Of course. I have rewritten the chapter to focus purely on physics, removing the psychic elements.
Novel: Dream of Being a Physicist (Fisikawan)
Chapter 1: The Constant Variable
"ERIC! BANGUN! SUDAH JAM ENAM LEWAT!"
The voice sliced through the warm, humid air of the Jakarta morning, sharp and effective. It was his mother's voice, a sonic alarm clock that had no snooze button. Eric Chris groaned, pulling a pillow over his head in a futile act of defiance against the encroaching day. The muffled sounds of the city outside—the distant hum of traffic, the call of a street vendor—were the background static to his life.
"Five more minutes, Ma," he mumbled into the fabric.
"Tidak ada lima menit! You'll be late for school again!"
He knew it was a losing battle. With a sigh that carried the weight of a thousand identical mornings, the 15-year-old swung his legs over the side of the bed. His feet met the cool tile floor, a brief shock that helped chase away the last tendrils of sleep. His room was simple: a single bed, a wooden desk cluttered with textbooks and graphing paper, and a poster of the James Webb Space Telescope's first images on the wall.
First, the bed. It was a non-negotiable step in his mother's morning doctrine. "A tidy bed means a tidy mind," Linda would always say. Eric pulled the sheet taut, straightened the comforter, and fluffed the pillow he had just been hiding under. It was a robotic, practiced motion, a small piece of order in a world he found overwhelmingly repetitive.
His life, up until now, had been a constant variable—a value that was always changing, yet somehow always ended up the same. School, homework, an occasional trip to Pondok Indah Mall with his family, the yearly holiday. It was a stable, predictable orbit. He was in SMA Kelas 10, the first year of senior high school, a significant step that somehow felt exactly like the year before.
After a quick shower, the cool water a welcome relief from the tropical heat, he donned his white and grey uniform. He could hear the low murmur of the television from the living room, where his father, Johan, would be catching the morning news before heading to his office. His younger sister, Anna, was probably still fighting her own battle with consciousness.
"Eric, breakfast!" Linda called out as he emerged from his room.
He grabbed two slices of toast from the plate on the table, giving his mom a quick peck on the cheek. "I'm going, Ma. Bye!"
"At least drink your milk!"
He chugged the glass of milk she held out and slung his heavy backpack over his shoulder. "Bye Pa!" he yelled towards the living room, receiving a muffled "Hati-hati, son," in reply.
The walk to the bus halte was a sensory assault. The smell of fried rice from a nearby warung, the roar of motorcycles weaving through traffic, the thick, heavy air that promised a sweltering August day. He joined the small crowd of students and office workers waiting, his mind already shifting gears.
His life had taken a subtle, but profound, turn about two years ago, in 8th grade. Before then, school subjects were just… subjects. Things to be memorized and passed. He'd always had a kink for math, for the clean, absolute logic of it. But physics had just seemed like more formulas.
Then, one day, his junior high science teacher, a man with a passion that burned brighter than any Bunsen burner, had shown them a documentary about gravity. It explained how the same simple force that made an apple fall to the ground also kept the Moon locked in orbit around the Earth, and the Earth around the Sun. For Eric, it was a moment of pure revelation. It wasn't just a formula on a page; it was a universal law, a hidden piece of code that governed everything. Physics, he realized, was math with a soul. It was the language of reality itself. From that day on, he was hooked.
The bus arrived with a hiss of its pneumatic doors. Eric found a seat by the window and watched the city blur past.
He arrived at school with ten minutes to spare, finding his friends, Dian and Tom, leaning against a wall near the entrance.
"Yo, Eric," Dian said, not looking up from his phone. "Check this out. I finally got the physics engine on my character's jump to feel less floaty. Used a quadratic easing function for the gravity."
Dian's world was one of code and pixels. His dream was to build a game studio and create the next great Indonesian RPG.
Tom, who was stretching his calves, grunted. "Looks real. Hey Eric, you coming to track practice later? Coach wants to work on our sprint starts." Tom's path was paved with sweat and muscle. His goal was to make the national track team, with a backup plan of becoming a personal trainer.
"Can't," Eric said, adjusting his backpack. "Got a pile of new physics problems. We're starting on kinematics."
Tom clapped him on the shoulder. "Man, you and your equations. I get enough problems trying to beat my 100-meter time."
The school day unfolded in its usual rhythm. The bell, the shuffle of students, the drone of teachers' voices. History, Chemistry, Bahasa Indonesia. Eric's mind was a finely tuned machine for absorbing information. His personal motto for learning was simple and effective: Understanding, Practice, then Retaining.
School, for him, was the "Understanding" phase. It was the place to grasp the concepts, the context, the 'why' behind the formulas. He'd listen intently, his pen scratching notes, not just copying what was on the board, but rephrasing it, connecting it to things he already knew.
But his focus, his true passion, was always Physics. When the physics teacher began drawing vectors on the whiteboard, explaining displacement and velocity, Eric felt a familiar thrill. This was the language. This was the blueprint.
While the teacher explained the idealized parabolic trajectory of a thrown ball, ignoring air resistance for simplicity, Eric's mind raced ahead. But what about air resistance? It's not a constant force; it increases with velocity. So the actual trajectory wouldn't be a perfect parabola. It would be steeper on the way down. And what about the rotation of the Earth? The Coriolis effect would cause a minuscule deviation, too small to see here, but massive for a long-range missile… or a hurricane.
The bell for the end of the day rang, a shrill sound of freedom for most. Dian and Tom were already talking about getting bakso from a stall near the school.
"You in, Eric?" Dian asked.
Eric shook his head, a small smile on his face. "Next time. The real practice is about to begin."
His friends shrugged, used to his dedication. As Eric walked home, the afternoon sun casting long shadows on the pavement, his mind was already miles away, lost in a world of forces and motion. School was just the starting line. The real race, the one to understand the deepest secrets of the universe, was run alone, at his desk, with a pencil and a blank sheet of paper.