“I was gonna clean up this afternoon… didn’t know I’d be in surgery and all.” I looked around my small domain. “This is sure one heck of a hallucination.”
Giddeon inspected the interior of the boat, also. After a few moments, he said, “It looks so real because it sort of is… in its own way. Oddly enough, your brain seems to work better under pressure. That’s what they’re trying to relieve right now, by the way.”
I could definitely hear a dull noise, if I concentrated, and was also aware of some unsettling vibrations.
“Don’t worry… no pain receptors in the brain.”
I shook my head back and forth. “I need a beer.”
“I’ll take one, too,” said my new acquaintance. He had a seat at the small table on the starboard side of the cabin.
I opened the door to the little square fridge and fished out two Coronas. After popping the tops, I handed one to Giddeon.
“Sorry, no lime.”
“No problem.” He set the beverage down on the Formica surface before him, crossed his arms, and did a rather excellent impression of the ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ head bob and blink. A perfectly cut lime slice appeared on his bottle, stuck partway into the opening. “Want one?”
“No thanks.” I was impressed with his magic trick, but it didn’t compare with the back-flip and image changing, earlier. “Right now, I just want to get this inside of me.”
I sat down on the couch across from him and took a swig. It tasted great… nice, cool and real.
“So… am I gonna die?”
“Everybody dies.”
“I mean, like, soon?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “No idea. It’s probably a darned good thing they got you to the hospital so quickly, though.”
The vibrations stopped… I thought I could hear people murmuring, and wondered if it was the surgeon, anesthesiologist and assistants. Giddeon pushed his lime slice into the clear neck of his Corona, and took a sip.
“Anyway, no point in worrying about it,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me about Melody?”
I took another drink and glanced back around the interior of the boat, unsure if it would continue to remain so solid with people fishing around inside my head. Finally, I decided he was right, and answered, “She’s awesome. I wrote her number down in four places… plus, I e-mailed it to myself so I wouldn’t lose it.”
“Good thinking.”
I took a long draught of lime-free beer, and then continued, “Also, I memorized it. I even considered writing a song about it like that 867-5309 one by Tommy Tutone.”
“Oh, yeah! That’s a great song. You should take your guitar more seriously… maybe have some lessons.” He pointed at the Ovation next to me on the couch.
“Soon as I’m out of this coma, I’ll get right on it.”
Those words kind of had a dampening effect on my mood, so we just sat there for the better part of a minute and drank our drinks in silence. The quiet around us seemed to grow softly into a hushed crescendo; then, from outside of the door, I heard a familiar scratching noise and a faint meow. Giddeon stood up as if glad for the distraction and said,
“I’ll get it.”
My visitor walked over and popped the latch.
In strolled Boris, the local marina cat. A big, brindle-coated tabby. The feline hesitated and looked around as if something was not quite right with his surroundings. After a few seconds, he came right over to me and sniffed the air in a quizzical way. The friendly animal then leaned over to rub against my leg. To his surprise, he went right through me to the couch. Boris backed away and tried again… with the same result.
I was as surprised as he was.
“He can see you and hear you, but that’s about it,” said Giddeon.
“He’s not part of my dream?”
“No… he’s real.”
I patted the couch next to me. “Come here, Boris.”
He jumped up beside me and meowed. I gently reached over and ‘patted’ him. I noticed that my hand sank down into him, and I could sort of feel his fur as it did… oddly, though, the thick, keratinized layer didn’t ruffle at all when my fingers went through it.
Boris made his way over to my lap and settled in… seeming not to care that he was actually lying on the couch and unsupported by my frame. I looked down, and the effect was surreal. It was as if the head and tail of a cat were sewn into my blue jeans. I couldn’t see the rest of him. I ‘scratched’ what parts of the brownish-grey mammal I could get to.
Boris purred and meowed, again.
“Now you know why cats act so funny, sometimes… they can see things humans can’t,” informed Giddeon.
“What about dogs?”
“Not so much… sometimes they can hear and smell, but it just freaks them out. Cats go with it. Now, back to Melody.” He said the last sentence as if he could hardly wait to hear all about her.
I nodded.
“She’s amazing…” I began, again, but then something occurred to me and switched my focus. “Wait a minute… Boris couldn’t come in. You opened the door and let him in. I’m petting him, but nothing is happening to his fur… why couldn’t he just come through the door?”
“To him, the boat is ‘real’, too.” Giddeon made quotation marks in the air with his fingers to accentuate his remark. “For the most part, it overlaps with ‘his’ boat.”
More quotation marks followed his first pair.
“Hmmm…” I intoned. “Well… what about the beers? They sure taste real. Why aren’t our hands just going through them? Instead, we’re holding them and drinking them.”
Giddeon nodded.
“Well, we sort of are. They’re actually in the refrigerator, over there… it’s kind of hard to explain, but, I’ll try.” He paused for a moment, as if collecting his thoughts, and then said, “You’ve heard about quantum physics, right?”
“I saw that documentary ‘What the Bleep!?’.”
