Unikum februar 2018

The triumph of engin∑ers
TEXT: PÅL ØYMOEN
ILLUSTRATION: CAMILLA RENNESUND
It dawned on him. He realised it fully now. It filled him with only one
emotion: Despair. His defence speech at the trial had not persuaded
the jury. And he himself chose death over exile. “Leaving Athens, the
only place with free speech, is worse than death.” he thought to himself.
Now though, his mind is struggling to make peace with his own mortality,
which he knows he will face soon. He tries to do what he always does;
reason: “If I die, and I am dead, I will not realise it. If there is some sort of
afterlife, I will be positively surprised. Either way: There is nothing to fear.”
This monologue in his mind did not give him the same satisfaction as a conversation.
Alas, it did give his soul just enough peace to drift off into slumber.
Knowing full well that when he woke up, he had but one, final appointment.
Blinding light awoke him. A strong, increasingly loud noise too. This light
blinded him even through his eyelids. Facing the wall, he tried to turn
around, but all he could see was white. “Are you gods who have come to take
me?!” covering his eyes from the painfully bright light. The noise was of the
strangest kind. “Could this be the music of the gods?” he thought to himself.
Suddenly: Darkness. Silence. Apart from the ringing in his ears.
He became curious: “Has the sun died?” His eyes still adjusting to
the darkness of the night, he could hear a voice speaking to him:
“Socrates, are you ok?” What a strange accent it was! Not Italian,
nor Sicilian. And not Persian either. “Yes!” he replied, “I am here.”
“Stay where you are!” The strange accent interrupted him just as he was
about to ask them. “We will come to you, and guide you to us. Please do
not fight, there is not much time.” Soon he felt strange hands on his arms,
lifting him gently, but steadily in a direction. It all happened so fast.
He felt ground under his feet. Colder. Like a sword. Metal. He was sat
down, and strapped to a chair. Tightly. His eyesight was somewhat functional
now. He never expected to see this: People. They spoke. A barbaric
language. Nothing he could understand. Now they all sat down.
“What n...” An enormous pressure forced him down, everything was
shaking, the noise returned, his consciousness was being pulled away
from him, and there was nothing he could do. He was forced into sleep.
He woke up again, feeling disoriented. His body had taken some punishment.
“Am I a soldier again?” People again. They looked at him. Confusion
upon their faces. So much white. And these stones. So shiny. “Must
be marble.” But there were moving images on them! “Stones of the gods. I
am dead.” A woman rushed into the room. Stopping abruptly by the side
of his bed. “Socrates, how are you feeling?” That strange accent again.
“I feel like a soldier after a fight. Tell me, where have you moved me?”
The woman took a deep breath and locked eyes with him. “Well, we have
not moved you in the traditional sense. We have moved you through time.
2415 summers and winters have passed, Socrates. We call these
“years”. Your lifetime has gone by 34 times without you. You have
travelled through time, and the year is 2016. Do you understand?”
He lowered his eyebrows. Puckered his lips, and stared off into
nothing for just a moment. He replied: “Is this the same bed you
found me in?” Confusion dawned on the face of the woman.
Everyone looked to her, anxiously awaiting a reply. “No,” she said,
“it is not the same bed.” The crowd turning to Socrates. “I thought
as much.” Socrates replied. “Then how can I have ended up in
this bed, if I have not been moved? Reason defies this, does it not?”
A moment went by. A smile slowly crept up on her face. She turned
to her colleagues: “We got the right one!” The smile contaminated
the rest of the room, except for Socrates who was simply confused.
He was to rest that day, and watch far away vision, or television.
The next day he was woken early, he had his most flavourful
and extravagant breakfast ever, accompanied by the
only woman who spoke the same language as he did. He spoke:
- So you know my name.
- Yes, we have been looking for you specifically. It is quite a miracle that
you are here.
- Very well, but I do not know yours.
- My name is Sofia. It is a pleasure to meet you.
- Oh how I love you, Sofia. And what do you plan to do with me, am I
your prisoner? Is this Athens?
She went on to explain the differences of their circumstances, their
eras. How technology has vastly improved our lives and decreased
our suffering. How war is at an all time low, and how it doesn’t feel
like it because media has war in it’s spotlight. “Today, I will show you
some of humanities greatest achievements, and after that I will pose you
a question, which we all believe you will be best qualified to answer.”
“How interesting!” he vigorously replied. “We must get to it at once!”
“The first I wish to show you is already all around us: Electricity.
Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison are those credited for this.
It is energy in the form of electricity, of lightning. You might
say the power of Zeus runs through our streets, apartments
and houses like veins, powering them and bringing them to life.
30 the triumph of engineers