As a way of facing some of my fears and with obvious inspiration from this thread, I mundanely offer the following as a kind of sub-literary non sequitur.
Please feel free to move along, move along.
Nothing to see here.
The lab door was immaculate. The knob sparkled and the top of the jamb had been wiped and sanitized. The carpet was clean and showed tracks from a recent vacuuming. The croton at the edge of the seating area was dusted and the dead and dying leaves pruned. The potting soil had been turned and the bright orange, red and green plant glimmered from a recent spritzing.
In the seating area, two chairs sat cockeyed near the inset bookshelf. The window looking out to the parking lot was smudged and copies of The Smithsonian Magazine, Time, National Geographic and the Sunday Times lay disorganized on the bookshelf and on the small coffee table. The table had been pulled close to one of the chairs and an empty coffee cup sat on the edge of a thin paper napkin.
Joanne Dufrane was running a carpet sweeper in front of the lab door. She ran over the same spot again and again while staying just left of a long blond hair. Her eyes were on the lab door.
Inside, Professor Schrödinger opened the box. There was nothing. It had no color and seemed to move oddly. He felt a whir of vertigo as though looking down from a great height or drifting over the edge of an enormous ocean chasm. It was the sensation of unnamed fears.
As a child, he had unclosed the door of his parents’ bedroom. Ever since, he had been plagued by images of wet hairiness — odd, sensual disgust with octopuses’ tentacles and the fluke-like edges of manta ray wings and dolphin fins. Discomfort kept him away from the biological sciences. The same discomfort drew him to theoretical sciences and math.
He stepped back. On the table, a jar half-filled with small capsules containing smaller white pellets sat beside the box. Outside the door, the carpet sweeper bumped irregularly and Professor Schrödinger became annoyed. He stamped to the door, opened it with a sweep and yelled.
“Madame Dufrane! Can you not clean the floors some other time?”
The hall was empty, devoid of space or color. There was neither sunlight nor darkness. The emptiness seemed present and the Professor sensed eagerness there. Many legged, with arms drifting on an unseen current, feigning inactivity. But there were blackish, uncolored, vacuous eyes too. And atavistic, beak-like mouthparts waited at the center.
It took no insignificant amount of courage to close the door slowly and push it gently until the latch clicked into place. He stood quietly, pressing his tongue hard against the roof of his mouth. He forced himself to cough, then swallowed a mouthful of saliva like an over large gulp of water.
Next to the capsule bottle on the table was a notebook of Schrödinger’s handwritten notes. He walked to the table, picked up the book and wondered when Einstein would be by to collect them. Einstein compiled the notes for Schrödinger and entered them into the computer, carefully dating and annotating them for reference.
Schrödinger took a pen from his lab coat and began to formulate a careful description of events. He read back to himself what was already written in his own scrawling handwriting:
There is nothing here for me to debate about or analyze any further. No information outside the lab. Aside from the telephone I can receive none as well.
He absentmindedly chided himself for his poor grammar. But the meaning was clear, regardless of sentence structure.
He scanned the lab then walked to the phone. It was off the hook and lying with the receiver facing the ceiling. He picked it up and heard ambient conversation in some distant, busy room.
“Hello?”
“Sir? Can you hear me? I need you to stay on the line now. Okay?”
“Yes, Okay.”
“Have you sustained any injuries?”
“No.”
He heard excited talking in the background.
“Sir, the ambulance is on the way. I want you to stay on the line now and let me ask you some questions. Do you understand?”
He set the receiver down with the mouthpiece toward the ceiling, backed away slightly and scanned the lab again. The computer’s screensaver was drawing pictures using lines that resembled multi-colored pipes in a three-dimensional matrix.
He walked to the computer and moved the mouse. The colorful image blinked-out and the screen briefly went blank. Schrödinger clenched his teeth. When the familiar background of his desktop popped up, he typed a keystroke, selected the web browser and relaxed somewhat as his home page opened.
He chose ‘General Questions’ and noticed the threads on the front page of the forum.
Right Brain –vs. Left Brain Illusion
Help me identify a species of spider
Can a person just “go crazy”?
Extremely strange natural phenomenon: can anyone explain this?
He clicked ‘New Thread’ and typed out a well-constructed, cogent article making sure to check his spelling and grammar. He wished Einstein or Madame Dufrane were here to help with the unfamiliar task.
He made a final check and clicked ‘Submit Message.’ The cursor transformed into a spinning wheel for a moment and the professor looked away and crossed his arms. He took a breath and looked back to the screen; surely it was done now and he would get responses.
The EMTs found him with his hands over his eyes lying on the floor of the lab, shuddering despite the lack of respiration and pulse. The phone lay with the receiver facing the ceiling and the computer screen was on with a browser window open.
Straight Dope Message Board Unavailable
Try Again Later