Schrödinger

He's here! He's here!

Commotion spreads, the only word to describe the reaction being...excitement. Or reluctance. Or eagerness mixed with fear, joy with sadness. All these feelings suspended simutaneously with each other, flickering between the poles, never quite reaching a state of rest

Rest. Such a simple word. But how does one describe its opposite? Not quite non-existence, not quite shadow. Only the observer could bring it out of the endless, and into the real.

Color surged into being. Light, matter, gravity, these things came first. The observer was approaching. He had never come here before, lost in his own sphere of familiarity. But now, another sphere would be experienced. And thus, experience back.

The world condensed. Walls and tiles, lights as science gave birth to electricity. Shops flowered, smells swirled in the air. Air. That too was observed and thus existed now. Or rather, always had.

The lucky ones, they became the background shoppers, the throngs that filled every such hub of civilization. It savored the words,  new concepts beyond the abstract mathematical potentials that were before. The observer walked about now, sampling the air, browsing the shops. More and more of them flowed into being, and so the world solidified. Yet there were still others left behind. "It" was left behind, now that it understood such things. But there was nothing one could do, until the observer-

The observer sat down.

And closed his eyes.

No! The world wavered. Too soon, too sudden. Light faded. The shoppers grew misty. Smell remained, as did sound. But the others, the left behind...the chance was slipping away.

It couldn't. So close. Just a glimpse...

The observer opened his eyes.

The world returned. Confirmation, acceptance. Nothing else remained.

The others faded away. There was nothing left to observe, and so, nothing remained.

And yet, in the corner of his eye, a tiny glance; a young girl, also sitting on the bench, quietly sipping her bottle of tea. 

It was enough.

The observer- no, the boy yawned, got up, stretched his limbs. He kept glancing at his watch, occasionally smoothing his hand over what little hair remained on his head. A recruit perhaps, fresh out of camp. 

She watched the boy walk away, old potentials fading while the real ones remained. A strange joy filled her, one she could find no explanation for. How strange.

A brief shrug of the shoulders, a small sip of the tea. Life went on, as it always had.

It felt wonderful.