Superposition

When we were in middle school, my twin brother Theo discovered a series of books called, "Whiz Kid Science". They were short books, full of complex concepts broken down to a child's level through colorful illustrations and word bubbles. For months, he parroted random facts about planetary orbits and microorganisms with very little understanding about their real world application. My parents largely ignored him. They were devout evangelicals, contentedly raised on creationist theory with very little interest into digging deeper into God's mysteries. That left me as the primary target for Theo's peacocking. For three months straight, I unwillingly learned about every scientific topic under the sun. Like most interests at that age, his science phase finally came to an end, and he finished out the summer dedicating himself to a future in the NBA instead. His brief interest in science was a memory I had long forgotten, one that only resurfaced in the aftermath of the accident.

Three weeks after I was discharged from the hospital, still on bed rest and falling deeper and deeper into depression, I recalled a moment from that summer.

It was mid July and despite the brutal Oklahoma heat, Theo and I were spending the day outside. He sat on the veranda, curled up with his current read on the topic of quantum computing, a term the two of us could barely sound out together. I stood nearby, bouncing a volleyball off the wall of our modest ranch home.

"You know how I told you computer bits can be 0 or 1?" Theo called out to me over the twang of rubber hitting brick.

"No. I don't even know what that is." I replied, injecting as much boredom as possible into my voice.

"Computer bits! The data. How computers talk?" He urged.

"Yeah, no clue."

"Uhg, you're so stupid. Listen to me for once!" Theo turned back to his book, finger underlining text as he summarized aloud. "That data is limited to two positions, but now they found out if you go even smaller with it you can get three or maybe more!"

"That makes zero sense." I retorted, convinced he didn't even know what he was talking about.

"Literally keep up Cassidy. It's not even that hard. Look at me,"

I caught the volleyball mid bounce and threw him an exasperated expression.

He had turned the book around and started gesticulating at an illustration of a quarter spinning wildly.

"Normal computer data is like a coin toss. You write code with combinations of heads or tails and that's all. But if you go smaller into quantum stuff, you can spin the coin and get a third answer that is both heads and tails at the same time!"

"Ok? I don't care. Can you come down and volley with me? The wall is too easy."

Sensing any chance at conversation had concluded, Theo launched himself off the veranda with a huff and joined me.

Flash forward and I'm 22. Just days after my college graduation, I had been involved in a brutal car accident. Severe internal bleeding had led to emergency surgery and an extended hospital stay. Two months later I was still wrestling with the incident and as time passed, my mood only worsened. I didn't want to hear from my family or friends. I used bed rest and physical therapy as excuses to avoid any responsibility. I rarely left my bedroom, much less my apartment. As my body healed, I remained a fundamentally broken person.

The accident had revealed some truths which I felt incapable of conciliating with my upbringing. During surgery my heart had stopped completely, and more than the accident, I remembered my own death. Unlike, the warm bright light beckoning me into an afterlife filled with my loved ones, promised to me by my parents and pastor, I was faced with a crushing feeling of panic. All around me was darkness, pulsating with strange figures and intelligible whispering. I was sluggish. Cold. Terrified. The only thought I could muster through that terror was, I shouldn't have come here. This isn't right. A mantra sweeping through my mind over and over before I was ripped back to reality; waking up in a painfully bright hospital room mere hours later.

It was that experience, not the accident, that truly changed my life. How could I come back from that? How could anyone? As I sat in bed recovering for weeks, all I thought about was "why"? Why was recovery even worth it? Why was anything worth it? When all that was waiting for me at the end of all of this was that dark, brutal fear.

It was the most isolated I had ever felt. I couldn't speak about it with anyone. I didn't want to inflict the same helpless misery I felt onto others. If I brought it up to my parents, I risked jeopardizing their relationship with their faith; a faith that provided them with so much purpose and hope. It would be the same with my pastor. How could I look at a man who dedicated his entire life to a God, and dissolve his lifelong mission. Even Theo, who had long since left the faith shouldn't have to carry the burden of such a harsh reality. And was it even reality? Or was it something else? A hallucination? A divine punishment just for me?

It was within these constant looping thoughts that the aforementioned memory began to unfold. Superposition. Neither 0 nor 1. Neither heads nor tails. Neither alive nor dead. For the first time since the accident I felt the urge to reach out to someone. I needed to call my brother.