Lessons in Alchemy

    “Sometimes good people die,” the priest said as he patted my shoulder.

    Michael was a good person and he was dead making the priest’s conclusion an accurate one. Sometimes good people die. Newton’s Third Law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Twenty seven years, four months, two weeks, and three days ago, Michael had come into this world, ergo he would one day have to leave it. That day had simply come much sooner than expected.

    I tossed a handful of dirt into the still open grave, a lily too, and stood to one side as the mourners passed. They shook my hand and told me Michael was in a better place now. I said nothing. There are laws for everything in this wold and the laws of nature are simple sometimes. When things die, they decay. Michael was dead, therefore, he would decay. 

    There would be no more pulse, no more heartbeat, no blood rushing through his veins, no electric impulses shooting through his mind creating thoughts and feelings. However, it also meant something else. It meant something worse.

    There would be no more blue eyes, no more crooked smile, no laughing at the moonlight. Michael wasn’t going to a better place. He was simply gone. His body would break down into its fundamental parts and then disappear. Putting him in the ground wasn’t going to lift him to some paradise in the clouds; it was simply inviting the worms and maggots to do what nature intended them to do: tear Michael to pieces, bit by bit, part by part, so that nature could erase him from this world once and for all.

    Sometimes good people die. Michael was dead. I knew that. I saw the car that hit him. I heard the crunch of his bones against the windshield and the snap of his spine against the pavement. Sometimes good people die and sometimes they live.

    Jake stood next to me. He was crying again. It made sense. Jake was sad and sad people cry. But there are exceptions for every rule. I was sad too, but I didn’t cry. Not on the street, not in the hospital, not in the morgue, and not now. That didn’t change the fact that Jake was crying because Michael was dead. You can’t bring back the dead, nor can you replace a lover with his young sibling. So I held Jake’s hand since there was nothing else I could do.

    I held Jake’s hand for days as if I’d forgotten how to let go, as if I’d forgotten how to live without Michael and Jake took it upon himself to find a way to make us feel better. If not better, at least different. I was sleeping in the bed that had been my brother’s next to the man who had been his love, holding a hand I could not let go when Jake said something for the first time since the accident.

    “I can’t live like this. I can’t live without Michael. And neither can you.”

    That wasn’t true. Our hearts were still beating, there was still blood rushing through our veins, there were still electronic impulses shooting across our minds creating thoughts, creating feelings. But Jake’s impulses told him it wasn’t so. Jake’s thoughts told him that his heart was linked to Michael and that when Michael’s heart stopped, so did his.

    “That’s not true,” I told him. “If you are unable to live without something, you die. We’re both still alive, therefore we are able to live without Michael.”

    “Very scientific,” Jake said. “Very scientific, just like your brother.”

    “Very scientific,” I said. “Just like you.”

    A life of Michael, Jake, science, and experiments was all I had known. Science was Michael’s second love after his family, his second love after Jake and me. Michael taught science to Jake. He taught science to me. Michael built a laboratory to help find cures. To help the world and Jake helped him. 

    Michael was dead now. One of the variables had left the equation and the equation would have to be rebalanced without it.

    “Do you remember the book I bought Michael?” Jake asked. “The blue book called Alchemy?”

    The blue book was a joke. A joke for Michael’s birthday. Alchemy required magic as a chemical component in science. There was no such thing as magic, Michael always said it was just a series of parlor tricks, therefore there could be no such thing as alchemy.

    “I remember the blue book,” I told him.

    “Would you get it for me?”

    The bed still smelled like Michael. Like chemicals and sweat. Like blue eyes and a crooked smile. The bed was a safe place to be with the equation out of balance, but Jake let go of my hand and the bed wasn’t safe anymore. It felt emptier than it ever did before. I got up and found the book on the top shelf. The books were in alphabetical order: A for Alchemy, B for Biology, C for Chemistry. Michael liked it that way. Now there was no A on the shelves anymore. Alchemy had been removed and the alphabet became incomplete.

