Convergence Excerpt 1

This is a quick chapter from a story I'm writing. The point of this chapter is to explain a scientific phenomenon that plays heavily in the rest of the story. These characters will likely not be found anywhere else in the story.

Patrick Quinn was chewing up the classroom. He was absolutely feeling it. He always felt this way while teaching Special Subjects in Science at the Metropolitan Community College of Omaha, Nebraska. This course was a survey of what Patrick liked to call physics’ greatest hits. He loved it, even if he barely grasped certain aspects of physics himself. Tonight was relatively special, am I right folks? he thought. Then, as if someone had actually heard the joke, he explained, special relativity, relatively special. Bada bing!

The topic was the many worlds, many minds interpretations of quantum mechanics. Too bad there were only fourteen students in attendance. Too bad they had all tuned out already. Who was he kidding, they had never tuned in. In fact, all but two of them had failed the last exam, causing him to have to apply a very generous bell curve.

He looked into their glazed-over expressions, am I the only one who gets to hear this? he thought. He walked around the first row of narrow tables, slid one of the chairs over and gently rested his hindquarters on the edge of the table that, in a full class, would have been occupied as the front and center seat. That table—all of the classroom tables at MCC, really—was bowed in the middle. The two inverted T-shaped legs had been attached too far apart, and Patrick knew that if he ever sat in the middle of the table the bowing of the table under his girth, might be dangerous to his reputation. So he sat on the left edge of the table, the left edge of the table would hold him.

“The many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics postulates that there are large numbers of universes, perhaps an infinite number of universes.”

Patrick continued, “Because any type of process that in its basic state is an either/or scenario, somewhere in the universe both outcomes exist.” What he had just said was very difficult, and he had not stated it as clearly as he had wanted to. He waited for questions. There were no questions. So, he continued.

“For example, let’s say you’ve rigged some radio-active material to trigger a pistol to fire when the material decays. The radio-active material decays at the rate of about once every minute or so—causing your pistol to fire about once every minute or so. You stand in front of the pistol for one minute. What are the probable outcomes?” He wanted an answer from someone. “Jenna?” She had earned a 62 percent on the exam, one of the passers.

“Huh?” Jenna’s reply was disappointing.

“Anyone?” Patrick really wanted someone to make the connection without spoon-feeding it to them.

“You either live or you die,” Mark, 34 percent, called out from the back row.

“That’s right. Good.” Patrick paused to give Mark some positive reinforcement, One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, moving on. “According to the many worlds interpretation, both of those outcomes are recorded some how or—perhaps more accurately—somewhere in another universe.”

Jim, 12 percent, likely the dumbest of the lot tentatively raised his hand. Patrick tried to hide his surprise as he called on the lanky, unshaven young man, “Jim?”

“Yeah, um, so if I have, like, a yes or no question, then I can make both decisions?”

“You’re on the right track. What you have just described is, more or less, the many minds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Of course, in our part of the universe, the one that we can observe, you would make only one decision, but somewhere,” Patrick made a big hand gesture to indicate the vastness of multiple universes, “there is a version of you that would choose the opposite.”

Jenna, feeling her dominance of the curve slipping, jumped in, “So, let’s say I had a beautiful birthday cake, and I wanted to both eat it and keep it for display. The many worlds interpretation would allow me to have my cake and eat it too?”

“Funny.” Patrick was enjoying having others talk in the usually silent class, so he avoided punishing Jenna for her flippancy. “Generally, we think of these things more on the molecular level. But, I suppose that is a possibility.”

Jim’s hand again, a new record, Patrick thought.

“So, why can’t the universe record both decisions so we can see them?”

“Good question.” It actually was. “The reason for that is because we can’t observe from outside of our universe, to our observation, a wave function . . .”

Jesse, 39 percent, broke in, “can you define wave function?”

“Sure,” Patrick lied, “the wave function is a term used to describe the limitless possibilities of outcomes before an actual outcome becomes tangible.” Not bad, he thought to himself, for a definition pulled out of thin air. It might be close.

