Carol Novack
Quantum Physics
Jim and Tim met at The Met. They were
scrutinizing a painting of a woman pouting at herself in a mirror as
she brushed her exuberant golden hair. Jim looked at Tim and saw
Tim as the person he’d always wanted to see in his own mirror,
someone who reminded him of himself but substantially more than
himself. Tim had the same experience. They looked at one another
as though through a magical looking glass and turned instantly into
a union: the seeing and the seen, the seen and the seeing. Their
tastes were naturally similar, from escargots to crème brulee,
Marisot to Klee, and they frequently uttered the same words in
unison with glee.
Jim had a wife named Adele, and Tim, a live-in
partner named Estelle. Adele and Estelle took back seats to Jim and
Tim and had nothing to say to one another, though they frequently
rolled their eyes at each other and yawned in empathy. After a
while the couple outings lost Estelle, who disappeared, maybe with a
man named Marvin she’d met at Tango Tuesdays. Adele, a clinical
psychologist, declared Jim guilty of a parasitic form of narcissism
that would be his undoing. He returned the diagnosis, with one
swift, impulsive stroke, as people are wont to do when they’re
rightfully attacked. So Adele left with the child and three cats
and Tim moved in with Jim.
Tim and Jim began to grow old together.
Eventually with aging came forgetfulness, fuzziness, cataracts and
grumpiness. They peered into one another’s mirrors and spat on the
glass but their images failed to improve and became cloudier. Teeth
turned yellow and dropped out, skin turned the color of ancient
bones, and eyes paled. The men threw their mirrors away. But even
without the mirrors, Tim reminded Jim of Jim as substantially less
than himself and Jim reminded Tim of Tim as substantially less than
himself and so they became disgusted and hopeless and decided to
unmeet. Tim found a woman named Esme who was more than he’d
imagined, and Jim found his son Jimbo a passable portrait painter.
Carol Novack
is the publisher of Mad Hatters' Review and a former writer’s
grant recipient from the Australian government. An illustrated
selection of short writings, “Giraffes in Hiding: The Mythical
Memoirs of Carol Novack,” will be published shortly (Crossing
Chaos). Recent works may be found in numerous journals, including
5_trope, American Letters & Commentary, Caketrain, Diagram,
Drunken Boat, Exquisite Corpse, Fiction International, Gargoyle,
Journal of Experimental Fiction, and LIT, and in many
anthologies, including The Penguin Book of Australian Women
Poets, Heide Hatry: Heads and Tales and The &Now Awards: The Best
Innovative Writing. |