Hieroglyph by Ed Finn

waves.
    â€œYou have wings. I thought you would understand.”
    She laughs. “They’re fun, but they’re mainly dangerous toys. You put yourself at risk.” She smiles. “You want to be out there anyway, eh? Even without gills.” She pats my knee. “I know.”
    â€œIf I could stay inside the waves. I could know them. I could learn them. From the inside out.”
    Even though she sits so solidly, and reaches out from time to time, to touch my knee, she is attending virtually to the twenty or so students, of all ages, whom she mentors around the world and even in space, via holographic avatars and many other not-so-elementary interfaces, depending on the learning style of the mentee. Some, she tells me, require more attention than others—a bit more intensive linking with resources, an encouraging nod, questions that will help them think in a more focused way about the intent of their research, or the process in which they are engaged.
    â€œYou are inside a wave,” she says gently. “In the curl, riding just ahead of the break, at enormous speed. Because you are on the inside, it’s hard for you to see. The world has always been this way for you.”
    â€œWhat way?”
    â€œAt peace. Most everyone able to be literate in many ways, reading . . .”
    I snort. “There’s no way anyone couldn’t learn how to read. No matter how lazy they are. It’s like breathing.”
    â€œI couldn’t read. I couldn’t do math. And I was not lazy.”
    â€œWhat?” I stare at her, astonished. “You helped develop Zebra !” That’s the mudra-language everyone uses now.
    She throws her head back and laughs until tears come to her eyes, then looks at me with a grin. “You know that I changed, but you have no idea how or why. It wasn’t at all what you think. You need a history lesson a lot more than you need gills! Let me show you how different it was. Okay?”
    I look with longing at the perfect shorebreak, just this side of deadly, glance at my short board, and feel tricked. But intrigued.
    â€œSo what happened? What was it like? Was it fun? As much fun as surfing?”
    â€œNot at all,” she says soberly. “I guess it was just as thrilling, because it was scary. We— I —didn’t know what would happen. But once the incalculable power of creativity was released, and evenly distributed, it was like an atomic reaction: we could not put the genie back into the bottle.”
    She is silent for a moment, hands moving this way and that, choosing, plucking, and assembling from her Immanent Library the stories she wants for the lesson I know is coming.
    I am actually excited. And honored, really. Melody’s stories always change me, somehow—I feel stronger afterward. They are precious; I don’t get them often. I can barely remember the last time she visited me in person.
    â€œYou always seem to know exactly what I need. Like medicine.”
    She holds my gaze with hers. “I’m a Mentor. It’s my job. I listen to my students, I see gaps, I figure out, from an array of possibilities, how best to show them information that might be useful in that particular time on their journey. Learning is all about timing, and understanding what media will most entice any particular person: which stories—and stories can be in words, numbers, Zebra, pictures, music—might draw them into the neuroplastic state of learning, of changing their brain in focused ways. You are right about medicine, in a way, but it seems more like food to me. This is your first grok, right?”
    â€œA grok ?” I’ve been biologically ready for a year, but a grok is a serious thing, and I hadn’t been sure when I should try it. It’s kind of like gauging whether to go over or under a wave, judging break.
    I look at the waves and think, Now .
    When I look back, I see that Melody has assembled