Patrick continued, “Because we can’t observe from outside of our universe, to our observation, the wave function collapses immediately when one of the possibilities actually happens. In other words, once one of the possible outcomes is realized all other outcomes disappear, or collapse, at least in our observable universe.”

“But what happens if the wave particle doesn’t collapse immediately?” Mark was feeling it too.

“The wave function, you mean.”

“Yeah, what happens if the wave function takes a minute or two to collapse? Is that possible?”

“Hmm, interesting idea.” This phrase has been used by many instructors throughout the history of academia to mean one of the following things: no, you are wrong, or you are an idiot.

“Let’s say,” Jim spoke again, “that a person has a way hard decision to make, like, so hard that he can’t eat or sleep or, you know, poop or whatever.” Patrick bit his lip, he wanted to laugh at the idea of a many poops interpretation of quantum mechanics, but Jim seemed quite serious, so he thought better of it. “Maybe, because humans are so, you know, complicated, could the wave particle, I mean, function maybe take some time to collapse? You know, in that case?”

Patrick stood, giving much relief to the bowed table’s left leg. He wanted to be careful in how he approached his answer, because he did not want to squelch the sprouting inquiry of these, what was the word? Oh yes, dumb students. “Um. That is an interesting idea, but I think it takes the interpretation a little too far. I am not saying it is beyond possibility, but I don’t know that it happens. The reason I can say that is because we have never observed it happening. We always, to my knowledge, can have only one outcome in that scenario, at least, in our observable universe.”

“That sucks,” Jim was truly earning his participation points tonight, another record, “’cause, I have a really hard decision to make, and I wouldn’t mind going both ways.”

“Well, ok.” Patrick was going to go there. He felt like he shouldn’t, but he was going to, “let’s imagine, just for the sake of argument, that your description of the many worlds, many minds interpretations actually works that way. How would it manifest itself?”

“He’d be, like, two people,” chimed Stacy, 45 percent.

“Both persons would be him,” Patrick pointed at Jim, “but they would also be completely separate, right?”

“Yep,” three students answered in chorus, 47, 44, and 42 percent, respectively.

“Ok. So, theoretically, these two new people could go about their lives separately and, in effect, would no longer be the same person. They would share DNA, family, name, social security numbers, memories up to the point of separation, and just about everything else, but they would be separate individuals.”

“Sounds like cloning to me. I bet my church is against you not choosing one or the other.” Patrick let himself laugh at Sam’s joke a little too hard probably, considering that Sam had scored a 34 percent on the exam.

“But it’s not not choosing, you know, it’s choosing both,” Jim continued, “and it would be cool to kind of monitor it and see which one worked out best and then after you’ve figured it out the wave function could collapse.”

“What would that wave function collapse look like?”

“I don’t know, just slap back together or something.”

Patrick was slightly veering off topic, but this line of thought was interesting to him, “But what if you can’t tell which decision ends up being the better one, or what if your two halves lose contact with each other?”

“I guess you just let them live their lives then.”

“Interesting, interesting theory, you might just be a physicist yet. Unfortunately, the wave function does collapse immediately.”

“Couldn’t it just give me one year? One year is more or less immediately compared to the age of the universe, right?”

“Yeah, I suppose it is. A hundred and fifty years is more or less immediate. Of course a hundred and fifty years would mean that the ‘slapping back together,’” Patrick used finger quotes to highlight Jim’s terms, “would happen four generations later. How exactly would that work?” No one had an answer for that question. “Good luck with it, Jim. Let me know if it works for you.”
Patrick then segued back into his lecture notes about the interpretation not meeting important requirements of Occam’s razor, and sullenly watched as his students segued back into their glazed-over expressions.

What Patrick, Jim, Jenna, Mark, and the rest would never know is that this class discussion had accurately described an actual and observable phenomenon that had taken place in Scotland, earlier that week. Unfortunately, none of the MCC students or staff knew, or had even ever heard of either of the Richard Murdocks—or is it Richards Murdock—that were now dealing with the unusual, but natural “slapping back together” of a collapsing wave function.

If they had known one of the two Richards, they might have been able to help explain that four generations ago one monumental decision had caused two outcomes that had sent one man on two paths simultaneously.