    I gave Jake the book and he took it to the laboratory. Michael was dead and Jake was gone. Two components of the equation were now removed and I was struggling to find my balance.

    Jake stayed in the laboratory for two days and I had to find something else to do, somewhere else to exist. The bed wasn’t safe anymore, I couldn’t stay there. The alphabet on the bookshelf was damaged, I couldn’t look at it. The equation was unbalanced and new variables had to be found to replace the old ones.

    Everything in the house still belonged to Michael or Jake. The furniture, the pictures, the building, it all belonged to them. None of it could be used to create a new  balance. If the variables inside of the house could not be used to balance the equation, variables from outside of the house should be found. I had to find new things outside of the house, therefore I had to go outside.

    Outside wasn’t a place I was accustomed to, preparations were needed. There was grass outside, I knew that. Grass and people and things. Most of them biological, some of them not. Michael always said reading was the best way of learning. I looked at the bookshelf again. The alphabet was incomplete. A was missing. Alchemy was gone. It had left with Jake. Biology followed. It left the house with me.

    When Jake returned, I had moved on. From Biology to Chemistry. I was cooking dinner on the stove. Soup. It was a simple equation of chicken, noodles, broth, and vegetables. Jake ate the soup and told me about alchemy.

    “You cannot obtain something without sacrificing something first,” Jake said. “In order to obtain anything, a sacrifice of equal value is required.” 

    Alchemy required magic as a chemical component. There was no such thing as magic; therefore there could be no such thing as alchemy. Jake showed me a series of symbols. Circles mostly, to complete a cycle, an equation, and, in the circles were triangles and squares, numbers and signs. Each to call upon a different magic, each to promise another lie.

    “The symbols in alchemy bring in the environmental components that are needed to balance chemical equations that would otherwise be left unbalanced. If you use wood and water in an alchemical equation, the result would be paper just like in a chemical equation. But an alchemical equation would yield stronger paper. Better paper.”

    “Paper made with magic.”

    “There’s no such thing as magic,” Jake said. He was tired which made me hope that alchemy was only a passing dream of his. A passing, waking dream that would end when he had some sleep. Dreams weren’t a science and there was no book that could make them come true.

    “Then how does alchemy work?” I asked.

    “By bringing in environmental factors not normally used in chemical equations.” 

    Alchemy used magic as a variable in chemical equations. The textbooks said so and now Jake was saying differently.

    “We can’t live without Michael,” Jake said. “Therefore the logical thing to do is to bring Michael back to us so that we can live again. There is an alchemical equation that can do that. That can bring Michael back.”

    I stirred the soup again. Hunger caused hallucinations and maybe if Jake ate, he wouldn’t see a false magic that wasn’t there. However, the false promise of alchemy had a strength that a bowl of soup couldn’t cure. If Michael came back, the equation would be balanced again and life would go on as it had before. 

    “I love your brother,” Jake said. “I just want him to come back to me. To us.”

    Jake took my hand and kissed it the way he kissed Michael’s when they were in love.

    “I only want what’s best for us,” Jake said.

    For me, my mind echoed. Jake was bringing my brother back for himself. My happiness would just be a by-product of his own. Those were the words Jake meant to say, but didn’t speak.

    Jake left again; this time he went to the study. The equation was unbalanced. Michael was dead. Jake was gone. I went back to the bookshelf where the alphabet waited, butchered and maimed. A was missing. Alchemy was in the study with Jake. B was lost. Biology was  left on the trail in the woods where it could explain to trees that their changing leaves aren’t beautiful, just dying. Biology wouldn’t be coming back. Its lessons weren’t welcome anymore. C had taken up residence elsewhere. The Chemistry book fit snugly between the cookbooks on the counter.

