Density

While Mr. Patella lectured on quantum entanglement, Jeremy’s right hand almost slipped through his desk. His fingers and palm were halfway through the scratched laminate surface before he noticed. He felt himself gradually slipping through the rigid plastic of his chair.

A prickly panic edging down his spine, he looked around to see if any of his classmates noticed what was happening to him. They were not. They were floating in their own daydreams. Jeremy placed his forearms carefully on the top of his desk and spread his palms wide. Maybe that increased surface area would provide the leverage to stop him sinking further. With a strange sense of pride, Jeremey thought how Mr. Patella would appreciate this line of reasoning to solve his strange problem.

Jeremy cautiously leaned onto his forearms and outspread palms. The desk felt firm. He bore down harder and pushed with his legs. He felt his butt and thighs begin to rise. He pushed harder, sure that this approach was sound. Pure physics. Equal and opposite reactions. It seemed to be working.

Until the seat of his pants sprung from the surface tension of the plastic seat. It was like a rubber band snapping and Jeremy jackknifed forward and over the front of his desk.

Mr. Patella looked at Jeremy sprawled on the floor by his undisturbed desk and then looked calmly away as if to acknowledge that something like this would never happen in his AP Physics class. But when his gaze returned to Jeremy and the plain evidence before him, he frowned. “What’s going on, Mr. Lott?”

Jeremy looked up helplessly.

“Are you hurt?” Mr. Patella strode closer.

It was a good question. “I don’t think so,” he said and tried to lift himself. The thinly carpeted floor held—for the moment—and he squirmed out from the legs of the desk and sat up.

“What happened?” Mr. Patella stood over him and Jeremy felt his weight and the weight of his surprised classmates on him.

He didn’t have to pretend to be dazed. “I was feeling funny. I think I might have fainted.”

That was plausible. Maybe it was true. He did feel light-headed. Maybe the last few minutes had simply been the result of a cloudy head. He knew he hadn’t slept well last night. Had even felt like he might be getting a cold. Scratchy throat. Full head. That was the way out of this. He was getting sick. Maybe the flu. That was a much more plausible explanation than the foundational laws of physics breaking down around him. Much simpler. Occam’s Razor and all that.

Sitting on the floor in front of his classmates in a moment of what should feel embarrassing, Jeremy felt a sense of pride that he had reasoned it out. Mr. Patella would be pleased at how he was using scientific methods to get to the heart of his unusual morning. Learning didn’t get more authentic than that.

“If you’re feeling faint, I’d like you to go to the nurse’s office.” Mr. Patella extended his hand. “Are you able to stand?”

Jeremy nodded and took Mr. Patella’s hand. His grip was firm and reassuring. Solid. No slippage. Jeremy rose with a smile. “Thanks,” he said.

Out in the hall, Jeremy took a deep breath. Everything would be okay. He was solid. The world around him was solid. And then he began filtering through the hallway floor only stopping when his hips were well below the scuffed tiles.

It made him smile to picture his feet dangling from the first-floor ceiling. He wiggled his feet, just in case someone below was there to watch his descent. He felt nothing. Am I a ghost? he thought. Did I get hit by a school bus this morning? Am I dead?

As he continued to seep, Jeremy wondered at the strangeness of the moment, at the surprise he felt, at the calmness that overcame him. He never lost consciousness, if that’s what he could call it anymore. He felt composed, though not present. His mind had grown large, spread out. It was if he could move anywhere through anything. And that was what he did.

He did not end up on the first floor. He filled it. His being extended the length of the hallway. And then beyond. Jeremy was outside and inside, his personal galaxy of particles sifting through the vastness of quantum space. And he felt freed by the final thought that he’d never wanted to feel dense in Mr. Patella’s AP Physics class and now he never would.