Jeune

By George Andrew Milliner

We live in a world that seems predictable and mundane. But what would you do if suddenly, overnight, everything changed? everything you knew - or thought you knew - was proven fundamentally wrong? Jeune is an emotional exploration these ideas enmeshed in a context of higher purpose. It's both a fiction novel and a thought experiment. I hope you enjoy it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 7, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483581231

Book preview

Whose?

Chapter 1: A boy called Jeune

Mornings hold magic. Not all mornings, perhaps, but cool summer mornings, the kind when overnight rains have come and gone, the dew lays thick and the first rays illuminate the air so thickly that you can practically drink it. Those mornings are almost always magical.

And so it was, as the first streaks of dawn cut shimmering gold through the shadows of the trees, Jeune himself stood motionless. He didn't want to break the spell. Instead he wanted to be enraptured, which was exactly what he was.

Speak to me… he whispered, slowly reaching out to touch an inviting beam.

The wise beam remained silent, judiciously deciding to simply play, tickling his palm and scattering its shadows, making a contrast that was completely delicious.

For a few seconds this pure sensory experience held him transfixed and then, as it so often did, his mind began drifting in waking reverie. Dreamy blackness, echoing silence, expectant nothingness…

No, not nothingness. There was something here after all, the smallest pinprick of light, far, far away…

No, wait. It wasn't alone. There were three. No, a dozen. A thousand! A great hailstorm of light, rushing at him like a massive wall.

Jeune was engulfed. The light storm swept around him and past him as if he was flying into an intensely sunlit cloud - no shadows at all - incorporeal light from every direction banishing all darkness as if there never had been any.

But no, it wasn't a cloud after all. They were… snowflakes, a blizzard of shimmering crystals streaking past at immeasurable speed, barely discrete and unimaginably many.

Things were slowing. Growing? He could suddenly see that they weren't actually snowflakes at all, but rather more like pinwheels, spiraling flowers, fragile, unique and sparkling like diamonds.

One approached. Or did approach it? However it came, it was on a collision course, swirling and expanding and revealing at last to his curious eyes its true nature: It was a galaxy, and it called to him.

He plummeted.

Once again, the sensation of passing through a milky cloud, of moving so fast that all was a blur, the sensation of… home? The movement had stopped and he found himself facing a bright blue planet with a single sliver crescent moon floating just beyond. It seemed so small yet was so astoundingly beautiful, an opal drifting in a sea of blackness, rare beyond all jewels.

Then Jeune was standing in the grass again.

Home? he wondered to himself, still regarding the light, still feeling. Is this really my home?

As if in reply, the light now touching his palm suddenly drew him in, the ridges and patterns of his skin suddenly taking on the proportions of landscapes, towering ridges and parallel contoured valleys leading off to either horizon.

I have a world in the palm of my hand! he marveled in delight.

But even this not-so-alien place remained overlong; its horizons flew apart as if fleeing from each other and the fabric under his feet roughened, stretched and bulged. He became aware of individual cells, large as whales, ranked and filed beyond counting.

Do they ever question their role in any of this? he mind-quested. Be a skin cell! he imagined some authoritative voice intoning. Cover Jeune's hand so that he can feel the cool air and the warm light. Give him an interface…

But there was still more. Smaller and smaller he sank into the vast world of a single cell. Workings within workings, permeable layers dissolving into networks of molecules more vast than oceans, convulsing, combining and flashing with unimaginable energy.

Yet even these fled apart, smallness upon smallness, particle and energies fading way into… dreamy blackness, echoing silence and space unimaginable.

And then he was back. An abrupt but familiar noise had refocused him to back to that comfortable spot where he normally lingered, just behind his eyes. He blinked, took a breath and turned to face the voice that was calling to him.

Jeune? the feminine voice spoke again. Jeune, is that you? What are you doing out there?

The voice belonged to his mother, currently silhouetted behind the still-closed screen door of their home's kitchen.

Nothing, he answered automatically.

Apparently mollified, the shadow retreated from view without further comment. Jeune expectantly turned back to the scene in the yard, but the interruption seemed to have broken the spell. Even in those short moments the light had shifted and the patterns disrupted. The magic of this morning had been spent, the nexus in the waking world crossed and his garden of light and sensation rendered once again as an ordinary suburban back yard. His wet feet now felt itchy and his nightclothes slightly sticky. Sighing, he turned and shuffled back to the house.

The light, however, remained outside. Its work for this day had only just begun.

