After reading three Murakami novels in a row, I was inspired to write some surrealist fiction (this is from January 2018). Heavily inspired by Haruki Murakami’s Sputnik Sweetheart and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.
At noon, Imaan left the office and set off for her lunch date with Amiri Sahores, a retail liaison who was interested in her black truffle oil.
She arrived at the agreed-upon restaurant four minutes late. Squeezing past the patrons in the lobby, she gave her name to the greeter and said she had a reservation, then was promptly directed toward the outdoor terrace. She smoothed down her chestnut pantsuit and walked out to the terrace. He chose to sit outside by himself.
“Ms. Imaan Hamaam?” Amiri Sahores said when he spotted her.
“Yes, that’s me.”
“Ah.” He offered his hand. “Pleasure to finally meet you.” The man had a faint Middle Eastern accent, his words mellifluous and formal.
Imaan shook it, sitting down across from him at the table. “The pleasure is mine.”
“I ordered Sauvignon Blanc, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. Did you come from the office as well?”
“Yes. I just got out of a tedious long meeting, in fact,” Sahores said, scrutinizing his menu.
Imaan followed suit, picking up the menu next to the basket of breadsticks. The menu was a cream-colored cardstock, the list of dishes elegantly arranged on the page. The entrees looked delicious.
Imaan leaned over to grab her bag. She produced two small glass bottles containing two types of oil, one from an Italian vinaigrette company, and another from a local provider in Provence. Both were Imaan’s highest quality stock. They were made from olives picked straight from the groves in Tuscany and infused with the luxurious flavor of black truffles.
Sahores unscrewed the bottles with a delicate, loving care, as if afraid they would shatter, and dripped a teaspoon of each onto two ends of a breadstick. He closed his eyes as he took generous bites of the bread, chewing steadily, his tongue undulating in his mouth to move the pieces around. Imaan sat back in her chair and watched the man with great interest. Savoring a bite of well-oiled and toasted bread was one life’s greatest yet simplest pleasures. She knew he was taking his time to relish the medley of flavors coloring his palette. There were countless subtleties to analyze — from the fruitiness in the olives to the rich earthiness of the truffles.
The man’s eyes popped open. He inclined his head mischievously toward Imaan, and reached over to help himself to more.
Imaan smiled. “What do you think?”
“Delicious,” he said, his mouth full.
Imaan laughed. “How many units do you require?”
“Hmmm . . . I must check,” Sahores mumbled, still chewing. “This second bottle, I believe — is it French Riviera truffle I’m tasting?”
Imaan was surprised. “Yes.”
“I thought so. Its umami is unmistakable to a keen nose.”
“I’m impressed that you managed to pinpoint the region so accurately. I got this sample from a local picker living in Provence.”
“Ah, Provence. Not a city known for its gastronomical merits, but a romantic city nonetheless. Reports say truffle hunting there goes well this season. Les Pastras is handling an influx of tourists the likes of which it has never seen before: good for the economy, annoying for the locals.”
“You are awfully young to be so knowledgeable in the industry. Aren’t you still studying?”
“Yes, I am. This is only a part-time job, and I have already finished my major requirements so I have extra time to work. I have cultivated a deep passion for gourmet cuisine ever since I was twelve, and I have done extensive traveling and research into the subject since then.”
Intrigued, Imaan fiddled with the corner of the tablecloth. “If you don’t mind me asking, what major are you pursuing?”
“Theoretical Physics.”
“Physics! Is that right?”
“Odd, huh?”
“How vastly different from gourmet cuisine.”
Sahores grinned sheepishly. “I know. Whenever I tell people, they act shocked. They would not have expected it of me in a million years.”
Imaan shook her head incredulously. “I certainly didn’t. Does this not conflict with the career path you chose?”
“It does appear so.”
“Then why . . . ?” Imaan trailed off, her question implicit in her tone.
“May I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“How do you know the world you live in is in three dimensions?”
“Pardon?”
“Please, indulge me for a moment.”
“Okay. Um, I’m not sure.” Imaan had no idea what prompted the abrupt change in subject.
“Well, think on this. You only know your surroundings are in three dimensions because that is what you have been told your entire life. However, you do not actually see in three spatial dimensions. You see in two spatial dimensions.”
“I’m not sure I understand, Amiri.”
