Tag: atom

And that’s when Alice wanted to know when
I was going to grow up and she apologized
for giving me the arsenic even though it was
only imaginary arsenic and then she started
crying because she wasn’t real any more than
that arsenic and that’s why she acted the way
she did and I told her ‘It’s OK’ because what
else was I going to say and then I told her that
even atoms were almost all empty space, nothing
there, and she said, ‘Really?’ and I said ‘Sure’
and then she wanted to know about that tiny stuff
in the middle of the atom and she started to cry
again and I had to tell her that when that stuff
was a wave of potentiality it wasn’t there any
more than she was and she said, ‘Really?’ and
I had to think because I didn’t want to lie to
her and I didn’t want her to start crying again
and as far as I could tell she was more real
than any old atom was and so I said ‘Sure’.