Chapter 2: Life Ordinary

The kitchen of Jeune's home was quiet and dark, like it always was this time of morning. As usual, he had been the first one out of bed, not a routine that was necessarily by his choice or to his liking. It seemed that no matter what time he went to bed the following morning would find him awake with the dawn. He would often be right in the middle of some enticing dream and then poof, gone, suddenly awake. It was annoying.

But this morning he felt light, airy and buoyant; the euphoric quality seemed to be traveling with him, not suddenly stolen away. The air, the light… how dreamlike it all had been, and yet so real! For today, at least, he was glad he hadn't slept through the sunrise.

He wandered about the kitchen collecting the necessary components of a cold cereal breakfast. Once organized, he settled himself at the table and began eating, taking absentminded bites, not really noticing what it tasted like, thinking about his plans for the day.

It's probably going to be hot again today, he thought. Yesterday was hot. Too hot!

It oddly occurred to him that somewhere, on another side of the planet, this morning was actually one of the first days of winter. In this hypothetical place, today certainly would not be hot at all. It was strange to imagine that just a few thousand miles away it was freezing this morning, possibly even snowing.

Is this world really big enough to always have opposite seasons going on? he wondered. So big, so many people…

He paused in mid-chew and turned this thought over once more. How big was the world, really? He had to admit that he truly had no idea, no concept whatsoever of how large the Earth really might be, nor of many people there might be living in it.

What is it now? he wondered, trying to remember a related news story he'd seen a few weeks earlier. Seven billion? a little more? It's something like that anyway. How many is that really?

He attempted a mental exercise: The previous autumn he had gone to a professional football game with his father where the attendance had been announced to be about sixty thousand people, more or less.

Now let's see, he thought, seven billion is a seven with nine zeroes after it. Subtract four zeroes from the sixty thousand and you end up with five zeroes left over. Pretend the six in sixty is a seven, and then take away the sevens, and that's… a hundred thousand. More than a hundred thousand football games? Holy shit! That's a lot of people!

The exercise had failed him. He realized that even in these more concrete terms, the magnitude of seven billion people was much, much bigger than anything he could relate to. After all, even the crowd at the football game had seemed like an ocean of people, far too vast to ever consider individuals. But to then multiply that figure by more than a hundred thousand? It was absurd! Like the ocean itself, it spread beyond the extent of vision, and comprehension.

More than the hand can count or the mind can know, he thought, parroting a line he'd read somewhere. The world must be one huge place. A lot bigger than it seems, that's for sure…

Jeune felt awake now, and his cereal had gone soggy. Taking a last conciliatory bite, he began clearing off his dishes and thinking about the practical things he needed to do today. His mother had threatened his life - or at least his car privileges - if he didn't mow the lawn and trim the edges. And since he remembered hearing that it was supposed to be getting quite hot again today, he reluctantly agreed with himself that he ought to get an early start on it.

It's been really hot all week, he mused, resting his dishes in the sink. Hotter than normal, seems like. I wonder if this has anything to do with that global warming they keep talking about?

Not really pondering his own question, he headed upstairs to get dressed and ready for his day. Once upstairs he could hear his parents stirring in their room. By the time he was tying up his work boots, he heard them descending the stairs.

Have a nice day, Jeune! his mother called to him. See you tonight! Call me if you need anything!

Okay, mom! he yelled back. See you later! Have a nice day!

There was a sound of a door closing, and soon after, a car pulling away. He was alone.

But being alone was normal now. Because he had been a good student and such a responsible young man, on his seventeenth birthday his parents had rewarded him with a car of his own. Since then, he had essentially been his own person, keeping his own schedule, getting himself where he needed to be when he needed to be there.

He had become quite used to not seeing his parents much during the day, just evenings and weekends. They had their schedules and he had his. It was comfortable, convenient and he liked it this way.

Most of the year, with school schedules and all that goes with them, he was usually busy enough never to stop and think about the fact that he was alone. But today it was mid-summer; there was no school to prepare for and no one else's schedule to keep. And now as he sat on the side of his bed thinking about it, he became distinctly aware of the quietness in the house - the quietness everywhere. It was oddly distracting.

So quiet, he thought. No one else here…

A feeling of loneliness hit Jeune like a hunger pang. Once again he wondered, as he had so many times before, what it would have been like to grow up in a larger family, with brothers and sisters.

All of his friends had siblings. He had watched them together enviously, how they reacted to and related with each other. It both fascinated and confused him. He realized that here, too, was another thing he really couldn't comprehend: what it would be like to have a brother.

The pang rose in the back of his throat threateningly, but thankfully practical matters sprang forth to rescue him from these moody thoughts.

"So what am I going to do today? he said aloud for efficacy, giving his head a wake-up-now shake. OK… I do have to mow the lawn, yes? That'll take a couple of hours at least. And then?"

