"A crackling thriller brimming with both paranoia and philosophical conundrums."
-KA Bedford on Thomas World
Events
Thomas World Launch Party
September 7, 7:00 PM
Harwelden Mansion
Tulsa
Links
Buy Thomas World online
The God Particle: Excerpt page six
For a moment he is overcome with an impulse to grab the stinking fellow next to him and reveal what is obviously life's elusive and essential truth. Or perhaps the female bartender would be interested to know. To know that it isn't the ring that matters, it isn't that Janine can help him fulfill goal #4 (and #5), but that he is in love with her. That he wants to spend the rest of his life with her because he cannot imagine continuing on otherwise. In this moment he realizes that Serena is right, that life isn't about making over two hundred thousand dollars a year before his thirty-fifth birthday (goal #3), it isn't about the VP position that will be his by the end of the month, it isn't about any of those things. He realizes that his numerous disposable sexual relationships have amounted to nothing, have in fact pushed him away from this fundamental truth, the search for someone to love, someone for whom he would sacrifice his life, someone with whom he could set about the quest for--
His cell phone rattles against his chest, jerking his attention back to the smoky Zurich bar. When he pulls it from his pocket, the phone glows phosphorescent in the dark and announces: CALLER ID UNAVAILABLE. For some reason, telephone numbers from the States never display properly. He answers and then presses the phone hard against his ear.
"This is Steve."
No one seems to speak on the other end.
"Hello?"
He thinks he hears something this time, but can't be sure, not with electronic music obliterating his ears. His options: Disconnect and wait for the caller to try again later or head outside and get wet all over again. Steve decides to brave the rain. After all, it might be Janine.
The door is twenty or so feet away, and he weaves toward it through a dense crowd of velvety women and serious-looking Swiss men. Steps out into the sprinkling silence.
"Hello?" Steve says.
He can hear something now, a muffled voice perhaps. Mostly what he hears is shuffling sounds. Rustling. As if a cell phone in someone's pocket has inadvertently called him. This sort of thing has happened before--the accidental bump of a friend's cell phone calling him with the one-touch function--and the first time or two he listened closely, for some reason certain he would hear a scandalous tidbit of information unintended for public consumption. But of course he hadn't. Life, after all, isn't a soap opera.
The rain plays with his hair, soaking into his turtleneck, and Steve is about to give up on the call when he hears the voice again. This time it's louder and a little clearer. A woman's voice, perhaps. He pushes the phone harder against his ear and closes off the other one with his index finger. The female voice rises and falls between intermittent bursts of static. Then another sound--another voice--eclipses the first. This one is most certainly male. The guy is cheering.cheering or grunting. Now the female joins him, yelping with predictable and hurried regularity. But she isn't cheering.
She's squeaking.
Previous