The Day Lucky Gave His Two Weeks

Get this.

The other day Nick told me to consider the following: "an atom is made of 99% empty space, right, and so everything we see and touch is 99% empty space." It's already small enough to think that we're made of atoms. Try seeing atoms now, knowing how thinly constructed they are, yet how solid the world seems to look. I started seeing everything as a hollow shell. "This, here," he said, holding a hand to his heart, "this is empty. And this?" he waved his hand in the air over the balcony railing. "This out here. This is where the stuff is." 

Today, Cody comes over with club weed and we get philosophical in the backyard after his shift ends. 

It's a new kind of afternoon knowing Jenny won't be visiting at work, when I haven't made plans with her for the evening. 

I'm glad Cody came by, though. It's good to get to know people and see where they're coming from. Sometimes it's hard not to make assumptions about people from first impressions, but I do my best to hold the opinions aside until I at least know what they've been doing for the past five years. 

Long story short, we talked about Lucky putting in his two-weeks today, we talked about weed agriculture, we talked about the cycles of the universe, black holes and the past. He was spilling his guts with verbal enginuity that I wish people would write down, though they always say, "I'll leave that to the writers." But I could never recreate the scene word-for-word. I know more about Cody now than I ever expected to. I'll be interested to see how Cody goes through these upcoming changes, now that Lucky's leaving, now that I know a little more about Cody's motivations. They're noble. 

Here's what blew my mind, however. 

We're basically invisible pieces of energy. In those barely-there particles, electrons are rotating around tiny bundles of indescribably tiny bits of string (here's where they lose me). That said, it's not just us. Everything is made of these atoms. Even the air. "So," Cody says, in paraphrase, holding up his Giants baseball cap, "don't think of this as a distance between us. Think of this (the hat) as a cloud of atoms reacting to a specific heat, because it's heat that makes electrons and protons of the atoms move faster. That's the only reason anything exists. We're all parts of this collective fog, all the time." Connecting this to Nick's earlier statement, that means that everything I see not only looks like a shell knowing it's 99% empty space, but everything is actually part of the same hollow space filled entirely of atoms. Even the air. Really, we're all one vapor, basically, separated by differences in heat. A reaction to heat--in this case from the sun, I suppose, as well as our retained heat during the night. I mean, it's only because of atoms that we look blue in the moonlight. 

I guess the question is, what's the purpose of the mold? Why do we have shadows of atoms moving at a speed fast enough or slow enough to create a human body, let alone a human species. Plant life. Water. Oxygen. Earth. Everything.

Why? Why bother? 

It's got to be soul. 

Cheesy example: I could imagine Jenny and I are still connected, in that way, our souls, just two parts of the same cloud getting light in different places, like actors on a big stage. And I guess everything sort of gets its own spot-light. Everything does. For some reason. For some reason, that makes it feel like someone bigger is watching. It helps me love Long-Distance Jenny as much in this moment as I did when we last woke up together on a lazy weekday morning, knowing the distance itself is what connects us. 

Hell, even thoughts are atoms in the same cloud.

When daily life is already changing so much around me, it's weird to have my perception altered, even to the slightest degree. "I've thought small before," I confessed, "but this... this is something I never realized," laughing out loud as Cody re-inspected his apparently molded bud, "I don't mean to laugh. It's just something I've never thought of before." Basically, even the act of having my mind blown is the result of heat variations, as in the neurons themselves, being fired for the first time, are a specific mold of atoms that are reacting a specific way to temperature while the rest of the cloud simultaneously agrees to paint-by-numbers the entire universe. As in: we're all just shades of the same material. Literally. It makes me wonder about those people who invent the same thing at nearly the same time in entirely different countries and cultures. If I had a great thought in Sacramento, is it possible someone in Morocco felt that same heat in their atoms that I did... 

My question is, who's running the Big Heat Lamp in the Sky? 

I've rambled enough. I know the answer has something to do with the creation and consumption of the universe, black holes and the closest to infinity that a human mind can comprehend, which always ends with god. 

On a much smaller scale, Lucky puts in his two-week notice ("That was intense," Lucky says. "What happened?" we ask. "Oh I just gave Jason my two weeks. Good luck with whatever happens next," he says). It seems fitting. It'll be really interesting to see how Old Soul adapts to losing their coffee-roaster. I'm still anticipating the Great Meredith Riot of 2011 when we find out she's staying in Peru, which might not be as stressful for the owners to handle as it will be for the customers who come with torches. 

- Left to Fry