Suffer the Little Children
A troubled Engineer whose current occupation involves building a macroscopic quantum computer wanders into the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester to see an exhibition entitled A Secret Service: Art, Compulsion, Concealment. After a brief personal awakening triggered by a description of a private museum the protagonist encounters a piece which bore a haunting similarity to a theoretical design the Engineer had previously discounted as unwieldy. Fascinated the Engineer squats down and picks-up a single small cube from the exhibit. The entire piece is a lattice of rectangular shapes made from thousands of what appears to be tiny cubes made from empty cereal packets. The lattice is marred by degree of discord, as if a giant hand had reached down and randomly flicked the atomic units of the piece. Imperfect rectangular blocks with constituent cubes littering the perfection.
Whilst examining the single cube the Engineer ponders the quantum uncertainty contained within, then wonders about the quantum uncertainty of the entire piece. Can the piece in its current form ever truly represent the original vision of the artist who created it when the constituent parts are free to move and distinct random element was likely introduced by unknown persons at the time the piece was installed? The Engineer replaces the cube in almost, but not quite, the same position from which it was taken and moves on.
Whilst admiring the works on the surrounding walls, a piece detailing the connections between George Walker-Bush and Osama Bin Laden, and another detailing the labyrinthine power structures and suspicious activities of the Vatican Bank, the Engineer began to ponder. To what extent would tampering with the cube based piece of art, which could clearly be shown to operate on a macroscopic scale according to quantum principles, effect the subjective reality of those in it's vicinity? If the device could be considered to have been in equilibrium upon the Engineers entry, to what degree would future events correct the imbalance introduced by the Engineers own hand? In a less formal environment the Engineer would have expected the agent of correction to be of the domestic feline variety; yet the improbability of such intervention in an art gallery would seem infinite.
Bemused by this the Engineer proceeds to stroll around the remaining exhibits to be found in the gallery. With the steadily growing impression that everything in the entire exhibition had escaped from a hole at the back of the Engineer's own mind. Moments later the Engineer's companion, a Consultant Psychotherapist, reappears. The local gossip of the moment was that a small child had entered the exhibition, mistaken the cubes for an interactive exhibit, then proceeded to scatter handfuls of cubes in all directions; gallery staff were now to be found sitting cross-legged on the floor rebuilding the piece one cube at a time.
The one thing the Engineer, a Wizard in his spare time, didn't see whilst strolling through the art gallery was an entity called Emma. Or indeed, any entities he would have described as children. When I know the number I still can't call - poor communication skills - the voice of doubt in need of a coax.