Sci-Fine Summer

CW: Pseudoscience, fiction and speculation.

DISCLAIMER: This piece is entirely a product of the author’s imagination and should not be used as a basis for any scientific forum.

I sat reclining into the comfy back of an old deck chair, watching the golden glamor of sunset in the far horizon. Water rippled and shimmered in the sting of fading twilight light. My weary eyes skied up the optical illusion of a massive ascent of the ocean up to where it exchanged kisses with the heavens. Helios, the god of the sky, was riding at the back of his fiery chariot, returning to his fortress after blessing the mortals with life. The sun just had something about it, like a supernal, irresistible pull that dug its talons deep into the heart. Like the Grand Master, when he calls you answer…

“God, I hate having to think so hard.” I cursed vehemently as I crossed the fifth start to a summer story I was trying in vain to compose. I snatched a coffee cup swiftly and felt the itchy irritation at the back of my chest upon realization that it was empty. Two or three more dry cups were strewn across the study table in a messy crisscross that left a dozen pockmarks over the smooth treated tabletop. Competitions always took a toll on me, fried my insides, set my stomach churning and kept my brains ablaze. Yet another week on the calendar, I liked checking out all my appointments and this was by far the most rarifying.

“Maybe if you chopped the thinking down a notch, you could get your story straight.” That would be Ella, my stubborn little sister. She was like a year or two- maybe three younger; I have never been good with numbers, I’d have to check her ID. She did all the nagging and pestering in the house, she could be a real pain in the neck this one. Still I wouldn’t tread her for any other sister; her imperfections were the yin that completed my yang.

“What would you know about it Miss. Painter?” I wrapped my fiery shot in a dense bundle of frustration and fired back. She did painting, all kinds really. She’d started off with little graffiti paintings on walls back in the hood, in alleys and staircases at school. Now she was a professional artist with a shop downtown and a hotline. I would never stop bullying her over that. I knew at the back of my mind she had talent, but my job as a brother was to piss her off. And I was really good at it. ‘Painting is not a real thing, look for a career already, would you?’ I would blurt mindlessly. She always had a counter for me, even against astronomical odds. Far as my recollection could stretch we had always ended up in a draw.

“I may not be a writer but I know about art, and I paint with my heart, not my brain. That’s why my new label will be Hearty Art, coming up in a heartbeat.” She said as she reached for the milk jar, a girlish smile hanging around on her cherry face for a second.

“Yeah that is a really cute bundle of far-fetched fantasy sis, check with me when you find a real job.” Ouch! I could feel the sting, the chilly feel of twinges springing painfully through her like L-waves from a tremor.

“Says the pot to the kettle, why don’t you update me on the award you win from that jumbled up piece of crap, huh?” She stomped off, I felt bad about most of the stuff I had said. Maybe I shouldn’t have said them; maybe I should have been nicer. After all ours was the only relationship that would last our whole lives- or something like that. A couple of times our natural gripe had morphed into a stinky sour sore. Parts may have flown, and we had had to take it up to a higher power- dad.

A stray brainwave pinged through my brain. What if she was right? What if all I needed was a spoonful of passion, a pint of goodwill and a modicum of candor? A light grin, touched with the serene glow of a butterfly, perched itself on my lips as I tore up the page and set my ballpoint against the clean sheet. I swiped right and momentarily ignited my brain, and then off I went rowing that summer yacht.

‘Row… row… row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily… merrily… merrily…’ Ella’s angelic melodies wafted from the lower deck of Allyson Shire as the 1998 heavy duty Cruiser made its way down the Gulf Stream at a steady twenty knots. The pristine rhyme from kindergarten seemed to unearth a sack of memories so raw and wry. I lazed over the deck, glass of red wine in my hand and oversize sunglasses sitting over the brim of my nose just for fun. Towards the starboard side the crimson glow of the sun was a welcome spectacle. Port side there was nothing but sheer glory of the ocean, straddling out of earshot and living up to the seventy percent mark. The incessant whirring of the propeller as it diced the saline seas filled the astronomical void of sound deficit in the ethereal expanse. It was a welcome sight for sore eyes. Silence can be a real horror some times. I let my thoughts wander off into the turbulent spread of the ocean, scores of thoughts slapping against the back of my head as Allyson Shire ate up the distance steadily. A wave of peace washed by and soaked me wet, my face lightening up and dripping joy. I really needed this vacation, away from the unapologetic rush of the world.

Heavy footsteps sauntered lazily up the stairs. I lowered my glasses dramatically and saw it was my old man. He was coming out of his bridge, located somewhere amidships. Even though this was a leisure boat, he treated it like a navy vessel, having retired from the Navy a while back. So he would bark orders around the bridge like, ‘OOD come to bearing oh five eight and lock on Tango with birds.’ He would then play the officer on duty, ‘OOD aye coming to bearing oh five eight and locking on target with birds.’ It was enthralling really, him putting up a show, knowing we were listening. Aboard Allyson Shire Ella was a Lieutenant and I was XO. So at some point we were bound to hear things like, ‘Kitchen this is the bridge, Lieutenant Ella be advised a hostile enemy is inbound from bearing one eight zero relative. I think it is the enemy we faced yesterday, hunger. Arm torpedo sausages and stand by for orders on delivery, how copy?’ Ella’s shrilly laugh would ring through the comm unit, acknowledging the order. ‘It is a solid copy captain, standing by with armed torpedo sausages.’

When he got to the top of the deck, he was out of breath, panting like he’d raced after us from the docks. Age was really starting to catch up with him.

