Quantum Blues

I hid behind a trash can when Schrödinger cornered me in the alley. His gloved hands found me anyway—how could they not? This is his thought experiment. He picked me up under the ribs and folded me into the crook of his elbow, gripping my back paws. He patted my head, said “Nice kitty.” I let him carry me into his lab. What else could I do? When Schrödinger lifted me into the air, I stared into his chalk-scrawled blackboard, occult rills of numbers tangled with letters and tridents and triangles. I looked down into the maw of a steel box. I wriggled and hissed and fanged his wrist, spreading my paws wide, but Schrödinger’s strong hands tucked them back together. He maneuvered me into the box. I took note of a flask, a hammer, a radioactive-looking substance, and a Geiger counter before the lid slammed and locked. Everything has been darkness since then. I try not to disturb anything. I try to sit still but my legs cramp and I must lift myself, stretch my body subtly up and down, side to side. They say tight dark spaces will break the mind eventually. I will not deny that I’m losing it. I don’t know whether I’m dead or alive; neither does Schrödinger. If he cared, he would have opened the box a long time ago.

Lisa Allen is pursuing an MFA in fiction at UMass Boston, where she teaches Introduction to Creative Writing. She is also a freelance journalist covering topics ranging from finance to science. Lisa has attended a writing residency at the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony in Woodstock, New York. Look for more of her fiction in Kestrel, Levee Magazine, and Construction Literary Magazine. Find her on Twitter: @LisaAllenNY.