No Inner Limit Read online

CHAPTER TWO - Joshua

  “Oh my God.” Van stood aghast at the entry and could not believe his eyes. The entire interior of the barn, or so it seemed, was a forest, divided into sections by expertly crafted granite pathways. Overhead blue ultraviolet incandescent light shone down on the gardens which created a psychedelic syrup of earth and sky hues. Instruments played softly in a sound best described as a current of melodic whirring. And there was the pleasant odor of freshly cut flowers permeating the air.

  “Follow me.” Joshua walked to the center of the area then turned to his left. He held out his arm to the left side garden in passing. “This is native vegetation. I call it the spirit garden. Mixed in with the eucalyptus are beets, cabbage, dandelion, garlic, peppermint, flax, asparagus, and fennel.”

  He continued walking on the granite path on the left side of the barn, then lifted his arm to the right. “This is the aquatic station, the place of unction. Here I have brahmi, also called bacopa minnieri, black root maca, ginkgo biloba saplings, field grown ginseng, and a tank of mineral water.”

  He turned and backtracked past the entry walkway to the right side of the barn. “To the right is yerba mate, gotu kola, goldenseal, rhodiola, kava, acai, basil, amla, also known as Indian gooseberry, soursop also known as graviola, passion flower, and black root yam. I call this area mission control.

  To the left is my lounging area that is surrounded by Arabica, do you know what that is?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  Joshua laughed. “It is coffee. Quite good for you if you use it moderately and you don’t adulterate it with sugar. There are closed off rooms to the rear. One is for the scat of my animals, I use that for fertilizer. There is a bigger room that contains my workbenches and refrigerated storage. There is also a loft above, where I sleep most of the time, and a small basement below. Come and sit with me.”

  Enclosed by the coffee trees was a round table large enough to comfortably accommodate six wooden chairs. The two took their seats, yet neither spoke for a few moments. Then Van asked, “So what do you call this area?”

  Joshua smiled. “The lounge. This is where I rest and have a morning coffee.”

  “Joshua, what are you doing here? What is all this?”

  “This is my passion, my obedience to a calling you could say. The bottom line is the promotion of not just good, but excellent health and function. So Van, are you taking, or have you taken, prescription medicines, especially warfarin or Coumadin?”

  “No, I take nothing other than baby aspirin in the morning.” Van took note of the omission of small talk, the how-was-your-trip thing.

  “Good. And as a psychologist, you have a good deal of understanding about the brain, I assume?”

  “I could always learn more, but yes, I suppose I do.” Then he added, “But not so much about why the brain works, just how it affects behavior.”

  “How old are you?”

  “I’m fifty-five. And how old are you, by the way?”

  “Thirty-three. Van, how many neurons do you have in your body?”

  Van laughed. “How could I know that with any degree of accuracy? I’d guess nearly sixty billion.” Adele had been right, this man is different.

  “That’s low. More like eighty-five billion, with about twenty billion of those in the cerebral cortex. How many do you think are firing right now?”

  “Again, how could I know? Twenty percent maybe?” Van tensed slightly. After all, he was the teacher in the room, not a suspect in an interrogation room.

  “That could be about right if you are at rest. During the course of a full day you probably use every single one of them unless there is damage to an area. A constant lightning storm without the thunder. You are undoubtedly familiar with the hippocampus?”

  “Yes, of course. Part of the limbic system, the area that largely contributes to behavior, memories, and emotions. Also the olfactory center.”

  In the center of the round table there was a platter upon which rested a pot the size of a gravy boat and four sake sized cups. Joshua poured from the pot into two of the cups. “Adele said you should try this.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s the chemicals and minerals of the plants you have seen, mixed with mineral water. If you want to try it, first smell the fragrance by holding the cup below your nose.”

  He did so in the same manner as did Joshua. The aroma hinted of the peppermint and eucalyptus but was by no means overpowering. It was rather pleasant actually.

  “The sense of smell is important isn’t it?”

  “Yes, important in the three areas affected by the hippocampus that were mentioned. Like the smell of apple pie just out of the oven should bring back memories for most people, and then elicit related emotions. I know it does for me.”

  “Now wet your lips with the liquid and let your tongue lick your lips. Do you remember the exact roads you took to locate me?”

  “I think so, but there were many twists and turns and road changes, and I had the help of a positioning system.” There was a momentary interruption in Van’s concentration….the melodic rhythms, it became evident to him, were three cellos playing in thirds on the scale. He also pictured the three musicians, women, in their long, black privacy skirts caressing the large instruments. Weird. He didn’t know a thing about music or instruments.

  “What if, in twenty years, you returned here without using your electronic gadget, or a map? What if you could do it strictly from memory and without one single wrong turn?”

  “That would take a miracle, a one in a million undertaking, I would think.”

  “Now take a small sip, like this.”

  Joshua barely tipped the cup to his lips. When Van emulated him, he found the taste was smooth, vegetative, and greenish, without an acrid retort.

  “Van, are you familiar with long term potentiation, otherwise called LTP?”

  “Yes, it’s the possibility of the fixation of memories into permanency, or long term, LTM, as opposed to short term disposable memories, and caused by increased signal strength in the neuron transmitters. Frankly I don’t know a whole lot about it since I’m not a neurologist. I’m simply trained in neuropsychology, the science dealing with brain related behaviors.”

