Jesus Don't Want Me For a Sunbeam

It's a complex block puzzle designed in the early 1970s by a German professor with umlauts in both his first and last names and it sits in pieces on the worn mahogany table, staring up at the three of them, beckoning, waiting to be completed.
"I don't care, I'm not doing it," Jason insists, already feeling foolish, like a small child. "I don't like puzzles."
"Honey, it's just a little test," his mother says.
"An exercise," the doctor agrees.
"You should like it. It's like a science experiment. It's to determine your percept… uh. Perception…"
"Perceptual reasoning abilities."
"Is there a wrong answer?"  
"Well," the doctor shrugs, "there's only one way the pieces all fit together."
"Then it's not like science. It shouldn't fit together. Things don't… fit together neatly like that," Jason stammers, the way he's always done when he's frustrated. "Not really."
"Can't you at least give it a try?"
"There are always discrepancies in real life. Temperature, and pressure changes, and chemical imperfections…Something always depends on something else. There's never just one way to reach the end result."
The doctor says, "These tests only depend on you, Jason."
"Then they're pointless."  
Jason sits tersely on the couch, arms crossed, glaring at the broken puzzle on the table. Jason's mother mutters something in disbelief, in disappointment. The doctor pulls her away, patting her arm in consolation.
"Anne, don't worry about it," she says. "We can always try again next week."

"I don't stay here, you know," Jason tells her, when they first meet. "I just come here sometimes."
"I know."
It's outside by the park benches and picnic tables where broken families come together on weekends for pleasant reunions and it's snowing in thick, puffy flakes, even though it isn't really that cold. Jason is only wearing a sweater and he isn't shivering, but Alex is bundled up. She's still a California girl at heart. And she already knows almost everything there is to know about Jason, but she pretends she doesn't so she'll have an excuse for them to speak.  
"My parents think it's a good idea," Jason says. "They think it'll help me… make sense of things."
Alex smiles.
"That's why I'm here, too."
"Your parents think it's a good idea?"
She shakes her head. Then, "Sort of."
"Oh?"
She says, "I'm just here to make sense of things."

In the car, while they speak, the doctor doesn't even look at Alex; she just focuses on the road ahead, like always.
"You shouldn't get involved with him. He's no good for you."
"Well, who is?"
"He isn't emotionally fit," the doctor tells her. "He'll always need someone to tell him what's right. He can't possibly be there for you like you need."
"Is that so?"
"And if he found out who you were, what you were doing…"
"God, Mother, what am I doing? I'm not doing anything."
"It's cruel to lead him on," the doctor pointedly says.
Alex fiddles with her seatbelt. "He's just interesting."
"People aren't interesting. They're just people. And you're only here to help them along."
The heater is broken and Alex watches her breath fog out in front of her like fire breath while her mother chastises her.
"I think he's brilliant," Alex says finally.  
"Everyone's brilliant. You need to leave him alone and let me do my job. It's the only way he'll get better."
"Mother, there's nothing wrong with him. He's not your experiment."
And the doctor says, "He's not yours either."


"What are you doing?" he asks one day, approaching her at the picnic table. She has on a set of headphones and is working on her computer. Jason sees a series of sharp graphs and pulsating bars and numbers with decimals and negative symbols, and it's all a language he believes he should comprehend, but doesn't. It's a mystery.
"I'm composing music."
"With no instruments?"
Alex grins and removes her headphones.
"Do you like music?" she asks.
"I don't know anything about music."
"Sure, you do."
"I only really know about science."
"Then you must know something about music."
Jason hesitantly sits next to her, leaning over the computer to get a better look.
"Can I listen?" he asks.
She hands him the headphones and presses a button to start the program and she sits, waiting patiently for the sequence to run its course. Jason doesn't blink once as he listens, his attention rapt. When it's all finished, he removes the headphones soundlessly and just looks at her.
"Most drum beat generators sound unnatural to the human ear because they're made by computers," Alex says, unprompted. "And computers are dumb. They're designed to be perfect. And, of course, even the most skilled of drummers can't be perfect. It's just impossible. You know, there's wind resistance, there's the limitations of the human body... So this program has a built-in delay, which you can adjust, within an eighth of a millisecond. You can't really detect the delay, not with the naked ear; it's still technically on time, but if you compare the two, you can tell… one of them just sounds a little more right. A little more human."
Jason doesn't often smile, but now is one of those times. He says, "I like that."
"I thought you would."

