On The Road: The Cat I Left in Madrid

It was January 25th. I walked into a neighborhood café, ordered a coffee and a croissant, and sat down next to a stranger on purpose. She was reading Einstein's Dice and Schrödinger's Cat. That was enough.

I didn't say a word. I just sat there, drank my coffee, and left. But something about her stayed — the book, the way she held it, something nerdy and mysterious in equal measure that I couldn't quite name.

The following morning I went back hoping she'd be there. She was. This time we talked. Her name was Charlotte. She was (is?) Belgian, a physicist working on the particle collider project in Switzerland, temporarily in Madrid for a few weeks of rest. She was also giving up her apartment — a very small place, really just a single room — and mentioned it in passing, in case I was interested in taking over the lease.

I wasn't. But I said I was.

The next day she sent me an email. I was already on the train to Valencia, looking out the window at the snowy hills of the Serranía de Cuenca. I thought about responding. It was complicated. Then I lost the email.

And with it, Charlotte.

She had been reading a book about two men who spent their lives refusing to accept that reality is fundamentally uncertain. That things don't have definite states until someone looks.

Charlotte is still in the box. I never opened it. Therefore, she remains, technically, possible.