Chasing Schrödinger’s Cat - A Steampunk Novel

Chasing Schrödinger’s Cat

By
Tom Hourie

Iron Ring Communications Ltd.

431
Brookmill
Road, Unit 1

Oakville, ON

Canada L6J 5K6

Published by Iron
Ring Communications Ltd. 2011

ISBN
978-0-9812376-2-6

Copyright
©
Tom Hourie 2010

 
“If a
man could pass
thro
’ Paradise in a Dream, & have
a flower presented to him as a pledge that his Soul had really been there,
& found that flower in his hand when he awoke - Aye? and what then?”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Chapter I:

Unicorns,
Moles, Weasels and Sloths

I
have had more than my share of leisure moments while soldiering in
the trenches of academia.
 
I often use
such intermissions to ponder life’s great questions:
 
Are time and space an illusion?
 
Do we all share the same essence?
 
Can you really make a bomb from non-dairy creamer
and if so why do they serve it on airplanes?

It was during one such interlude
that I came up with The Zoological Academic Classification System (ZACS) which
divides post-graduates and professors into four animal species.

The first group I call the Unicorns.
 
They have inquiring minds and a genuine
thirst for knowledge.
 
They discover
cures for cancer and new uses for soybeans.
 
I call them Unicorns, because I have never seen one.

Second are the mole people.
 
Mostly male, they spent high school getting
wedgies
and pink bellies.
 
For them, higher education is a way of distancing themselves from their
former tormentors.
 
They wear glasses and
could make an experiment out of a shoelace and a ball of tofu.

Third are the Weasels.
 
By far the most numerous, they spend their
days jockeying for position in the University Caucus Race.
 
It is these people Kissinger was talking
about when he said
“academic politics are so vicious
precisely because the stakes are so small.”

And
lastly, there are the Sloths, of whom I am one.
 
We Sloths suffer from LPD or Lazy Personality Disorder.
 
For us, university life is a kind of Big Rock
Candy Mountain.

Where research
grants grow on trees

And tenure comes

Just for showing
up

And you do just as
you please

We sloths
believe that if a job is worth doing, it is worth doing later.

Which is
how I came to be settling into a contour-adjustable bed at the University of
Southern Washington Sleep Center while a technician named George attached
electrodes to my head, a procedure that would leave me looking like Pinhead
from the
Hellraiser
movies.
 
I had always been proud of getting the
Regent’s Advisory committee to let me do my thesis on The Ontological Aspects
of Lucid Dreaming.
 
I even got some grant
money, not a lot, but some.
 
Imagine
getting paid to sleep.

“Think
you’ll get liftoff tonight?” George asked when he was finished.

“Hope
so,” I said.
 
“Insomnia is a poor
qualification for a sleep researcher.”

“Guilty conscience?”

“Lack of guts more like,” I
said.
 
“You wouldn’t believe some of the
weird stuff my subconscious has been kicking out lately.”

Chapter
II:

The Blind guy from Star Trek
– Mind games

I
fired up my
Lucidream
Goggles as
soon as George had finished doing his stuff.
 
The goggles are my own design and look like the ones the blind guy wears
in Star Trek.
 
They appear impressive but
their functions are pretty simple.
 
First
of all they act as a head-mounted display and show me the output of my
computer.
 
Nothing special there.
 
You can buy the same thing at
Wal
Mart.
 
But they
also have a biofeedback circuit that lets me control my circadian rhythms.
 
And as a final touch they send out a series
of faint light pulses once I’m in REM sleep.
 
The idea is that the lights will cue me to the fact that I’m dreaming so
that I can take control of the dream.
 
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

I have a standard routine I go
through at the sleep center.
 
I start by
playing a few games of Tetris.
 
Except I
don’t use a mouse to control the falling blocks, I use George’s electrodes to
transmit my brain impulses to the computer.
 
I am getting better although my reaction times still need work.

Then I work through a series of
relaxation exercises and finish off with a kind of mantra.
 
I touch the goggles and repeat the following
words five times:
 
“When I sense the
flashing lights, I will know I am dreaming and I will control my dream.”

And then I wait.

Chapter
III:

Women’s’ Suffrage
– A Calico Cat

T
he dream
was familiar.
 
I was walking slowly down
a distorted version of a rundown Edwardian street somewhere in East End London.
 
It was almost evening and the gas lights had
just sputtered into life, illuminating a painted streetwalker leading a nervous
customer by the hand, two drunks arguing noisily on the steps of a gin palace
and a blue-helmeted policeman selecting a free apple from a barrow, despite its
proprietor’s resentful scowl.

The
policeman had just lifted the fruit to his mouth when a strident female cry
added itself to the hubbub.