    D was next. Dogma of Religion sat slanted on the shelf. Its beautiful cover was a brighter color than the rest of the books, but then again Biology already told me that somethings aren’t beautiful, they’re just dying. Then again, perhaps  Dogma held the magic Jake needed. Perhaps  Dogma belonged with Alchemy. I read it to be sure. But there was no magic in Dogma. Just the rules and equations of an unreal world.

    Electronics followed. Dogma was slanted on the shelf again. It wasn’t going to help Jake bring Michael back. Perhaps electronics would. Machines could be built to create a pulse, a heartbeat, to make the blood rush through the veins, to create electric impulses shooting through the mind which created thoughts and feelings.

    But those machines had failed Michael in the hospital. They missed some vital part of the equation that resulted in human life. Maybe a machine which could do that could be built. Maybe building that machine would make Jake happy again. 

    Something told me it wouldn’t work. Something was inherently wrong with that equation. So I built a toaster instead.

    Forensics came next and the top shelf was empty, save for Dogma, which lay slanted on its side with a little lantern burning next to it so it wouldn’t look so lost and all alone. The cause of Michael’s death was clear but his reasons for life were not. The shoeboxes of pictures he had saved were under his bed. There were pictures of father, whose recessive genes created that crooked smile. Of mother, whose love for biology took her and father to all the distant corners of the world where they grew sick and died.

    There were pictures of me, who shared my brother’s blue eyes. Of Michael, who laughed at the moonlight, and of Jake, who made Michael’s heart beat. Of biology and chemistry lessons in the lab where Jake had taken up residence. Where Jake now slept on the floor or in his chair, trying to learn Alchemy without us.His old work forgotten, Michael’s work ignored, and me left to remove the alphabet, letter by letter, book by book from the shelves where Michael had placed it.

    G was useful. Jake told me so when he handed me the Geometry book and a series of circular designs with triangles and squares, numbers and signs. All belonging to Alchemy, all belonging to the lie it told.

    “I want you to practice drawing this,” Jake said. “I need you to remember these shapes. I need you to be able to draw them at any given moment. These are the symbols we need during the ceremony. During the exchange process.”

    I remembered Michael’s Jake and this wasn’t him. This was some other Jake, infested with a parasite that had taken up residence in his body, Jake never looked like this before. He used to be a lot of things. Happy was one of them. He was happy when he waved at us. At Michael. He had been happy that day when he waved at Michael to cross the street. Michael was the source of that happiness. If the source is removed, so is the result.

    Jake waved at Michael to cross the street to show him that he had found the supplies they were missing for some experiment, some science he knew would make Michael happy. Michael was on the street when the car hit him. Therefore, Jake caused the car to hit Michael. Jake himself destroyed the source of his own happiness.

    Yet, sometimes unpredictable variables exist in an equation. Like lightning that strikes a key on a kite string or an apple that falls on a scientist’s head. Sometimes the result of accidental variables is good. Sometimes it isn’t. The car had been an unpredictable variable. 

    Geometry sat on the table in front of me while Guilt walked back to the laboratory with Jake.

    It didn’t take much to learn Geometry  like Jake had asked. To draw circles and stars in perfect mathematical order. Jake was indifferent, even though he said my drawings were good. He never left the laboratory long enough to really look at the things I drew, so I drew other shapes too. Shapes other than the only ones Jake could see, the precious symbols of his Alchemy.

    I drew beautiful trees, even if their leaves were dying. I drew the sun setting and the moon fading. I drew the angels and saints that were lost somewhere in Dogma. I drew the chicken soup next to the toaster. I drew Michael from the shoebox pictures under the bed. I drew Jake standing by his circles and stars. And when I was done drawing Alchemy, Biology, Chemistry, Dogma, Electricity, Forensics, and Guilt, I moved on to Herbology.