Damn it! There it was again: the ultimate question. The question which had confounded him every day since summer had begun. That ever-nagging question for which today - like virtually every other day so far - he simply had no ready answer: What to do?

There were, of course, the old standbys: go hang out at Bill's house, cruise around the neighborhood in the car for a while, see who's hanging around, or even just stay home and play video games. But none of these well-worn options seemed even mildly appealing right now.

This is pathetic! he complained aloud. Only three weeks into summer and I'm already completely bored!

But just being bored wasn't the real problem and he knew it. Things this summer just weren't as fun and happy as they had always been in years past. Bill, his so-called best friend, was one big reason for that. More and more over the past school year, Bill had started hanging out with the party kids at school. Nowadays it seemed like whenever Jeune did see him, all he ever wanted to talk about was drinking and sex.

Now, while he was pretty sure that Bill wasn't getting much - if any - sex, the drinking was really starting to bother him. In the past two weeks alone he had driven him home drunk twice, once from a party that he hadn't even been invited to. (And it was no easy matter sneaking him back into his house without his parents noticing.) And no sign of any apologies or thank-yous seemed to be forthcoming.

Even so, it wasn't really that Jeune particularly disapproved of drinking or partying - or sex - or most any of the other things the kids were all experimenting with these days. Curiosity he understood. What he couldn't understand was the obsession. Bill was changing, and it made Jeune uncomfortable.

Seems like all he cares about lately is beer and those party assholes, he muttered contemptuously, replaying the lies he had had to tell Bill's parents in order to keep him out of trouble. And after all I've done for him…

His thoughts trailed off as he suddenly realized something even more hurtful: in fact, Bill had not sought him out to do anything at all in weeks, maybe months. It had always been Jeune calling him, making all the suggestions, doing all the leg-work. And at least half of those times, Bill had turned him down.

I'm losing a friend here, aren't I? he realized, absently crossing to the window and looking down at the yard. I've lost him already.

This last thought, coupled with the silent house and the compounding observation that the golden light of dawn had utterly faded from the now all-too-ordinary backyard, sent a shock of melancholy through him that caught him completely off guard. The pang was back with a vengeance, bringing with it that contracting, cramping sensation of the facial muscles that told him he was about to cry.

Pull yourself together, pussy! he scolded himself harshly. If that drunk idiot doesn't need me for a friend, then I don't need him either!

But even as he thought this, he knew he was lying. Bill was the closest thing to a brother he'd ever had. They'd been best friends since grade school, done everything together. They'd spent so much time together people started calling them the Twins. In fact, they used to refer to themselves as the Team.

But now it seemed quite obvious that Bill didn't care whether he was around or not.

The Team, ha! Jeune thought sarcastically, turning away from the window.

Desperately needing a strategy to escape these gloomy thoughts, he decided to just leave Bill alone for a while, thinking that maybe, after a while, he might just notice he wasn't coming around anymore, might just notice that he wasn't calling. Maybe he would start to miss him.

The idea gave him a moment of evil pleasure as he pictured a contrite Bill phoning to say: Come go water skiing. Or Come go to the movies. Or just plain old: Come over and hang out for a while.

The moment didn't last. Something inside told him that this just wasn't going to happen.

His random pacing had brought him into the vicinity of his computer, so he plopped himself down in front of it, turned on the monitor and began clicking idly through the menus. He momentarily considered visiting one of his favorite role-playing game web sites to see what was new, but then remembered that his parents had shut off his Internet connection two days earlier after catching him looking in on an inappropriate web site. He involuntarily re-flushed with embarrassment.

I gotta figure out an alarm system or something, he thought to himself, so they don't sneak up on me like that again.

For another second or two, he poised his mouse over the icon of his latest first-person shooter game, but instantly lost interest. He switched off the screen, grabbed his hat from the dresser and headed outside to mow the lawn.

At least that, he justified to himself, is something to do.

Chapter 3: Daydreams

Though he'd never admit to it publicly, Jeune actually liked mowing the lawn.

Yes, it was routine, and a lot of hard work, but it also had artistic possibilities that appealed to him. He would experiment with different cutting patterns - crosshatches, diagonals, zigzags - just to see what it looked like when he was done. One day when he was in a particular mood, he cut the words EAT SHIT into the backyard. Apparently no one noticed.

Also, there was something oddly soothing about the white-noise drone of the mower's engine. The pacing was like a slow hypnotic dance. As he fell into the rhythm his mind would often go on autopilot and his thoughts would wander far away.

Sometimes he would find that he had circled the lawn several times with absolutely no memory of having done so. Today was one of those days. Today he was thinking of Allyson.