“Get
The Englishwoman’s Review
.
 
Support the cause of women’s suffrage.
 
Votes for women!!”
 
The speaker was a stylish young female in a
linen duster who looked commandingly out at the world from beneath a
broad-brimmed, veiled hat.
 
Her face was
too long to be described as beautiful but the combination of her raven hair, lively
hazel eyes and full mouth made up for the deficiency.
 
She was standing precariously on a small
folding stool while waving a pamphlet with her left hand.

The
policemen ponderously approached the woman and addressed her in a patient baritone.
 
“Now then miss,” he said.
 
“Move along.
 
You’re upsetting the neighborhood.”

“Do you
think you alone are entitled to the vote, just because you’re a man?” she
said.
 
“Votes for women!”

“Please
move along, there’s a nice young miss.
 
Don’t cause a disturbance.”

“I am
entitled to sell my wares on this street, just like the vendor from whom you
stole that apple.
 
And I am not
‘miss.’
 
I am ‘my lady.”

“That’s
as may be,” the policeman said coloring at the word ‘stole.’
 
“You may be entitled to sell your newspaper,
but you are not entitled to cause a public disturbance, which is what you are
doing.”

“Another
example of official persecution.
 
I am
breaking no law!”

“You are
creating a disturbance.
 
Now move along
or else.”

“Or else
what?” she said holding out her hands.
 
“Go ahead, handcuff me.”

“Sarah,”
said a different voice.
 
“This may not be
the appropriate time.”
 
An older woman in
a gray frock coat had appeared from the crowd of onlookers.
 
She gathered up the young woman’s newspapers
and vanished into the crowd.

Deprived
of her
raison d'être
, the young
suffragette seemed to reconsider her pursuit of martyrdom.
 
She quickly folded her stool and stormed off.

With her
departure, the crowded street became insubstantial and I was alone, except for
a man with
brilliantined
hair and a pencil-thin
moustache standing in front of a shop whose gilt-lettered sign proclaimed it to
be Schrödinger’s
Esoterica
.

“A very
handsome young woman, our suffragette,” the man said, reaching up to stroke a calico
cat sitting on his shoulders.
 
“Why
don’t you come in?” he asked, gesturing toward his shop’s open door.
 
“You will catch your death of cold out here.”

I looked
down and saw that I was naked.
 
I was not
embarrassed, but I did feel the need for clothing.
 
I became aware of a pulsing light shining
from behind the shop’s grimy, mullioned windows.
 
“I am dreaming,” I said.
 
“I am in control.
 
I will go to the man with the cat.”
 
I felt a glow of inner satisfaction as I
began walking toward Schrödinger’s
Esoterica
.
 
Maybe my research wasn’t such a crock after
all.

The
shopkeeper’s cat remained hunched on his owner’s shoulder as I approached.
 
The animal peered suspiciously at me from
bright yellow eyes set into a scarred face that was an odd mixture of white and
orange tabby.

“I have been looking forward to your reappearance,” the man said in a
low-pitched, raspy voice.

“I like your cat
,” I said.
 
“Can I hold her?”

“Why do you think my cat is female?” the man asked as he passed the cat
over to me.

“Genetics.
 
She’s calico and calico
cats are always female.
 
Males only have
one X chromosome.”

“Max and his many lady friends can assure you he is entirely male,” the
man said.
 
“What is a chromosome?”

I scratched the cat’s tattered ears and attempted to examine his genitals
while holding his collar, a rainbow-striped thing that looked like a computer
ribbon cable with a small glass ornament attached.
 
The cat was unimpressed and bit my right
hand.

I would have liked to continue my conversation with the shopkeeper but my
Lucidream
goggles had other ideas and began sending
me a series of light pulses accompanied by a high pitched humming sound.
 
I woke to find myself alone in the darkened
sleep center with nothing to show for my dream except the glass ornament from
the cat’s collar and a stream of blood dripping from two deep puncture marks on
my right hand.

Chapter IV:

My
Thesis
Obstructor
– The New Chancellor – An Ominous Letter

Y
ou remember
what I said about University Weasels?
 
My
thesis advisor Dr. Ross Percival is a perfect example of the genus.
 
No I take it back.
 
There is a big difference between Ross
Percival and a weasel.
 
One is a sneaky
predator that smells worse than a skunk and feeds on lesser creatures; the
other is a small northern mammal.

The USW post graduate students’
handbook says an advisor’s role is ‘to advance the student’s development
through interpersonal engagement that facilitates guidance, experience and
expertise.’
 
What it forgets to mention
is that the role of the student is similar to that of an indentured servant.

“Bob,
do you think you could just glance through my article on The Relationship
Between Allergic Rhinitis and Sleep Apnea?”
 