Winnipeg continued

Before you read, here is a link to part 1 of the story:
Winnipeg, the City: part 1


Part 2:

I looked at Elder Jones, and then back at this small man who had invited us in. I offered my hand, introducing myself. He took my hand, smiling at me with thin teeth.
“I’m Randy.” He said. “Randall Steinberger”.
I asked, “Have you met the elders before then?”
He spoke with a nostril pinched voice, cheerily high. His Rs were Ws and Hs. When he spoke, his features elevated on his face, wrinkling his oily forehead.
“Yeah, ohh, it must have been a year—year and a half ago. The elders would come over for taco dinner.”
I held up a Book of Mormon. “Did they ever give you one of these?”
“Oh gosh, I don’t know.”
I handed him the book. “You can have this one.” I told him and asked if we could share our message with him.
Eagerly he told me he believed in God and Jesus, and said he would like to hear our message. Jones fumbled in his bag, pulling booklets and flipcharts out, setting them face down on his knees, which held droplets of melted snow. I pulled my book from my blue standard issue MTC bag, and began the discussion.
“We’re out today sharing a message about our beliefs.” And spoke about the nature of God as a corporeal, everlasting being of infinite strength and wisdom and Mercy. When I finished I looked at Jones, realizing that this was his first time teaching. Panic choked me for a second, until he spoke.
“We also believe in Jesus Christ.” He spoke confidently, and I watched the red recede from his cheeks. We spoke of the Bible and its prophets. Flip-flopping topics, I asked if he’d ever heard of Joseph Smith. He nodded, but remained silent. I noticed the smell of the house had become a feeling. Sweat had begun to form on my back and stomach.
“What do you know about Joseph Smith?” I asked, unzipping my coat, and pulling it apart to reveal my white shirt and a green tie while I waited for his answer. He said he didn’t know much, but offered
“I remember he was a great man sent by God to spread his word.”
“Yes.” I confirmed for him. “He was a boy in the 1800’s who was caught at a time when there was a great religious revival. Along with the revival there was also a lot of confusion. Even within his own family people went to different churches all of whom said that they were right and that all the other churches were wrong.” I could feel my thermaled legs pulsing with heat. Individual hairs caught within the squeezing cords of the thermals. “But despite all the confusion he believed in the Bible and read it every night. One night while he was reading he came across a passage in James. Chapter one verse five. It said, ‘If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not and it shall be given him.’” I looked at Randy’s face as I had looked at many people’s faces as I told this story. His bottom eyelid was tucked up a little ways, his eyeballs pointed down toward my chest. His brow was furrowed.
“Joseph decided to take God’s promise. On a spring day in 1820 he went out to a small grove of trees. He knelt down and began to pray out loud. What happened next he says best in his own words. He said, “I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head above the brightness of the sun. When the light rested upon me I saw two personages whose brightness and glory defy all description standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name, saying, ‘this is my Beloved Son, hear him.’” I paused a moment. The dimness of the hot room was tactile. All around me were yellow brown walls and deflating furniture. The small TV sat opposite me on the far wall, antenna wrapped in tinfoil sticking up into the air. We sat quietly. The tobacco smell was in my throat. I could feel it wheedling into my pores and the weave of my clothing.
Randy looked up at me and finally spoke. “I finally get it.” His face flashed. “I’m the lamb! God is the Father. Jesus is the Savior. Joseph Smith is the prophet and I’m the Lamb. The Lamb of God.”
Sweat had huddled on his forehead. His smile created creases on his cheeks and his skinny teeth became a gradient in the dim light between the white of his tight smiling lips and the black of his open mouth-- his pink tongue flipping inside.
Jones said, “really?”
“Yeah! It’s my job to open the seven seals of the Apocalypse. The first seal was when the Berlin Wall fell. The last seal I opened when I commanded Oprah to say, ‘When you hate the hater, you become the hater.’
He became animated, standing up and going toward the back of the room, which led into his dining room where he paused suddenly, slumped a bit in the shoulders. He put his hand to his chin, and spun toward us. “The red are the communists. The yellow are the Chinese. And we’ll be living under rocks, literally under rocks in the last days. Don’t you see, these are the last days. Oprah was the sixth seal and there’s only one more to open before the last days.”