“Okay, good. Do you remember how the film explained that individual particles can exist in a supposition of states? How they might have all possibilities until their field of probabilities ‘crashes’ down into one reality simply by being observed?”
“I think so…” I said, trying to remember back.
“Like in the Double-Slit Experiment,” relayed Giddeon. “Where a single electron can go through two different slits, simultaneously, as a wave. It flows through both openings like water. So, if you fire a succession of them, they leave an interference pattern on a wall behind the openings. It’s as if they each somehow interfered with themselves… like waves do… when they passed through.” Giddeon paused, again, to make sure that I comprehended, and then carried on, “However, when you try to measure which slit individual electrons go through,” he gestured at two imaginary spaces, “they become particles and the interference pattern disappears. You just get two rows recorded on the wall where they all hit.”
I pursed my lips and furrowed my brow, trying to get my damaged brain to recall.
“You know,” said Giddeon. “When the experimenter actually makes a recording, that’s when the field of probabilities condenses around the electron, and it goes through either one opening or the other. It’s like the observation, itself, actually influences the experiment.” He looked at me expectantly, as if waiting for an echo to come back to him.
Finally, I nodded. “Yeah… I remember, now.”
Giddeon smiled. “The beers are like that… so is this boat. We’re just picking one of their realities and leaving the rest alone. We’re not crashing the system and condensing the fields… the door, on the other hand, I had to crash.”
He nodded in its direction.
“It really is open?”
“Over here and over there.”
“And, by over there, you mean…”
He smiled, again. “Where Melody lives. Now, tell me about her. I know she’s all you’ve thought about since yesterday. Other than her physical perfection, what’s the attractio
n?”
I had stopped petting Boris. He looked up and meowed for me to resume. Apparently, he liked the ‘virtual’ attention.
“Like you said… ‘As above, so below.’… I’m pretty sure the perfection is through and through.”
____________
Note: for a more complete understanding of the Double-Slit Experiment, please view the following clip at You Tube by typing in: Dr Quantum - double slit experiment. It’s entertaining, and, quick : )
Chapter 7
If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never forget the way she looked that day. I know a person is more than their epidermis and bone structure, but, man-oh-man! Dirty blonde hair with auburn hues buried here and there. A cute nose and succulent lips. Not a trace of make-up… why cover up something like her face? That would be like trying to touch up a Rembrandt with a can of spray paint. Her body was perfect… at least for me. Maybe 5’9”, a hundred and thirty-five pounds, or so. She had an athletic look about her, and moved with the grace of someone who had taken dance lessons from a very young age. Melody’s appearance was elegant, and yet, wholesome, at the same time.
Like I said… perfect.
I don’t know why she was attracted to me. Nothing special, here. I’m in decent shape, but fairly non-descript. No glaring deformities… however, I’m most definitely not in her league. Maybe she’s so beautiful that nobody ever approached her… lucky for me that I worked up the nerve.
We instantly seemed to understand each other. You know how people talk about how when they met their ‘soul-mate’ it’s like they’d known each other, before? How they say they just seemed to fit together like pieces of a puzzle? It was like that, except that the puzzle pieces were vibrating in harmony and a backdrop of celestial, symphonic music was playing at the same time. When I touched her hand, it was as if a transfusion of possibilities, endless summers and purpose invaded my basic being.
Like the future began to glow
I know it sounds ridiculous, but I had the feeling that with her I could become so much more than the bumbling, drifting excuse for a person that I had been… and, I suspected that even if I didn’t become more, it wouldn’t really make a difference. I was almost certain that no matter what, she would have accepted me for who I was, and would have been totally satisfied just knowing all of those possibilities were somewhere in there.
Apparently, she felt something, too.
We were actually completing each other’s sentences after talking for five minutes. After ten minutes, it was like we had grown old together… we could have simply sat on a park bench, fed the pigeons, and been totally happy just watching them waddle around and peck at crumbs. When lunch arrived, it was as if we had died in each other’s arms and gone on to our reward. And, there, our reward was… the delicious food and the San Diego sky. The beautiful setting all around us like a three-dimensional frame on a piece of Southern California. We were young again and just meeting for the first time. What a perfect reward. What a perfect day.
What a perfect woman.
I told all of this to Giddeon, and all about our little conversation as she and I walked beside the bay, holding hands. I remembered practically every word and gesture… and even though it was about nothing, it was about everything.
Giddeon listened attentively, almost raptly, until at length, I was finished.
“Wow… you have quite a way with words. The pictures you painted are almost as clear as this ‘dream’ of yours. Most people go their whole lives and never have a day like that. You’re a lucky man.”
“Who’s in a coma,” I added.
“Well, there is that. If you survive, you should write all of this down. You might have a future as an author.”
Chapter 8
I considered what he said.
When I finally did emerge from my coma, I was much too overwhelmed to attempt something like that, at first… I was simply elated that I was fully alive and able to have the opportunity to walk and talk and interact. I was so grateful that all I really wanted to do was to have actual human contact and participate in the world all around me. It was just incredible to once again share in the magic of everyday life and the wonder of living.
