345 A Christmas Quantum, Part 2: the Ghost of Christmas “Isn't”

So, it seemed, I lay in superposition, where I'd either decayed or didn't. In my very cool casket made of cherry wood. It also seemed...this box was made for opening, whereupon the observer would then know which.

And further it seemed, the one opening the box will make either of those potential consequences ensue, by just observing. Oh, what double slits we cross!

"You lie in wait, traveler," said a second solemn phantom, draped and hooded, coming toward me like a mist along the ground. My ground. My six-feet-under'ground.

"My casket remains shut," I explained.

"There are many ways to open it," the ghoul spoke scratchily. "Many ways to finally—deterministically—be observed. Your measurement awaits, traveler."

"What if it's never opened? What if there's no observer? No observer effect? What if I remain in superimposition—between decay—and not?"

"Spe Salvi!" the spirit exclaimed angrily. "That option expired in 2007."

"Ah, 2007. That was one sweet Porshe!"

The spirit rolled his eyes, but being a spirit, the eye-roll continued until his sockets emptied. "Intermediate state of temporary custody," it finally said. Those eye sockets—spooky as hell!

"Did you say 'Hell,' traveler?"

"No! I didn't say that."

"You thought it!"

"Not with a capital 'H'!" I blurted. His eyes rolled back but, seeing them, I kinda wished the sockets had stayed empty.

"Time to observe, traveler," he announced.

The casket lid began to loosen, noisily, its creaking a bonus.

"Oh, my God, I'm heartily sorry for having offended Thee—" I began, panicking.

"Too late!" the spirit cried. Hovering outside the casket, I saw myself.

A reflection of all I was—all I'd been.

Suddenly, cool wasn't so valuable a currency.

I realized if I had lived a lie, I wouldn't recognize myself, meaning oblivion. But if I recoginized myself, seeing something good in me, then that good existed in me in simultaneity with all the years that came before, in all its spooky-action-at-a-distance nonlocality.

"I measure you in decay!" the ghoul shouted.

"I don't," I said, lifting up the lid at my wake, whereupon there exited a stampede of my friends and family. "Even cool cats get 9 lives," I announced to the stunned undertaker.

"How cool is that!" he said.

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PART 1 HERE

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

For Tuesday, December 10, Day 345 of the 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge.

366 WORDS (without A/N)

21 DAYS TO GO! THE STORIES KEEP HOME-STRETCHIN' ON IN THIS VOCAL CHALLENGE, 366 WORDS A DAY.

There are currently three Vocal writers in this 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge:

• L.C. (Open coffin) Schäfer

• Rachel (Closed coffin) Deeming

• Gerard (Still coughin') DiLeo