    I pulled all of the weeds away from the side of the porch and planted new things in the upturned earth. I sat and watched them grow faster than the weeds that had lived in that space before. There were other things to watch in the garden as well.  Entomology.  The ants that marched squarely across the stone path as if they were holding a parade. Ornithology. The birds that held their own concerts in the high branches above me. Felis silvestris domesticus. The cat trying to catch the concert singers while they were too in awe of each other to notice being hunted there.

    The herbs grew from seeds into plants. The birds were caught and eaten. The cat had kittens. Everything changed. Except for Jake. Jake stayed in the laboratory with Alchemy and Guilt until I went to find him.

    The lab was dark and cold. Not the way it used to be when Michael was alive and the room was full of light and laughter. It smelled of decay from the food I left for Jake, which Jake left uneaten. The laboratory was no different from the grave Michael was lying in, decay and guilt eating away at it all. Returning it to the nothing it had been before Michael created it.

    “I’m glad you’re here,” Jake said. “I need you to go to the store for me.”

    Jake tore a page out of the Alchemy book and handed it to me.

    “These are the ingredients I need,” he said. “Alchemy’s law of exchange states that man cannot obtain anything without first sacrificing something of equal value.”

    I did what he had done. I tore a page, the first page, out of the Alchemy book and handed it to him.

    “Alchemy is the process in which magic is used as a variable in a chemical equations, I told him. “There is no such thing as magic, therefore there can be no such thing as Alchemy.”

    There were still truths in a world without Michael and that was one of them. There is no such thing as magic, therefore there can be no such thing as Alchemy. Neither Alchemy, nor Biology, nor Chemistry, nor Dogma would bring my brother back.

    Alchemy wasn’t science. It wasn’t real. It was a hypothesis based on the principles of magic, and magic, being an imagined substance, merely possessed the properties any individual imagined it to have. Magic could therefore be anything, do anything.

    Alchemy could therefore makes promises it could not fulfill. It could tell Jake that if he drew circles and stars on the floor and filled them with the offerings he could bring my brother back. 

    Alchemy could tell Jake whatever he wanted to hear, because Alchemy wasn’t a person. Alchemy is the process in which magic is used as a variable in a chemical equation. It cannot be held accountable for human behavior in regard to its laws and spells.

    Jake looked at the page I had given him.

    “I see,” he said. “I said.”

    Jake went to the store on his own with the page he had handed me.

    Sometimes when one variable is removed from another by force, the latter becomes unstable due to said separation. The equation that once consisted of Michael, Jake, me, and science, now contained a dangerous combination of Alchemy and Jake.

    Jake was dangerously bonded to  Alchemy. I found myself unable to move past H since Jake was unable to move past A. I went to the woods and found Biology. Soaked and battered. Molded and torn. I dried the book, pulled apart the pages, and gave it to Jake.

    Alchemy’s law of exchange did not hold true. I did not receive A for B. I tried again with C, D, and E. I gave Jake four times the value of A, four good books to replace a wrong one, yet A still had its hold on Jake. I moved on to F. The shoebox of pictures. Of Michael, Jake, and me living in a balanced equation. F seemed to end A’s reign. All alchemy in our house had come to an end.

    I knew that when I woke to see a blue book on my nightstand. A blue book and a hasty note.

    “Alchemy was unsuccessful. Don’t worry. I’ve found another way for us to be with your brother. To be happy again.”

    I found Jake with a razor blade in one hand and  Dogma in the other. I heard the car crash echo in the soft drops of blood. I knew Jake never intended me to follow. He never intended to bring Michael back for me. For us. Alchemy is a selfish art based on personal gain. Alchemy never worked. However, Jake managed to find a way around that. He would be in my brother again.

    Two variables had left the equation of three. A variable is nothing more than an element and an element on its own is perfectly balanced. Only when certain elements are combined with or removed from other elements do they become unstable.

    For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I sat on my brother's grave and told him the story of Alchemy, before I planted lilies on Jake’s. It was a final kindness. With these flowers, he could finally achieve in death what I had done in life, moving past A to B.