Jones, amused now, “What’s the last seal Randy?”
“I can’t tell you, because not even God’s angels know.” He walked back to us, sitting suddenly sodden onto the couch. “Oh, but their torturing me. They know that I like Whitney Houston, and they’ve got her. Have you seen her lately? She’s so skinny. That’s them, they’re torturing her to get to me.” He said torture, like turt-cher.
“Who’s torturing her?” elder Jones asked.
“The Communist! My mother’s one of them. She tortures me physically spiritually and mentally.”
“Why would the communists be after you?”
“They want my plans for space travel. I have the blueprints for a rocket ship in my brain. See, I was a child genius from the ages of one to three, I was a prodigy, but the Rockefellers wanted the plans, and uhh, I wish I could remember. You help me remember when you come over. It finally all makes sense when you’re here. Did you know I’m from America like you guys? I’m from New York State. But the Rockefellers were after my plans so we came to Canada. Like Mohammad the prophet, sometimes you have to take up the sword. Then you lay it back down when there’s peace.”
“Well, how do you know your mom’s a communist?” Jones asked.
“I can read her micro-facial expressions.” Abruptly he stood. This time pacing in front of us, back and forth, biting the tip of his left index finger. His eyes narrowed to slits, his jaw muscles flexing and loosing. His hair bobbed stiffly as he pivoted on his heels back and forth. The wood floor beneath him clapped with his bare-footed steps. Jones and I looked at each other; both thinking it was time to go.
“Randy” I began.
Broken from his trance, “Welp, thanks for coming over guys.” His face snapped back into the wreath of welcome we’d seen when we arrived. We both stood, zipping coats, sliding our packed bags over our shoulders as we rose. At the door we stopped to shake his hand. Jones asked, “Do you think we’re communists?” He looked at us with quickly desperate eyes, watery, his brows lowered. I realized he was quite a bit shorter than either Jones or myself, maybe to our shoulders. He looked-- slump-shouldered, bent-postured, with his hand clapped to his forehead-- like a bent wire hanger. His hair made a wave above his gray hairy hand.
“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
Jones looked at him in the eye, and after a small moment of silence said, “We’re not communists. You can trust us. I promise.”
Then we turned, finding the door openable from the inside, and stepped back out into the snow. The world left to us as it was, except the sun had sunken lower along the horizon. Shadows were long now, making blue weightless trees and mailboxes stretch out like slumbering babies on the snow. We followed our paths back to the compressed ice of the sidewalk. No buses came our way, but we both, without words turned toward home and began walking. We turned north off Jamison onto Brazier Street. We walked up, past Washington, Ottawa and Winterton Avenues all the way to Donalda. Brazier took a jog here, and we trudged west a couple streets out to Henderson highway, where buses were frequent. Along Henderson we tried to stop a few people to give books or cards to, but the few people out were too cold to stop and we were both lost in our thoughts. I walked in front of Jones, feeling the rub of my bag against my right hip starting to chafe. The wind was at our backs now as we walked northward toward our small brown apartment. It needled my naked ears, making them stiff.
We got all the way up to the powder blue apartment complex snugged between Bronx and Kimberly Avenues before we finally felt a bus shuffling up behind us. Then, despite our frozen joints, and bouncing book bags we broke into a sprint. Our feet skidded and slipped under us as we ran toward the thin metal post with the black bus outline and the thick orange T. We watched Helmsdale and Oakview and Hazel Dell Avenues slide by and I imagined the wind outside my window as a man with small eyes a long sharp nose and a tiny mouth twisted in frustration trying to get into the bus. The snow on the road flipped from behind the tires of the cars ahead, black from the layers of sand and dirt dropped on it for traction. Massive wiper blades swished silently at the flecks of black that hit the enormous square windows in the front of the bus. Black residue caked just outside the reach of the wipers drying there like black paint.
We stopped just after the loose elbow at Leighton Avenue in front of the Northdale Shopping Center and waited. To our left, across Henderson Highway, was Fraser’s Grove. It was a tiny street I’d tracted one time before Jones came. A man lived on that street who said we could come back. When we returned he wasn’t there.
