And Then, There Was Light...

This was it – the cure for cancer.

Ryan hadn’t even graduated from med school. Just a mere six months ago the young twenty-six year old had dropped out of UCLA to pursue other interests. He had nearly forgotten all about his former studies, but now it came rushing back in a flash of lightning-quick inspiration.

It was appropriate, he thought; breakthrough discoveries like these always tended to happen by accident in unexpected settings, didn’t they? Take that guy who invented Post It notes. It’s a famous legend, surely you’ve heard the story: some inventor had set out to concoct a new super glue stew but produced, instead, the weakest and most useless of all adhesive substances known to mankind. Or so it seemed, insofar as the latter adjective anyway. Somehow, before the formula could be crumpled up and tossed into the wastebasket, to be forgotten for all eternity, it was thought that the stick-um might just have a purpose after all. The theory was put to the test and from that point afterward office workers ‘round the globe had their dismal lives changed profoundly forever (we need not mention the inventor’s).

This was much bigger than that, clearly.

Ryan couldn’t believe how simple the logic went. Like a lot of breakthrough ideas this one hadn’t come delivered to him in a single package, wrapped up with a pretty red ribbon – no. Rather, it came about by a magical combination of two odd ideas that somehow shot off in the opposite hemispheres of his brain at the same fortuitous moment, and were lucky enough to collide together to form an epiphany so reasonable and basic it was scary that no one working on the front lines of cancer research had ever before considered it.

Ryan grabbed at his pockets. He had never been so desperate for a pen and paper – no human had, he was already boasting to himself. It was by further serendipity he happened to pull out a square of yellow Post Its. Providence. He had stuffed those in there earlier that day, for upon the top sheet was written the address of the location he had come to on this fine Summer evening.

He ripped the top sheet away, twisting his trusty Waterman ballpoint to protrusion, and began scribbling furiously.

His hands were sweaty. He raced to keep up with his thoughts. When he finally got it all down, Ryan flipped through the twenty-six squares, densely packed with ink – one for every year of his life he realized.

Woah, dude.

He tried reading it back to himself, but beyond his natural, messy hen scratch it was too goddamn dark to see in this place – the greatest and most important discovery of our modern age and here was Ryan who didn’t have adequate light to see.

But – the stars – they remained locked in their magnificent alignment and nothing could stop Man’s next giant leap ahead:

Just then, the lights shined on for Ryan. Darkness was lifted and the pounding in his ear-drums subsided. He looked down into the translucent plastic cup tucked under his arm.

He had finished his beer. All that was left were soapy suds and two squeezed out limes. Ryan’s head felt like it had been out by the pool all day in the hot sun. His ears were ringing. It was a small shame his mind had drifted there at the last minute, away from what was easily the single-greatest concert going experience of his entire life.

He flipped through the pages of Post It under the harsh house lights of the auditorium.

“What’s all that?”

Ryan looked up at Barney. His good friend was staring at him with a curious semi-grin. Barney, himself, looked pretty much the way Ryan felt at that moment, albeit less preoccupied.

Shaking his wobbly head, Ryan stuffed the note pad into his jeans, deciding that here was not the place or now the time to utter the words that might change the world forever. An important theory like this must be tested first.

Besides, he would hate to get poor Barney’s hopes up over nothing.