Life Shift (8 page)

The meal had been wonderful. And amazingly, after everything that had happened that day, she found herself relaxing. They started to reminisce about their early years together, problems that had brought despair in the past now made them laugh. They spoke about their first house. The broken windows, the malfunctioning coal fire, the lack of furniture. For months their dining room table had been a patio set. Everything else had been given to them by relatives. It was a motley hotchpotch house, but it was magical because it was their house. And each evening when they closed the door on the outside world they had felt complete.

After eating and reminiscing they sat on the sofa together, cuddled up close. She couldn’t remember what they watched. She had fallen asleep within minutes, dozy and full from the pasta and wine, and as usual feeling safe and warm in his arms.
 

He had woken her at ten. “Come on, let’s go up to bed.” And so they had. She was asleep again in minutes, exhausted, and for once free from thoughts of Matt.

And the next morning when she awoke Damien was gazing down at her. She recognised that look in his eyes and smiled. They had made love then, slow and gentle. And afterwards she felt relaxed, warm and satisfied.

It was only when getting ready for work that she remembered everything else. Suddenly everything seemed grim, jagged, stressful. She felt a yearning to go back to a time when she didn’t know about these things, this other world. But even then in the after glow of Damien the image of Matt still pulled at her, still called to her. And the guilt of that assailed her sharply. She could not see him today. She rang work and spoke to her assistant.
 

“Can you ring Matt Lewis right away please and tell him I won’t be able to make our morning meeting.”
 

“You haven’t got anything in your diary anyway,” said Annette.
 

“I know,” said Christine, irritated, “We only agreed it yesterday. Anyway can you cancel anything I have today and tell Matt I'll see him again.”
 

“Do you want me to set something up for you both?” asked Annette.
 

“No that’s okay,” said Christine, “I’ll sort it out myself when I’m back in work.”
 

“And will you be in at all today?”
 

“Yes, but later, I have a personal appointment this morning.”

That part in itself wasn’t a lie. Not now. She had rung Dr Priestley this morning once she had decided not to go into work. She had to understand what was happening and she needed to see him right away. Matt had only been able to tell her so much. It seemed there was a lot he himself did not understand. She needed more expert advice than he could give.
 

She told Damien she was going into work later.
 
He did not seem concerned or suspicious. And why would he be she asked herself? She had never given him any cause for suspicion in the past. Why would he be suspicious now? She knew it was her own guilt making her feel paranoid.
 

She took a taxi to the university. The traffic was busy and she found her attention wandering every time they were stopped at the lights. She thought back to the evening and morning with Damien. She really did love him. But then she thought of the time on the mountain with Matt, the kisses they had shared, and a shiver ran through her. Her body ached for him even as it was recovering from its pleasure with Damien that morning. How could that be? What sort of person was she? She was betraying Damien with these thoughts alone never mind what she had actually done with Matt. She could never forgive herself.

The taxi dropped her off outside the university gates. She told the security officer she had an appointment with Dr Priestley and he gave her directions to the Physics department. As she walked up the path she realised she was scared. If she was to save everything she had with Damien, everything they’d worked hard to create, then she had to go into this building and talk to Dr Priestley. She had to find out what was happening and how to stop it. But it was this that scared her. Because deep down, in a part of her she already despised, she knew she was drawn to that other world and wanted to know more about it. And that meant she was drawn to Matt. And that was the biggest betrayal of all.

She turned and entered the building. If she could understand what was happening
 
perhaps then she’d know what she was meant to do. That was all she could hope.

 
CHAPTER TWELVE

She entered the building. It looked like a doctor’s surgery not a university. There were even chairs and sofas in front of the reception desk. Clearly there was a far more formal process these days for seeing a lecturer than she remembered.

“I’m here to see Dr Priestley,” she said to the receptionist, “I have an appointment at ten.”

“Okay,” said the receptionist, “That’s fine. I’ll let him know you’re here. Please take a seat.”
 

She sat down as the receptionist rang through to Dr Priestley. She looked around. There were all sorts of posters and notices on the walls – lecture timetables, essay deadlines, seminars and clubs. Suddenly there was a figure standing before her – Dr Priestley. He had his hand outstretched. She stood up and they shook hands.
 

“Come with me, Christine,” he said. He led her down the corridor to his office.
 

His room was rather bare. Not what she was expecting. His desk was positioned by a window looking out over the main road. She could see just where the taxi driver had dropped her off. She wondered whether he had watched her approach.

“Have a seat,” he said, gesturing to one of two comfortable seats before his desk. She sat down and he sat down opposite her.

“I’m glad you came,” he said, smiling at her. “You must have a lot of questions.”

She paused. Now she was here she didn’t know what to say. He noticed her uncertainty. “Can I get you a cup of coffee or tea first?” he asked.

“No, no, I’m fine. Thank you. I just don’t know where to begin.”

“Why don’t I start then?” he asked. “Let me tell you what I know about what’s happening, what I’ve learned so far, and then let’s see where we are.”

She relaxed, relieved that she could just listen, just hear what he had to say without having to somehow find the words to tell him what she’d been going through.
 

 
“But do you mind if I get myself a coffee first?” he asked.

“No not at all,” she said, and watched him as left the room.

She looked around. She noticed some family pictures on the desk. Dr Priestley with a blond woman and two children, a boy and girl, about ten. Another photo of a golden labrador. He had left the office door open and she heard the receptionist's phone ringing. Another door further down the corridor opened and closed and somewhere, further away, she heard the sound of a woman laughing. Then she heard steps and Dr Priestley was back, carrying a mug of coffee. He smiled at her, took the seat opposite her again, put his mug down on the desk and started to talk.

