John Night: The Quantum Mystery

By UENIO PAULO DE GOMES

  “John Night” tells the story of a poor boy who lives in the periphery and suffers from recurrent bullying at school. The action takes place in a town located in the Midwest of a country in South America. He has a hard life. Despite being very young, he has to find a job due to his family’s financial problems. Besides the strong competition and lack of opportunities, he still has to deal with unscrupulous people. In the midst of all these issues, and thanks to his learning about Quantum Physics, he believes we can live in a better world, either in another dimension or in a parallel universe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: May 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781547576227

Book preview

John Night:

The Quantum Mystery

By

Souza Gomes

To my beloved son. Something difficult to explain that goes beyond the love we feel for each other. A feeling of complicity that ties long-standing friends who share their secrets but compete for the video game remote control...

The Bald Man

In the nineties, more precisely in 1994, I was old enough to start having my professional life. In other words, I was sixteen. I wasn’t quite sure about my future career path yet. I was just giving my first steps away from the comfort and safety of my childhood and adolescence, and had to face the terrible uncertainty of adulthood. Actually, it was the common duality every Brazilian adolescent had to deal with. It was true at that time, and still is.

You managed to make it through your childhood and adolescence. Suddenly, you have just reached your adult life with absolutely no plans for it. Simple as it is. When you started looking for your first job, you were asked for some previous experience. It sounded rather strange, even jesting, as it was obvious you couldn’t have any previous job experience for the very simple reason it was the first time you had ever applied for a job.

It’s my first job, damn it!

Nowadays, in Brazil, it isn’t so hard for young people to apply for a job vacancy as it used to be. You can do your internship during your scholar years (elementary, secondary or higher education) due to the creation of funding programs so that companies may hire young workers from the age of 14. Consequently, you might be proud of being able to include some work experience in your curriculum. 

I wanted to apply for a job; however, I wasn’t compelled to do it for having financial independence. At that time, if you lived in the suburbs and had a top video game, believe me, it was a symbol of status. It was as important as having a cool cell phone or being a famous on You Tube in the current days.

I belonged to the group of kids who hadn’t a cool video game at home yet. Even our TV, which was shared by the whole family, wasn’t a color one. I knew it would be weird to play video games on a black-and- white TV. Nevertheless, I did want to have one. It had always been my childhood dream. A dream my mother hadn’t been able to make it true until that year.

It was a recurring situation within our family. Most of times, my mother wasn’t able to give us all the things we wanted (or the things we thought we needed), but she always made us believe we could reach our goals and hope to get what we wanted. I was aware she couldn’t make my wish come true, but I knew that, one day, it would become a reality. It could, though, be given by other hands than hers.

Therefore, I was determined to find a way of getting some money to make my dream come true even before reaching adulthood. A life of crime wasn’t even an option. If I managed to stay away from it, it would already be a huge victory. I couldn’t imagine anything better than playing my video games night after night.  

Bearing in mind that I had to make my wish come true before I became an adult, I started my quest for my digital dream.

I hadn’t found yet the gift that would convert me into the defender of the underdogs. But, I believed it was possible to change the reality that imprisoned me.  

I was looking for a job, which was a difficult goal at the time. In Brazil, military service is compulsory as soon as you are 18. That’s the reason why employers refuse to hire you when you are about to be that age, because if you are called up while working, they will have to pay your rights during the time you are in the army.

Anyway, despite everything, and with the help of my cousin Max, I got a job as an office-boy in a decor shop called La Casa. The salary was low, but it would be enough to buy the video game I wanted so much.

First issue: I needed a bike. A real office-boy had to have a bike to be able to do his tasks in due time. I had never had a bike during my 16 years of life. So, I had to borrow it from a friend until I had the money to buy my own.

Karl was a nice fellow. His family was as poor as mine; however, he had managed to achieve much more in his life than me so far. He was a diligent guy. I was sure he would be a successful man in the future.

When I arrived at his house, I called out:

— Karl! Are you in?

Suddenly, a dark-skinned, kind of gangly boy comes to the door.

— Hi, John. What do you want?

— Hi pal, I want to ask you a favor.

Scratching his head, he replies:

— OK. I’m listening.

— So, you know that old bike of yours? I wonder if you could lend it to me to help in my new job.

He looked at me as if he had seen a ghost.

— Well, it’s kind of weird you wanting to work. I’ve never seen you interested in finding a job. Not even at fairs trying to get some extras tips by helping drivers to find a place to park their cars as the other boys do.

