[2003] LOSS & PORPHYRY the novels  

0007  – Part 7 - Calais 1977

By the time the family were relaxing on the beach at Calais, I had already undergone several changes of perspective. What had started out as an innocent entertainment for the children had, for me, developed into a much more significant activity. For the last few miles on the autoroute the car had changed from a mobile theatre to a laboratory. Although I had taken the decision long before - when I left university - that I could never dedicate my life to science, I was still a follower of its disciplines. Having discovered, by the accident of my children's boredom, that telepathy was a reality, no matter how unexpected or unwelcome that might have been, by force of habit I had moved on to see if I could determine its characteristics. There had been no objections from the rest of the family; for, as usual, I simply did no think to tell them of my new objectives. In ignorance, they just saw the theatre, the entertainment, move into different, and even more amusing, areas.

In those relatively few miles, to the end of the autoroute, I had been able to determine that telepathy, at least as practiced by my family, was a very imprecise process. It could only cope with the simplest of pictures. If a more complex picture was tried all that was received was its crudest basic elements. But perhaps that was only a matter of learning; after all it took a baby many months to use its senses to the full, and appreciate the complex delights that lay all around. Would it take as long to unravel the messages of telepathy?

It was also much more subjective than the other senses. What was transmitted was very much a function of what the transmitter saw, and felt. It amply confirmed the saying that beauty was in the eye of the beholder. In this case all meaning was in the eye of the transmitter. The concepts that made up the picture, for the images were surrealistically analysed into what they meant rather than what they looked like, were strictly determined by the individual who was transmitting, and the results were quite variable. Thus, the first picture sent had been seen by Sarah as a fish, but for her the simple shape had really been the key; and it had been quite possible for me, as the receiver, to consider this very strong geometric shape as a keyhole. On the other hand, the rose which followed had raised historical associations for Sarah, and these had been just a powerfully transmitted as had the shape.

I had undertaken some research into human perception as part of my degree work at university. It had been far from the normal study of Physics but, by the action of serendipity which seemed to rule much of his life, I had become almost obsessed with the complex processes that governed the simplest of observations; and almost as much by the extent to which humans took them for granted, and ignored the distortions they caused in perceived 'reality'. It was inevitable, therefore, that I was fascinated by the way telepathy allowed me to almost literally see with my children's eyes. It had soon become clear that it was a transmitter of emotions; I had rapidly learnt to detect how Sarah felt about what she was transmitting. But it proved a poor channel for abstract ideas. They had been totally unsuccessful in sending letters or numbers. This was perhaps once more a function of learning the skill. Any small child could immediately appreciate emotions, but it took years of learning before it could read words.

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