Quantum Entanglement
First chapter of the abandoned novel
GM, say it back
@Mulatto_de Assis: GM
@Ballpoint_inventor: GM
@mao’s_best_man: GM
@inward_seaward: GM
Josh Friedlander checks is account and types his requisite “GM” kind of amazed he got to this point. He lurked on social media as a hobby, his particular hobby was a fascination with jet propulsion and the history of space travel. Josh had a vested, personal interests his father was an engineer in the propulsion las in Birmingham. Josh would curate links to old photos and videos of Apollo missions. He found himself vociferously debunking conspiracy theorists. When he was mugged after visiting an artist friend on the south side, Josh started looking up crime statistics and searching the database of the FBI.
Josh wasn’t sure who was more recalcitrant, the conspiracy theorists that deny space travel, or liberals that deny the reality of race behind crime statistics. After commenting on a conspiracy, Josh began interacting with another replyguy who used a TinTin avi and used the handle @ballpointinventor. He was invited to a group chat which has grown precipitously, there was @mulatto_de_assis with an avi of the famous Brazilian author Machado de Assis with a mulatto perm. The cliché is that right wing anons are frogs, but this is hardly the case. Some were dogs, namely Shibu anis. Some were primates, some, like @Mao’s_best_man posed as graduate students. Nobody was as they seemed. The guys behind Chinese grad student avi’s were almost always white, that knew a smattering of Chinese from Goggle Translate. The native American Avi was an Asian Graduate student. They were all anon from each other, a complete absence of credentialism, that allowed their statements to stand on their own merits. In a modern solipsistic and semitic dance of rebranding themselves, renaming themselves in an image of their own creation, the social network group acted as Turing tables slipping each other notes under the door under complete anonymity.
@inward_seaward posted a news story from Disclose news showing a young man name Deroy D’Brickasway pushing an elderly Asian man into an oncoming train in Brooklyn.
@mao’s_best_man: I am 18 h Not Relaxing
@Mulatto_de Assis: I am 18 h Iot Relaxing
@Ballpoint_Inventor: I am 18 h Got Relaxing
There are some enchanting spells so powerful that in order to avoid saying them, people will move heaven and earth. In ancient Judea the Israelites avoided saying the name of God, which persists to this day. But there is a word, a certain word, that a working man making a decent salary with spend 4 hours a day commuting, on top of his work shift, in order to have the proper privacy required to say this word. Or, in order to avoid saying it at all. Entire cities leveled to the ground and new ones sprung up, always made out of cheap and toxic Chinese gypsum. Tens of millions of people drive 4 hours a day. The same word, the word ONLY, not even what the word is actually labeling, is what prevents the same people from building public transport that could more efficiently move them around, because well it’s not Japan and it’s not Germany, and it’s not like the past and everyone has to dance around what the true facts of the case are and mumble something about inequity under their breath.
Josh knew this but still was not comfortable in the group chat. He was in a prestigious physics lab and his reputation was important…he had two young girls and Nikki to take care of, even though Nikki worked at the hospital and could take care of herself, but she depended on Josh. He didn’t want to jeopardize that even in a private group chat.
“Guys, I know you like to have fun, but this kind of wordplay is boring to me”. Josh was at O’Hare waiting to board a plane to Birmingham to tend to his mother’s will. He was going to fly in and spend the week in Harvest. He managed to find a short-term rental so he wouldn’t have to stay with his sister and her family.
@DixieCrypto: I am 18 h Hot Relaxing
Josh looked at the screen, puzzled. Was the spell broken?
@inward_seaward: I am 18 h Tot Relaxing
@Delphinoikos: I am 18 h Hot Relaxing
@HulkHogan’s_Reveng: I am 18 h Aot Relaxing
@SneedFeeder: I am 18 h Wot Relaxing
Josh then solved the puzzle,
@Heisenberg_Certainty: I am 18 h Kot Relaxing
@E-girl_Bathwater_vendor: I am 18 h Sot Relaxing
The group chat had spelled out N-I-G-H-T-H-A-W-K-S in a ladder under @mao’s_best_man initial statement.
@Mulatto_de_Assis posted a .jpg of the famous painting by Edward Hopper with the caption “I love it when a plan comes together”.
@mao’s_best_man change the name of the group chat from “Fichte’s Fishtank” to “NIGHTHAWKS”.
Thus, the group chat provided commentary on the news, and catharsis for them. It is sad that the Asian man was thrown to his instant death.
@Delphinoikos: Imagine being Chinese or watever and come to America for opportunity just to be thrown onto a train by Deroy.
@Ballpoint_inventor: He should have stayed in Beijing
@DixieCrypto posts an image of a weary Korean with the caption : “Come to America, they said, it’s the land of opportunity”
Josh signs off:
@Heisenberg_Certainty: Gang I have a plane trip coming up I have to go now.
@E-girl_Bathwater: Prayers up for you bro.
@SneedFeeder: Safe Travels, sending power.
As Josh stowed away his laptop and cellular devices, he pulled up a printout of the latest Nature review of Quantum Entanglement,
“The basic unit of quantum information is the qubit, which is a two-state system.”
‘Quantum Entanglement?, more like Quantum EItanglement’ Josh thought mischievously.
At the Birmingham airport Josh checks his notifications. Nikki sends a receipt for tuition, robotics class, $775 for the semester. “I used your credit card to pay since it gets more points.”
Best not to reply.
Josh’s Sister sends a text as well. “Bring cash, not everybody takes cards here.”
The request seemed odd to Josh, last time he came the cards worked fine. Fortunately, there was a branch at the airport. The ATM out front had a sign, “closed for repairs”.
‘MFW no ATM’ thought Josh. ‘MFW human contact. NGMI.’
Standing in line Josh observed the two main Alabama phenotypes, obese whites, and obese blacks. At least the gang could keep him entertained.
@Heisenberg_Certainty: “I’m in Alabama on business, boys. What can you tell me about it?”
@Ballpoint_inventor: “Originally discovered by Prince Madoc of Wales and a hundred Welsh colonists.”
@Heisenberg_Certainy: “That was just a legend.”
@E-girl_Bathwater: “Bro, why did the Doeg tribe understand Welsh, then?”
This questioning of the historical narrative was a common trope of the Nighthawks.
@SneedFeeder: “Andrew Jackson clearing out the Alabama tribes was a reenactment of the English Civil War.”
Pretending to read his phone, Josh lines up a photo of the lone teller. “What am I looking at here boys?” Wall-eyed and obese, her bad skin highly contrasting a fair complexion.