Marissa sighed before shouting out, “STEVEN, I CAN’T FIND THE CORNSTARCH”. There was a pause, a rapid cascade of low thuds as Steven came running downstairs, before Steven exploded through the kitchen door, knocking a broom resting against the counter. Marissa watched with equal parts amusement and annoyance as Steven batted the broom back and forth against the counter, before finally turning to Marissa and asking “What’s up?” Marissa responded, “I can’t find the cornstarch. Did you put it away somewhere?” In the back of her mind, this felt a little mean. Marissa was 95% sure that Steven had just forgotten to buy any and going down this line of questioning in the name of giving him the benefit of the doubt felt a little disingenuous. “Cornstarch? I thought you wanted me to pick up sugar at the store?” Steven responded, much more confident than he had any right to be. Marissa had been friends with Steven for ten years and lived with him for five. He was one of the kindest people she had ever known, with an ability to make people feel at ease effortlessly, able to switch from making ribald jokes that got the whole room roaring in laughter to providing earnest heartfelt support that could soothe your soul in the darkest of storms. But, he was forgetful. Marissa looked away, brought her fingers up to her forehead and sighed. She tried to keep her frustration from leaking into her voice as she spoke. “I did need sugar. I also need cornstarch.Both things are needed for making pudding.” Steven grimaced at his mistake. “Ah.” Marissa shook her head. “It’s fine. I actually have some time before starting on dinner anyways. Can you clean the apartment a bit while I’m out? I know our friends’ expectations aren’t that high, but I’d like it to look at least a little better than” - Marissa gestured wildly around her - “this.” Steven did a mock military salute. “Yes Ma’am!” Marissa rolled her eyes. He was so cringeworthy sometimes. -------------------------------------------------------------- “No, no no, you’re explaining it all wrong!” “Well ok, then, Ms Physics Grad Student, explain it properly for us then.” Marissa put on a mock pout, but in actuality, she loved explaining physics, especially quantum mechanics. She put down her fork and leaned into the dinner table. “Ok, so, It’s not that we don’t know whether the cat is alive or dead - it’s that, before we open the box, the cat is kind of both alive and dead. Like, if we heard meowing, we’d think that the cat was alive and if we smelled a dead body, we’d think that the cat is dead, right? But, what if we both heard meowing and smelled rotting at the same time? That’s kind of what happens in quantum mechanics! In normal life, we’re like ‘Oh, you can’t have something that’s both alive and dead, that doesn’t make sense’, but in quantum mechanics, that’s actually not a contradiction. It’s possible for both things to be true at the same time, despite how unusual that seems.” Esther, one of Steven and Marissa’s dinner guests for the evening, chimed in, quick as a whistle, “Well, next time my mom asks me whether I have a job yet, I’ll just tell her, ‘Mom, Maybe you should learn some Quantum Mechanics and learn to respect that I am in a state of both Having a Job and Not Having a Job’.” The dinner table erupted with laughter. Daniel, another friend, threw in for good measure, “I’ll have to tell my mom that about me having a girlfriend too.” and another wave of chortles rippled through the group. Steven furrowed his eyebrows, looked at Esther and said, “Wait, in what sense do you not have a job? Hasn’t the past year been really good for you with selling your art in galleries and whatnot?” Esther let out a groan and threw up her hands as she responded, “Yes! Thank you! Finally, someone gets it! I do have a real job! But try telling that to my mom.” She mimed her mother’s Philipino accent, “‘Why did I pay for you to get a CS degree from Berkeley if you’re just going to fingerpaint?’” Daniel shook his head and followed up, “Ugh, my mom is the same way. ‘How are you going to become rich from climbing rocks?’. Sometimes I think we’re over it, but then she just brings it back up again. I don’t know if she’s ever going to get it.” Steven thought for a second before responding, “Well, i guess it’s like the cat thing. We think it doesn’t make sense that the cat is both dead and alive, but it makes sense in quantum mechanics, while our moms think it doesn’t make sense to be happy and not make a ton of money, but it makes sense to us.” A chorus of “Ah”s went around the room before a brief silence. Marissa let out a mischievous grin before saying, “Well, I guess it just goes to show you… Fuck Moms”. Another raucous wave exploded across the dinner table. In the small room, the camaraderie felt condensed as if the waves of laughter were compounding on one another. Steven shook his head before standing up and saying “Y’all are too ridiculous for me. I’m going to go get the desert. Who wants pudding?” A chorus of approval responds back as Steven turned towards the kitchen, jovially muttering to himself, “Ahh, why’d I even ask. Of course everyone wants pudding.” Steven sauntered into the kitchen, grabbed the big bowl of pudding, a serving spoon, 4 bowls and 4 spoons. It’s a bit much for one person to carry at a time, but Steven loved a challenge and, besides, he’s only had a couple Manhattans so far tonight. He put the serving spoon in the pudding bowl and balanced it in one arm. With the other arm, he stacked the individual bowls on top of each other and put the spoons on the topmost bowl. It’s a little precarious but he mades up for it by leaning the stack of bowls in one arm