Translation:
 
Spend your weekend
correcting the proofs of my article.

“Could
you save me a trip to the library and check out any material you can find on
upper airway resistance and menopausal status?”
 
Translation:
 
Act as my unpaid and
uncredited
research
assistant.

I had no choice but to go
along.
 
He had me by the cojones until my
thesis had been accepted.

I
t was a
Thursday, the day after my encounter with the calico cat.
 
I was sitting in the hall outside Ross
Percival’s office, waiting for Mary Lou Bernstein to finish giving him a blow
job.
  
She does that regularly, hoping it
will fast track her though graduate school.
 
I have news for her.
 
Percival’s
the kind of guy who will have her rewriting her thesis forever, just so that he
can keep enjoying her services.

You might be wondering how I know
about Mary Lou and Percival, like have I been spying on them or something.
 
The truth is everybody knows about them.
  
As with any small closed society, it’s hard
to keep secrets in a university.

Sure enough, Percival’s door opened
after I had been waiting about ten minutes and Mary Lou Bernstein came out.
 
 
She
was a good-looking woman in a zaftig, Queen
Latifah
kind of way.
 
I had once considered
asking her out but had discarded the idea, telling myself it was because I
didn't need any more problems with Percival.
 
Right now she was wiping tears away with the heels of her hands.
 
No way she wanted to get spots on her silk
Hermes scarf, a red-white-and blue creation displaying the French motto
Liberté
,
égalité
,
fraternité
.
 
Yup
, I thought,
he’s asked for another rewrite
.
 
I waited a few more minutes to give Percival time to compose himself and
then I knocked on his door.

A quarter of an hour later I had
finished telling my advisor about my recent sleep session and was waiting for
the putdowns that were sure to follow.
 
I
didn’t have long to wait.

“Bob, let me see if I understand you
correctly,” Percival said,
steepling
his
fingers.
 
“You feel you are now in a
position to present your thesis because you have physical proof of a link
between the dream state and the waking world.”

“As real as these wounds on my
hand,” I said, waving my injured member.

“My dear Mister
Liddel
,”
Percival said, waving his hand dismissively.
 
“I scarcely think the dissertation committee is likely to accept your
word as to the source of a few minor injuries which they might suspect were
self-induced.”
 
He stopped to wait for my
denial but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.
 
“I must confess I have never been comfortable
with your topic of research,” he continued finally.
 
“Had it not already been approved by my
predecessor, I doubt I would have accepted it.”

 
“
I
believe in it,” I said.

“But it is rather a grab bag, isn’t
it?” Percival said, peering malevolently at me through rimless glasses.
 
“Post Hypnotic suggestion, new age
spectacles, alternate dimensions.
 
It’s
all rather nineteen seventies, if you don’t mind my saying.”

 
“It’s taken up three years of my life,” I
said.
 
I could feel a knot of
apprehension growing in my stomach.

“Don’t worry,” he said.
 
“I won’t pull the plug on you, but others
may.”

“What others?”

“As you are aware, our university
has a new chancellor, Conrad Lord.”

“Of course I am.
 
Isn’t there some kind of welcoming reception
tomorrow night?”

“Indeed there is,” he said.
 
“It will be my chance to find out if rumors
are correct.”

“What rumors?”

“Early reports indicate Chancellor
Lord is intent on making our University more relevant.
 
He has little patience for what he calls
academic woolgathering.”

“Meaning me?”

“Let’s just say that you would do
well to complete your research and defend your thesis sooner rather than
later.”

“What do I need to wrap it up?”

“You mentioned a male calico cat,”
Percival said, with ill-concealed malice.
 
“Perhaps if you could produce such a genetic curiosity, the committee
might be more impressed.
 
Oh, and one
other thing.
 
The next time you are in
the library do you think you could…?”

I
had an
ulterior motive for wanting to present my thesis.
 
There had been a letter waiting for me
earlier that day at Mrs.
Gridestone
’s
.
 
Mrs. G
had been holding on to it for me so that she could take the opportunity to remind
me my rent was due.

“Not to worry,” I told her.
 
“I’m expecting a bequest from my Aunt Edna
any day now.”

“Is she unwell?”

“She is in constant pain.”
 
I didn’t mention that Aunt Edna was only
three years older than me and the pain in question was muscle soreness left
over from running the Boston Marathon.

The letter was from the medical
director at the Duke University
Neurodiagnostic
Laboratory who had made me a conditional offer of a research fellowship three
months earlier.
 
It was straight and to the
point.
 
“We expect you to be in a
position to accept our offer within eight weeks or it will be revoked,” it
said.

In other words, ‘get off your ass
and finish your PhD or go fly a kite.’