Beatles

Elizabeth stepped into her office and stopped. For a brief, surreal moment, she thought she might have entered the wrong room.

The transformation was staggering.

Gone were the crooked, leaning towers of forgotten cardboard boxes, the dusty holiday decorations, the once-proud graveyard of mops, buckets, and faded yellow Caution: Wet Floor signs. The clutter was gone . . . utterly . . . and in its place stood a quiet, clean, echo empty room. Pale morning light spilled unobstructed through the once-blocked window, catching on motes of dust still settling from the upheaval.

The walls, now exposed, were streaked with faint grime and patchy discolouration where shelving units had long stood, but even those imperfections felt… promising. Like scars on newly healed skin. Evidence of change.

And there, near the window, angled to catch the morning light, sat a desk. A little battered. Well-worn. But real. Solid. Hers.

She could barely believe it.

A plastic chair sat tucked beneath it . . . functional if uninviting. But it didn’t matter. Not right now.

Her fingers tightened on the strap of her satchel. Then she stepped forward and let it drop gently onto the desktop. The sound, dull and final, echoed like a declaration. She had a workspace now. A place that was hers.

She slid into the chair with a small creak, immediately cataloguing its flaws, hard edges, bad lumbar support, faint plastic scent, but all that faded as she looked to the windowsill.

A chipped ceramic mug sat there like it had always belonged. A single daffodil rose from it, bright and golden. The mug’s once-white glaze had faded to a warm cream, worn through at the rim and base, and around its middle ran a faint staff of musical notes, sheet music, printed in a loop like a decorative band.

She leaned forward, inspecting it.

Mr. Black.

She smiled, just slightly, and brushed her fingers along the cup’s worn glaze. The music… it wasn’t random. It was a melody. One she might’ve recognised if she could read music. But alas, even with her credentials, multiple degrees, post-doctoral fellowships, published research . . . she remained musically illiterate.

No matter. It was beautiful.

Her smile widened, just a touch, and then she turned back to the desk. Resting her palms flat, she smoothed them across the desk’s wood grain in a slow, deliberate motion. It felt like ownership. Like intention.

Unfastening her satchel, she removed her laptop and placed it in the centre of the desk. It hummed to life. A few keystrokes later, it began to boot. Then came the next item from her bag: a small matte-black device no bigger than a mobile phone. She connected it to the laptop via a short coil of fibre optic cable.

Instantly, a loading screen appeared. Data began to transfer.

She had a few minutes to wait.

Her gaze drifted once more to the flower, and she reached for the mug again . . . curious, appreciative, when a sudden knock startled her, making her fumble it slightly before placing it back on the sill with a clumsy clink.

“Come in,” she called, adjusting her cuffs and smoothing the front of her blouse.

Mr. Black poked his head in, one brow raised, a practised half-grin already on his face.

“Look at that,” Elizabeth said mockingly. “He knocks now. A marked improvement, Mr. Black. Please, do enter.”

He stepped in, exaggeratedly cautious, holding both hands up in mock innocence.

He wandered in a bit further, thumb hooked in his utility belt. “Saw your bike outside. Thought I’d check in, see if the office met expectations… or if I’d be receiving an angry note written in red ink and academic jargon.”

She turned toward him. “It exceeds expectations, Mr. Black. Massively so. I wasn’t expecting the room to be cleared until next week at the earliest. How on earth did you manage this?”

He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I don’t sleep much. Figured I’d stay after hours, get it sorted while no one was using the hallways as a racetrack. You know… quiet time, less screaming, fewer flying chairs.”

She blinked. “You stayed late to do this?”

“Well, yeah.” He scratched the back of his neck, suddenly sheepish. “I mean, I didn’t break any labour laws or anything. I clocked out before doing it, if that helps your conscience.”

Elizabeth studied him for a moment, then shook her head slightly. “You didn’t need to do this on your own time. I hope I didn’t give the impression this was that urgent.”

He rubbed at the back of his neck again, a nervous tick she was beginning to catalogue. “You didn’t. I just figured you’d like it done. And besides…”

A soft ping from her laptop interrupted him. They both glanced at the screen.

Visuals unfurled . . . graphs, three-dimensional crystal lattices, shimmering data streams. The device had finished syncing.

“Blimey,” he murmured, leaning in slightly. “That looks like something outta Star Trek.”

“It’s the data upload from yesterday’s trial,” Elizabeth said. “I’m currently running a series of remote entanglement experiments. Tests to measure potential influence from unique cognitive signatures.”

He blinked. “Okay. That’s a lotta words.”

She tapped a few keys, calling up another display. “Put simply, I’m seeing if different types of minds can influence quantum-level randomness.”

He pointed at the device. “And this little black box is part of it?”

“That, and two off-site laboratories… one in California, the other in Geneva.”

“International experiments from a broom closet. You’re not messing around.”

She smirked faintly. “It’s not a broom closet any more, Mr. Black.”

He gave her a small grin.

