Tesla Read Free

life.
    “Yee-haw!” whooped Nenad the destroyer, as if the fear physically pleased him.
    While the earth shook under their feet, Vinko started to cry and plead, “O God, save us from another avalanche from up the slope… God, please don’t let this one destroy the village down there!”
    Nikola stood entranced. He also felt ecstatic from the destruction. He was intoxicated by the release of this natural force.
    The little white thing he tossed down the hill with his own hand tore out boulders and swept down pines as if they were matchsticks. It moved matter and released a primal force. Nothing could stop that snowball once it started down the slope at that unique, exact angle. Nikola got goose bumps as he stood between the frightened Vinko and the enthusiastic Nenad.
    “Destiny,” he whispered in awe.

CHAPTER 4

    Winters
    God was still busy with creation in Smiljan. Villagers were as tall as giants. People’s words were not dead—they were alive. Nature was primal. The smell of frost was a divine greeting.
    Back then, winters were colder than those that came later. They felt more Russian or Finnish than Balkan. To Nikola it seemed that the villagers left a sparkling trail as they tromped through the snow. A snowball that hit a tree exploded into a flash of light. One evening, something odd happened with the tomcat that Niko liked to hug and wrestle. On his way to light the candles, the boy rubbed the cat and felt sparks crackling underneath his palm. He looked from left to right, following his hand. Light shimmered between his fingers and the cat’s back. This was yet another “beautiful phenomenon” related to God’s work.
    “Would you look at that!” exclaimed Djuka.
    Milutin figured out that what they saw—and there was no doubt that they all saw it—was electricity. He explained that peculiarity the best he could.
    That was the first time it occurred to Nikola that Nature was like a huge cat. He wondered: who’s rubbing her?
    “We live in an illuminated world,” whispered Milutin to his wife and son.
    “What does ‘illuminated’ mean?” Djuka whispered back.
    “Lit from within.”

CHAPTER 5

    The Visors
    When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities.
    Plato, The Republic , book VII
    (trans. Benjamin Jowett)
    “It comes out of nowhere!” little Nikola complained to his parents.
    He closed his eyes, and light engulfed him. The entire world dissolved in liquid fire.
    “I’m disappearing. I’m getting absorbed by light,” the boy whispered.
    He struggled to return to the precious world of daily existence.
    “This thing has a will of its own!” he cried.
    “Does it feel like it does when you turn your face toward the sun with your eyes closed?” asked Mother.
    “In a way. A golden visor falls over my eyes while they’re open. There’s a flash and I’m floating in light.”
    Milutin wondered, Could it be epilepsy?
    It turned out to be something like the Tabor Light in the Eastern Church. The light that annihilated all the laws of the universe with one swoop fell on Nikola’s eyes. Seen from within, a golden hemisphere replaced his face. That illumination that shook the foundation of life and annihilated the physical world frightened Father Milutin.
    This was when Dane, for the first time, took the side of his brother, who was younger by eight years.
    “No. What Nikola’s talking about happens to me too.”
    The parents felt relieved. Whatever happened to their prince could not be bad.
    “Do images appear along with the flashes of light?” Dane asked his brother.
    Nikola nodded.
    “Don’t be afraid of them,” Dane said. “Let yourself go.”
    With teary eyes, Nikola stared at him and wailed, “But that is the scariest of all!”

CHAPTER 6

    Brother
    “Who’s this handsome boy?” visitors asked, smiling at Dane Tesla.
    They turned toward younger Nikola and said, “And who’s