This reality might not be the only one in existence; a theory Greg is determined to prove. His reliance on a mysterious colleague ends up proving this in ways that Greg hadn't expected.
Hello, Scribes!
Time for some more scifi! It's not all I write, and I promise next time will be fantasy. But most of my writing is of the scientifiction. It's sort of a balance to my fantasy-dominated artwork. I can't explain why, my brain just prefers to paint fantasy but write scifi. It's this and other weird quirks that got me thinking of realities and dementia.
Quantum mechanics is a subject that highly fascinates me and, while I won't proclaim to fully understand it, I grasp the concept and quite a bit of the fundamentals in play. It's wonky and strange and confusing, but it's also so very neat, isn't it? I can't remember (no pun intended) how my mind went from freaky physics to dementia, but it did. Perhaps because there is that uncertainty shared between them, the strangeness of it all.
Shrodinger's cat. That's a thought experiment many people know of and it's a good basic understanding of quantum mechanics, though very lacking to truly get the concept across. This flash fiction story has a lot of references in it, because the aim was to write something in the genre of hard science fiction. It might not make sense.
Something was off about this reality. The restaurant was packed for lunch, the way Greg liked it when he needed to talk to Mr. One. The mumbles of small talk served well for white noise, helping him concentrate on the conversation at hand without the distraction of equations swimming in his peripheral. That and the occasional glimpse of the fourth spatial dimension. Virtual or real, it was there. Just as he was, every Thursday for the past fifteen years.
Except, Mr. One hadn’t come today. He’d never been late before. Greg looked at his watch again. Fifteen minutes. Of course, Greg was late first, by ten minutes. Perhaps Mr. One had grown tired of waiting and had rationalised Greg's absence as illness?
“Excuse me,” Greg tugged on the loose sleeve of a passing waiter, “had a man, around my age with similar features, arrived today at all?”
The waiter’s furrowed brows and searching eyes were answer enough. He was a new addition to the staff, young and full of energy. Greg envied him his youth, mainly for the waste of his own spent behind screens trying to figure out what virtual particles were, if they were real or purely mathematical convenience.
“I’m sorry, sir, but no.” The boy pressed his lips into a thin line and gave Greg that look of pity the youth always offered.
“No bother, lad. Thank you.” Greg returned to fidgeting with the calculations on his touchpad. He’d ordered his regular black coffee from the interactive menu on the glass table. It, too, was late. Everything was late today. And observation made no difference in stabilisation.
It was due to his Thursday classes, starting ten minutes later than any other day of the week. And he couldn’t think of a practical reason for the tardiness. It was not by his doing, that was for certain. But for some spooky effect, the rest of the day’s events had been pushed back. Or was it forward? He shook his head clear of the impending spiral into which his thoughts threatened to descend, focusing on the small talk around him.
Mundane matters. An upcoming birthday of some distant relative that the husband had forgotten. Someone’s sick cat having coughed up a black tar the night before. Another person’s cat, funnily enough, had just given birth to a healthy litter of five. Still, no Mr. One.
“Dr. Holm?” A soft voice to his right pulled him from the humdrum.
“Yes?” Greg turned to look at the familiar face. The restaurant’s manager. She’d been there before he met Mr. One all those years ago, quite by chance, mind you. He’d simply been seated opposite the table this manager (what was the girl’s name again?) had assigned. A chanced meet.
“Your Thursday usual is ready, sir, if you’d like to eat now?” She was always such a polite woman, sincere, and she didn’t treat him like some frail elderly man who could shatter or suddenly become a gust of waves. Wind. Not waves, wind.
“My usual?” he asked, more to himself as he racked his brain for the routine he’d apparently established.
“Two orders of Shepard’s pie, two coffees, and two slices of carrot cake.” She recited the course as though it were something she had become particularly adept in.
“Ah, of course.” He had no idea, but he trusted her judgement of everyday matters more than his own, which was often lost in the uncertainty of the fourth dimension he’d been trying to discover. To no avail. It was a rather simple theory. X-axis 4, as he referred to it, was the reality in which virtual particles physically existed. Until, of course, they were observed.
“Shall I donate the second plates to someone else again?” Her question had knocked him off his thought rails.
“Again?” He wasn’t a charitable person. If he ordered two plates of a full meal, it would have been for himself and Mr. One. The manager, bless her patient heart, let him have the space to figure this out. He faced her again and sighed. “Yes, by all means.”
She smiled. Something dazzling and genuine, warm and soft. A mother’s smile, indeed. And she went off into the kitchen.
He waited, resisting the urge to pop open his touchpad and work on those blasted equations again. The compulsion was strong, but his confusion, or rather the strangeness of this day, provided adequate enough distraction.
“Here you are, Doctor.” She placed the steaming plate in front of him and refilled his cup. “If there’s anything else you need, please call.”
“Thank you,” was all he could get out without making it obvious he’d forgotten her name. “What did you mean by ‘again’?” He couldn’t resist this compulsion. Answers were his purpose in life.
“Dr. Holm...” she started, biting her lip as she took a deep breath. “It’s what you do every Thursday. Since I’ve known you.” She forced a half-hearted smile, more for his sake, perhaps to reassure him. It was, strangely, comforting that she cared enough to try.
“I see.” He didn’t, but it wasn’t a shock. If anything, perhaps evidence toward his theory. This morning it wasn’t a routine, then it became one when he enquired. And Mr. One? Greg had suspected he might not be here, but until he’d really questioned it, it wasn't a reality.
“Shall I bring you your pen and pad, Doctor?” The manager asked, looking less awkward now.
“Is this also what I do on Thursdays?” Greg knew the answer, but it had to be asked to escape the fluctuations. The uncertainty. At least, in this instance. The manager nodded. “Then no. Today, I think I will try something else.”
She smiled again and turned on her heel. Greg glanced the silhouette of Mr. One standing just outside the window, his back turned to him. The figure raised his arm and waved before stepping off the curb and disappearing in the traffic.
He'd left Greg to his own. No reason, no quantifying... explaining, not quantifying. It was a loss, and Greg felt the grief strike as hard as it would have if a real person had died. But, he supposed, he was better for it. He lifted his touchpad and stroked the blackened screen. Mr. One was right; it was time to let this pursuit rest.
Besides, he’d already figured it out years ago. To Hell with trying to prove it to everyone else. If they couldn’t see it already, they never would.
A young girl walked past, holding her mother’s hand, and Greg slid the touchpad into her free hand. He winked and her eyes lit up. The flame had been handed down. Mr. One would always be there, somewhere in the fabric of all this chaos, but now he’d guide someone else.
He sat back, resting his hands on his lap, and closed his eyes. The restaurant had filled up, the way he preferred it. He let the white noise carry him off down empty thought rails, enjoying the scenery and not caring for the destination. He was, for the first time in ages, certain of himself. This reality might be off, but he didn’t mind it.
