Will Today Be a Good Day?

Helen Combe

camomile tea 

It’s always a struggle first thing in the morning. These stiff, arthritic knees take time to warm up, to loosen, to bend. I’m out of bed now and moving around. The nurses in the home tell me that there are better exercises I could do than those on my old Wii Fit, but I have to take my virtual bike around Wuhu Island each morning, otherwise how will I know if today will be a good day?

I turn on the TV, switch on the Wii and nudge the button on the exercise board with my toe. The screen comes to life, and there I am, my Mii, my virtual self astride my virtual bike on my own, virtual Wuhu Island.

I haven’t changed my Mii for 30 years. It’s still as I was when I was 50. I know because that was when I first cut my hair short and it was still brown then, with a little help.

I step onto the board and she kicks off, heading up the sunlit path with the gravel crunching under the wheels of her bike. I start walking on the spot and she speeds up towards the first flag. She takes it and I turn her to the right to take a short cut between the trees. The birds are calling and the tyres swish as they roll over the grass. I’m heading towards the town and other Miis, generic ones, wave encouragingly as I pass.

Then I see a familiar dark blue shirt. Not all of the Miis are generic. This one is my dad. He’s jogging across my path towards the rising sun and the red suspension bridge. I stop and watch him go. He’s doing what he always loved best. He used to run to work and he ran marathons before his heart condition was diagnosed. He died quietly in his chair of a cardiac arrest thirty years ago. I watch him head for the bridge from where he can run along the shoreline or round to the ancient, ruined city. If there is a heaven, my dad would consider Wuhu Island to be it.

I pedal into the town and head for the square. A little black and white cat is sitting on the corner. I ring the bike’s bell and it turns an eager face and gallops towards me. It has a red collar. This is Ripley, my most devoted and most needy cat. Her definition of happiness was to sprawl across my lap. She would wait for me to come home, then follow me, wailing until I finally sat down. She lived to a good age and died in my arms at the vet’s 10 years ago when old age had reduced her life to an existence and I could bear it no longer. She gallops up, overshoots and then reappears, cantering alongside me, looking up at me as she always did.

We approach the fountain in the middle of the square. I turn the bike towards it, see the flag and ring the bike’s bell. Ripley scampers away, collects the flag on my behalf and thunders back. I now turn and pedal out of the town and up the hill toward the hamlet and the cliffs. I pass between the houses and crest the hill. Ripley collects another flag and I freewheel down to the rock archway. There I see a powder blue shirt. My mum is jogging directly towards me. I stop the bike and hold my breath. Will she change direction or keep coming straight? She jogs right up to me, smiles directly into my face and then trots past.

“Hello, Mum,” I say quietly. I turn my Mii and watch her go. She died 15 years ago. Pneumonia after a fall, but I see her here most days. Not all days, there is a random element to the appearance of the Miis, I may not see her at all or be mortified as I was one day when she jogged past wearing the chicken outfit from the flying game, but that’s another story. So far, it’s been a good day. I start stepping again and my Mii kicks off the ground and continues to pedal. Ripley, who had been waiting expectantly, frolics back into the game. She and I crisscross the meadow, picking up all the remaining flags between us and are now heading for the finish line. It’s inside a small arena which I could approach with aplomb by taking a series of three jumps and ultimately flying into the space, but I know Ripley won’t follow me over the wall, so I go the long way round and enter sedately through the gateway.

There is very little time left and I scan the group of Miis who are assembled to cheer me over the line. I hate it when they are all generics, but it’s okay, I see him. To my left, at the finish line stands my husband. He’s clapping, cupping his hands to his mouth and jumping up and down with excitement. I brake and Ripley goes to stand next to him. I tell him the news. Only the good news. You can’t tell bad news to someone who’s so happy. Finally, I step again on the exercise board, the bike starts up and passes the finish line. My Mii raises both arms in triumph and I pedal, no hands, up the road as Ripley frisks beside me.

My husband died five years ago, a swift and remorseless cancer, leaving me all alone to face old age among strangers. Except here. Here my loved ones are all still young, still fit and I see them most days. Today I saw all four which means that today will be a good day. 

