Schrodingers Maze

Part III - A Poison Released, or Not, or Both

Have you ever felt hunted? Truly hunted I mean, by a pack of men and women or animals. Have you ever felt that the next moment will be the moment it gets you? Then when it doesn't, the next moment surely. A rolling, deep anxiety that can't be escaped and you know won't be escaped. Your heart pounding yet still, turned to stone, as if trying to break free of its' own panicked rhythmic beat. Left, or right? If only you could go both ways, see which is best before collapsing on a decision. The blunt acerbic sting of acid building in legs running. Underfoot, soft tarmac, then hard paving slabs, then cobble uneven like Lego. And then it happens. Relief? Terror?

Schrodinger is suddenly knocked sideways, chest on shoulder, so hard that he is floored like a sack of cement. Instinctively he blurts out "It wasn't' me! I can't remember any of it!"

He expects his captor to say something cliched like, "save it for the judge." Something like he would have said had he apprehended the Crown Prince's assassin. But to Schrodinger's surprise the man now straddling him, holding him facedown on the pavement says, "It's not that simple. Now shut up and listen we don't have much time, or space for that matter."

"What are you talking about?", Schrodinger asks, the calmness in his own voice surprising him.

"There's a phone box in the far-left corner of that park over there. It's one of the last red phone boxes in the city. Get over there and dial this number if you want to understand what is really going on," the man says, gently stuffing a strip of waxy paper into Schrodinger's open mouth. As he does, the taste and smell of the man's fingers linger for a moment in his mouth, unmistakable, like cat litter and coffee. Feline and bitter. Then suddenly the man springs from his position and makes haste down the alley, away from the park.

For a moment Schrodinger considers chasing him. He has so many questions, but the odds are stacked against him, and he knows the man is right. He doesn't have much time or space.

So instead, he pulls the paper from his mouth and looks at the number. He'd try to memorize it, but he doesn't trust his memory after everything that has happened today. "662607015," he mutters to himself clenching the strip of paper tightly in his right hand before setting off, full pace, across the road and into the park.

It is perhaps half a mile from where he is to the left corner. He doesn't take the path, instead choosing the direct route. A straight line in a universe that, for Schrodinger, has warped and twisted into something he barely recognizes or understands. He still feels hunted as his legs propel him forward, but the park is empty, quiet, suspended above the world in some way that he can't quite articulate.

And then he sees it. The red phone box, not more than twenty meters away, its colour contrasting the olive green of the bushes and trees in front. The sight of it stops him, hard like hitting a wall. For the first time he has a moment to think. "dial this number if you want to know what is really going on," the man had said. The question now is, does he want to know?

As the question poses itself in his mind, he glances back across the park to see four police running towards him full pelt. He knows now that he has no choice. He had never had a choice. Freewill suspended in whatever world he now inhabited. He dashes the last two dozen footsteps towards the phone box and pirouettes in through the slanting door. Picking up the receiver he flattens the number out on the scruffy yellow phonebook lying to the side. Frenzied, he punches the number in, the tip of his index finger bending with each forceful digit.

6-6-2-6-0-7-0-1-5. He waits for the phone to ring, watching all the time as the police draw nearer. But instead of the familiar chirp of the line, the receiver is ripped from his hand as he plummets through the floor into a blinding light of ever changing colour.