“You feeling okay? You look a little… old.” I said in jest as I pulled a deck chair for him. He gave a crooked, tired smile as he lounged heavily on the seat, a vertebra clicking into place.

“It’s beautiful out here, no?” He observed, gazing out into the open waters. I nodded slowly, feeding all the variables nature offered into the equation of eternal beauty. The output was a dazzling, aesthetic appeal to the inner senses. Nature was one giant oven, with a lot of systems cooking in there, churning and mixing in some mind-boggling balance of forces.

“Am so glad you did this for us dad. No other summer can blow a candle to this one.” I unraveled a little gratitude from the rich depths of my heart. My dad had almost always been at sea long as I remembered, the sea was his home. While Ella and I were touring here, exploring new territory, he was just revising old notes. In our few days as boatswains we had learnt a lot. I was especially exhilarated about the science recaps we had daily on the deck. Everyone had to share a science fun-fact that they knew. Two early and lazy birds had already perched on the back of the fig tree, now only one kingfisher was at large. It wouldn’t be long though, only a couple of ticks had elapsed on the ship's chronometer and the beautiful blue bird was always on… there she was!

Ella appeared around the steel door, a tray of snacks steaming in her hands. Her obsession with Chinese food was stratospheric lately. She was a superb cook, dad was better though. I flailed somewhere in between. Her online tutors were really doing an awful job in matters to do with Sushi though. As far as snaky snacks went, hers didn’t taste anything like noodles. We kept our comments to ourselves though. So after she had found her seat the fun facts began. She went first.

“So I was reading this ancient script and I’d found out that there was a guy, Copernicus something, who could remember his past life.” She started, a characteristic smile pasted like a wall paper on her vibrant face. She went ahead to elaborate in details and diagrams that the past life is not really a life on earth that one cannot recall. It may be a life on a parallel world somewhere that exists even as she spoke. It has been scientifically proven that light travels lots of parsecs to reach us from the outer edge of the quantifiable universe. Additionally the universe is expanding from the force of the Big Bang. In light of that, technically if you traveled at the speed of light to reach the edge you’d be traveling back in time. It is believed the particles on the edge of the expanding universe are the primordial constituents of the singularity from which the universe was born. If you somehow managed to get a hold of one of these particles, you’d have gone back fourteen billion years. Assuming Earth is one of the particles sitting peacefully on the edge of one rapidly expanding bubble, there could be a copy of it on the other side. Actually billions of such particles could exist, with initial conditions exactly as that during earth’s formation which may have led to exact copies of you and me. There could be billions of copies, you only need to cross an unimaginably vast cosmic chasm to reach them- in so doing you’d be going back in time to another life where you exist.

She sipped her lemonade and sighed, then looked up and spread love with her beaming smile all over the place.

“Well that is a lot of science baby girl, more speculations than facts but it is fun.” Said dad, his brown eyes gazing into space for a second. He was probably wondering what kind of crap his kids were reading these days.

“I have a feeling in my past life I was your dad” I told Ella who twitched her mouth in a grimace. I laughed and perused through my memory packages to find something scientific to confuse these folks with. Ahem! This was gonna be fun.

“Hi there, for my fun fact today I will talk about quantum technology.” I started. So according to a Sci-Fi novel by someone anonymous there are infinite dimensions in both directions on the Cartesian plane. The observable universe has up to four dimensions, Length, Width, Height and Time. Time is kind of woven in a convoluted knot with the first three and possibly the rest of the dimensions. So towards the negative side of the Cartesian plane we have the quantum realm where energy reduces exponentially. This is the realm of microscopic particles like the atom. So the universe we can see is normal space, then there are higher dimensions and then we have the quantum realm. Quantum technology utilizes the principle of quantum entanglement, which basically involves two subatomic particles communicating without a physical medium. Quick example; if a particle, say you dad, on one of Ella’s earths on the edge of the cosmic bubble trips and the other you on the other side of the bubble falls, that’s entanglement. Sorry I realize the example is more literal than… anyway quantum computers are being developed today and they work on this principle. Through quantum computing we can predict the quantum state of a particle, say dad B on the other side by using the state of dad A. If dad A trips we can conclude that the other poor dad is gonna fall. This is actually what they call a spooky action; it beats logic- Einstein’s logic in all fronts.

Basically instead of using a binary physical state, which we call bits, they use the quantum state which was termed qubits. Best of hackers are so renowned because they can work around the slowness of classical computers in predicting the physical state. They will have a problem doing that with quantum computers because no human mind can out-think a quantum computer. Can you imagine the speeds involved when a message sent across a universe is received instantly? Such is the power of quantum mechanics.

I looked around and a smirk found its way effortlessly onto my face. Boy, I had really confused them. I deserved a drink. It took a moment for their minds to wander back from across the universe and maybe higher dimensions. ‘I especially have a thing for the eta band, lots of science happen there.’ A thought had popped up in my speeding mind and broadened my smile. I had broken the messy science for them into a basic food for thought. I wouldn’t want to go into the details of quantum computing because I would end the show with one snoring and another on Snapchat. Dad’s mind was too confused to narrate his fun fact- if he even had one. Usually he would tell us stories about his adventurous years as a sailor. This time he had to postpone so he could let the million-dollar crap his kids had learnt in school sink in.

That was a year ago, the science summer that left a Neil Armstrong imprint engraved onto my mind. As I put down my drained pen, I was convinced writing from the heart was a masterpiece-finder. I closed the 2-quire notebook and slid out into the quiet evening to find Ella. Usually she’d be somewhere in the pantry across the yard painting something from the heart. I was pretty sure she was gonna love the summer story, after all there is no better story than one about family.