Where Angels Fear
Extra Newsfeed
Published in
3 min readJan 2, 2018

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Quantum Entanglements

Greebo had spent an irritating two minutes in that box. Technically, a cat locked in a box may be alive or it may be dead. You never know until you look. In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.
— Terry Pratchett, Lords And Ladies

So … if all possible universes exist, have I been faithful to you because … in most of them at least … I wasn’t unfaithful — so, on aggregate, I’ve been a good and faithful partner even if I made the odd ‘error of judgement’ in this one?

Or am I a philandering bastard because, in one more of them than not, I was unfaithful — so, as far as you’re concerned, it doesn’t matter what I do in this one?¹

Or is it ‘six of one, half a dozen of the other’ and my innate character is not constant across them all but unique to each— and I am, in fact, so radically different to at least half of my various selves as to be, for all intents and purposes, a different person … unrelated to them in any more than an awkwardly quantumly entagled way? ³

If I skip bail and slip into a different plane of existence am I still a murderer or is there some sort of statue of limits on people from other dimensions?

Can I be extradited for crimes I didn’t commit here but can be held answerable for in absentia because we (as in all my incarnations across the dimensions) are the same at the end of the day and we don’t need to track me down wherever I’ve hidden but can simply yoink me from my daily life on some other plane of existence to answer for my alternate incarnation’s crimes?

What if I pop into another dimension, perform some extremely questionable experiments and then slip back home … is it still unethical to use the data I gathered to save lives in this one?

Never mind Schrödinger’s cat, or even a better mousetrap … the focus of Quantum Mechanics should be the development a better can for keeping our worms in.

¹ Playing Fable II, I learned that the game had glitched: somehow I managed to marry the same woman twice and, when she found out that I was cheating on her with herself she both left me taking both of the child with her — and half my properties each, naturally ².

² I say, I say, I say … what is the difference between a duck? Why, one of it’s legs is both the same, of course!

³ Like that photo of me kissing your best friend in a parallel dimension, that found its way … goodness only knows how … into the camera of the private detective you hired in this one?

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Extra Newsfeed
Extra Newsfeed

Published in Extra Newsfeed

the same political rants you see on Facebook, but they're well written.

Where Angels Fear
Where Angels Fear

Written by Where Angels Fear

There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live and too rare to die.