One of the best.

About the author

Helen is a member of the Solihull Writers group and was shortlisted for the To 

Hull & Back humour competition 2016. She is currently blogging her experience of breast cancer on her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/HelenCombeWriter

Schrödinger's Data Stick

 

Helen Combe

Caffè Corretto

 

 

 

 

                                              

 

 'Boil, damn you!'

 

Milo shook his fist at the kettle. He was gasping for a cup of coffee, especially now that he had the stress of a quantum entangled cat in a state of limbo, howling, snarling and rampaging around in the box on his kitchen table.

 

Milo liked to occupy himself by recreating experiments, and the simplicity of Schrödinger's had always appealed, combined with the complexity of getting his hands on a fragment of plutonium and a phial of cyanide. Knowing that the police were currently executing a countrywide hunt for him just added to the excitement. However the experiment itself was proving to be a lot less satisfying than the preparation.

 

'Boil you bastard!' He yelled at the kettle.

 

Schrödinger's experiment was actually theoretical, designed to illustrate the problem with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. The cat is supposed to be simultaneously alive and dead, as a result of a quantum subatomic event that may or may not occur. Specifically, an atom of the plutonium may decay, causing the phial to shatter and so kill the cat. Alternatively, the atom may not decay, the phial will not shatter and the cat will live. However until the box is opened and the contents are observed, the cat will be simultaneously alive and dead, a state referred to as quantum superposition. Once the box is opened, reality collapses into one possibility or the other and the cat is only then definitely alive and kicking or sadly deceased.

 

Aiming another snarl at the obstinately humming kettle, Milo picked up his data stick in order to record his observation that the state of feline quantum superposition is a surprisingly noisy one. He inserted the data stick into the USB port. It didn't fit. He turned it over and reinserted it. It still didn't fit. He turned it over yet again and it still refused to fit.

 

'Christ, I need a coffee!' he howled.

 

        'Yarroogghh! Gah! Spit!' complained the superannuated (or not) cat.

 

Milo reversed the data stick and looked at it. The USB connector had until then been in a state of quantum superposition, neither up nor down, but now that Milo had observed it, reality collapsed into one possibility and the connector assumed the position of 'Up'.

 

'Bloody data stick, you do it to me every time,' he wailed.

 

It did do it every time, because the proof of the entanglement theory was there in front of him several times every day, without the need to murder a cat (or not).

 

In fact, the world is full of everyday truths that are known, yet completely ignored, and every rule is proved by its exception. Milo knew the old saying that a watched pot never boils, but he didn't believe it. In fact, the pot was the exception to the rule of quantum entanglement. While it was observed, it remained in a state of neither boiled nor unboiled.

 

'Yowowowwll!' cried the undead moggy.

 

'Oh for God's sake!'

 

Milo ripped the box open and the cat shot out over his shoulder. The cat had in fact never been in a state of quantum entanglement. Observation does not have to be visual, it can also be auditory. The plutonium however, had been caught between states, but upon being observed, reality collapsed into one of two possibilities. The plutonium atom decayed, the phial of cyanide shattered and released its poisonous vapour. Milo observed, breathed, gasped and crumpled to the floor.

 

The kettle, the exception to the rule, finding itself no longer observed, was released from its state of quantum entanglement and quickly came to a roiling boil.

 

About the author 

See: https://www.facebook.com/SolihullWriters/

 

Have You Seen My Wife?

Helen Combe 

a nice cup of tea

Mary was pleased with herself for being so far ahead with her Christmas preparations. It was early December and she had just finished writing her last Christmas card and had dropped it with relief onto the 'done' pile.
        She stretched, pushed back her chair, turned to get up and caught sight of the face pressed hard against her living room window. She let out a shriek and stood transfixed as a pair of hands came up to frame the face as it slowly scanned the room from side to side. Then it stepped back and she saw that it was a thin, elderly gentleman wearing a flat cap and a tweed jacket. He stood vacantly for a moment, then turned and headed towards the front door. There came a knocking. Mary gathered herself together and moved to open the door. The man looked exhausted and lifted his hands beseechingly.
        'Have you seen my wife?' he implored.
        Thoughts ran through Mary's mind. I don't know your wife, what does she look like? But she felt that this could get complicated and anyway, she hadn't seen any elderly ladies of late.
        'No, I'm sorry, I haven't.'
        A look of despair came over his face and he dropped his hands.
       'OK, thank you,' he said, then turned and shuffled away.
Mary closed the door and hurried to the bay window to watch him as he moved to the next house, framed his hands round his face and peered through the window before heading for the door. She saw that he was wearing slippers.

