The Buried Life (excerpt)

(to be fair, some of this was not written today but it makes more sense if I start at the beginning)...

The basement is an impossible labyrinth of hallways, doors, rooms, closets and dead-ends. Originally built in 1919 the basement of the science building at Adams University was never meant to hold more than a furnace and cleaning supplies. As time wore on and the University thrived, space of any kind became an asset the University could no longer take for granted. The basement was renovated over and over again, each time with a different purpose in mind until it finally arrived at its current state: a functional, though nightmarishly complicated maze where the Physics students and their mentors would thrive.

Like clockwork, at the beginning of each school year in the still blistering heat of fall, the physics basement becomes what the physics seniors call "the drain". The basement is so monikered because of all the helpless freshman and new faculty the basement collects who have become hopelessly lost. Having somehow wandered down into the labyrinth from the safety of above where classrooms have numbers and hallways are linear, these "drainers" are now wandering in and out of small rooms like frightened sheep whom the physics clan must then safely herd back out into the light of day.

Long debates can be heard in the fluorescently lit rooms of the basement over which takes longer to master, the Schrodinger equation or the labyrinth. As the physics students play their never ending game of verbal chess, a game in which everyone achieves check-mate at one time or another but no one seems to win, no one seems to question their ability to master the Schrodinger equation, the labyrinth or any other curveball the universe may see fit to throw at them.

Here in the basement, genius conquers all.

The facade of the science building is of red brick and stone. It is large, stately, and uncomplicated. The building is of simple design. It is a large rectangle with a length to width ratio of 3:2 with the longest side being about the length of a football field. There are four entrances to the building, one for each side of the rectangle. Each entrance begins with a rectangular spreading of stone steps up to a large double width ten foot door. The door at the main entrance of the building is carved mahogany. One of the university's alums from 1890, Robert Tillman, had become a world renowned sculptor and woodcraftsman. He was commissioned by the university to carve the doors in the panel style of the baptistry doors in Florence, Italy but without the same nod to the bible and the catholic faith.

Adams University was, according to the standards of the time, exceedingly liberal and non-religious in its views and aims. The presiding authorities at Adams didn't have any known quarrels with God. In fact, many of them were devoutly religious. However they were convinced that for the United States to continue to be the power it was in the world that science and inquiry were the key. For those who were want to think in such terms, "faith without works is dead" and they certainly believed that the future of their university was dead without deep and comprehensive scientific inquiry.

Tillman was an artist not a scientist. But to his credit and perhaps due to his mother's early lessons in the woods around his childhood home in Maine that gave him a deep and abiding respect for nature, Tillman saw beauty in scientific subjects that no one else could see.