“How much do you know about quantum theory, apart from what you heard in the lecture?” he asked.

“Nothing at all to be honest. That was the first time I’d heard anything like that,” she said.

 
“Okay, well quantum theory is exciting stuff. When its discoveries were first being made it blew everyone's minds away
 
– it still does.
 
In the beginning it was almost a puzzle to be solved. All the laws of physics that scientists thought well established just didn’t seem to work at the subatomic level. And this was the challenge. How to find the laws that did operate at that level.”

He stopped. “Are you following this Christine?”

“I think so yes.
 
Go on please. It’s fascinating.”

“Well in the 19th century Rutherford proved that an atom isn’t solid but made up of a nucleus and electrons that orbit the nucleus. Then Bohr told us more about the orbit of these electrons – he showed that different electrons have different orbits and that the amount of energy in an electron correlates directly to its orbit. If it absorbs more energy it jumps to another orbit. This jump, or shift if you like, is important. It applies to what’s happening to you.”

She sat back. Now she was confused. “How can that be?” she asked.

“I’ll explain. But first it's important you understand that the traditional scientific view did not perceive energy in this way. There were no jumping electrons in that world view. It was all about energy flowing continuously in the same direction. The new insights brought by quantum physics changed all that. Other scientists then moved things on further. They talked about trying to discover where an electron was likely to be in an atom at any given time. Note I said the word likely. This is important. As I said in my lecture, electrons seem to be able to exist in different places at the same time. This means at any given time we cannot say precisely where they are. All we can describe is the probability of them being somewhere.
 
Like you in this world -
 
we can describe the probability of you being here but...”
 

“But?” she said.

“It is only ever a probability. The electron could be somewhere else too. And you
 
- well we can say with certainty that this is where you are because we can see you here. Our eyes do not deceive us.” He smiled. “But like the electron it seems you could also be somewhere else too. In fact we know you are because you’ve seen it.” He stopped. “You understand where I’m going with this Christine? It’s important. Very important.”

She didn’t reply. She remembered the searing pain, the colours, the flash and the way the world around her changed into that other world. She sat back. This was all so much to take.
 

“Do you want to take a break?” he asked her.
 

“No I’m fine. Please continue - I need to understand.”

“Okay then - well you need to know about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. He showed that the very action of trying to measure a particle – its size or speed or location - would cause the other measures to become less certain. Measure its size and its speed would become a variable. Measure its speed and its location was uncertain. This showed that nothing was really fixed. Everything was in a state of flux, everything could change.”

Like my world, she thought. Or my worlds to be more precise. Each shifting and changing into the other in a way that made no sense. But maybe at a subatomic level it made all the sense in the world, she suddenly thought to herself.

Dr Priestley was still speaking. “And it was discovered that at the sub-atomic level particles could sometime behave like a wave and sometimes a particle. At least until they were observed. As I said in my lecture, the act of observing changes things. It fixes reality.”

“Yes I remember.
 
So do we fix things in this world - are we observers?”

“You’re getting on to the big questions now. I think we’re both the observed and the observer. I think something bigger than any of us is ultimately responsible for fixing our reality. But yes we play a role.”

Her head was now hurting. This was so complicated.
 

“Isn’t reality always reality?” But even as she said this she knew that simply could not be the case. She had seen on several occasions a completely different reality. And she knew that was real.
 

“Well quantum theory says that different things can be observed so there must be different realities. And you’ve seen that haven’t you?” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “And of course some philosophers have said that nothing exists outside of consciousness anyway.”

“I think you’re starting to lose me,” she said.

He laughed. “You’ve done well lasting this long. Most of my students are lost after the first ten minutes.”

She doubted that. He was an excellent lecturer and she had been able to get her head around most of this. But the idea that nothing existed outside of consciousness – that was too much. She tried again,

“If you can be conscious of everything, does that mean that anything and everything can exist if we simply think about it?”

He paused before replying. “It’s possible,” he said, after a moment. “I’ve thought about it a lot. I sometimes wonder if it’s to do with how you think about it, the focus and the intent. I think what you and Matt are experiencing could help a lot with our understanding of that. I mean - what has caused the rip between the realities that you both are experiencing? We just don’t know.”

“He mentioned a rip too,” she said, “He said it happens randomly, he can never predict it.”

“And is it happening randomly to you too?” he asked.
 

“Yes, the times it’s happened have all been very different.”

“Are you certain of that?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. He looked at her oddly for a moment and then took another sip of his coffee.

“And now we have to talk about Schrödinger's cat,” he said.

“I think I’ve heard of that before.”

“It’s probably one of the most famous theories in quantum physics,” he said. “Schrödinger described putting a cat into a box. The box holds a vial containing hydrocyanic acid and separately a small amount of radioactive substance. If just one atom of the radioactive substance decays a mechanism will trip a hammer, breaking the vial open and of course killing the cat. But the observer does not know if this has happened unless he or she opens the box. So, according to Schrödinger, there is a superposition of states. The cat is both alive and dead until the observer opens the box. At that point the cat is in one state or the other, reality is fixed.” He paused then added, “This is directly relevant to you Christine.”

“In what way?” she asked.

“You seem to be in a state of superposition,” he replied.
 
“You are existing in both this universe and the other universe. But unlike the cat and everything we know about the sub-atomic level, the act of observing you is not fixing you in either. You are shifting from one to the other - orbit jumping as it were –
 
and aside from your friend Matt this has never been known to happen.”