Schrödinger’s Cats

Schrödinger’s Cats
 
   A freckled face girl serves me coffee. She breezes into my space like a prairie wind with a smile born of pasture sunrise.  She is a southern flower child. Her modest skirt is a quiet beige. She flies like a songbird to my table. Her voice is a melody of love. With a pirouette and she ballet steps away.  
     I gaze upon her fluttering departure thirsty for the sparkle in her eyes like gemstones aglow in a milky sea as I sip my coffee in quiet reverence of her.
     She says, “Hey do you remember that story I told you about my teenage years? How I attended Snick meetings in the orange Manhattan haze. I was a Trotskyite fledgling who wandered the tenement halls like a newborn babe with wonder at every manhole as steam rose from grates. You may remember that I told you how I walked angelically through graffiti subway tunnels when the Lower Eastside blues seeped salsa rhythms through the fortified walls. I was a bright-eyed moonchild who surveyed dreamscapes while aglow with love light. Once I sauntered through my neighborhood and fate dropped ceramic pot nemesis inches from peering eyes where I gazed at death from a stone’s throw.”
     I reply, “Listen you are way too young to be who you seem to be. But you have captured my interest so please proceed with caution as shall I.”
     She says, “Well since you’ve given me the green light I will continue. You always were cautious except in those crazy white water canoeing trips we made. So here she blows. In the housing project interlude, I set out across the island city with visions of wheat fields beyond the cement wilderness where love is elusive like a unicorn a myth until I arrived at the Cloisters no closer to liberation from fortress Urbania.”
     I reply, “Ok you’re either for real or you’ve been reading the poem I wrote about her and posted online.”
     She says, “Let’s go for a walk just a short one maybe a mile. Please follow me.”
     She holds my hand and leads me into the coffee shop. I reply, “I really don’t see how we can make a mile through the building. It is enclosed in walls and we aren’t Schrödinger’s cats who can walk through walls.”
     “How do you know what kind of cat I am or what kind I can turn you into? I can purr and meow and even bring out the tomcat in you.”
     “Well if you are a Schrödinger’s cat then I am a ghost from Hamlet. So lead the way.”
     She says, “Now you’re catching on. But here you don’t have to die to go to the afterlife better known as heaven. In fact, I bid you look at what lies ahead past the perimeter of this coffee shop.”
     “It looks like the wall has become invisible and there is a garden out there. Either I am hallucinating or you’ve brought me to the garden of earthly delight made famous by the medieval painting by Hieronymus Bosch. There are all sorts of strange birds, nude people, and oversize strawberries.”
     “I always loved that art piece. So I recreated it as my personal heaven.”
     “The air is so cool here, more like Seattle than Louisiana.”
      “We have microclimates here like Costa Rica. We get our climate of choice.”
     “I thought I had to die to rejoin you here.”
     “Of course not. If you stay your family will file a missing person’s report on you. But you can send them a letter through the heavenly post office telling them you are living in an ashram in Oregon but are fine and not to worry.”
     “Has my time come?”
     “It is your choice. But please stay. My passing interrupted a marriage that had a future we never got to have together.”
     “Quantum mechanics has opened a door to the future that was stolen by the grim reaper.”
     She replies, “You always had such a keen perception. The lovely part is that the membrane that separates our world from the earth is easily crossed. We can visit your favorite coffee shop for you to get served by me anytime.”
     “And I am not a jealous patron. You can serve others too if you like.”
     “You have exclusive rights on my beverage services.”