Love in Retrospect

He stood looking out across the Stadt Park; back in Vienna after so many years. He remembered it had been about this time of year. The skies were overcast, and a fine mist meandered through the park. The damp cold seemed to find ways to seep through his sweats as he jogged along the wet path, hop-scotching puddles. Russian crows were strutting through the carpet of leaves bordering the footpath. They flew to bare branches complaining in loud cacaws at his intrusion. He had stopped, hands on knees, catching his breath. He couldn’t stop thinking of her despite trying to run himself into unconsciousness.

Back at the K&K Hotel, he'd showered and dressed. He was early. She’d invited him to dinner . “Christmas dinner,” she’d said, although it wasn’t yet Christmas, and they wouldn’t spend Christmas together, ever, as it turned out. He'd paced the room for as long as he could stand it, and then left for her flat on Operngasse.

Garlands of lights were being strung across Kartnerstrasse. A tree had already been placed in the middle of the broad walk. On the Graben, workmen were struggling to erect a set of huge stars. The up-scale stores were setting up their Christmas decorations. He’d be leaving Vienna for Istanbul first thing in the morning. He'd miss the displays, the Kris Kringle Markt, and the caroling. And although he didn't know it at the time, he'd never again see the only woman he’d ever truly loved.

Yo Yo Ma: Elgar Cello Concerto, First Movement

with Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago SO in this performance from 1997

What's "Real" in the Story, Double Blind?

In my short story, Double Blind, the father of Jason, the boy afflicted with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, is a senior optomechanical engineer from CALTECH, who is fascinated with something called Bell’s Theorem, which is described in the story as, "a highly esoteric mathematical proof showing that if the statistical predictions of quantum theory are correct, then some of mankind’s commonsense ideas about the world are profoundly mistaken."

In our perception of physical reality, action on one particle of a widely separated entangled pair cannot instantaneously alter the physical state of the faraway partner particle. This “locality” is a condition requiring the value assigned to an operator associated with an individual particle or constituent of a composite system to be independent of what is measured on any other particle or constituent. More simply, locality is the principle that an event which happens at one place can not instantaneously affect an event someplace else. But John S. Bell, a staff member of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) proved otherwise in a ground-breaking paper published in 1964.

Several years after quantum mechanics had been developed, Einstein, Poldolsky, and Rosen published a paper showing that under certain circumstances quantum mechanics predicted the breakdown of locality (the 1935 paper has become known by the initials of its authors, EPR). Bell later proved this to be the case and locality ceased to exist -- what happens somewhere in space-time can instantaneously affect what happens somewhere else in space time. Einstein called this “spooky action at a distance,” and indeed, it is.

So Bell's Theorem is real. Why did I include it in the story? Because something happened to Jason during his wanderings in the shrub stepp that cannot be explained within our common understanding of reality. We just can't accept the idea that Jason's encounter in the shrub steppe could be the result of "entangled particles," one effecting the other simultaneously in space-time. But there's clearly a lot about "reality" that we know very little about.

Jabberwock, by Lewis Carroll

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

The Green Fields of France, by the Fureys and Davey Arthur

The Fureys are an Irish male folk band. They also sometimes record as the The Fureys and Davey Arthur.

Swallowed by the Darkness

Clumps of grey cloud scudded across a metallic sky

In the west, ribbons of brilliant pink and orange slashed the sky like fire

I walked towards a faint light in the sky where the moon tried to escape

An encroaching embrace of dark clouds

Only to be finally swallowed by the darkness

My breath came in strangled gasps as I tried to increase my pace

But something -- weeds in the overgrown yard perhaps

Seemed to grab at my feet and ankles

Bare feet, cold in the grey mud

Leeches dropping from the chartreuse canopy to slither down my neck

And puncture my pulsating arteries

I paused at the steps, staring up at the grey shamble of a porch

The front screen door swung wildly in the wind

Banging and screeching like some trapped beast

On the Eastern Front, gigantic elk stood

Silhouetted against artillery flashes

I ran at them swinging my scythe at their obscene racks

Struggling up the steps

I reached out to stop the screen crashing

Ragged edges of screen tore the skin from my hand

And I watched as swollen blue veins on the top of my hand

Spurted fresh, red blood, along my forearm

So much blood

The steely smell of it

Its thick, gooey feel

My heart slammed against my chest

And great gouts of sweat burned my eyes

I knew I would go in there

And I did

And there I am

Swallowed by the darkness

All is Vanity

Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work.

I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return.

Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him?