Complete Atopia Chronicles

My brain snapped out of it, as if wrenched from a bear trap. Whoa, what is going on?  I blinked hard and shook my head, looking down at my congealing oatmeal.  Phuture News was on now, and apparently the odds were that our friends Orlando and Melinda were going to have a big cat fight soon. I suddenly liked the idea of cats.

Most people had already lined up on team Orlando, so I opted for Melinda. I always liked the undercat, and at least this time is wasn’t Adriana. As I watched, clever taunts were being devised and their viral values sized up by several off-island marketing agencies, eager to reach the Atopian crowd.

The social storm clouds grew as I dug into my cooling oatmeal, watching the action unfold. It reminded me of Brigitte. My stomach tightened.

I put down my spork.

My brain snapped out of it as if wrenched from…a bear trap. Something was very wrong. I blinked hard again and shook my head, looking down at the congealing oatmeal. Didn’t I just eat that? Phuture News was now blank, and back to images of me staring at images of me staring at images of me staring at images of me.

The oatmeal was sputtering and bubbling in the bowl as steam issued forth from it.  I was standing back next to the fridge, holding the apple, about to shine it on my pajama leg. Wait a minute. Didn’t this just happen? I was déjà vuing hard, losing my grip. My chest tightened, and my breathing was labored. Jesus. I thought was I having a heart attack, or maybe a stroke. I smelled burnt toast.

“Wally!” I cried out. “Wally! Where the hell are you?”

Where the heck was he when I really needed the guy? Wasn’t he supposed to be watching out for me?

“Willy, calm down, everything is okay,” I heard Wally say, his voice soothing, but I couldn’t see him anywhere. “Don’t worry Willy, everything is fine. Calm down, your vitals are way off the chart. You’re probably feeling chest pain, it’s just anxiety. Your blood stream is flooding with cortisol and adrenalin. Take a deep breath, calm down.”

I took in a deep breath, held it, and slowly let it out.  My cheeks were flushed.

“Calm down,” I told myself, “calm down.”

Closing my eyes, I focused myself, and I could feel the stress begin to wash out. Suddenly I was lying down. Maybe Wally had helped me back to bed.

I could see myself lying still, lying absolutely calm. What was I just worrying about? Why worry about anything? Everything was so insignificant in the big picture. My head felt like cotton balls had been stuffed in through my ears, displacing my brain, and I had the curious sensation that I was wrapped in idiot mittens, determined somehow not to hurt myself or get lost.

In my mind’s eye I could see myself with my mother. She was bending over me, the arms of her sweater rolled up as she happily hummed some lullaby, giving me a bath in the chipped porcelain wash basin in our old family kitchen, back on the commune in Montana.

Through streaked windowpanes, I could see trees swaying outside under wet, windy skies. The cows in the field were huddling under the protection of the ponderosa pines that lined one side of our farm.  Beyond this, the dense forests stretched up into the foothills, with the snow-capped Rockies solidly framing it all.

It was cold outside, but warm in here. The steaming water was soaking into my little bones.  We were so happy together in this small moment of time, so precious. I heard the splash and tinkle of water as she lifted the wash cloth, the sounds echoing through time.

“How’s my silly Willy?” she laughed, tweaking my nose.

“Wally?” I asked, more calmly this time. “Wally, what is happening to me?  Where are you?”

I could sense Wally, but I couldn’t see him or hear him. Somehow though, I could feel him speaking to me.

“Willy, everything is okay,” I felt him say. “There’s something I need to tell you, though.”

I should’ve felt worried, but I didn’t.

“What? Go ahead, don’t worry.”

I felt like I already knew, even though I knew I didn’t.

“You’re part of something special, Willy.”

“Yeah, Wally, I know. The Atopia program, I got that.”

“Not just that, something more unique, something much more important.”

“Go on.”

I liked that. I’d always thought of myself as unique, like a small snowflake adrift in the wind, floating painlessly, soundlessly.

“You’re familiar with Schrödinger’s cat?”

“Sure.”

The old quantum physics thought experiment. An object in superposition can exist in more than one state. The cat in the box that is both alive and dead at the same time. For some reason Vince came to mind.

“It’s  now possible to enable quantum superposition not just with atoms, but on larger objects. Much larger objects in fact.”

“So what’s this got to do with me?”

Quantum physics needing a conscious observer had always annoyed me. It smacked of God hiring city workers to turn the cranks of the cosmos.