Chapter 19: The Laws of Attraction
Once they entered their room and he closed the door behind him, he let her down from his arms. Had their dress not been drenched, it would have allowed her sari to not cling to his shirt, which would have allowed them both a more fluid break from each other and from the awkwardness that was bound to ensue otherwise. But the dress did not separate evenly and the awkwardness did ensue after all… Even though there were no romantic feelings they felt towards each other that they could identify thus far, there was something to be said about the pleasant affection that had developed between them. When such a state was combined with the basic laws of attraction – which found mutual affection and wet bodies as a complimentary combination for giving rise to a procreational impulse – the effect was novel. For the man, as he was familiar with such feelings in the past, it was less disconcerting – although it still surprised him when it hit him for this particular woman. The woman, who was unfamiliar with the feeling and thus entirely unsure of what it was, mistook it for discomfort… and in moments of discomfort, she relied on… math.
She stumbled on the water dripping off her just as he put her down and he caught her yet again, noticing that strands of her hair were sticking to his neck and the side of his face. Her mangalsutr had caught on one of his buttons and he thought that it was incredible that it actually happened in real life – he had only seen it in corny movies. He pulled her closer to him so that the chain wouldn't pull. Her neck arched up at the motion to allow him room and he briefly noticed that she swallowed hard. He refused to look at her to make the moment any more awkward, but he needn't have worried because she suddenly said,
"Have you heard of the infinity regress?"
The question caught him off-guard and he looked up at her face as he asked, "Like Star Trek: Voyager?"
She looked at him in confusion and asked, "What is Star Trek?"
He shook his head with a smile and asked, "Is it like the paradox of infinity?"
She shook her head again and he had to pull her even closer to loosen the chain from his button. He could tell that she lost her focus for a moment because he saw her quickly close her eyes. But she recovered and reopened them soon enough to say,
"Have you heard the phrase, "It's turtles all the way down."? She asked again and in that moment, he adored her completely. He had never seen anything like it. He had never realized that when a woman was on the brink of being physically aroused and finding some discomfort with it, she could act in just this way.
"If the proverbial atlas is sitting on the hands of its creator, then who is the creator sitting on?" She asked now, leaning her head back to look at him.
"Hm… I don't know. Who is it?" he asked in return.
She blinked her eyes rapidly now just as he raised her up on her tiptoes to finally pull the chain down and then up.
"A turtle of course…" she remarked when he loosened his hold slightly.
"A turtle?" he asked in surprise, now genuinely interested.
"What is the turtle sitting on?" he asked soon after just as the chain finally came loose.
"Another turtle." She told him with a smile now as he let go of her, having returned to baseline.
"Another turtle?" he asked as he walked backwards from her. "Hmm… and what's that turtle sitting on?"
"Another turtle, of course!" she smiled widely as she adjusted her sari and started walking towards the bathroom.
"Another turtle?" he asked. "And beneath that?"
She paused at the bathroom door and looked back at him, her smile still in place. "It's turtles all the way down."
She laughed just as she walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind her.
"Turtles all the way indeed." He laughed now too as he walked to the dresser to grab a change of clothes.
"Is that math or philosophy?" He called out to her from outside.
She walked out of the bathroom in a few minutes and grabbed a pad and pencil from the table and told him, "It's part of the Munchhausen Trilemma", as she wrote something out rapidly before giving it to him.
As he took it, she said, "Think of the question, "how do you know what is real or true?"
He nodded for her to continue and she elaborated,
"Well, in the infinite regress, the attempt to answer that question would require a proof that requires another proof that requires further proof, and we could keep doing that forever."
"Ah.. it's turtles all the way down." He smiled.
"Now, if you really want to make it mathematical.. then..it's" she gestured to the pad and he read,
"An infinite regress arises in a series of propositions if the truth of proposition P1 requires the support of proposition P2, the truth of proposition P2 requires the support of proposition P3, ... and the truth of proposition Pn-1 requires the support of proposition Pn and n approaches infinity."
He read it three times before looking back up at her. "I figured out something today."
She tilted her head as she waited for him to answer her.
"At least now I know the answer to "what brought that on?"
She seemed confused for just a moment and then her head straightened as her skin turned a darker hue.
He hadn't been able to resist that one and realized that he had never seen his wife blush before.
"I am hoping that at the end of it all, I will be a great mathematician." Just after he said it, he caught the implication of what it really meant and his smile disappeared.
"I think I forgot something downstairs." He told her just as he walked out of the room, to their collective relief.
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Edited by sridevi27 - 14 years ago
Bigg Boss 19
Kabhi Neem Neem Kabhi Shahad Shahad
