Harmony of Spheres

"Space, the final frontier"

We all know what this popular phrase comes from. Star Trek, a TV show produced in the 1960s about a team of explorers in the future traveling from galaxy to galaxy in a highly advanced spaceship. Just the other day I stumbled upon a re-run episode from the popular series. I was amazed at the hokieness of it all. Here are Earth's finest, walking around in a spaceship in bright colorful spandex. While most of us pray the future won't look like this, die-hard "Trekkie" fans will keep the memory strong. Certainly, the styles can easily be blamed on the 60s and their rendition of the "future".

What caught my attention though, was the particular episode that I was watching that day. A man was defending his case to the judge before him, pleading his innocence. He began his rant in a cliche fashion, talking about all of humanity's greatest accomplishments of nobility and peace. The man rattled off different achievements such as the Declaration of Independence, The Bible, Magna Carta, and so on. Essentially, what the man was communicating was that in the name of goodness and mankind, that the judge decide fairly and without bias.

This particular episode reminded me of a short story by Salmon Rushdie, called A Harmony of Spheres. In this story, Elliot, a man troubled by mental issues attempts to cope with his fears and imbalance through the relation of a woman named Mala. The Star Trek episode reminded me of this story because the man on the starship wanted justice and a sense of normality to his world. For Elliot in Spheres, he wants his reason and intellect restored. Elliot's mind begins to untie in the story causing him to "seek" after a solution.

Rushdie takes the reader through the mind of Elliot as he attempts to cope with his madness. Eventually Elliot cannot deal any longer and shoots himself in the head, ending the flood of thoughts. Before this happens though, Elliot "seeks" or searches for mechanisms to ease his mental suffering. One such outlet is Mala, a lover and woman whom Elliot has an explicit affair.

At the core of Elliot's madness lies the imbalance between his worlds, or spheres. It is in these spheres that Elliot is torn apart by their opposing wills. Ideally, an individual would, and want to, live in one sphere of reality. So can justice live with injustice, and sanity with insanity?