Mr. Black shuffled closer, bending at the knees like a man about to inspect a curious bug. His shoulder brushed lightly against Elizabeth’s.

She caught the scent of him.

Not antiseptic or sterile like the rest of the facility, but musky, clean in a rugged kind of way. Like tree bark. Earthy.

Pleasant.

Her pulse quickened . . . barely . . . but enough for her to notice it.

“Wait…” she muttered, her brow tightening as her fingers danced across the keyboard. “This isn’t right.”

More data populated the screen. Numbers twisted through graphs, colours shifting from expected tones into something entirely different.

She leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “This shouldn’t shift this far outside the expected deviation. And yet… not only here, but also in the control labs.”

Mr. Black glanced at her, then the screen. “You’ve got other labs doing this?”

She nodded, not taking her eyes off the laptop. “One at the Institute of Noetic Sciences in California. Another in Geneva. ISSNOE.”

He gave a low whistle. “Swanky. And it doesn’t matter how far apart they are?”

“Normally, yes,” she said, cheeks colouring faintly. She hated being surprised by her own data . . . it made her feel unprepared, exposed. “But proximity seems irrelevant for yesterday’s experiment. The results are a 93% match.”

Mr. Black exhaled, straightening slightly. “And… that’s good?”

Elizabeth turned to face him and instantly registered how close he was. His face hovered just a little too near. A breath’s length. His expression was open, interested. Unfiltered. But she kept her own neutral, composed.

“Every time a patient presses a button attached to my experiment, it simultaneously triggers a multitude of independent quantum trials,” she explained, gesturing to the small black device on the desk. “Double slit, entanglement collapse, water crystallisation, photonic delay… A blend of physical, chemical, and probabilistic anomalies, each designed to test the influence of intention or thought.”

Mr Black said nothing.

Elizabeth let out a small sigh and tried again. “I induce an easily repeatable emotional state in a patient, then have them push a button. The button starts multiple experiments simultaneously in multiple locations. What’s easier than rolling a dice 100 times to see how many times a six appears? Rolling 100 dice simultaneously. This is the best analogy I can offer you for my experiment Mr Black.

Mr. Black blinked slowly, then turned his eyes back to the screen. “And 93% is good?”

“Mr. Black,” she said, allowing a hint of awe into her voice, “Until now, anything over 51-52% was considered promising. Suggestive of a statistically meaningful cognitive effect on randomness. But ninety-three?” She paused. “That’s… extraordinary. It’s the equivalent of rolling those 100 dice, and getting a six on 93 of them..”

As if on cue, his walkie crackled to life.

“Black, the ambulance has left and the Cactus wing is ready for you. Get a jog on, there’s blood everywhere and it’s upsetting the… freaks.”

Mr. Black didn’t move. He just stared at Elizabeth.

Elizabeth stared back. A frown caressing her forehead like the tide coming in. She did not approve of the terminology used by many of the orderlies towards patients.

He slowly raised the walkie to his lips. “Give me a minute to fill a bucket, I’ll be on my way.”

“Just hurry.”

He clipped the radio back to his belt and took a small step toward the door. “Anyway, better get on. It was nice talking to you.”

“Wait,” Elizabeth said, standing from her chair.

He stopped.

“When you do paint in here,” she added, adjusting the cuff of her sleeve, “please let me know. I’d like to help.”

His brow lifted slightly. There was the ghost of a smirk. He had no time to argue. “Sure.”

He turned toward the door, but her voice called him back again.

“The music on that mug,” she said. “What is it?”

He glanced over his shoulder, squinting at the cup on the sill. “That’s an old Beatles song. The chorus. All You Need is Love.”

Elizabeth tilted her head. “You read music?”

“I used to play piano,” he replied, a little shrug tucked into the sentence. “Long time ago.”

She blinked. That answer didn’t quite match the rest of him. He caught the flicker of surprise in her face and offered a half-smile.

“I saw the daffodil growing out by the fence,” he added. “Thought your office could use some colour. Good sign that spring’s on its way too.”

Her lips curved, soft and genuine. “All you need is love… You know, my father’s a bit of an old romantic. He has this thing he always says: It doesn’t matter where or when…”

“…the who is all that matters,” Mr. Black finished.

Elizabeth’s smile faltered, her mouth falling open slightly. “How did you…?”

He didn’t answer. Just gave a quick, boyish grin and backed toward the door.

“I need to go, Dr. Malone,” he said, and then with a wink.

He slipped out.

The door clicked gently shut behind him.

Elizabeth stood motionless for a moment, her hand resting lightly on the edge of her desk. Then she slowly turned back to the window.

Her eyes found the chipped mug, the lone daffodil glowing faintly in the morning light.

She let her lips pull into a smile, smaller than before, but deeper somehow.

“So,” she whispered under her breath, eyes still fixed on the flower, “is this what you’re always talking about, Father?”

Then she remembered.

She pulled her phone from her satchel, tapped at the buttons and held it to her ear.

A moment later,

“Hello Father, I trust that you are well…”