Entanglement Happens
FLASH FICTION SUBMISSION
For the FFF submission challenge HERE
Entanglements are trouble. Yet, we all live in a quantum world where entanglement happens. Like shit happens. It doesn't end at Planck lengths, does it? Quantum rolls uphill for those astute enough to notice.
I do.
That scar on my eyebrow from childhood? I know my entangled double has the same one. Or did he get it, dooming me to fall on the corner of that coffee table?
Some find beauty in parallel phenomena. I find resentment. Is he as resentful of me as I am of him? I grow old of everything happening to both of us simultaneously. They say everyone has an "evil twin," but they've gotten it wrong. It's the twinning that evil, not either twin.
Quantum entanglement is evil because it's magic, and magic is inherently evil. Evil that upends common sense, tying two people together while they're just trying to mind their own business.
Where my story becomes noteworthy is that I actually encountered my entangled Doppelgänger. We each reached for the same book in a bookstore.
Each of us with a dominant right hand.
Sparks flew, because we exchanged electrons from shared orbital shells. We both dropped to the ground from the powerful jolt. Quite the hoopla: 9-1-1 was called; EMS revived both of us, simultaneously.
We were sat down in adjacent reading chairs. The manager came to us with cups of orange juice, imagining some hypoglycemia at work here. A little fructose sounded pretty good, apparently to both of us, for we each reached for a cup.
Me with my dominant right hand; he with his dominant left hand. We both smiled at each other, relieved, for we each realized, simultaneously, that we were no longer entangled.
Free. To live independent lives.
We each thanked the manager and after a few minutes arose from our chairs. We regarded each other and realized this was goodbye. To entanglement. To enslavement.
And hello free will!
"Are you guys twins?" the manager asked as we appeared to be going our own ways. "Shouldn't you go together and help each other?"
We each said, "I couldn't care less if he drops dead now."
What troubled me was that we said it simultaneously.
Private eye jinx!!!