The man swiftly snatched up one of the truffle oil bottles. The movement was a curious change from the careful tenderness with which he handled the bottle a minute earlier. He had acquired a sudden manic energy. He held up the bottle near his face and planted a firm gaze on Imaan. “Watch closely.” He moved the bottle away from his face and toward hers. His hands, cradling the bottle, inched forward to her slowly. “What do you see?”
“The bottle?”
“Yes. What is it doing?”
“It’s coming closer to me.”
“How do you know it is coming closer you?”
“I . . . can see it coming closer.”
“False.”
“No?”
“You cannot see it coming closer.”
“Why not?”
“You cannot see it coming closer, but you can see how the size of the bottle changes as it moves closer. When it is closer to me, it is a smaller size to you. When it is closer to you, it is a larger size. You can see play of light and shadow on the glass as well. These visual cues are detected by the eyes and interpreted by the brain to mean the bottle is moving closer to you in three dimensional space.”
“Hmm. But I can still see it is moving in three dimensional space.”
“No.” Sahores put down the bottle. “Imagine a round ball. A sphere, if you will. Imagine you are watching the sphere come toward you in an empty room. There are no lights or shadows on the sphere; it is one uniform color. The sphere only changes in size. The sphere grows from small to large as it moves closer, and from large to small as it moves farther away. What do you think the sphere looks like?”
Imaan cupped her face with her hands, furrowing her brow. “A flat sphere . . . a circle?”
“Precisely. In this scenario, the sphere would look like an expanding and shrinking circle. A circle is a two-dimensional shape. The sphere is a three-dimensional solid. Without hints like shadows, we cannot distinguish between a circle and a sphere. Everything we see around us is so. Using visual cues like shifting shadows and reflections, we assume that the objects we see are three-dimensional solids, not two-dimensional shapes.”
“Huh, I see.”
“In the same way that we three-dimensional brings see in two dimensions, two-dimensional beings see in one dimension. If the circle was sentient, it would know its world to be two dimensional, but it would not truly see in two dimensions. It would be able to infer the two dimensional nature of its world through the play of light and shadow on one dimensional objects, just as we infer the three dimensional nature of our world while only seeing in two.”
“What would a one dimensional object look like?”
Sahores picked up his menu and held it up to eye level. “Imagine the circle lives on this surface. This is a flat piece of paper. The circle inhabits a flat world, yet it sees even less. It sees-“ Sahores pointed at the edge of the menu.
“The edge?”
“Right. The edge, which is a line. The circle’s one dimensional view is that of a line. It does not even know it is shaped like a circle, because its entire perception, its visual capacity, is a line. We three dimensional beings can see the true nature of the circle, and see that it is a two dimensional being without having to infer based on visual cues.
“Now, we can go even deeper and ask what viewpoint a one dimensional being would have. If a two dimensional being is a circle and sees in one dimension: a line, then a one dimensional being is a line and sees in zero dimensions: a point. All a line would be able to conceive of its world would be a singular point, a dot. But I digress. If we ‘peel’ the circle off its flat surface, we can reveal the true nature of its world to it.”
“Does that mean a four dimensional being could ‘peel’ us off our three dimensional world and show us what we really look like?”
“You catch on quick! That is exactly right. They call a four dimensional being — you’ve probably heard this term before, they use it in the movies — a tesseract. A sphere peels a circle off its flat world into three dimensions. A tesseract peels us — the sphere — off our world into four dimensions.”
“What does a tesseract look like?”
“We do not know. The human brain cannot physically picture four spatial dimensions. We never evolved the capability because we did not need to perceive four dimensions while we were hunter-gatherers.”
“Wait, but I thought the fourth dimension was time.”
“It is. At least in conventional physics. Time is quite an important aspect of spacetime diagrams. I am not referring to ‘the fourth dimension,’ but rather, four dimensions.”
“As in, four spatial dimensions.”
“Yes. To be honest, hypotheses about dimensions higher than three are mere conjectures to fill up a young physicist’s daydreams. They are less scientific theories and more science fiction. We do not have any experimental proof of the existence of higher dimensions, but if we did, it would solve many problems, and that is what I am about to achieve. You see, I am on the cusp of a breakthrough.”
“You have discovered evidence of four dimensions?”
“No.” Sahores smiled wryly, the corners of his mouth crinkling. A conspiratorial air hung about him. “I have discovered evidence of eleven dimensions.”
