God Damn Fairies -002- "This Sounds Quantum"

WARNING -- CONTAINS NO SMUT WHATSOEVER. But there is some romanticization of cigarette smoking, vague allusions to a homosexual relationship, a reference to having consumed drugs or alcohol, a hint of irresponsible debt management, an endorsement of the act of copyright violation, lackadaisical grooming habits, use of the "s" word, an unsavory and tasteless reference to sexual activity with preteen girls (which actually might be smut, depending on your personal definitions) and spontaneous, unwarranted (but non-gory) violence and/or horseplay around water. Wait -- is quantum physics an adult theme?

     "Okay, Pint, think of it this way: When you look into the woods on a sunny day, every place where the sunlight touches is one world and every place left dark is another. Creatures of the light walk from sunbeam to sunbeam as if the light patches were all touching each other, and creatures of the shadows blink from one edge of a sunny patch to the other without even realizing they missed something. Stuff you never interact with in the slightest you can safely ignore, right?"
     Pint fumbled for a cigarette while Mich was talking. He was systematic: Left rear jeans pocket, right rear jeans pocket, right front jeans pocket, left front jeans pocket. He found a pack of Camel Lights in the left front pocket. "I used to think so.... Where does that leave me? Am I in the dark of the light or both or neither...?"
     Mich, obligated, probed pockets for a lighter in the same fashion. He finally found one -- in Pint's left front jeans pocket. "Agh. It was a mistake for me to say light and shadow, because they are both so semantically loaded. You know as well as I that spending the day in the sun on your back on the beach is just as good as spending the night on the beach drinking and dancing, so don't think of it in those terms."
     "Um, I hadn't? I think you think I'm deeper than I am, Mich...." Pint ignored the violations of his personal space and accepted the light with the peculiar grace of the slightly hung-over.
     "Oh. Right then. You just live in a larger world, that's all. Once something new has touched you, you are aware of it and notice it. Like when you buy a new car, the roads become filled with the same model car you bought --"
     "Actually, I tend to notice people hanging around my neighborhood who look like they might repossess cars." Fat sparks leaped from the cigarette as Pint inhaled, and he passed it to Mich, who took an experimental puff, wrinkling his forehead.
     "Ah. Just so. Heh heh. But living in a larger world spreads you thinner with respect to all of the component realms that make up your world. This answers your question. The more you touch, the less touches you, so to speak. The larger your world, the less likely you are to be at any single place in particular." Smoke drifted eerily from his mouth as he spoke, reminding Pint of a diseased and dying animatronic figure from The Realm -- or perhaps a bad Star Trek original series robot confusing itself into oblivion.
     "This sounds quantum. I don't like quantum." Pint received the cigarette and took another drag. He could feel the smoke sticking to his sweaty "Don't Fuck with the Mouse" bootleg tee shirt. A spark shot off the end of his cigarette and landed somewhere in the vicinity of his tousled hair, which he ignored.
     Mich sighed and tapped a bare foot on the sand. "Shut up. It's quantum, like it or not. With respect to everyone else in your worlds, your probability of interacting with them decreases, and you seem to shrink in their minds...."
     "That's bullshit. I'm always 100% present wherever I happen to be." Pint looked down at his own toes, buried in wet sand, confirming his presence.
     Mich snatched the cigarette out of Pint's mouth and stuck it in his own, dragged deeply -- with no unruly sparks -- and exhaled fully. "You would think so, wouldn't you?"
     "So I ate a pixy. Big deal."
     "Yeah. If you'd eaten a Brownie, you'd be in jail."
     They both laughed, and Pint knocked Mich three yards backwards into the surf with a roundhouse right to the jaw.

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