against the pudding bowl in his other arm. He walked a little bit, gauging the stability, before grinning and walking back towards the dining room, just a bit too confidently. Steven walked through the doorway between the rooms, saying “Alright, here we go.” and just barely grazed the broom left propped up in the doorway, which began, ever so slowly, gathering speed down the side of the counter.. Esther inadvertently saw the broom begin to fall over and let out a little “Oh!” and immediately realized that it was a mistake. From Esther’s little “Oh!”, Steven realized the broom was falling and started spinning around in order to catch it. Everyone that was sitting started getting up in order to try and stop the impending disaster, but it’s too late. Magically, Steven managed to get the serving bowls onto a counter in order to free up a hand, but realized the broom is falling too fast at this point. In a last ditch effort, he tried to kick the broom back up and manages to, instead, kick it right up into his face, causing him to fall back and throw the bowl of pudding upwards, sending pudding flying everywhere. The last thing he saw before his head hit the tile floor was a beautiful collage of yellow globs suspended in midair. Then, darkness. -------------------------------------------------------------- Steven woke up with his friends’ peering down at him. They immediately start peppering him with questions, “How do you-”, “Do you remember what-”, “-how many fingers I’m holding up-”. Steven weakly raised a hand in resistance as he started muttering out, “Can y’all calm down? I’m fine.” He mustered up a smile and sat up, “Look! All my limbs still work fine.” - He flopped around on the floor to demonstrate his motor control, eliciting a few giggles - “And Esther, I can see you’re holding up four fingers, but for some reason, they look like hot do-” . Marissa cut him off. “Don’t you tell me to calm down! You’re the one who busted his head and freaked everyone out! I swear to god…” Marissa closed her eyes and started stomping away, still muttering to herself. “I can’t even deal with this right now. Who does he think he is telling us to calm down after all that… Here’s an idea: why don’t you be more careful… then we wouldn’t have banana pudding all over our kitchen…” Esther watched Marissa walk away before turning back to Steven and offering him an apologetic smile before saying, “We were all pretty worried about you. You were only out a few seconds, but we were totally freaking out! We were seriously right about to call an ambulance. Maybe, we still should? I mean -“ Steven groaned and shook his head, “Oh god no. Thanks for waiting a little bit. I’m pretty sure I’m fine. In case it wasn’t clear earlier, I can move all my limbs and understand y’all fine.” Steven started pulling himself up, waving away Esther and Daniel’s efforts to help in the process, but Esther insisted he at least go lay down on the couch and make sure he’s alright. Steven tried to protest, “I’m feeling fine and I feel so bad that I made such a mess...” and began trying to clean the pudding up all around the kitchen, but it wasn’t long before Marissa’s walked back in with some cleaning supplies and blasted through his protests - “ GO LAY DOWN.” in The Voice, the voice used by mothers through all cultures of the world, the voice known by everyone letting you know that Disobedience Would Not Be Tolerated and that There Would Be Consequences. Steven went to lay down on the couch. As Steven sank into the couch, Marissa came by with a towel and a cup of water. She knelt down next to Steven and sighed with a thousand years of exasperation. “You’re sure you feel fine? If you end up dying because you were concerned about money, you know I’m going to be pissed. You know we’d be happy to cover it as your friends.” Steven grimaced at the thought, “Oh nononono. I’m totally fine. I promise.” He tried to look as innocent and healthy as possible while Marissa glared at him, trying to evaluate whether he was either lying or too stupid to know whether or not they should call an ambulance. Steven tried his best to withstand her withering gaze for a few moments before he passed. She signed again and shook her head. “Fine. Fine. Drink your water and rest.” she said before walking off to the kitchen. Steven tried to relax. He could hear the sounds of his friends cleaning up in the kitchen and the embarrassment and guilt began to set in. Normally, he would have avoided it by throwing his attention towards helping out, but he couldn’t do that while banished to the couch. He tried to make out his friend’s voices. “Wow. Esther, you should try the pudding. It’s actually still amazing.” “Daniel! Did you seriously just eat that off the floor?” “What? I don’t want it to go to waste- Hey!” A whack. “Stop that. Stop eating the pudding. Ugh, I’ll clean this up. Go help Marissa with the dishes or something.” Steven started feeling a bit left out and called out to the kitchen, “How bad is the mess?” Esther replied, “Oh, it’s not so bad. I’m almost already done and nothing landed on any electronics or anything like that.” Steven thought some more. “Was the bowl alright?”. Marissa let out a snork. “Yeah, actually your face broke its fall”. Steven suddenly became conscious of a dull ache in his cheek and thought to himself, That explains that. A few more moments of near silence softly filled with the sounds of a running sink.. Steven called out to the kitchen once more, “Isn’t it my turn to do the dishes tonight?”. Marissa replied, “It sure is.” Steven called back, “I can do the dishes in a bit.” Marissa shrugged and grabbed another dirty plate. “Two things can be true.”