This is not a kinky/freaky Halloween tale. If you're not in the mood for serious and intelligent conversations, thoughtful romance, and a Halloween mystery, I recommend skipping this story. Otherwise, enjoy!
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The college goth girl always has a particular look. I was told I look like a short-haired, adult version of Wednesday Adams. It's not on purpose. That's just what I look like. I hate wearing bright colors, and I hate the world most of the time. High school bored me into suicidal fantasies by the hour. "
She's gifted!
" they said. "
She's disturbed,
" they also said. "
Put her in advanced classes and challenge her.
" "
No, then she won't make friends her own age.
" I never had any real friends anyway. Most people can't handle or understand my state of mind. I'm not trying to be edgy. My mental state is simply cursed, making my life a waking nightmare on top of the horrors of reality.
Bipolar type II is the official diagnosis. Add a good dose of social anxiety, hyperarousal, and manic focus, and you suddenly live on a different planet than most people. Rapid cycling Bipolar II is an insidious illness that creates a mental and physical high and then a mental and physical crash of despair that leaves you yearning for death. It's like being a heroin addict without the drugs. Actually, it's more like living at the end of a live-wire that you have to keep holding because it keeps you alive while also killing you. Some people are tortured by their own minds, and dimwitted individuals cannot relate.
Naturally, my mind found an unhealthy way to deal with the anxiety and psychotic mood swings. I developed multiple personalities, and I'm aware of all of them. It's not as dramatic as it sounds. My mind uses the malfunction like an on/off switch to manage crippling social anxiety and fear. I know when I change, and I know how to hide it. Life for me is pretending to be normal on the outside while a freak show plays out on the inside. My thoughts are utterly shocking between my different personalities, and it's hard not to act out when a mood swing leaves you enraged or crippled with despair. Good and evil exist together, but actions ultimately define us. I strive to never cross that line and turn my horrible thoughts into actions, even though my imagination does it every day.
To cope with the inner freak show, I chase mental stimulation and physical pleasure to prolong the mania and avoid the black abyss of depression that follows it. I excelled in art, philosophy, writing erotica, chess, sports, physics, theoretical physics, and quantum physics, and then, I suddenly discovered the nature of reality, and my depression worsened. Did you know the future doesn't magically appear as we perceive it? It is already written and waiting for our consciousness to move through it. Free will really is an advanced illusion. Albert Einstein once wrote, "
People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
" That also means "
Time, space, and motion are stubborn illusions.
" That's my quote. Our consciousness is the thing that is moving through an unmoving storyline, just like reading a book. The story already exists. We just haven't perceived it yet. We have infinite storylines that we can act out from the prison of our bodies, but no matter what we choose, the future is already written. Life cannot exist without order. Thus, order always precedes existence.
So... HOW do you fucking live knowing you're trapped within a sick experiment called existence? My life may as well be a horror movie, minus the fun jump scares and fake blood, except on Halloween. I can wear as much fake blood as I want then. It's my favorite holiday. Everyone can be a freak on Halloween. Most of the year, I have to pretend I'm normal while riding a cyclone of mania and despair that chips away at my sanity. Years of nauseating medication didn't ease the misery and often made it worse. My strongest medicine is my imagination, where I can explore adventures and pleasure that reality has denied me. I honestly think my body is desperate for pleasure because I feel pain and annoyance most of the time. My mental state makes relationships an overwhelming chore. Thus I have to pleasure myself when I want it, so even pleasure is tiring. Going back to my earlier statement, college goth girl fits my mental state and my natural look. So, I'll stop rambling and get on with the story.
God, there I was again. In a class I shouldn't have taken. I hate qubits programming, but I love the idea of exploiting... I mean, using quantum computers to solve the world's problems... or using it to destroy the world in one fell swoop. The instructor, pretty-eyes Theodore Collins, was a pleasant distraction. I admired the golden highlights in his dark brown hair as he attempted to explain superposition and how quantum computers use it to speedily calculate complex outcomes.
"Our primary goal is to design a stable and scalable quantum system to help reduce errors and maybe one day overcome decoherence altogether."
Mr. Collins smiled as if he truly believed it would actually happen. I accidentally let out a breathy scoff at his misguided enthusiasm, pulling his pretty hazel eyes up and to the left until they found me sitting in my usual spot at the back of the lecture hall. I hated drawing attention to myself, but sometimes I indulged in it. My fucking mind didn't know what it liked most of the time.
"Christina, do you disagree with my statement?" he asked.
"Um... I do. You're implying engineers have to find a way to limit a superposition so we can read it. I'm not saying it's impossible. It's just damn near impossible."
"Wait, limit a superposition? How does that work?"
"Exactly. It doesn't. Past, present, and future exist together all at once as a perfect, infinite picture. Time and motion are illusions. Physics supports that reality. Sadly, we perceive reality as a limited storyline. Thus, we are fundamentally blind in the face of pure quantum behavior. We can't directly measure the infinite state of superposition. Yet we're supposed to design something to magically sustain and read this infinite data? Even with Feynman's probability amplitude, it's utterly daunting. Honestly, capturing a tornado would be easier."
I stopped talking when I noticed people's disgruntled stares. I was overly passionate about quantum physics and often doubted my intelligence even though my theories were well supported. The way people reacted to my explanations is what made it embarrassing. Mr. Collins was staring at me with a solid scowl line between his thick eyebrows. Was I rude by accident again? Shit... I just implied his class was pointless. The rest of my classmates rolled their eyes and waited for Mr. Collins to respond.
"Thank you, Christina. That's a lot to think about. See me after class. I want to hear more."
My classmates chuckled, making me think Mr. Collins was mocking me. Fuck it. I didn't give a good goddamn what anyone thought of me anyway. Why did I even bother speaking in the first place? They were all lucky I didn't carry mace anymore. My mood was abysmally low and angry as the students dispersed. I took a deep breath and approached Mr. Collins's desk to apologize.
"Sorry for rambling, Mr. Collins. I'm not good at focusing sometimes."
He laughed and shook his head at me.
"That's not true. Your focus is excellent."
He smiled at me for a moment, making me feel strange inside. He was very cute when he smiled.
"Um, can I go now?" I asked.
"Of course, but I did want to talk about what you said. Where did that come from?"
I sighed and rolled my eyes. It was confession time.
"It's an educated guess. I discovered that our consciousness behaves like particles as it moves through reality, sensing one storyline at a time, sensing one particle arrangement at a time. That's why we can't directly measure superposition. We can only perceive limited storylines. Then I realized order always precedes existence, meaning the future already exists. Thus, reality is a prison that pretends to give us choices. We get to 'choose' a predetermined path. If we were truly free, we could manipulate reality. We can do that in our imaginations, at least. Thus, I'm skeptical quantum computers will amount to much, but I also understand how powerful it would be if we could make it work."
Mr. Collins stared at me for a moment. I feared he was about to laugh.
"I don't know what to say to that," he smiled.
"Mr. Collins, I don't like being mocked. It really fucks up my mood. I also need to find some lunch. Have a good day," I sighed and headed for the door.
"Christina, I'm not mocking you. I'm stunned by what you said. It's incredible. I love it."