"Can we do this again? Just try it?" his mother pleads, in the office once more, standing over the scattered German puzzle.
"We cannot 'do this again,'" Jason says, walking around the table. "That implies that we already 'did this.' And 'we' haven't 'done' anything. I thought it was a waste of time last time and it still is."
"It's important that you try, dear, so that we can… advance with all of this. Move on."
"Anne, you mustn't really put it in terms like that," the doctor says softly, with the knowledge that parents all too often have a habit of getting in the way. "Jason, I know it's not like that. Anne, could you give us some space, please?"
Jason's mother reluctantly leaves and the doctor looks at Jason with the warmth of any mother – any mother but his own, of course.
"You know, my daughter, she's a lot like you," the doctor says. "Doesn't want anyone to waste her time. She's stubborn. She volunteers here, you know."
Jason scoffs. "Why would anyone volunteer to spend their time here?"
"She sees something in the people. She likes to try to fix things. She's like that."
Jason says, "I guess it's not so bad when you can leave whenever you want."
The doctor places a hand on Jason's back and redirects his attention to puzzle.  
"You can always leave whenever you want, Jason," she says, "but you know there's only one way you're going to get anywhere."



"Can I…play with this sometime?" Jason asks, as though unsure whether or not 'play' is even the appropriate verb.
"Definitely. We could even do something together."
"I think I'd enjoy that."
"Me too," says Alex.
She hands over the laptop to him and lets him work out the controls for himself, just like a little kid figuring out a new videogame. She watches, for what must be hours, with amusement, as he fiddles with the levels, plays with octaves, obsesses over the rhythm delay function.
"It's like you're going out of your way to program the world's crappiest drummer," she laughs.
"But doesn't it feel right somehow?"
It does.
He says, with a huge grin, "Listen to this," and hits the button.


"Where is he?" Alex demands one day, pursuing her mother through the maze of grey corridors, and the doctor doesn't reply.
"When's he coming back?"
The doctor flips through a new clipboard of files, studying them attentively, not looking her daughter in the eye, just watching the path ahead like always. She says, "He's not coming back."
"What do you mean he's not coming back?"
"You know."
And that's all she needs to say. Alex has heard it all before.
"This is all your fault," she says, even though she knows it isn't true, before running away.  


"I don't understand how people can say that science is black and white," Jason says. It's summer now, way too hot, and Jason is still wearing his sweater, and doesn't seem to care. They're lying under the shade of the trees by their favourite picnic bench. It's a place that makes both of them feel safe. "Scientists know better than anyone that nothing is black and white. Nothing is absolute. There are always too many variables. You can only calculate so many of them."
"Sounds like science can be pretty limiting."
"No. Just the opposite. When you know that by changing one small thing, one basic element, you can either destroy a universe, or create a miracle… That's liberation."
Alex smiles. "I don't think that happens very often."
"No. That's why it's beautiful."   
"Jason, you're the most interesting person I've ever met."
Jason looks at her and asks, as casually as he ever asks anything, "Do you have a disorder?"
Alex laughs.
"We all have a disorder."
"But you don't have a real disorder."
"What do you mean?"
"I know who you are."
She freezes. She never really meant to keep it from him; she never meant to keep anything from him. It was just one of those things. It never came up.
"Jason, you know it's not like --"
"I know," he says. "I understand. Don't worry. I think you're as perfect as you can get. And you know everything's not black and white."   

The doctor is alone in her office, and she stands over her mahogany furnishings, gazing at the completed German puzzle, her eyes dark and hazy. She glances out the window, watching her daughter lose herself in a world of bass and melody, and begrudgingly topples the tower before heading back to her desk.

Jason watches from the parking lot as, far away, the doctor is entering the building with her daughter. The way the two are walking together, laughing about something, even Jason can tell they have a bond.
Jason's mother isn't paying attention. She's just finished fixing her mascara in the car mirror.
"Come on, Jason, we don't want to be late." She closes the mirror and starts getting out of the car.
"We aren't late," he says.


The puzzle is complete and stands like an imposing tower at the edge of the table. It didn't take very long at all; it wasn't even difficult. Jason knew all along it wouldn't be. His mother beams over him.
"I knew you could do it, honey. I'm so proud of you," she says, and Jason doesn't say anything or move.
The doctor smiles, satisfied as well.  
"Do you see how things can fit together now?"
Jason gazes wordlessly out the window, where outside, nothing has changed.


When Alex is alone, she finds her way outside, where things always seem more real and she always feels closer to something. She sits in her favourite place and unzips her bag and pulls out her laptop, something she hasn't done in what seems like a very long time. She knows that something is different even before the handwritten note falls to the ground from within.
She examines it:

"Listen to the new track. It's not perfect, but at least it made sense."

She turns on the program and opens up the newest track, even though she doubts it will ever make sense to her.