Chrissy Kolaya - Charmed Particles

Meena had been relieved by Lily’s interest in the project, for it meant a reduction in the steady stream of chatter regarding when they might finally receive news about whether they had been accepted at the Academy.

At some point, Meena knew, she was going to have to break the news to Lily that she hadn’t applied. Until then, though, Meena negotiated these conversations with noncommittal, single-syllable responses, which Lily happily did not seem to notice amid her own growing anxiety and impatience.

Randolph had begun his book project with dedication and enthusiasm, but had found himself unable to make any meaningful headway. Each time he sat down at the large desk in his study, prepared to regale his imagined readers with tales of his wildest exploits, he was seized, instead, with a sense of the danger and the futility of it all. Reading through his drafts at the end of the day, he began to notice that he’d focused almost entirely on warnings: how to avoid cultural misunderstandings, the importance of preparation, the necessity of keeping one’s eye on surrounding crowds.

He had asked Lily to read and comment on his work, and each night before bed, he presented her with his day’s efforts. As she read, she noted helpful suggestions and asked questions, but she could see that he was struggling. What was missing from the pages was the sense of her father’s enthusiasm, his curiosity, traits she had never known him to be without — indeed, traits which he had always seemed to have in abundance compared to the other adults she knew.

She had asked him one night what it was about exploration that had so appealed to him at her age, what had drawn him to his adventures. Randolph didn’t know if she was asking because she was wise and hoped to remind him of what he had first fallen in love with, or because she was simply curious. In the end, though, it didn’t matter. As he answered, Lily in the great chair in his office, Randolph behind his desk, he found himself thinking back to his childhood, to the books that had seemed to promise that there was still adventure to be had in the world, still unknown parts of the world left to be explored. And he began to see the way forward.

As he sat behind the polished mahogany desk from which he could survey the collection of curiosities he had acquired on his travels, he began to imagine who his audience might be, and found himself surprised that instead of writing to the intrepid adult travelers he had imagined addressing, he found himself instead remembering the nights he hid under a blanket with a flashlight, transfixed by wild tales of adventure. Perhaps a book for children might stoke that same curiosity in others, might help him remember his own curiosity rather than his fear.

Now that the collider had, as Rose’s campaign literature noted, “been successfully defeated by our citizens standing up for their rights even when their elected officials would not,” the citizens of Nicolet turned their attention to the upcoming mayoral election.

Rose had expected that the informal candidates’ forum held in July at City Hall would be her time to shine, for Mayor Callahan had never been renowned for his skill at extemporaneous speaking. Her campaign staff had, of course, encouraged supporters to attend, and had even suggested a handful of question topics on which “your fellow citizens might be interested in hearing Candidate Winchester’s thoughts.” As they neared election day, Rose felt certain they were nearing, also, the end of Mayor Callahan’s long run as mayor of Nicolet.

But as the candidates’ forum progressed, the meeting room in the Nicolet Public Library packed with curious citizens, Rose had been caught off guard by one of the forum participants, who stood up to ask, “Isn’t it true that your own daughter won’t be attending Nicolet Public Schools? That she’s being shipped off to an elite boarding school for ‘exceptional’ children? What sort of investment will you have in the schools here if you don’t even trust them enough to educate your daughter?”

Rose, not realizing that word of Lily’s application had reached the ears of the electorate, had fumbled her response, sounding as unprepared for the question as Mayor Callahan when he responded to what Rose thought were obviously questions planted by his supporters.

“Sir,” she managed, finally, after many halting starts and stops, “where my daughter attends school has no bearing on my commitment to this community.”

“Mrs. Winchester.” Mayor Callahan stepped out from behind his podium. “I’d just like to go on record here today as agreeing with you that personal matters should be off the table when it comes to the mayor’s race.” He nodded, as though this was, indeed, a grave and serious matter.

Rose looked at Mayor Callahan over the top of her reading glasses, unable to decide, finally, if he was the bungling yokel she’d always pegged him for, or a far shrewder politician than she’d ever imagined.

Sarala had spent weeks studying the patterns and books on period-appropriate fabric Mrs. Schuster had loaned the girls. She had pulled her rarely used sewing machine from the spare bedroom closet, set it up on the dining room table, and spread the tissue-thin pattern pieces out over the living-room carpet, pinning them to the calico and cutting carefully. She wrestled with long yards of fabric that slowly, under her patient hand, transformed into petticoats and bodices.

The level of excitement in Nicolet over the upcoming Revolutionary War Days was far greater than she remembered from past years. Perhaps, Sarala considered, it was that the town felt able to breathe again now that the specter of the super collider had evaporated. Or maybe it was just that the town, fearful of the future, had chosen, instead, to take refuge in the past.

At the beginning of the summer, plans were announced for a large collaborative collider in Europe at CERN, and with that news it became clear that the Lab would no longer operate on the forefront of the physics community.

In July came the announcement from the Department of Energy that within the next four years they would cease to request funding to support the Lab’s current accelerator. Was this some sort of punishment for not securing the collider, some of the staff wondered? Either way, it was clear that the department’s priorities lay elsewhere.

The day the announcement of the defunding was made, Abhijat had taken a deep breath, gathered his energies, and began to make a list of his options. That facility, this university, yes — all of these were viable, promising possibilities, he thought, perusing the list once he had finished.

But that evening, over dinner, Meena had asked him, her voice, he noticed, halting and uncertain, “Does this mean we’ll have to move?” Sarala watched him, waiting for his answer.

Abhijat looked up and across the table at his wife and daughter, taking in the lines of worry on both their faces.

He decided it then, just as he said it.

“No.”

He said it again, as though to test himself.

“No. The accelerator may lose funding, but there will always be a place at the Lab for the theorists. It will just be—” he paused for a moment, imagining it “—a very different place. No longer the facility it once was.”

He could picture it — the halls grown quiet, a skeletal staff of mostly emeritus-aged physicists still reading and occasionally publishing an article here and there. Abhijat thought of the rusting buildings of the linear collider and wondered how long until the old accelerator’s buildings, once bustling with activity, would begin to look like that. How long until the cafeteria, once filled with chattering scientists, would be populated by one or two physicists sitting together over coffee at a too-large table.