High Energy, Joy, Dara [books to read this summer .txt] 📗

for that purpose.

The cycle came around to Tyber.

"I would like to tell Zanita that her—"he paused, smiling boyishly—"her shirt is

mis-buttoned."

Zanita's head snapped toward him, her eyes widening, before she looked down.

Sure enough, her third and fourth buttons were out of line.

"How did you do that, baby?"

Zanita closed her eyes in acute embarrassment. He knew very well how—he had

buttoned her back up!

She started to release LaLeche's hand to fix it when he said, "Oh, no! Don't do

that—you can't break the circle now. It's not important; you can fix it later.

Who knows? In a couple of hours, it may be of no importance to you whatsoever."

Tyber leaned forward and threw LaLeche a chilling glance. Fortunately, he missed

it.

Kim smiled seductively at Tyber. "Maybe we'll all take off our shirts, so we

don't have to worry about buttons."

"Great idea." John winked at her.

Zanita swallowed. Tyber had been right. These people were looking to release all

inhibitions. "Tyber?" Her voice squeaked in an aside to him.

He bent over her, as if he were affectionately nuzzling her nape. "Don't worry,

baby. They won't start getting frisky for a couple of hours yet. I'll have you

safely out of here by then," he whispered against her.

It wasn't long after that that Tyber went out to the truck, coming back with a

blanket. He scooted Zanita in front of him, between his thighs, and draped the

blanket around them. "It's getting chilly, and you did just get over that flu.

No sense taking any chances." Zanita thought he was incredibly sweet.

LaLeche took them through several more exercises involving deep breathing and

meditation techniques before he brought them back once again to the subject of

healing.

"We must align our energy fields. I'm sure our friend, Dr. Evans, agrees with

this, at least in principle."

Tyber surprised Zanita by saying, "I do. In principle, anyway." He adjusted his

arms around her under the blanket. Only Zanita's head poked through the top

opening, under his chin. She was feeling nice and toasty from his body heat.

"I have always believed there must be order within the body as there is in the

universe," LaLeche addressed the group at large, though his comments were

directed to Tyber, "in order for there to be a smooth and constant flow of

energy."

"Mmm, yes… but the universe is not as ordered as you might think."

"How so, Tyber? I always thought the universe is an increasingly structured

place," John said.

"You're forgetting about a little thing called entropy." He rested his chin on

top of Zanita's head.

"Entropy? What's that—a new type of meditation?" Kim asked.

Zanita could feel Tyber smile against her hair. "No, Kim. Entropy is the

measurement, or as we physicists say, the property, of disorder. I'm afraid,

contrary to your beliefs, John, disorder is the natural order of things in the

universe."

Marcie scoffed. "I don't believe that!"

Tyber shrugged. "Second Law of Thermodynamics."

"Wait just a second—isn't energy always, like, the same? I mean, you can't

create more energy, only change it from one form to another."

"You're talking about conservation of energy. Yes, energy is always conserved;

in other words, you can't get more out of a system than you put into it. Entropy

is something else. With entropy, you get more than you started with. We all know

there are many more ways to screw up something than to get it right. Disorder

continually increases, for there is so much more opportunity for disorder to

occur rather than order. Zanita is a perfect example of this principle."

She hunched her shoulders. "What?"

Everyone laughed.

Except Zanita, who pinched his thigh under the blanket. He captured her wayward

hand, clasping it by the wrist.

Tyber gazed down at Zanita affectionately. "Like going into the wrong class

instead of the right one. What's more, the process is not reversible. I'm afraid

the trip to disorder is, alas, a one-way, non-refundable ticket." Several people

chuckled, but Zanita fumed at him, squirming ineffectively under the blanket.

"But then energy is not conserved." Marcie gloated over the brilliance of her

statement.

"Yes, it is." Tyber valiantly subdued Zanita's thrashing as he continued,

"Usable energy is not. Feynman, a great physicist, liked to say that energy is

never lost, but opportunity is. For example, once a cannon has been fired, its

usable or potential energy is lost."

"Like in sex," Kim purred.

Tyber cleared his throat. "Yeah."

"So, you're saying the universe isn't increasingly ordered?" John came back to

his original statement. "Then how do you explain the emergence of galaxies,

stars, and planets out of the initial Big Bang? That seems like an increase in

order to me, rather than disorder."

"It appears to be something of a paradox, doesn't it?" Tyber grinned. "The

answer is that you have to pay for order, or structure, with energy."

"How do you do that?" Eric shyly asked.

"You do the civilized thing." Tyber chuckled. "You borrow it."

"Like a credit card?" Kim asked.

"In a sense. Except you borrow it from a different part of the universe."

John scratched his head. "But eventually you couldn't borrow anymore, and I

should know—I've maxed out more credit cards than I care to remember."

"Not really," Tyber said, "this is a bottomless pit of borrowing since increase

in entropy simply dissipates in the infinity of space. The debt is spreading out

forever through the vastness of space."

"Sounds like the rationale for government spending to me," Zanita grumbled into

the blanket. Tyber heard her, though, because he leaned forward to nip the nape

of her neck.

"Too weird." Kim winked at John.

Zanita had been paying close attention to LaLeche during the discussion; she

noted that he seemed very interested in the way the group was responding to

Tyber's words. She was sure Tyber had noticed it as well.

LaLeche sipped his punch, watching Tyber over the rim of his paper cup. "So, Dr.

Evans, how would you relate this to energy fields in the body? Are we doomed to

fall apart in disorder? Or, in your view, is there hope for healing methods?"

"We are ultimately doomed to disorder, or death; but there's no sense in being

morbid. Your question is very interesting, Xavier, as the obvious exception to

entropy is life. Life is the ultimate order. Purpose is the essence of being. In

fact, life is in a constant struggle with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. And

life often wins out. Curious, isn't it?"

"Not to a mystic," LaLeche