Zero and One
By: Leon Wolf
Tags: Cabbie, New York, Stories, Brain, New York City

Two passengers got into my cab, an oddball couple. Guy one was tall, six feet four inches, long wild hair and beard, narrow head like an alien, skinny body, with long arms and fingers. Guy two was the same height, shiny bald head, and round — a bowling ball. His head, face, chest, belly, shoulders and arms, entire appearance, round. Together, the number 10. Their appearance drew my attention, so I eavesdropped.

One said, “Where do our memories go when they’re not in use?”

“The same place we are before we’re alive and after we die,” Zero replied. “Find one you’ll find the other.”

Zero wanted to talk about how time accelerates as we age. Sure, who doesn’t know that? The other day Izzie commented to me, “It goes like that,” and snapped his fingers. I think Izzie was referring to the toilet paper. Hahaha, I made myself laugh.

Zero questioned whether subjective time is objective in a way beyond our measuring. “What I’d love to know is whether kids today experience time passing at the same rate that we did as children, or is it faster? Is their time as fast as ours is now, as adults? Maybe it’s not simply a matter of perception but an objective result of time constantly accelerating. Maybe time speeds up as we age not due to the common belief that with age comes deep accumulations of memory in comparison to the brief present moment. Maybe, due to time’s acceleration, the endless summer days of our youth objectively don’t exist for today’s children. Maybe the world is as quick and frantic to today’s youth as our adult days are to us. Yet they’re slower than the future days they will look back on. If my hypothesis is true, how fast will time go when today’s babies are grown? Maybe it’ll go like that.”

He snapped his fingers the same way Izzie did. Coincidence? Maybe I knew Izzie didn’t mean toilet paper. Zero loved to pose big, complicated questions, but I was going to slam my head against the side of the cab if he used the word maybe to start another sentence.

I was a little freaked. Everything always does get faster, and the rate of increase is accelerating. From being a one-celled blob to walking on all fours to standing upright and striding, running. We learned to ride horses, and use tools to construct ships, trains, planes, spaceships to the future. Star Trek transporters. Travel at the speed of thought.

In time, we’ll realize all places are the same, and we’re already wherever we want to go. If the Hindu creation story is correct, as God we’ll be everywhere at once, be everything at once.

Is this a natural progression and expression of universal laws we don’t yet understand? Aren’t the galaxies speeding apart from one another at increasing speed? The river of time people talk about is going downhill and speeding up to the inevitable waterfall.

Childlike, One asked, “What does it all mean? Why does time exist? Why does it speed up, so we have to think and move faster to keep up or fall behind?”

Zero, so smooth, said without a pause, “Time exists so our thoughts and actions can have consequences. When it speeds up enough, our consequences will be immediate.”

Holy John Lennon, Batman, that’s what the song ‘Instant Karma’ was about!

Now One added to the conversation. He said, “If electron cloud theory is correct, we can’t pin a precise location to any one puny electron, out of the unfathomable multitudes within this taxi. The position of that one electron, let alone the rest, is unknowable. The position, a mere probability event, is the shifting sand foundation of everything larger and less probable.

“If you add the improbable items together, you have our so-called reality. The summation of trillions of improbable events makes existence so unlikely it’s a fantasy. Or else we can say it’s all as it’s meant to be.” One flashed a big, crooked space alien smile. He said, “Isn’t that right, driver?”

“Sounds Hindu to me, but how did they know it back in the day?” I said, thinking of the Hindu and Buddhist philosophy books I had read after the radio story piqued my interest.

The back seat approved. Zero chuckled and applauded how one might for a clever toddler. One leaned over from the right with his long, left arm to give me a hard clap on my shoulder and a smile.

After all that positive energy, the meager tip disappointed me. They had money.

As 10 exited the cab they continued their talk, discussing how our brains age. Why it’s hard to change an old person’s mind, or for them to have a new idea

“A memory well deforms your brain the same way a gravity well deforms space-time. A massive incident or thought, combined with emotional involvement, changes the shape of the brain and sucks in more brain content, the same way a black hole sucks in surrounding space and causes it to change. It becomes difficult to avoid ruminating and remembering. Hard to get a good sharp thought through that muck.”