Professor Stoner sat behind the desk in his office and stared across at Max. He was surprised to see Max waiting outside his classroom very early this Monday morning, but that was nothing compared to his confusion now. “It gets heavy… then disappears?”
Max nodded.
The professor smiled. “I don’t think weight and invisibility go hand-in-hand. If it did, we might lose Rollo.” He laughed at his own joke and leaned forward to glance out the door, half expecting Rollo and/or Julie to come in laughing.
Max was expressionless.
“You are kidding, right? I mean this is payback for the fire extinguisher joke, isn’t it?”
Max was expressionless. Then he said, “I understand you think this is a joke. But even if you think that, you agreed at the beginning that you would not tell anyone about this. You gave your word.”
“Let me get this straight,” the professor said, finally getting serious. “You’re telling me you can make the lead ball disappear? Invisible? As in, it’s there, but you can’t see it?”
Max nodded.
“But that doesn’t get you any points with the magnetic challenge,” the professor noted, trying one last time to keep it lighthearted in case it was a joke.
Max just sat there wondering if he had made the right decision.
The professor recognized his frustration. “What do you want me to do?” he asked.
Max breathed a little sigh of relief. “I would like you to come to my house so I can show you I’m not crazy.”
“Okay,” the professor said. “When?”
“I’m off Wednesday night,” Max said.
The professor agreed, but, deep down, he still thought it might be a setup.
Max left his office and began his day. He tried to put the experiment out of his mind and concentrate on his studies, which had taken a back seat as of late. And he tried to concentrate on Julie, who was also starting to feel a little neglected.
***
Professor Stoner pulled into the driveway at Max’s parents’ house a few minutes after 5:00 p.m. Wednesday evening. Max had been watching from the window and walked out to meet him. After a casual greeting, he led him out to the barn.
“Beta waves?” the professor gasped after Max gave him the complete rundown on how the experiment had progressed, including having to bolt down the emitters to keep them from falling inward. “Okay, show me. Do your thing.”
Max decided to let him experience the entire scenario, so he started the amplifier at the lowest setting and proceeded to increase the power. As it neared the three-quarter point, the professor’s expression displayed that he also could sense something was happening. Then, like all the other times, the ball disappeared before their very eyes.
Professor Stoner jumped back and screamed, “Holy crap!” Then he stepped a little closer, his eyes transfixed on the void where the ball used to be.
“Like I said,” Max said, “you can still see the metal rod and everything except the lead ball.”
Several seconds expired as the professor was at a loss for words. He couldn’t take his eyes off the phenomenon. “And you say if you crank it up even higher, there’s no change?”
“Correct.”
“Have you tried to touch it to see if you can actually feel it there?” asked the professor.
Max answered, “I thought about it, but since there’s two hundred and twenty volts of electricity passing through that visible rod, I thought better of it.”
Professor Stoner reached inside his coat and took a pen from his shirt pocket. He leaned in, inching the pen toward the rod. He was about two inches from it when the pen slid out of the cap and disappeared into the void.
Max cut the power as he and the professor looked for the pen, which had not reappeared with the ball. “What just happened?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” the professor acknowledged.
As they were scratching their heads over the pen, Max’s dad walked in. “Hey, guys. How are you doing?”
“Oh, hey, Dad. This is Professor Stoner, the teacher I told you about.”
Max’s dad walked over to shake his hand. “Very nice to meet you, sir.”
“The pleasure’s all mine,” said the professor. “Max here talks about you all the time.”
His dad laughed. “Well, I assure you I’m not as bad as he claims. It’s freezing out here. Why don’t you guys come in the house for a while? Max can teach you how to build a fire later.”
The professor laughed while Max rolled his eyes.
They went into the house and sat at the kitchen table. The professor was introduced to Max’s mom who insisted he stay for dinner. The professor agreed.
“Do you need some help?” the professor asked.
Max’s mom spun around with a big smile. “Did you hear that, guys?” Her rhetorical question was clearly aimed at Max and his dad. Then she turned her attention back to the professor. “No. But thank you so much for asking. It’s nice to have a gentleman in the house.”
