Puer Aeternus

Puer Aeternus

by Alice Andrews

K.E. was a woman who pondered strange things, like how mutations in the pleckstrin homology domain of dynamin 2 caused dominant intermediate Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, and why nasturtium leaves smelled like cocaine. This is what Peter lovingly typed on his computer with a smile. What an absurd beginning to "Puer Aeternus" he thought to himself, and got back into bed, his mind and energy wandering, restless. Sure, he had finally just had a night of pretty good conjugal sex after months of nothing, but it wasn’t with Karen. He still had energy for her; and the writing story thing, the conscious effort to sublimate his desire for her (another way to be inside her in his mind), just wasn’t working.

So with the kids next door and his wife at yoga, he conjured her up very quickly (because he was very good at that sort of thing and who knew when the kids were coming back) and was on top of her on a foreign bed, in a foreign place, somewhere high in the mountains. It must have been the mountains because all he could see gazing out the imagined window of the charming cabin his kind colleague loaned him was blue sky, sun, and a distant mountain top.

Oh, dear. This is the author of this piece writing from the future. I'm here editing this story thirteen years later. Originally, back in 2005, I used a pseudonym for this, but an essay of mine is about to be published at This View of Life and it references mutations in the pleckstrin homology domain of dynamin 2 causing dominant intermediate Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease and nasturtium leaves smelling like cocaine. I suppose I didn't want people googling these and finding another name associated with them.

The 'sex-fragment,' as I called it in this flash fiction piece, and the rest of it, is embarrassing. I'm about to delete it. The above was bad enough.

.......................

Ah. Better. If you're reading this and you came across it while reading my not-yet-published Welcome to the Noösphere, will you send me an email or contact me on Twitter and let me know? I'm curious!

Alice Andrews

With philosophy and developmental psychology degrees from Columbia University, Alice Andrews teaches psychology and evolutionary studies at the State University of New York at New Paltz. She is a founding member/council member of the Applied Evolutionary Psychology Society as well as the founder and former editor-in-chief of The Evolutionary Review: Art, Science, Culture. She serves on the Executive Board of SUNY New Paltz’s Evolutionary Studies program, as well as on the Editorial Boards of Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences and EvoS: The Journal of the Evolutionary Studies Consortium. Alice is also the founder and former editor of Entelechy: Mind & Culture and her novel Trine Erotic (evolutionary fiction) was republished for its 10th-year anniversary in 2012 (Codhill Press).

In addition to her academic pursuits, Alice also has a passion for the rights of nature and served on the Environmental Conservation Commission in the Village of New Paltz for 4 years. She is the founder of the group Mothers & Others United to Shut Down Indian Point as well as the founder of Beyond Pesticides in Ulster County. She currently serves on the Village of New Paltz Board of Ethics and was recently endorsed by the Humanist Society as a Humanist Chaplain. Singing is another passion — she recently formed The Hudson Valley Vocal Improv Collective. She has sung with Gaiatree Sound Project, Clear Light Ensemble, and did backup vocals on Sri Kirtan and Radharani’s latest albums — as well as on Baba Brinkman’s Rap Guide to Consciousness.