According to my crude understanding of quantum physics it seemed as though if we were confronted with possible worlds that didn’t really take shape in our world until we looked at it (or observed it, thereby converting particles into the matter we saw and measured and made laws from), then there must have been something going on in the fact that we all more or less saw the same world. Did this go back to Eve or whichever ancestor had the visual or sensory capacities that lasted until today? Was is biological or genetic or biochemical? Why were we all creating or perceiving the same tree and blue sky? Even if the tree was large matter and quantum physics dealt with subatomic particles, the former had to be composed of the latter. Did quantum physics reside in a sixth sense, a realm our brains could not enter, or more interesting, could not enter anymore, and that the five senses we did have could only give one shape to the possible worlds quantum physics told us were more or less out there? This seemed to make no sense. But that would mean quantum physics was just another theory, and it took so long to figure out its tenets that you wanted them all to be true. They were exciting tenets.

- Tammy Stone

Like Father Like Son?

My father was just a regular person who worked hard to support his family. He was a truck driver. He delivered milk to stores. He left home late at night and returned next afternoon. He had lunch, slept a few hours and was back to work.

Boxes full of milk-bags in, empty boxes out. When he finished unloading at one store, he drove to the next one. Boxes in and out. In and out. Night after night. Year after year.

When I was born, my father planted a tree in the backyard. By now it has grown big and strong. In the afternoon the sun is right behind the tree if I look at it from my bedroom window. Later the disc of the sun will move down and sidewise, but now it is exactly behind the crown. The tree is illuminated. I think the yellow glow is my father’s blessing sent from the heaven. He is still taking care of me.

I was his only son. He gave me the best education possible. After he passed away I stayed in his house. It was fully paid off.

They say that during his lifetime a man should raise a child, plant a tree and build a house. By my age my father had fulfilled everything. I haven’t. I am thirty-five, healthy, well-to-do, single and useless.

by Farida Samerkhanova