Life in Paintings

Chapter 22 - Aristotle Tutoring Alexander

Chapter 22 – Aristotle Tutoring Alexander 

"You see Alexander, the essence of an object exist within the thing itself. Our human consciousness, our soul resides completely within the physical form. It is not something that exists outside of the physical body. The unseen cannot become an explanation for the observable world. The best way for our human consciousness to gain any kind of knowledge and understanding of the world is through natural philosophy."

These are the words I wake up to. When I open my eyes I see two figures in front of me. The older man is teaching the adolescent boy sitting in front him. The building we are in is made of stones but it is very open.

I know where I am. I am in Greece.

And I also know what to say. "Science."

"Excuse me?" the oldest man asks me. Some people helped shape human history. Some people changed the course of history. Without this mind one of the greatest conquerors of all time might have never accomplished what he did.

I've never experienced this before. I've never felt this kind of excitement and awe before. Seeing Gustave again was a gift and so was seeing Tanya again. But those were different kind of excitements. This means something different. This is history.

"What you call natural philosophy will become science and you're right," I tell him and then add more softly, to myself, "science over arts. That's always been my motto."

"You should not discredit the use of the arts in society, they are actually... and what am I even doing? Who are you? What are you doing here? How did you get here?" Aristotle tells me. He's basically scolding me. I'm getting scolded by Aristotle. This is epic.

"All very valid questions that unfortunately come without any answers," I tell him. I'm pretty sure it'll piss him off. I'm pretty sure my very presence in this place annoys him, but I can't help being giddy. And I can't tell the truth. I want to stay here. I don't want to leave just yet.

"You need to get out of here this instant," Aristotle tells me.

"Catharsis," I just blur out. It's the first thing I can think about. The most obvious thing.

"Excuse me?"

"Catharsis," I repeat, "You came up with that. We go to watch plays where awful things happen because we need to experience it. We need tragedies in fiction to remind us that bad things can happen to decent people."

I see the doubt in his eyes. He doesn't understand how I could know this. "Who are you? How do you know this?"

I tell him the truth. "Where I'm from, anyone with any kind of advance knowledge knows about you. We study your teachings."

"You are a liar."

I wasn't lying that time. But it is true that I do need to lie. I want to lie. I want to stay here. Before, I didn't care about the people in the paintings but this is different. This is Aristotle. Aristotle and... oh lord... I realize who else is here. I realize that whoever cared enough about Aristotle to paint him would be painting this other person too..."I'm a Nymph. This is my temple. I was curious. I wanted to see you teach," I tell Aristotle and look at the young man, "And I wanted to see the future king of Macedonia."

"How do you know me?" he asks me.

"Scholars know about Aristotle. Everyone knows about Alexander," I tell him. Alexander the Great. That's Alexander the Great. He isn't great yet, but he will be soon.