Thank You for the Escapade
Article Preface:
No preface for this article.
Summary of the ASM Adventure:
Thank you for inviting me to for this escapade—I needed a break from Virginia. But I could not have anticipated a head-on collision with a small group of fascinating people from around the world that I ended up spending much of my time with! No, not at all—it was a conference on microbiology, after all. When I stepped into that gaping convention center as a mere guest of the event, an infiltrator, my objective was to find biophysically-based mathematical models of virion-immune system interactions, or epidemiological modeling. But, what happened for the majority of the time, as it was eloquently summarized: “we didn’t talk shit about microbiology!” It was, instead, the “anti-conference,” as we ended up calling it: go to the microbiology conference and talk about everything but! (That doesn’t mean we didn’t participate at all in it!)
Say that one more time: how many languages do you speak? And how is it that you have a whole collection of Bollywood music in your head—when you grew up in Egypt? And what of this you’ve just told me—that you won’t return to the States after this conference? Does this really mean I won’t ever see you again?
Please, no! Say it isn’t so. We will see each other again; these experiences and their memories matter. There’s still more of the wick to burn! How can it be that this was our singular moment in space and time to meet each other? I am not ready for this to be a memory yet.
And I stood there, muddled in memories and dripping in the golden sunset blaring in the Western sky, staring across the Potomac, wondering how it could have happened. What were the chances of it: tagging along with a friend to a conference I wasn’t supposed to attend and running into this fascinating group, and befriending someone I will likely never see again during my time on this planet? That I met you, spent time with you, and now your memory will just dwindle in my mind as you and I live spontaneous lives on other sides of the planet? It hardly seems fair. I tell myself: we don’t know what the future holds. So, please, let our worldlines intertwine once more.
And you, oh gosh, you! I was not strong enough to resist the blubbering return to you. I braced in a Phalanx to parry the onslaught that I knew was coming. But the attack succeeded—and I admit that it was to succeed, inevitably, undeniably. And I made contact again. Please: let me show you what you’re missing. As this Amtrak makes headway back into Northern Virginia, I watch the gold dripping off the cascading government buildings through the windows. My heart is sheared. Please… don’t bring me back.
Notes/References:
- It is not terribly important, but just in case one is interested: A “worldline” is a term from physics (relativity) that refers to the path in spacetime (not just three-dimensional space, but the combination of this space and time, i.e. spacetime) that a point particle traces out. For a visual depiction of this idea, the Wikipedia article has a decent image accompanying the linked paragraph.
Updates:
- 2026-07-21: Updated some awkward verbiage.
