Submitted by S.A. McNaughton
on January 02, 2024
** QUANTUM SHORTS 2023/2024: SHORTLISTED
>> Read an interview with the author
I slow down my breathing as the door to my bedroom opens. If my plan is going to work, then they have to believe I’m asleep. When we practiced, my best friend and collaborator Kayla told me my snoring was unrealistic, so instead I match my breathing to that of my little sister Lou, asleep on the bottom bunk.
When the door closes, I hear a whisper in the hallway: “Both girls are asleep.”
If it’s Santa Claus, I jot down in my research notebook, who is he talking to? Santa works alone.
I label the column “Evidence Against” and wait until the footsteps retreat down the stairs. I slip down from my bed, donning my robe and slippers. The doorknob clicks as I open it, and my sister shifts in her bed. Stay asleep, Lou. Don’t ruin this for me.
At the bottom of the stairs I pull a small mirror from my robe pocket to scan around the corner into the living room. Distributing presents at the foot of the Christmas tree are two characters with their backs to me. One is familiar, in a red suit with white trim, and the other is completely new to me. She wears an iridescent blue cardigan and I can see the corner of her matching cats-eye spectacles. Her hair is a tight bun of shimmering silvery-blue. Santa doesn’t work alone?
I drop the mirror in surprise at the sight of the two figures and it smashes on the floor. They turn around, surprised.
“We’ve been observed, what do we do?” Santa asks the woman. His wide eyes are blue, like my dad’s.
“Hello, Cindy,” Santa’s companion calmly greets me. “The first thing we need to do is to clean up this mess.” She pulls a silver brush and dustpan from the deep red sack between them, bends down in front of me and cleans up the shards. When she looks up, I am comforted to see that the eyes behind the glasses resemble my mom’s.
“I know Santa,” I pause, confused, “But who are you and how do you know my name?”
“Cindy, have you ever wondered how Santa visits all of the good children in the world in one night, or enters houses without chimneys?” she asks.
“That’s why I’m awake. It didn’t add up.” Kayla and I heard kids at school say that Santa isn’t real, and as scientists, we decided to test the hypothesis. I wonder what is happening at Kayla’s house right now.
“I am the Quantum Librarian. I help Santa by managing reality.” My confusion must show, because she continues: “You see Santa here? Well, Santa Claus is better described as a quantum system than as a man.”
“This is really hard to understand. I’m eight,” I explain.
“Nobody said this was going to be easy. But if you’re old enough to stay up past bedtime on Christmas Eve, then you’re ready for some quantum physics,” the librarian admonishes.
“I guess so,” I acknowledge, even though I’m not sure she’s right.
“Santa was concerned about being observed. According to quantum physics, Santa is able to be everywhere in the world at once. He can be inside your house and inside your friend Kayla’s house at the same time. But by observing him, you have collapsed reality into one point, which means that Santa is unable to deliver presents to the other children of the world while he is being observed by you. At this point in reality, he is only here. Unless we can restore the system, Santa will not visit them tonight.”
I had no idea that our experiment could backfire in such a humongous way. I beg the librarian to tell me how to restore the system.
“There are two steps. The first is for you to go to bed and no longer observe these activities,” she explains.
“I’ll head right up,” I promise. “What’s the second step?”
“As I’m sure you’ve guessed,” the librarian says, “This is not the first time in the universes that a child has stayed up past bedtime to watch for Santa. But it’s not good for the system to be interrupted. So to reinforce it, each child who stays up to confirm the existence of Santa becomes a part of the Santa System.”
I’m worried again, but she calmly continues, “It just means that you now have a duty to keep the spirit of Christmas alive for younger children.”
“Why are you a librarian?” I ask.
“Information, my dear, is the building block of reality,” she adjusts her eyeglasses. “Who better to manage reality than an information professional?”
“Are either of you… real?” I ask.
“We are and are not real,” she responds. This Quantum Librarian is a tricky one. She gives me a little hug and a push toward the stairs, and I return to bed.
* * *
Lou wakes me up the next morning, jumping up and down and shouting that Christmas is here. I want to go back to sleep, but then I remember that I have a Santa System job to do. I put on my robe and slippers and join the jumping, then follow her down the stairs. As I reach the bottom I reach into my pocket and find my mirror there, completely intact. How in the universes did the librarian do that?
My parents hand me a slim present to open first. “We hope you’ll like it,” my mom smiles. I tear the wrapping paper open and find a book: Quantum Physics for the Third Grade.
“This is exactly what I need!” I cry, running for the phone. “I need to call my collaborator.”
“I saw him!” I shout to Kayla when she answers. “And I got a book that will help me understand what happened, because none of it made sense! How about you?”
“Aw, man,” Kayla grouses, “I fell asleep and missed him. But I did have a weird dream. There was this librarian…”
About the Author:
S.A. McNaughton (she/her) is the pen name of an author who lives in Ypsilanti (“IP-suh-LAN-tee”), Michigan, USA with her husband and son. She loved to write as a child and is rediscovering that love in middle age. You can find her other work at https://writermcnaughton.wordpress.com/