As Max’s mom continued to work at the counter, Max’s dad took his opportunity. “I have to be honest and say that we were a little worried in the beginning when Max suddenly developed such a fondness for science. You do realize that a lot of pastors think that science leads a lot of young people away from God?”
The professor nodded. “Yes, I am aware of that. I wish it wasn’t true because I think science and Christianity go hand-in-hand. I don’t see them as enemies at all. In fact, it was science that brought me to God.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Even Max’s mom paused at those words.
“Really?” asked the reverend. “That’s an interesting viewpoint. Can you explain how that happened?”
The professor looked upward as if wondering where to begin. “I’ve always been fascinated with science, ever since I was a kid. But the more I learned, the more I realized it couldn’t be just coincidence. The fact that the earth is the perfect-size planet and the perfect distance from the perfect-size star is a huge coincidence in itself.
“The scientific theory about the moon is also fascinating. They believe that another planet or asteroid collided with the earth at just the perfect angle to rip parts of it away to form the perfect-size satellite, which is also the perfect distance away. The moon’s gravitational pull keeps the earth tilted at the perfect angle to keep the earth from wobbling like other planets, and that’s the only reason we have four seasons and the only reason our environment is stable enough for life.
“Then there’s the whole water theory. Do you know that scientists believe that meteors rained down on earth for millions of years, bringing tiny droplets of water until they formed the oceans, lakes, and rivers? How did it happen on earth and no other planet?
“Science even favors the Bible when it comes to mankind. They have found primate skulls going back millions of years. They can see where these skulls have changed over time, but they are still primates. Then, for some reason that science can’t explain, there is a very long period of time with no skulls being found. Then suddenly, human skulls appear. So, the link doesn’t appear to be missing; it would appear not to exist.
“Throw in things like the miracle of birth, the human body, and especially the human brain, and it was things like that which made me realize that there had to be intelligence behind it all.”
Everyone in the room had stopped to listen, even Max’s mom. And everyone was impressed, even Max’s dad.
“So, you don’t think the earth was created in six days?” his dad asked.
“I don’t know,” the professor offered, knowing this was sometimes a touchy subject for Christians. “I think Genesis was kept simple for us to get the gist of creation. I don’t think Moses, or even Einstein for that matter, could ever comprehend the complexities of an infinite being like God. I don’t think we were ever meant to fully understand how it happened, and maybe our minds could not ever fully understand it.”
Max’s dad moved to his next question. “How about evolution?”
The professor smiled and threw his hands up. “No, no. That’s definitely one I steer away from.”
His dad smiled. “Why is that?”
“Because,” the professor answered, “people get too upset when discussing that.”
Max finally spoke. “You don’t have to worry about that with Dad. He can disagree without getting upset.”
Professor Stoner thought back to the Bible study classes where Max had admitted that he and his dad didn’t see eye-to-eye on some subjects. Judging by that and his dad’s expression, he decided to take a chance. “Okay, then. What about evolution?”
“Do you believe in evolution?” his dad clarified.
“Of course,” the professor began. “That’s like asking if I believe in gravity. It is not a matter of believing; evolution is real and all around us. If you plant a garden, the plants evolve throughout the entire process. Take Max here. I’m sure he didn’t look the same ten years ago.”
“That’s aging,” his dad tried to correct.
“Yes,” the professor agreed. “Aging is a form of evolution. Evolution simply means change in a certain direction, so aging is a perfect example.
“Another example would be animals found in the Amazon that have long tails to survive the six months when the Amazon basin is flooded. The same species are found in other parts of the world with no tails at all.”
“That’s adaptation,” the reverend said, as if rolling out his ammo already selected for this conversation.
“Yes,” the professor agreed again. “Adaptation is also a perfect example of evolution.”
The reverend went for the kill. “Okay, let me clarify. I’m asking if you believe that guy, Darwin, and his story that man came from monkeys.”
“No, of course not,” the professor replied. “But let’s be clear; Charles Darwin never said that.”
Max’s dad looked confused. “Are you sure?”
The professor nodded. “I know people say that all the time, but it’s not accurate. All Darwin ever hypothesized was that man and monkeys share a common ancestor. Since the DNA of man and monkeys is ninety-seven percent identical, I can understand the reason for the theory. It doesn’t make the theory true, but I can understand why the theory exists. So, when people ask why are monkeys not still changing into man, it’s because, according to Charles Darwin, they never did.”
