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Logic 102 was taught by a ~priest~ who said ~god~ (small g) was a ~theory~, not a fact.

Father Bertolli also said existentialism was for revolutionary lightweights, whatever that meant.

In just three months in his course, Mike had swung from disbelieving in anything but mathematical proofs to a passionate belief that beauty was the only truth... or perhaps truth was beauty.... He wasn't clear on that one yet, but it was closer.

Father Bertolli hadn't even really talked about God (big G) or Religion (big R), except in the first class for a few minutes right before three students had stood up and walked out. That was when he emphasized the big differences between G's and g's.

Mike loved the class. The student advisor back in his high school had said he'd love it. He did.

He also wished he'd worn an even warmer sweater. Or two. Once he'd gotten over feeling too warm after walking in from outside, he got cold from just sitting there doing nothing except listening. The St. Augustine building never seemed to have a normal temperature, and since it was nicer than usual outside they'd probably turned the furnace off. And the windows in the classroom faced north.

Father Bertolli finished writing something Greek on the board. Ancient Greek. Mike had a prof who spoke ancient Greek. And knew Plato.

"Only seeing shadows of the reality outside the cave, for his whole life, and all his knowledge of the world from those shadows." He looked right at Mike. "What would be the mind of such a man, Mr. Stewart?"

For a monk (he was a monk, too) who was literate in four living and two dead languages, Father Bertolli never seemed to manage two grammatically perfect English sentences in a row. Even if Mike always seemed to know what he meant. What he was really asking. (Probably from practicing with Denise.)

"Umm... That we all know the world through our senses, and not the reality? And he meant since we, our senses, were imperfect and... and we had to use reason to understand the world, from our senses, and so it would be imperfect. Our knowledge of... everything."

"Ah! And why imperfect?!" The old man smiled like a mad actor. Acting mad. Insane. He played at the characters they discussed, Mike thought.

"Well, not imperfect? I mean, I think he meant that it wouldn't be exactly like what was outside, but he thought the thought-world was perfect in itself? Or could be. If we, if the person seeing it could understand enough?"

He wasn't clear on that idea himself. Or how Plato could have thought he could know more than he could see. Or how he could figure out ~which~ thought-world was the real one.

Like how if everyone had those limits, and everyone saw everything differently, then what was so perfect? It'd be like everyone brought their own, personal Leggo blocks and they all had different sized holes and pegs. Even if all the worlds looked sort of the same, nothing would fit.

And Leggo was never perfect even when it did all fit... it was jagged and square....

But Mike remembered things he'd built that he'd kept for months. How wonderful they'd been, made just out of colored blocks. And so perfect.

How fun it was to pour out his bucket of blocks and imagine a whole new thing every day and maybe make something better than you could ever buy.

Leggo block toys were like shadow images of reality. And kids saw the stuff they made with them as perfect.

But kids didn't analyze things the way Father Bertolli said an adult had to. The way logic worked.

He wondered if he could ever see how wonderful they were again. And what had changed so that he'd stopped playing with them? He couldn't remember the last time he looked at that bucket....

His chest felt sore.

-

Father Bertolli went on about Plato's personal faith, even if Plato didn't see it that way, and the filters it put on how he interpreted the shadows ~he~ saw, the limits he could accept as reality....

Mike thought about his own. Leggo blocks, and the changes in the way he saw them... and the way he looked....

The way other people saw hm.

His palm was a warmth that seemed shared between his face and hand - amazing, like he couldn't tell which side was soft and warm and smooth, and which was feeling it.

No-one had commented on his face and he'd almost stopped worrying what he might look like.... Feeling his face like that, he wondered again. He put his hand down, self-conscious of what he'd been doing.

What did people see? Could ~he~ even see?

Crossing his arms, he pressed up against the pain.

-

Father Bertolli made a comment about other philosophies and that some were completely opposite in their definitions of reality.

And he said each might be as true as the others.

A half-dozen hands went up, or at least students started asking questions. How could opposite things both be true?

Mike wondered that, too, and listened.

Father Bertolli smiled at the girl who'd asked the first question.

"If, beside your cave, there is another. Your neighbor watches the same events, but through different shadows. Always different... will not your worlds be different? And yet both ~true~?" He smiled at everyone.

"If in a particular country children are raised being told, say, 'blue' is 'pink,' and vice versa, are you wrong for saying this? For believing this? If all about, blue is called pink, then is ~everyone~ wrong for thinking this? Is blue not ~truly~ pink in such a place?" He looked around all the students. Mike was staring back and Father Bertolli smiled and spoke to him.

"And if you meet a person from that other country, is ~their~ pink less true than ~your~ pink?"

He smiled at the room of "adolescents." He'd told them he though of all his students that way. For an old monk, he had a good sense of humor.

"A philosophy must encompass ~everything~ in the universe, beyond even physics and science. Even other philosophies! But its ~power~ must lie in explaining the smallest things! Why a color is a color. How music thrills the soul. Seeing God's creation in the bloom of a flower, or the eyes of a lover." He smiled.

A boy, smiling at him.

-

He didn't hear the reading assignment. He didn't remember to pick up his books when he stood up at the end of class.

He was only stopped from wandering into the bright hallway by a hand on his arm.

"Have the scales fallen from your eyes?"

Mike jumped. Father Bertolli laughed a little humming note.

"And yet you are now blind.... Why don't you collect yourself a moment, Mr. Stewart. Did my erudition affect you so, or was it something else?"

Mike blinked at him and realized that he'd been about to leave without his bag.

And book.

And he'd forgotten where he was going. Student Services. He looked back at his philosophy professor. Who'd smiled and said, said...

Eyes of a lover.

He had a perfect memory of the boy...

Which... was wrong...

(talk?)

"... you have time? I'm a good listener and only have office hours now today."

He did sound something like Denise sometimes, Mike thought, with an Italian accent, and he smiled. He had to be at a meeting, the lady. And maybe it was important that he get there... but it wasn't for another half hour.

And he was pretty sure it wouldn't take long. He didn't even know what Father Bertolli wanted to talk about.

-

End of Four, wherein the Chrysalis Trembles