        The next day, Mary left her house just as her neighbour, Gail was leaving hers. Gail was a housewife, so the advantage of being at home all day, combined with a general benevolence to all mankind meant that she knew everybody and was Mary's major source of local information.
        Mary cried eagerly, 'Oh Gail, I need to ask you something,' at the same time that Gail said, 'Oh Mary, I need to tell you something.' 

        Gail hurried across to her.

        'I don't know if you've seen him, but there's an elderly gentleman who may knock on your door or look through your window.'
        'Yes, that's what I was going to ask you about.'
        'Well it's Mr Tomlinson, he lives on the road that backs onto ours. He's harmless. He has Alzheimer's and he's looking for his wife, but his wife passed away earlier this year.'
        'Oh that's tragic.'
        Mary was filled with sympathy for the old man and his constant bewildered concern for the welfare of his wife from which he could never be released.

        The next evening, there was a knock at Mary's door. Mr Tomlinson stood soaked on the doorstep with rainwater pouring off the rim of his flat cap.
        'Have you seen my wife?'
        'No, I'm sorry. Oh look, it's pouring with rain, why don't you come in and have a nice cup of tea?'
        'Oh no, thank you, I need to find my wife.'
        'Well I think you should go straight home, she's probably there wondering where you are.'
        'Yes, yes, I'll do that.'
        Mary closed the door and went to the window and watched him squelch across the lawn in his slippers and look through the window of the house next door. She sighed. He'd catch his death, but what could she do?
        The routine continued nightly, a knock at the door at about eight o'clock, the invitation for tea and the polite refusal. Sometimes he did two or three circuits in one night.

        Christmas was approaching fast and Mary was caught up in the shopping, decorating, and outings with various work colleagues and friends, so it was while she was decorating the tree that she suddenly became aware that she hadn't seen Mr Tomlinson for over week. Concerned, she hoped he was OK and even considered trying to find his house, but then thought better of it as she imagined herself looking through windows and knocking on doors and eventually crossing paths with Mr Tomlinson, on a similar mission, coming from the other direction. And if she did find him, what would she say? 'Oh, I'm so glad you're not dead'?

        Anyway, he had family, she had seen him on a couple of occasions in the supermarket with a middle aged man pushing a trolley full of food, topped with a pair new slippers. Maybe he'd taken Mr Tomlinson home for Christmas. Mary tried to calm her conscience when there came a knock at the door, perfectly timed at eight o'clock.
        'Oh thank goodness.' Mary dropped the bauble back into the box and hurried to open the door.  Standing on the step was a small woman, neatly dressed in coat, boots and gloves. She had rosy cheeks, bright blue eyes and a head of curls as white as the snow that was softly tumbling from the sky.
        'Excuse me, but have you seen my husband?' she asked.
        Mary's jaw flapped incoherently for a moment as she struggled to connect her mouth to her brain.
        'No, I'm sorry, I haven't.'
        The woman cocked her head as though listening, then looked away to her right and then back again.
        'Oh, it's alright, I see him. He's been getting better of late, but he still wanders off from time to time. Old habits die hard you know. So sorry to have disturbed you.' She smiled and then turned and walked away.
        'That's quite alright,' Mary replied faintly. She shut the door and then hurried to the bay window. She looked to the left but could see nothing but the gardens muffled under the snow and the street light scattering a halo of golden spangles through the ice crystals falling around it. She looked to the right and saw only the soft outlines of marshmallow cars and finally she looked to the front of the house, where a thick layer of snow lay unbroken on her garden path.

 

https://www.facebook.com/SolihullWriters/