Friday Fictioneers – One Hundred Years of Spooky Action at a Distance

~ Neil MacDonald
PHOTO PROMPT © Ken Arnopole

Snow fell—a lacerating chill of knives. After a season, the sun returned—a shrivelled peach rehydrating into the Spring sky. Down in the thawing loam, we awake again, and slither insistently towards the light. This time, it will be different. 

We are legion and we are solitary. Both are true—a swarm of spores crafted by uncertainty over the unique position of our oneness. Flowing, rising, rising into the heavens on the slenderest of stalks, a fruiting body that contains the universe. We are the seed and we are the field. calling to our own selves in the deep.

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Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other stories here.

This story may benefit from an explanation. This year is the centenary of quantum physics. Hence the reference to uncertainty and the title—Einstein famously derided quantum “entanglement” as spooky action at a distance. The one/many theme reflets slime moulds—creatures which spend much of their lives as isolated single cells but which, under the right circumstances, flow together to form a multicellular organism with a fruiting body on a narrow stalk.

41 thoughts on “Friday Fictioneers – One Hundred Years of Spooky Action at a Distance”

  3. excellent fiction with a bit of fright, but what really was eerie was the slime moulds and how they can grow and form a fruiting body…. also – enjoyed learning about how E said that “entanglement” is as spooky action at a distance.

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  9. Wow! You pulled from no ordinary place! I’m wondering if this is a premonition of things coming to life from the frozen tundra that have been dormant for millennia!

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