Nimue's Confession — Part Three
By Lorraine Schein
Merlin’s heading now to the Institute, Fuld Hall, where Einstein’s office was. Except there’s someone else there now, of course--he probably wants to talk to one of the new young physicists for a change instead of just the famous dead ones.
I run into the building and down the main hall, and bump into a short man with glasses, coming from the cafeteria.
“Excuse me, Mr. Nigajowa, have you seen a man run by in jeans and a long robe?”
“Ah, yes--just had a good conversation with him--very intelligent fellow.” He walks on.
I run past him toward the cafeteria. The astrophysicists are laughing and telling jokes at one table, the particle physicists playing with their food at another, and the mathematicians writing equations on napkins while silently eating at the third.
No Merlin. The food smells good and not like meatloaf; they only serve the best at the Institute. But there’s no time to eat.
I look out the far glass wall that faces the back. In the distance is a faint figure in jeans and flapping shoes, running towards the parking lot. I shove two chairs aside, bolt out a side exit, and race after him again, down the well-worn path between the trees.
I don’t want to do it on these hallowed grounds, don’t want to violate the laws of classical physics here. But what the hell? Quantum physics has already done that.
I stop, mutter the words of power and wait. The wind rises, and the leaves in front of me whirl in a perfect spiral.
Ahead, I can see that Merlin has stopped running. He stares transfixed at something before him, gropes with his hands at the invisible barrier, and then turns in a circle trying to escape it, beating it with his fists and kicking it, but he can go no further. He drops his hands in defeat. A halo of light shines around him, there is a deep sucking noise, and he is gone.
Lorraine Schein is a New York writer and poet. Her work has appeared in VICE Terraform, Strange Horizons, Scientific American, and Michigan Quarterly, and in the anthologies The Unbearables, Wild Women and Tragedy Queens: Stories Inspired by Lana del Rey & Sylvia Plath. The Futurist’s Mistress, her poetry book, is available from Mayapple Press. Her newest book, The Lady Anarchist Cafe, was published by Autonomedia and available on Amazon.
Copyright © 2025 Lorraine Schein