  Joshua didn’t ask more questions for at least two minutes. He simply gazed into Van’s eyes. Van then asked, “Joshua, how can you know all these things? Can you tell me more about your background? And how do you know Adele?”

  “How many words in a list of ten can a subject repeat accurately?” Joshua was being evasive.

  “Between four and five on average, rarely above that.”

  “What if a subject could recall all ten, or twenty, or perhaps a hundred?”

  “I’ve seen phenomena, like in an Indian twelve year old girl who could recall massive amounts of material. But in normal humans, ten items remembered, without having internalized memorization tricks, would be an anomaly.”

  “The girl from India will be here tomorrow, only she is going on fifteen years old now. I trust you can stay for that.”

  “What? She’s coming here?”

  “Yes, her parents are vacationing in Orlando at Disney, and Namanda will rejoin them after she has met with us. There will also be a chaperone accompanying her. Tell me, how are you feeling?”

  Van thought about that and realized he had not moved one muscle, nor twitched, itched, scratched, shifted or drummed his fingers. He also sensed a pleasantness that was almost euphoric, and a complete calmness.

  “I am relaxed and feel good. Wonderful actually. Have I ingested a narcotic or opioid?”

  “No. Can you name the nine items of vegetation in the first garden I pointed out to you?”

  “Oh, goodness, let’s see. There’s eucalyptus, and….uh, fennel. Maybe cabbage and beets.”

  “You named four of nine. That’s normal, and it’s normal to remember the first and last items mentioned. That’s a trick salesmen have used successfully for ages. Ok, eucalyptus, beets, ca
bbage, dandelion, garlic, peppermint, flax, asparagus, fennel. Can you name them now?”

  “Eucalyptus, beets, cabbage, dandelion, garlic, peppermint, flax, asparagus, fennel. How did I do?”

  “You remembered the nine items in the spirit garden because of what you drank. Van, every one of these ingredients in the entire room is well known all over the world, and each item has free-standing beneficial aspects. Yet there is a symbiotic relationship in combining the ingredients that should promote optimal health, well-being, and energy. I hope to establish a ‘whole-being’ phytochemical cocktail with health benefits from head to toe. There are an additional three ingredients I receive from a source in Arizona which are not indigenous to this area. Adele has been analyzing those in her university lab. She will be here soon and I am anxious to hear the results.”

  “What? She made no mention that she would be coming here.”

  “I know. I wanted to visit with you first, and the lab results were obtained after you had already left your home. You are a good man, Dr. Vance. She was right about you. I think we can move forward.”

  “Joshua, you don’t answer some of my questions. Why is that? And just what would we move forward to?”

  “Yes, I haven’t answered all of your inquiries and please forgive me for that. I will answer all your questions the best I can, including my past and how I became interested in this endeavor. As far as Adele, I’m sure she can fill you in when she gets here, but I can tell you, despite her brusque manner, she is my mentor and hero. And now, if you will excuse me, Van, I believe I hear the Sheriff pulling in. I have to check on Ben.”

  “Who is Ben?”

  “Ben is a black bear that checks up on me from time to time. The Sheriff gets a tad edgy when he sees Ben close by. I’ll be right back.”

  Van sat alone in tranquil stillness, analyzing not just the “different” man named Joshua, but himself as well. He sensed a conceptual shifting, a focus toward literalness and clarity, not the standard abstraction of thought processing that lessens the human ability to concentrate for great lengths of time. He stood to test his motor skills. They were fine. Yet the shading into the right brain, the land of the savant, could not, in his experience, be accomplished without being drug induced.

  + + + + +

  Li Xiu Ying fell ill during the Air China flight that originated from Beijing. The petite twenty-one year old female, who was excited with the anticipation of meeting her family members in Alberta, began to feel nauseated and experience shortness of breath. Perhaps the summer break from her studies at Tsinghua University, the excitement of seeing her family once again, but more likely her extreme fear of flying contributed to her discomfort. For breakfast she had eaten her normal fare, jian bing, which is a pancake made from eggs, and you tiao, a fried bread stick, so she ruled them out as the cause, though the fried eggs were more runny than usual.

  She waved to an attendant and explained she was feeling ill. She was instructed to keep hydrated at regular intervals during the remainder of the flight. The attendant provided her with six mini-bottles of water, a glass of hot ginger tea, and said if she worsened to let her know, that medical help would be provided for her upon arrival. The attendant placed the back of her hand across Li’s forehead and felt the extreme heat. Her passenger was indeed suffering. She notified the captain.

  The following day Li Xiu Ying, bedfast in the Rockyview General Hospital in Calgary, died. Ultimately the post-mortem revealed the shocking truth, she had contracted the deadly H7N9 bird flu, the dreaded mutation of the original Avian Flu H5N1. The new strain, despite conflicting opinions among clinicians, could possibly be passed from human to human, unlike the H5N1 virus, which was contracted only by direct contact from fowl to human.

  The Air China airliner which carried Li, which flew from Calgary to Houston, Texas, later the same day and carried some of the same passengers who had originated in Beijing, was potentially an incubator of the deadly strain. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) were notified immediately.