My scientist friend\u2014his name\u2019s Adam but he spells it \u201cAtom\u201d\u2014 calls me about the latest breakthrough. He says physicists have discovered a new subatomic particle. His voice is urgent, almost cracking.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I say, \u201cI\u2019m tired of spheres. Tell me this new particle is noodle-shaped.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He says, \u201cMonads, they\u2019re called monads. They don\u2019t have a shape, but they might have a soul.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I\u2019m no conspiracy theorist. Still, sometimes I get the suspicion that the scientific community is really a secret society of comedians who get a kick\u2014a 2,500 year-old kick\u2014out of human credulity.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Atom is out of breath. He says he has to go, but he\u2019ll keep me updated. He makes it sound like he\u2019s right there, in the midst of the action, his hands touching the lever of a particle accelerator, his eyes obscured by fancy goggles. I use the word \u201cscientist\u201d somewhat liberally. Atom teaches AP Physics at a charter school.<\/p>\n
*<\/strong><\/p>\n When my wife and I were still doing marriage counseling (a year before our divorce), Atom was full of suggestions. He kept championing the need for proximity. He\u2019d call me up and say, \u201cAre you close? I mean, you know, close<\/em>?\u201d He\u2019d suggest that my wife and I take a sample of each other\u2019s blood and put the samples under a compound microscope, and then\u2014as husband and wife\u2014spend time marveling at the shifting landscape within, how each drop of our blood was a unique eruption of lentil-shaped lava.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n On some level, I think he was right. My wife and I were failing because we had run out of topography.<\/p>\n *<\/strong><\/p>\n The next day, Atom calls up again. This time, I stop him mid-sentence and say, \u201cSoul? I think I misheard you yesterday\u2014did you say monads have souls?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He says, \u201cIt\u2019s complicated. At the very least, monads have perception. Not to mention appetite\u2014<\/sub>\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cJesus, they get hungry?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMore like inclination. Or desire. They long.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There\u2019s a lull on the phone. On Atom\u2019s end of the receiver, I can hear clinking glasses and a droning electronic voice, as if Atom\u2019s at happy hour with Stephen Hawking.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I say, \u201cLook, it just doesn\u2019t sound very, uh, scientific\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAll these metaphors.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cActually, at the subatomic level, nonidentity is the norm. Nothing is what it seems, and thus metaphors are the most accurate form of language we physicists have at our disposal\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Atom\u2019s voice is drowned out by cheering, even wild abandon. Wherever he is, it sounds like a team has just scored.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I say, \u201cSo, uh, what do they want?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Atom says, \u201cWho?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMonads.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cOmniscience.\u201d<\/p>\n *<\/strong><\/p>\n To be fair, it\u2019s not just Atom who\u2019s monad-struck. All the media outlets\u2014NPR, CNN, FOX, even ESPN\u2014can\u2019t get enough. Monads this, monads that. Despite being infinitesimal, monads are bigger than sliced bread. The title of one article reads, \u201cSentient Particle Added to Our Subatomic Zoo!\u201d Oddly, it\u2019s not the first time I\u2019ve heard the whole zoo analogy. After my wife and I split, Atom wouldn\u2019t shut up about quarks and leptons and gluons and all those other subatomic \u201canimals\u201d that escaped from the primordial zoo.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Atom said, \u201cThe Big Bang was the first prison break.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I said, \u201cYou\u2019re mixing your metaphors.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He said, \u201cImagine how many inmates we\u2019ve yet to tag.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It dawned on me later that Atom was talking about women. Other women. Soul-bonding with particles that were not my wife.<\/p>\n *<\/strong><\/p>\n Atom keeps calling. Sometimes I wonder if I\u2019m Atom\u2019s only friend. He strikes me as the kind of person who believes friendship is monogamous.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He says, \u201cThe perception of monads is directed inward, not outward.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I say, \u201cOmniscience\u2014I don\u2019t understand\u2014how does a particle seek omniscience?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMonads are navel-gazers. Each monad is like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle: its own existence belies the contours of its neighbors. Thus in studying its own being, each monad is in fact intuiting its cosmic neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Atom goes on to describe how monads understand the world concentrically. Monads reason from self to neighborhood to neighborhood\u2019s neighborhood, etcetera.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It all sounds a bit alarming. Like an invasion. Minus the green humanoids with laser beams.<\/p>\n *<\/strong><\/p>\n I rub my eyes into the wee hours of the night. Everything is out of focus except negative space. A hat suggests a head. An outlet, a plug. Contours become clues. I imagine my body as one gangly, oversized monad: it too is a jigsaw piece with a shape that suggests a connection. What connection? I only know the answers that are incorrect. All the hands I thought my hands fit into.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You get this sinking feeling when you turn forty\u2014alone forty, divorced forty, table-for-one forty\u2014you get this sinking feeling that the cosmic jigsaw factory made a mistake. A manufacturing error. Honestly, I think Atom knows this feeling all too well. I think it\u2019s why he won\u2019t stop calling. The cosmic jigsaw factory expresses its deepest apologies. No one\u2019s perfect, it says. But the truth is, well, how to put it? Your piece was shrink-wrapped in the wrong box.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My scientist friend’s name is Adam, but he spells it “Atom”…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":3509,"template":"","categories":[9,48,49],"tags":[1026,6,1027,199,331,1028,1029],"class_list":["post-3508","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aquifer","category-fiction","category-literary-features","tag-andrew-gretes","tag-aquifer-the-florida-review-online","tag-desire","tag-divorce","tag-friendship","tag-monads","tag-monads-and-the-cosmic-jigsaw-factory"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n