wondered what Zaza had sent.
Tina continued, "How is the weather out there?I got your message about taking a few days off. Is settling thecase bad? You sound sort of down."
"It is beautiful, cold, and clear." I replied."Settling a case is good–at least for the client–but I won't get togo to trial. That's where I really have my fun. Now, I get to startall over with a new client."
"More heavy scientific stuff?" Tina asked andthen answered she, "Of course, that's what you do."
I sensed the cold tone in her voice. I asked,"Any chance you might like to visit the desert again?"
"I really can't right now; myend–of–school–year testing and grading, and my night schoolcourses, will keep me buried until the end of the term," shereplied stiffly. "There is someone at the door; I have to go now.Say hello to the kangaroo rats for me. Goodbye."
I felt deflated. I would have to start over inthat department also.
"Too bad," I thought, 'Tina was fun to be with,unless she was talking nonsense about metaphysical things. Nolong-term future there.’
I sat quietly for a few minutes, just Hesperusand me, and watched his followers deploy. 'Hesperus, does your lifeever come apart,' I wondered.
Then, I heard, "Good evening (as you believe time to exist), we arehappy to be able to communicate with you again."
I thought, 'Oh, no. I don't need thisnow.'
It was Uriel, I looked around and saw asandstone boulder that the landscapers had placed near the patio.It had a bright spark of light on the side of it. "Congratulationson the settlement of your patent case," said Uriel.
"How do you know about that?" I asked, somewhatintimidated.
"For now, we shall only say that we could seeit coming when we last communicated. It was a probablefuture."
"I believed wining the case was a certainty. Ihave to believe that when I am working on a case," Irebutted.
"That's the way it works," Uriel's soundcontinued, "Belief causes a probablefuture to manifest. We will get to thatlater."
I was surprised. I was starting to feel thattalking to a speck of light and an extra-dimensional intelligencewas a natural thing to do. This time it couldn't be adream.
"I have been sitting here looking at the starsand thinking about space-time," I interrupted, "That subject isabout black holes, the Big Bang, galaxies, mathematics that fewunderstand, not anything I am trained or interested in. It is tooabstract for my thinking."
"You have correctly identified the problem,"said Uriel. "Space and time in the sense of the cosmos areincomprehensible to all but a few of your species. Let's talk aboutspace and time in terms of what you call a movie film.
"There is a story recorded on the frames of thefilm. Suppose that story starts with a man looking at the stars ina desert, then moves to a woman talking to him on the telephone, inLos Angeles, then moves back to the man in the desert, then to arestaurant, where he has dinner. The next day he travels back tohis office, the story ends with the man returning to the samedesert where he talks to a speck of light. When the movie film inon the reel, stored in the movie company's vault, there is no timeor space in the movie. On the film, frames in the desert looking atthe stars come first and the frames of the woman in LA are next,and the frames of the restaurant are next etc. There is no physicaltime, there is only a sequence of film frames: there is onlytiming; some things happen before others."
"I can understand that," I replied. "Whensomeone projects the film, there is the illusion oftime."
"Correct!" Said Uriel. "The illusion of time isonly in the story. The director might have shot the film out ofsequence, shooting the office scene first then shooting all thedesert scenes, shooting in the restaurant, and then shooting thewoman on the