The early boxes built by Andrew Thumb drew derision from his granddad – a certain Tape 82 shows them in the throws of a big argument and in another tape that has no title and no date Andrew is sulking. It’s clear they were disappointed with these first experiments both in their capacity as argumentative drunks and as serious scientists. Firing the air rifle into the box was easy enough (any fool could do it), but according to the original experiment you were then supposed to be ‘unsure’ or unable to ascertain if the cat inside were alive or dead and thus able to say that it had entered a state of Quantum indeterminacy. But with Andrews ‘box’ you could actually hear the cats in there especially if they were wounded and when the yelling, scratching and all that stopped, you could tell so easily when they were dead.

A temporary solution was taking the boxes out into the yard so that Andrew and Curtis could not hear them (cats) anymore and thus the ‘state of quantum indeterminacy’ they had read about in the Star Trek book was possibly achieved. But in truth this tactic summoned a series of many more dramatic complaints from the neighbours who called out the coppers again who banged on the walls in high dudgeon til Andrew retreated the boxes indoors.

Days passed and the research stalled. Curtis hit the cider, watching Babylon 5 or the reruns of Panic Station Emptiness or the gruesome camcorder spectacles and mini-dramas of Best New Home Improvement Accidents & Bonus Deep Fat Fryer Fatalities. Andrew meanwhile brooding, thinking, staring out of windows, in search for more inspiration.

And then the progress – a second more obvious and private solution to the same problem (of the Quantum indeterminacy thing) was at last invented and called ‘soundproofing’ – a long monologue from Andrew explaining where he got the idea, on tape 93. And with this solution in mind, Andrew set to work immediately on making the boxes, complete with the soundproof etc, using roofing felt he stole from a building site and timber he salvaged from a wardrobe that was not much in use since his grandmother (Mable, wife to Curtis) had died of the cancer cluster that comes when you live too close to the High Voltages Power Lines.

*

Tapes. Boxes of tapes. Piles of tapes. Smashed tapes. Tapes stuck up and jammed with a dried on fluid that must once have been beer.

Curtis and Andrew in the cellar, the cellar strewn with wreckage of experiments, lager cans, and half eaten Wokever-U-Like and Kentucky Chicken McPieces.

Curtis talking physics and gesticulating wildly, his arms like those of a man strapped to windmills or of someone charged with conducting three separate orchestras.

Andrew listening with ‘the waiting eyes,’ drawing his own like dysfunctional diagrams in method of biro and chalk. His inspirations. His plans.

Excitement. Silence.

Curtis staring at something just out of shot.

Andrew elated.

Silence again.