Imaan made the expected noise of appreciation and disbelief. “No kidding? I’m afraid the implications of such a discovery are lost on me, Amiri.”
“The universe is more complex than anyone ever guessed. Even four dimensions is impossible to wrap our minds around, to speak nothing of five or six or higher, yet I have found incontrovertible proof of eleven dimensions! It depresses me how primitive the human brain is. We cannot comprehend, much less see, that which is right in front of us.” Sahores paused.
Imaan was listening attentively. She munched on a breadstick as she waited for the man to elaborate.
“The black truffle oil is the key,” Sahores declared.
“Hmm?”
“The black truffle oil is the key,” Sahores repeated. “The key that enabled me to make my breakthrough. I have been examining, tasting, and studying truffles my whole life. I was bound to make the discovery eventually, especially in conjunction with the things I learned in my astrophysics courses.”
“What discovery is this?”
“Hold on a minute. Let me start off with some background. In physics, there are laws that govern the extremely small and laws that govern the extremely huge. The ‘big’ laws describe the formation of black holes, the force of gravity, cosmic background radiation, dark matter, the birth of the universe, etcetera etcetera. The ‘small’ laws describe atoms and tiny particles even smaller than atoms — quarks, neutrinos, and the like. The big laws and the small laws work well enough in their own separate spheres, but you try to unify them to get a sense of the big picture, a whole and complete description of the universe, and it does not work. The laws contradict each other.
“A solution has been proposed to explain this contradiction. There is a theory that everything in the universe is made up of strings. According to string theory, the building blocks of matter are all strings. Under string theory, the big laws and the small laws would be satisfactorily unified into the grand unified theory, that elusive equation of wholeness and perfection that astrophysicists have been chasing for decades.
“Unfortunately, here arises another problem. In order for a universe made up of strings to exist, it needs to be in eleven dimensions. As you know, our own universe is only four dimensions: three spatial and one temporal. The other seven dimensions shriveled up into an infinitesimal point too unstable to enter. Until, of course, I made my breakthrough.”
Imaan frowned. “Out with it! What’s this breakthrough that is so reliant on my black truffle oil?”
“All right, I won’t dally any longer. There is a certain compound in a specific variety of black truffle, which I am searching for right now. I hoped you might have it, but neither of the samples you gave me today contained the compound. When activated by the juices of the olive and digested by the enzymes in human saliva, the compound installs a fissure in the brain. Rest assured, this fissure is only momentary, lasting no longer than a millisecond, but the duration can be voluntarily lengthened if the taster is aware of the effect and concentrates upon it.
“The fissure gives the brain a brief view into that infinitesimal point containing the extra seven dimensions, which together with our four dimensions, make up eleven dimensions. I would attempt to explain what an eleven dimensional world looks like, but the sight is harder to explain than a new color. The depth of the fissure is increased, thus increasing the quality of the experience, if the taster ingests the black truffle along with hors d’oeuvres and hazelnut gelato, all washed down with a glass of champagne.”
Imaan stared at the man, dumbstruck. “That‘s . . . you’re having a merry time making a fool out of me, are you?”
Sahores kept his composure for a second, then burst out laughing. “Okay, I apologize. I may have invented the last part about the hors d’oeuvres and the champagne. But the rest is true. If you do not believe me, I invite you to my laboratory, where I have created a synthetic version of the compound, and you can taste it for yourself.”
“If you already made your own, why do you need black truffle oil from me?”
“The synthetic form is by no means a good copy of the original. It works, but just barely, and is very expensive to produce. I need more of the original to refine my formula.”
Imaan pondered his proposal for a while. “My schedule is empty for today. I can go right now,” she decided.
“How convenient! I have always wanted to observe how the fissure manifests itself in the brains of other people. So far, I have only tried it on myself. You will be my first test subject. My laboratory is seven miles away. Let us depart immediately.” Sahores stood up, as giddy as a child.
“We haven’t even ordered yet, you know,” Imaan pointed out.
“It’s okay. I’m full from the bread.”
Imaan shrugged. Well, at least that’s one expensive meal’s worth of money saved, she thought.
Sahores’s infectious enthusiasm made her less cautious than she normally would have been. She polished off the remaining breadsticks and followed Sahores out of the restaurant.