Max’s dad was at a loss for words. After a few seconds he asked, “But you do believe that man has evolved over time? Correct?”
“Yes,” the professor answered.
“But how can you say that when the Bible says that man was created in God’s image?” the reverend asked.
“I believe they were.” The professor thought how best to explain. “Adam and Eve lived in a paradise, which means the weather was perfect and everything was provided for them. I suspect they were very beautiful people. But when God kicked them out of Eden, they were then subjected to freezing cold and had to hunt for their own food. It doesn’t make sense to me that God would not have given man the ability to adapt since he gave it to every other creature on earth. It just doesn’t make sense to me. So, maybe they adapted, which coincides with science. And, as we are able to control our own environment with houses and buildings with controlled temperatures inside those houses and buildings, maybe we are slowly changing back to what Adam and Eve must have looked like. But we’ll never get there because our man-made environment will never equal God’s paradise.”
Again, the room was silent until Max’s dad spoke. “Would you like to come speak to my Sunday school class?”
Realizing he was serious, the professor said, “I’d love to if I ever have the time.”
“Yes,” said Max with a smile. “You could tell them your Velociraptor theory.”
Professor Stoner shook his head, and the reverend looked confused, but no one spoke.
“Well, is someone going to tell me what that means?” Max’s dad asked.
The professor was still shaking her head. Finally, he conceded. “It was more of a joke than a theory. I asked the students a question one day—what was the creature that tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden?” The professor nodded toward the reverend.
“A snake, of course.”
Max laughed at his dad’s answer. “That’s what we all said.”
“What?” The reverend looked at Max then at Professor Stoner. “What am I missing?”
The professor smiled. “What does it say happened in Genesis?”
“It says that the serpent tempted Eve and God cursed the serpent to crawl…” The reverend smiled. “Oh my. It says the serpent was cursed to crawl on its belly and be feared from that day forth.”
“Exactly,” said the professor. “That means that before it tempted Eve, it did not crawl but moved about by some other means of transportation. I offered the suggestion that maybe it was a dinosaur that tempted Eve and when God took their legs away, they became snakes and just got smaller over time as have many other animals. The Brachiosaurus and Brontosaurus became the Anaconda and Python. The dinosaur with the clubbed tail became the rattlesnake, and so on. And since the Jurassic Park movies made the Velociraptors look so crafty, I said it must have been one of them that tempted Eve.”
Max was enjoying seeing his dad’s expression. “And as Professor Stoner explained, it would solve two mysteries: what was the serpent in the Garden of Eden and why did the dinosaurs die off overnight?”
“That is very interesting,” the reverend said.
“So, you think it’s feasible?” Max asked.
“No, not at all,” the reverend said with a chuckle. “But it’s still very interesting.”
They all laughed.
Max’s mom put dinner on the table, and they all ate and conversed about simpler subjects. After dinner, the professor thanked her for the meal and thanked Max’s dad for the discussion and invitation. They bid him farewell and Max walked with him as he left the house.
“You have a nice family,” the professor said.
“Thanks. So, what do you think about the experiment situation?”
“Well,” the professor smiled, “I certainly don’t think you’re joking anymore. And I think you’re right; we should keep this to ourselves until we figure it out.”
Max nodded in agreement.
He got into his truck and drove away.
Max went back inside.
A few minutes later, the phone rang. Max’s mom answered and called out to Max.
“Hello?” Max said.
“I couldn’t help thinking about the lead ball and the invisibility concept. It didn’t make sense. And what happened to the pen? These thoughts kept crossing my mind as I drove away. I had to pull over and look in the rear-view mirror and wonder if I am going crazy, but I think I figured it out.”
“Professor?” Max asked.
“Yes, it’s me. I’m saying I figured it out. Can you come in early tomorrow and meet me in my office?”
Max wanted to know now, but knew it was best to wait. “Sure. No problem.”
“What’s up?” his dad asked, as Max hung up the phone.
“Oh,” said Max. “Professor Stoner lost his pen.”
