THE BOUNCE
Some things it is best not to understand.
I never thought I’d hear myself say those words. After all, I’m a scientist. Ha! That’s a laugh. Perhaps I should say, WAS a scientist. But no more …
‘The principle is simple,’ my colleague said as he surveyed the apparatus in the laboratory.
It was a valid experiment, of sorts.
It is known that tens of thousands of people disappear each year without trace, and he had a simple hypothesis for it:
‘Time is measured, and seeing it is measured, it is broken up into units. Now, is this simply a man made concept, or does time, indeed, have gaps between its units? I think the latter, and if so, can we disappear – bounce, as it were – out of our time and into a parallel universe running alongside this one, but occupying our space?’
He discovered a means of attempting to find out in the mysterious world of particle physics, where energy seems to exist in ‘packets’, or quanta, hence the term ‘quantum’. And as he set the machine in motion, and stood within its confines, I doubted his sanity in attempting to move beyond the time unit we experience himself.
Well, predictably, he disappeared. He simply dematerialized before my eyes, and I somehow knew I would never see him again.
Until, that is, that very night, when, awoken from my sleep, he stood before me, translucent.
It was soon apparent what had happened. Whether that parallel world existed, I don’t know. But I do know he now existed just out of time, forever unable to catch up.
As for me, I’m no longer a scientist, plagued always by his form, his echoing, far away screams, and the knowledge of my knowing that ghosts DO exist.
© Anthony North, April 2008