Allyson was the girl next door, and Jeune's new girlfriend.

Allyson was gorgeous - tall, lithe, wonderfully proportioned - definitely the kind of girl he normally would have been far too intimidated to ever approach. But now he was mad about her and, as far as he could tell, she was mad about him as well. When he stopped to think about it, he was still amazed - and so very, very happy.

Allyson's family had moved in about a year ago. His first memory of her was seeing her leaning out of an upstairs window facing his backyard, her eyes closed, her head tilted slightly to one side, apparently enjoying a light breeze. She was wearing a smudged white tank top and a pair of yellow rubber gloves, her long hair drawn in a ponytail and her skin glistening with perspiration.

Jeune, who was actively mowing the lawn on that occasion as well, saw her perched there and gaped open-mouthed. So distracted was he at the sight of her that he completely missed his next turn, mowed directly across the swirl of the paisley he had carefully spent a half an hour shaping and ran straight over a sprinkler head at the edge of the patio.

The unmistakable sound of plastic being ground to tiny, tiny bits made him do an awkward, spontaneous little dance in a useless attempt to turn back time. The lawn mower stalled. Cringing like a thief in a spotlight, he heard the unmistakable sound of repressed laughter coming from across the fence. Sheepishly, he turned to look to where it was coming from and there she was, beaming down at him, a highly amused expression on her face.

Hello, she said brightly as she caught his eye.

Um, hello, he managed to stammer, quickly turning away. Thinking fast, he rolled the mower onto its side and pretended to look for problems.

Are you alright? she asked.

Um, yeah, I-I'm fine.

That's good. So, are you my neighbor, or are you just working here?

Um, yeah, I live here, he said with a bit more voice. Um… just mowing the lawn… he continued, wishing he hadn't.

I can see that, she responded cheekily. Plus a few others things too, I guess.

Jeune flushed. Um, yeah. Oops! he replied with a nervous laugh. Dad's not going to like this.

My name is Allyson, she said without breaking rhythm in the slightest. And you are?

Ah… Jeune, he replied uncomfortably, looking up at her again. He disliked both the name and saying it aloud. It always sounded in his head like he was pronouncing it oddly.

Jeune, she repeated thoughtfully. Huh, I've never heard that name before.

Yeah, I know, he replied unenthusiastically, having been down this road more than once before. It's a weird name. My father's French. It was his idea. I think it sounds like a girl's name.

I can see what you mean, she mocked playfully. No, I'm just kidding! I like it. It's… unique.

If you say so, he replied, unconvinced.

There was pause here. Jeune felt like it was his turn to say something, but suddenly nothing was coming to mind. He fidgeted slightly as a creeping panic started a mutiny of butterflies in his stomach. His mind raced for something smart-sounding to say. Instead he said:

So… wow, you're really pretty.

Stunned by his own audacity, he cringed, flushed again and quickly looked away. Idiot! he scolded himself under his breath.

Well… thank you, blurted Allyson momentarily.

He glanced up guiltily to notice that it was she who was now blushing.

I uh… well I uh… guess I ought to get back to work, he stammered, feeling utterly stupid. It was… really nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you too, Jeune, she replied, looking entirely recomposed. I'll see you around.

She smiled warmly at him and withdrew inside the window. He turned back to the mower, cursed himself for being a mealy-mouthed, inarticulate doofus and returned to his course, forgetting entirely about the paisley and making as quick of work of the rest of the mowing as he possibly could.

Returning to the present moment, Jeune stopped, looked up at the window once again and smiled, thinking how funny that whole scene would've looked to anyone passing by: Allyson, so pretty, so sweet, so accommodating, and he, such a complete bumbling fool.

He rolled the memories through his mind once more, this time editing out the embarrassing parts and just focusing on the image of her, framed like an angel in that window. Nothing in the world would have pleased him more at this moment than to see her appear there now. But that was impossible because, in fact, Allyson and her family weren't home. They had left recently for an extended vacation in Europe and weren't due back for more than a month.

He sighed longingly, and reluctantly returned to work, and to the memories that seemed to be coming so fluidly today. Of course he had indeed seen Allyson around - and in more ways than he was currently prepared to admit…

One night later that summer he had happened to be out in his backyard with his telescope looking at Mars, which he had read was almost perfectly aligned with Earth at the time. Its two moons were highly visible this particular night, one of them casting an ecliptic shadow on the face of Mars itself. It was a spectacular, unforgettable sight… which was completely forgotten after what he saw next.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed the light in Allyson's room suddenly come on. He looked over and saw a figure moving there.