Writing was the furthest thing from my mind.
Chapter 9
As real as my dream world was, I found that it just wasn’t the same without ‘real’ people.
Giddeon and cats make for pretty good company, but even with all of the amazing things I could see and do and experience over there, all in all, I’d rather be over here. This is where she is. Whether I’m with her or not, I’d rather be where our fields of probabilities are collapsed into the same reality. I’d rather be under the same sun and the same stars.
I want to be where I know it’s possible to actually talk to her, and touch her, and hold her hand… even if it has to end.
Life is about love, or, at least, the possibility of love. All of the other emotions can be interesting distractions, but love is a tsunami of feeling that sweeps the rest of them away… leaving them pale, washed out and scattered on the sands of time.
After being in a coma for four years, I’ve learned that life without love isn’t really life at all.
Life without love is pretty much an amusement park with no electricity. All of the rides are still there, but nothing actually moves you and spins you around.
Chapter 10
Boris stood up to where I could see most of him, sans legs, turned around a couple of times and lay back down on his side, facing me. I ‘scratched’ him under his chin and he began to purr, again.
“You hungry?” asked Giddeon, finishing the last of his beer.
“I could eat.”
“Brigantine?”
“Sounds good… I think happy hour for the bar food is still going on.”
“Time doesn’t really matter so much over here, but, yeah… we can still catch it.”
Giddeon set his bottle on the table, and looked back around the interior of the boat. “This is pretty cool. How come you never take it out?”
“Don’t know the first thing about sailing. I just like being on the water.”
He nodded. “If you’re unconscious long enough, I’ll teach you. It’s not that hard.”
“We’ll see…” I stood up through Boris. He meowed, but showed no inclination to roust himself from the couch. “We’d better get going.”
Giddeon followed me to the cabin exit. We made our way outside, and I heard him close the door behind us.
“Just leave it open for Boris. He likes to come and go,” I said.
“Oh, right.” I saw Giddeon reach back, and for a moment, I could see two doors… one open and one closed. There was a flicker, and then, there was just the one open door.
We stepped onto the dock under the full, Coronado moon.
__________
The Brigantine wasn’t very crowded. We made our way to the tables near the bar and had a seat strategically by one of the televisions. As luck would have it, a re-broadcast of a golf tournament from earlier during the day was on. We checked out the menus; none of the waitresses acknowledged us.
Without looking up, Giddeon said, “They can’t see us. What do you have a taste for?”
“The baked chicken sandwich… and, fries.”
“Iced tea to drink?”
“Sure.”
I saw a shimmering. My plate of food and glass of tea, along with silverware wrapped in a napkin, appeared before me.
“I’m going for the fish tacos,” said Giddeon.
Before he had fully finished the sentence, there they were. I began unwrapping my fork and knife.
“What do we do if someone wants this table?” I asked.
“Won’t happen for another 53 minutes.”
“You can see the future?”
“There is no future.”
“No future?”
“Not really… the future, the past, the present… they’re all part of the same thing.”
“Which is…?”
“You,” said Giddeon.
“Me?”
“Or, them.” He motioned to the people in the room.
“I’m not really following,” I remarked.
“That’s because there’s no such thing as following… or, leading.” He took a bite of taco, and then continued on with his mouth full. “Or, even being in step with… all of that’s an illusion. It’s all happening at the same ‘time’.” He made quotation marks in the air with his fingers, and swallowed.
“So in 53 minutes, someone’s going to come and sit at this table?”
“52… in their frame of reference, which we’re observing,” he motioned to the people, again. “But, there’s an infinity of other frames in this universe. And, there’s also an infinity of other universes… each with their own endless frames. A multi-verse if you will. We could skip over to one of those, and it would be different. That someone could be sitting here, then. Or, just leaving… or, just arriving. Whatever you can imagine, it’s happening. Which leads to the question, would we be ‘choosing’ a frame of reference that matches what we wanted, or would we be ‘creating’ that frame of reference?”
More air quotes punctuated his last sentence.
“I really shouldn’t have taken off my hard-hat.”
Giddeon broke into a grin. A beer appeared in his hand. He poured it into an empty mug that had come along with it.
“Hind-sight is 20/20.” He raised his glass to me, and took a drink.
__________
We watched the tournament as we ate our food. As always, I found the process of how the pros worked their way around the golf course fascinating. The chicken sandwich was just right… not too hot and not too cold, not too juicy and not too dry. Seasoned perfectly. Just the way I would have wanted the sandwich to taste if I had… created it. One of my favorite golfers almost chipped in from the fringe beside the green.
“Oh man, that was close,” I said.
“It went in somewhere else.”
“In another ‘frame’?” I used my fingers to make quotation marks, then.
“Yep. That’s what makes golf so much fun. The ball has this field of probabilities all around it, and you try to choose the frame it goes into.”
“Like the double-slit experiment?”
“Exactly! Except there are billions of slits for the ball to fly through,” he said, looking pleased with my correlation.