Not So Simple

A Short Story

“He’s simple.” Sarah says, her brows pinched together. David tilts his head, studying me. “Yeah… I see it now.”

I try to speak, to defend myself, but all that comes out is a slurred “Nuh.” My hands scrape against the armrests of the chair.

David laughs. “He probably doesn’t even know what that means. Just look at him.” Sarah lets out a hesitant chuckle. They are standing over me, arms folded. I lower my head and blink hard. Crying would only make it worse. Best to just keep my head down and take it.

The rest of the class carries on as if nothing’s happening. Kids shove each other, paper planes are sent flying across the room, their yells and laughter blending into a cacophony.

I’m grateful for it or before long, they’d be gathered around my table too, ogling. When I walked in this morning, they all looked, and one by one, I saw the dismissal in their eyes. That would have been fine but before long they noticed my oddness and I quickly became the butt of every joke.

David pokes me in the chest. “Don’t you talk?”

I don’t react.

He pokes me again, “Sarah, make it talk.”

“David!” Sarah chides, but she’s smiling.

“Quiet down!” Mr. Richard’s voice cuts through the noise, he enters the class just as the bell rings.

Sarah turns away, and so does David, but not before brushing my head with an elbow.

I flinch and rub the spot, aghast. I hate being touched. Something about the feel of skin on skin sends spiders crawling up my body.

When I look up, Mr. Richard is already teaching. I give my hair one last pat with a huff of annoyance in David’s direction, or at least I try to. I can’t even meet his eyes.

I turn back to the board and Mr. Richard is looking straight at me.

Too late, I realize he’s asked a question. The class has gone silent except for a few snickers from the back of the class.

I shift my substantial bosom, squirming under his gaze. Mr. Richard’s eyebrow twitches, his already too small eyes narrowing even further, “I asked you a question, Mr. Weasley.”

I glance at the board. Mr. Richard has drawn three circular bodies with lines connecting them, a few symbols are scrawled beneath them - positions and velocities.

The question he asked, as far as I could tell, is ‘How do we determine their positions after an amount of time’.

The answer was simple. You can’t… but –

“You can’t,” says Mr. Richard, echoing my thought, “That’s the answer, Weasley. What you see on the board is the Three Body Problem.”

He turns away to address the rest of the class, “It has been the bane of every mathematician and physicist for 300 years. As far as we know, it is impossible to solve…”

I tune out Mr. Richard’s voice, something on the board catching my attention.

And then it happens.

The classroom falls away, I’m no longer Ryan Weasley - obese and greasy-haired - I’m just matter, an observer as things happen around me. I’m still there, dimly aware of it, of my body in the chair, of the teacher babbling on about an impossible problem and a certain Isaac Newton, but that’s a world away. Here, there is only space.

Blinding light.

I shield my eyes, phantom fingers barely able to keep out rays of light from penetrating my shuttered eyelids.

A star. Its surface bubbles and roils.

At this distance, I should be vaporized but I don’t even feel the heat. I hear a whoosh and from my right, a planet rockets past. I gasp.

In my subconscious, I see Mr. Richard dart an aggravated glance in my direction at the interruption. It doesn’t matter. None of it does. I’m in that blissful state of entering a world of my own making. Almost as fast as the planet, a moon rears from nowhere, its grey surface reflecting the light of the star. Three bodies. They engage in a strange dance, paths twisting.

The three bodies are not stable, they move erratically, the very definition of chaos. Ah. I see it now. The Three Body Problem.

Mathematical equations swim before my eyes. I try to solve the problem over and over again, my thoughts racing, churning like a brewing storm. Three bodies. Three orbits. Something ticks at the corner of my mind and I solve, and solve, and solve. This is what I live for. Moments like this, unchained from body and reality, nothing but me and the problem.

The planet slows, the star dims slightly, aligning itself behind the planet. Good, solve for two then attack the one. ‘Divide and conquer’, the Romans had the right of it.

Slowly but surely, the moon comes into orbit and the three bodies move as one, each one balancing the other, and with a boom, they align in orbit.

I solve it. I solve the three body problem, and like a bulb going off, the world snaps back into place.

I look around blearily.

Mr. Richard has left the class. My classmates are back to their games, the half-cleaned equations on the board long forgotten.

I blink, the solution still burning somewhere deep inside me. Three bodies, balanced. It’s not chaos. It was never chaos. It was just… misunderstood.

My lips part to say something, anything, but the sound dies in my throat.

David snorts a laugh and I realize he’s been looking at me. “He’s simple alright.”

I lower my head, fingers curling against the desk as the noise of the class swallows me whole. I feel the answer drift away like a leaf in the wind, and then… it’s gone.