Issac
Fissing spent the day in his chair staring down the avenue from the window of
his living room up in his third floor study. It was too gray and messy to meander
out but glare as he might into that dark and blustery storm he could not make
it leave. Like some stoic and unwelcome guest, it was spending the night,
invited or not. He watched it wriggle the street lights, and shred the awnings. It’s wind rattled windows and it’s thunder declared its
presence, pounding loudly on the roof overhead and all Issac could do was
wait it out. Flash. When he was
young he would quiver at a storm like this, but by now he’d seen too many and
knew that this too would pass. Boom.
When he was young his brother Roger would crawl into his bed under the “big
goose quilt” and they’d talk for hours. Roger would chatter him through the
storm make him laugh and finally sleep. Eventually, as they grew older, they
both grew ill from the accumulation of the many long cold damp winters in that
drafty house. It was the mold. In the end, Issac
refused to leave until Roger succumbed to pneumonia in the fiftieth winter of
his life. He was a bright man, was Roger, and he was proud to be called his
brother. Of course Issac was no dim bulb either, but possessed none of the
social skills and graces of dear Roger.
Roger would light up a conference like Fred Astaire would a ballroom, smiling so effortlessly,
here, there, and trailing a wake of smiling faces and cascading laughter. You
always knew where Roger was in a crowd – you could hear it all about him - in
the center of the mass like a queen bee in their hive. Poor Rog’.
Issac
on the other hand was no lady-killer…more the party-killer. It was a reputation
well deserved, too. Oh the party’s he palled. Always someone just leaving as he
arrived…always, Solo. But no matter, because Isaac was a loner and company is
not something he cherished which may be the root of the problem and not the
outcome. He had never married because he found no one, whilst Roger never
married because he found too many. So too, you always knew where Issac was. The
Lab Rat. That’s what they called him, because he lived there more than any
other place, but his Mind wandered far from the tidy little lab and it’s
brilliance contributes in a very big way to the way we think of science today.
Issac would work a party like a void. The lonely corner a black hole. The
yawning place. The jumping off point for many to say their, “Gotta-go’s.”
Issac’s contributions were far and well documented in
scholarly circles - dusty little gatherings of intellectual respect. Meanwhile
Roger’s face was on the Institute’s Annual Report, his portrait in the Hall Of
Honor and he was even interviewed on the evening news on several
occasions. He was a handsome man,
never needing make up. He got Mum’s looks. Issac got Dad’s ears. And as much a reputation Roger earned as a cocksman, vicious rumor cast Issac as “queer
but celebate”. Like some
frustrated friar. It simply was not fair but Issac did not care. They were
brothers and that’s all that mattered to him.