The bus moved on, sliding up past Rosemere Plaza where we did our volunteer work with a group of seniors, and past Hawthorne and Edison. Finally we swayed to a stop on Springfield where we stepped off. Another block up we turned east on Sutton Avenue and then left again half a block later on Donwood Drive. I looked at my clock. It was a quarter to five. We went in the back way, up the three flights of stairs and down the white cinderblock hallway to our door.
Randy called us a few times during the next couple of months we lived in that apartment. Sometimes he’d tells us he’d “done somthin’ good”. Sometimes he’d call worried about Communists and Rockefellers. Once he called to tell us about his idea for curing 99 percent of all mental and emotional illness. He called it Good Anonymous. The concept was simple, drive somewhere remote, a cabin or a clearing in the woods somewhere. Then sit in a circle, facing inwards so that you can make eye contact easily. Then you wait. You wait for someone to say something either smart or nice. Then, you say to that person, “that was a very smart thing you just said.” Then, the person who said the smart thing responds to his/her complimenter, “thank you, that was a very nice thing you just said.” It could, from the description, go on like this forever.
After listening to the explanation on speakerphone, Elder Jones said, “Randy, that is a very smart idea you just had.”
“Well thank you, and that was a very nice thing you just said.”
“Thanks Randy, that was a very nice thing you just said.”
Randy’s voice began to elevate, tapping tinny on our phone with his emphasis. “Well thanks! That was a very nice thing you just said.”
“Thank you, and that was a nice thing you just said.” Jones remained even toned, but syrupy, his standard voice for Randy.
“Well thank you, and that was a very nice thing you just said.”
“Thanks, and that was a nice thing you just said.”
With this last compliment Randy broke up into a joyful giggle. “Stop,” He finally said, “you’re makin’ me laugh.”
Randy called on a Sunday night in late January at about eleven. I heard the phone ring in the living room as I lay in my bed, just tipping off the edge of a poignant liminal thought. Listening to the quiet noises of our apartment usually put me into the kind of trance that leads to sleep and lost genius. Pipes running, fridge buzzing, and the heater’s weak clank-clank-wuzzle sound as it started up. Jones breathing. Outside--nothing. The phone rang again, clearly audible but not so loud as to wake up Jones. I pulled out of my stupor, slipped out of bed, and became instantly chilled. Pulling my blanket around my shoulders I padded out into the living room suddenly felt ready for sleep.
“Hello,” I said into the phone tersely.
“Hey, it’s me guys. Randy. Guys. I’m scared.” His nasal voice pitched up on scared. “I think they’re really gonna get me this time. I think they’re really gonna get me this time.” I could hear tears slide down his cheeks. I could hear the red edges of his nostrils and the limp sweat-damp strands of his hair.
“I’m really scared,” He repeated.
“Randy, are there people at your house right now?” I didn’t know what else to ask him.
“No. But I can feel them coming. I think they’re watching me right now. I’m really scared.” His voice became hoarse. My body felt heavy, the phone felt heavy.
“I think they’re really gonna get me this time.”
“Randy, can I read something out of the scriptures to you? Something that Joseph Smith wrote after he’d been taken to prison?”
“I’m really scared, they’re gonna get me this time.”
“Randy, can you listen for a minute? It says, ‘My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;”
“I’m scared.”
“I know Randy. ‘If thou art accused with all manner of false accusations; if thine enemies fall upon thee. If they tear thee from the society of thy father and mother and brethren and sisters; and if with a drawn sword thine enemies tear thee from…’ losing my place I summarized, “well, your family”, and then picked up at ‘by the sword., and thou be dragged to prison and thine enemies prowl around thee like wolves for the blood of the lamb;’
Randy sniffed and smacked his mouth on the other end of the line, and I wondered if he still listened or if he’d fallen completely into his own mind.
“And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son,” I paused. “Know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good. The son of Man hath descended below them all. Are thou greater than he? Thy days are known, and thy years shall not be numbered less; therefore, fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever.”

the story continues here