The Gutenhaagen Technique (a weird story I wrote as a teenager)[Pt. 1]

        Karl Gutenhaagen gripped his notebook like a teddy bear and walked briskly to his grey Ford Explorer. He tried not to think of the idea, but the effort to suppress it brought it immediately (and vividly) to mind.
        “God damn it,” he thought as he opened the rust-lined, mud-splashed driver's-side door.
        He pictured the idea, the very fabric of his thought—the very fabric of his self-- flowing outward from his brain in the form of an intricate series of ripples. The ripples had already traversed the surrounding infinities and crashed into billions of brains in the process. Bits and pieces of his idea might be popping up in random people all over the place-- any brain with a neuronal lock to fit the key. A mathematician somewhere-- somebody with the proper mental ingredients-- could catch his whole idea right out of the ether. And if they did, they would-- no doubt-- mistake it for an original thought.
        “They'll be damned if they do!” Karl muttered with venom. He stroked his notebook a good three times before carefully placing it on the passenger seat. Now he put his hands on top of the synthetic-leather steering wheel, started to clench, wringing it violently with both hands in a futile attempt to choke it to death. As he began to relax, he let his hands drift to opposite sides of the wheel, spreading from midnight to 10 and 2, and now to 9 and 3, and now back to 10 and 2. He felt like he was holding onto the handles of a motorcycle. He imagined cruising through the countryside with the wind in his hair. A bug struck him in the eye almost immediately. He spun out, careened into the guard rail, and went flying over the edge of the cliff. “At least I've finally got my mind off of the idea,” he thought to himself as he accelerated toward the imaginary rocks. “Wait a minute-- Goddamn it!”
        His imaginary body met with a cartoonish boulder and crumpled into itself like an accordion. He opened his eyes. The idea was now back on his mental billboard, projector rather. Or maybe “radio” might be more appropriate. Karl wasn't sure, and he didn't care. Well he did care. At least a little bit. But no metaphor could possibly be completely accurate. They were, after all, metaphors. Now he was getting off topic, again. Which was probably a good thing. He needed to train himself to stop noticing every time his brain changed topics. Somebody out there might be listening, and it was obvious to Karl now that the idea would only come back so long as he continued to notice that he had stopped thinking of it.
        “Do you hear this you bastards?” Karl whispered. He was beginning to clench the wheel again. “The idea is mine! Mine, I te-” He paused. There was a quizzical little girl standing in front of the car, peering in at him through the windshield. Karl made an awkward wave with his right hand and the girl ran away to catch up with her mom. Karl started the car and pulled out of the parking lot.

        When he pulled into his driveway, the mail-lady was standing at the door to his apartment, inserting what was surely a stack of bills through the metal slot in the door.
        “Good afternoon, Dr. Gutenhaagen,” she said as Karl stepped out of his car. His notebook was tucked like a rugby ball between his forearm and chest. “Long day at work?”
        “Ye- No” he stammered as he fumbled around purposelessly with his keychain. Technically speaking, the day had lasted a legitimate eternity, but if he had said that yes: it had been a long day-- an eternity in fact-- then already this unassuming mail-lady would have had enough clues to find the divine equation on her own. Karl imagined her standing on the podium and collecting his Nobel prize, and then he realized with terror that imagining the scenario made it all the more likely to transpire. Maybe it already had transpired. Maybe he had come into contact with a little ripple of hatred and jealousy sent back by his future self-- a future self that had been forced to watch the mail-lady soak up the praise and adoration that was rightfully his own.
        “Well-- that's good,” the mail-lady said hesitantly, as if she might be abstractedly commenting on the fact that she was now destined to win the Nobel prize. Struggling to remain calm, Karl rubbed his thumb against the ridges of his house-key. As a child his mother had read to him a picture book about the history of braille, and as a result he had become fascinated with the idea that there might be some sort of incomprehensible meaning embedded in every texture. Today, his brass key seemed to be crying out, “Kill her!”
        “Have a good day, sir...” the mail-lady said, interrupting the key as she stepped onto the sidewalk and started hurrying toward the next house.
        Karl watched her go. The way she had said “have a good day” was probably meant to suggest he was someone especially vulnerable to bad days. He considered confronting her and informing her that today was already a good day, the best day in fact, but by the time she reached the next door and looked over at him he decided to be the better person, to maintain his zen-like calm, and so still holding his keychain by the jagged edge of the house-key he stamped his way up the three steps to his door, singing in his head Gimme three steps! Gimme three steps, mister! Give me three steps towards your door! The radio had been playing that crap the whole way home; Although, ironically, Karl had only himself to blame. If he had never changed the radio dial from the classical music station to 99.3 f.m., or leased an apartment with three concrete steps leading to the door, or stopped, now, to consider that this whole series of events might be related, then Lynyrd Skynyrd’s hit song Gimme Three Steps would never have been written. Karl snickered at the thought then wiggled the key into the door handle and gave it a turn.
        “I said doon't worraaay.... aboout a thing....” he sang in his nasally voice as he pushed open the door and stepped into the living room. “Cause every little thing, is gonna be al--”
        Karl dropped his notebook. 3:33 was blinking in lime-green digits across the face of his Atomic clock.
        It seemed to be a sign from God, a sort of hint saying, “Look here, Karl: I'm running this show.”
        To hell with you, Karl thought as he picked his notebook up from the ground. In the back of his mind he was performing a plethora of simple math problems, attempting to decipher the meaning behind the numbers on the clock. 3:33. 3 x 33 = 99. 3 x 3 = 9. 3 + 33 = 36. 3 + 3 + 3 = 9. The radio in the Explorer was tuned to 99.3. Obviously there was a link in there somewhere. If it were possible to graph his new equation using modern-day instruments, it would be very easy to observe the link directly. He could even observe himself observing the link, or observe himself observing himself observing himself and so on to infinity. It was all there, wrapped up neatly within his theory of everything. God may have created the universe, but Karl had his hands gripped firmly upon on the blueprint.

TO BE CONTINUED

Cover Photo: Image Source