I was a bit ashamed.

— But now it’s different. I’m 16 and I need a job.

The boy looked at me with suspicious eyes.

— OK... Anyway, what’s your point? What do you really want?

I came straight to the point.

— I have to buy my first video game. That’s it.

I noticed the alarmed expression on Karl’s face.

— Really?! Come on, John! There are much more important things in life than spending hours and hours playing games that simulate fake lives.

To put an end to his chatter, I bluntly asked:

— Well, are you going to lend it or not?

— Yeah, I’ll lend it to you. But, take good care of it. I really love my bike.

His bike was pretty old; a kind of cargo bike with worn tires, scratched, and full of rust caused by too much time of use and long exposure to the weather in this tropical country. 

Its owner, Karl, had been my friend since the time when we used to play football in the street - true championships of scored goals. He was always ready to help his friends. Actually, I had never met anyone as kind and supportive as Karl. Despite being bullied because he was poor and dark-skinned, he never ceased being kind and gentle.

Second issue: Transport wasn’t included in my salary; so, I’d really have to bike if I wanted the job. A small detail, though: I lived in the suburbs and the shop was in the town center; therefore, I had to go a long way. All the teens that worked in town and lived in the suburbs used to leave their bikes at the workplace and take a bus for their daily commute. But, in my case, it would be different: I really had to bike.

Some further information about my country: most of the cities were built without any planning. Unplanned buildings spread everywhere, not to mention the illegal ones. As a consequence, people who live in those areas are deprived of basic living conditions, including local employment. So, people have to look for a job in more distant places. Even simple things such as food or leisure can only be found far away from home.

It wouldn´t be different for me. I had to try my hardest to get a job.

Third issue: How on earth would I be able to buy my own bike and give Karl’s one back if I was determined to get my video game?

I had to face all those challenges. As a matter of fact, those were only a few of the many dilemmas that would cloud all my life here on earth.

Well, I had already found the solution for the first problem: I would have to borrow Karl’s bike. For the second one, I had no escape: I would have to bike all the way from home to downtown, and vice versa. To solve the third problem, I would have to use a very common ploy among Brazilian people: the famous finding a way. Everybody criticizes it, but everybody does it.  

I told Karl that if he happened to get a job and needed his bike, we’d share it and I would pay a symbolic rental for it. However, his job had to be at a different schedule than mine since I was the first one to get a job and had the priority of choosing. As you can see, there were codes of conduct among pals who were the same age. These rules were supposed to be respected and very helpful in case of need. 

I made this proposal, because I was quite sure he wouldn’t be able to easily find a job. Actually, he was about 17; in other words, he was about to enlist in the Brazilian army, to put it better, in the Green Berets. Consequently, at that time, it would be rather difficult for Karl to be part of the economically active population (EAP) in our country.

To my surprise and complete emotional misery, he had got a job in the same conditions as I had. Damn it! So, we really had to share his bike. He had been hired as a pizza deliver at nights, precisely in the same neighborhood I was working in.  

Therefore, a fourth issue arose. My agreement with Karl didn’t include the logistics to share his bike; so, I had to submit myself to the idea and endure more suffering in my short and oppressed existence.

But, we managed to get an agreement. I would ride his bike in the mornings and until 5 pm as soon as he started working. Then, he would get his bike back at midnight so that he could go home on the condition I could have it again when he got home, or, at least, early in the morning once I woke up. I had to find a way of going back home after work, which wasn’t easy since Karl was given a free bus pass, but I had none.

I had to walk the long way; otherwise, I had to spend some money from the monthly salary I wouldn’t have received yet. I didn’t like this idea, because I had no intention of spending the money at all. In fact, it would delay my dream to come true: the video game purchase.

In short, I had to walk all the way long except on the days when I would manage to get a lift from a friend. There were many office boys at the time, and, coincidently or not, most of them lived in the same suburbs as me. Besides, they were my long-term friends.

Whenever I went downtown with my mother, I used to see some street kids travelling on the back of the bus, or on the roof of it; sometimes, they even got a ride on its axles, which was absolutely insane. In my opinion, as they didn’t have much to lose, they had fun while playing with the death. 

I have to confess I thought about doing the same as they did: to take a free ride at the back of a bus. But, unlike them, I had much to lose, and I was truly frightened by the idea of falling down from the moving bus. Up until then the highest speed I had ever reached was 40 kph downhill on a BMX bike lent by a friend of mine who was very rich.

Let’s go back to the matter in hand. The long-awaited day arrived, i.e., my first day