I’ve always believed that things are only impossible until they’re not. For instance: particle physics, space travel, and sex on a tree branch. Everyone thinks, “My gosh, those are impossible! They can’t possibly happen!” But then they do.
They do.
Everyone has instances of the impossible becoming possible in their own lives. I don’t mean HUGE things like teleporting or dating an alien—I mean things like winning the state science fair against all odds or having their cancer miraculously disappear. These things happen.
Of course, HUGE impossible things become possible every day. Remember the world’s oldest Twinkie? No one thought it could stay fresh for decades, but here it is, deliciously edible since 1976.
Anyway, the impossible is only impossible until it isn’t.
Because I’m a physicist and I have a particular affinity for graphs, lists, charts, and visual aids, I’ve included a list to show a few of the once impossible things in life that became possible.
Fair warning, life is more fun with:
- Charts
- Graphs
- Tables
- Footnotes1
- Bullet points
Okay, here it is.
THE THINGS ONCE THOUGHT IMPOSSIBLE UNTIL THEY BECAME POSSIBLE:
- 1 million BC—Humans master fire (and have the first hot date with cooked mammoth and kissing).2
- 3500 BC—The wheel (need I say more?).
- 1876—The telephone (and phone sex).
- 1901—Wireless transmission across the Atlantic.
- 1961—Space travel.
- 1996—I was born, because impossibly, both the condom and birth control failed.
- 2004—I melted Barbie and Ken using only a potato battery and my Easy-Bake Oven.
- 2010—The first atom was smashed at the Large Hadron Collider and I met Spock.
- 2012—I lost my virginity to Bernie Berger in the kitchen pantry while my parents obliviously watched Weird Science in the living room.
- 2018—I’m awarded a double PhD in Physics and Computer Science at age 22.
- 2020—I land my dream job at CERN, smashing atoms.
- 2022—I’m stuck to the seat of the wooden pub booth at The Cock and Bull.
- 2022—Also, the guy at the table across from mine won’t stop staring.
- 2022—No, I mean I’m really, really stuck. As in, my jeans are practically glued to the wooden seat and they won’t budge. How is this even possible? It’s not.
I tug at my thighs, pry at my jeans, and wiggle-jerk from left to right. There’s no fixing it. Somehow, impossibly, I’m glued to the wooden seat in the booth at the back of my favorite pub. It’s ridiculous, impossible, embarrassing.
Okay, Serena, pull yourself together. You’re a scientist—you can get out of any sticky situation life throws at you.
I gather energy, brace my palms on the tacky wooden tabletop, and shove upward as hard as I can, trying to burst free from my unlikely prison. I move all of a quarter inch, then rebound hard back to the wood.
“Umph.”
I collapse back against the booth and let out a frustrated breath. Then I surreptitiously glance from the side of my eyes at the small, round table next to mine. Yup, the man is still staring while pretending not to stare.
I’ve never seen him here before, which is why I don’t call him over and ask him to brace himself against the booth edge and yank me free from my seat. I’ve seen some odd things in this pub over the years, but if he’s new here, he may not be inured to all the pub’s oddities.
The Cock and Bull is a tiny, rough stone-walled and thick wooden-raftered homely British pub owned by a short, hairy Italian named Vinny Vincenzo. There’s the usual dark wood and plaid décor, British kitsch, and football (a.k.a. soccer) playing over the bar. The lights are low, the TVs flicker over the dull, sticky wood counters and floors, and instead of amplifying the sound, the old stone walls muffle everything to a garbled murmur.
The pub attracts zombie-eyed, post-five o’clock working schlubs from the neighborhood, rowdy students searching for cheap beer, homesick Brits, and the occasional tourist. I don’t really fit the mold, but I live around the corner, and Vinny makes the best French fries I’ve ever tasted.
The pub is a rarity in Geneva since it’s not Swiss, French, or moldy cheese-peddling. Plus it has cheap beer and gives out free eight-inch dill pickles with the purchase of a pint. That’s why the dim interior always smells like pickle vinegar and hoppy beer sunk into centuries-old gray stone.
I wander in every Tuesday around six o’clock and grab my usual booth in the back. Tuesday night is my me night, when I have a date with myself. I order a two euro pilsner, a long, fat pickle that is so sour my lips pucker, a basket of crisp, buttery, steaming-hot golden fries, and then I pull out my notebook and try to break my mind with new theories about everything. Or at least theories about the fundamental laws of nature.
There are very few windows and even fewer tables, which is why I always make a beeline to the back corner, where there’s a small, out-of-the-way two-person booth that no one ever notices. It has a scarred, scratched mahogany table with permanently sticky varnish, two hard wooden seats, and a little colored green glass lamp that casts a small pool of light across the tabletop.
It’s a really nice spot. A great spot.
Except. I’ve never not been able to move.
I try to stand again, pushing my feet into the wood floor and bracing against the booth.
I grit my teeth and shove, but my thighs won’t budge.
The table shakes, and I make a sound of frustration. The stranger sitting at the table across from me raises his eyebrows. Now he’s not even trying to hide the fact that he’s watching me.
“Excusez-moi,” I say, feeling irritable.
At that, the edge of his mouth quirks into an amused half-smile.
“Are you British?” he asks in a proper Oxford accent. “American? Canadian?”
He tilts his head and gives me an expectant, open look.
It’s not a hard deduction. We’re in Geneva, Switzerland, home of the UN where nationalities collide and bump along every day. Plus, my French accent is terrible and I look a bit like the love child of Daisuke Serizawa (minus the eyepatch) and Lady Godiva (minus the nakedness), which most men find compelling (a.k.a. I feature in a lot of morning wood fantasies). So that means I’m an easy mark to—
Wait. A. Second.
He’s been watching me. He was here before I arrived. He has a slight smile hovering at the edge of his mouth.
He . . .
“Did you do this?” I ask the stranger, outrage tinging my voice. I make a spinning circle with my finger, pointing at the booth, my thighs, and the unknown adhesive that’s sticking me to the wood.
It’s not outside the realm of possibility. He could be a predator, sticking women to restaurant booths like flies to flypaper, so he can “rescue” them. Sadly, I’ve seen worse pick-up strategies.
The man is a few years older than me and stunningly good-looking.
It’s human nature to think attractive men are “good” and unattractive men are “bad.” It’s also human nature to think attractive men are “bad” and unattractive men are also “bad.”
But the reality looks a bit more like this:
[Here we have a graph with Attractiveness on the Y axis and Morals on the X axis, and a squiggly mess of lines on the graph. And that’s it.]
He’s at the little two-person table next to my booth, sitting casually in the wooden pub chair, a half-finished pint in front of him and a half-eaten dinner of charred steak, a pickle, and crisp golden fries.
“Do what?” he asks, frowning and looking around the dimly lit pub just to make sure I’m talking to him.
I am.
I take a moment to catalog his features. Blue-gray eyes. Wheat-colored hair that falls just shy of the collar of his navy shirt. There’s a light wool jacket slung over the back of his seat, a nod to the early spring chill. He has a nice chin—there’s a little dimple there—and his cheekbones are high and sprinkled with a few freckles. His lips are dark pink, and he looks as if he smiles a lot. His eyes are sharp, intelligent, and I think he’s taking me in too. His gaze roves over my face and I feel his searching look as firmly as a touch. An electricity, as tangible as static arcs between us, buzzing and crackling.
He leans forward.
The muscles in his shoulders bunch, and I calculate that he’s at least six feet, even though it’s hard to tell when he’s sitting. He’s rangy but muscled. Intelligent, but probably not too intelligent. He’s likely a tourist. Maybe he’s here for a conference. Or . . . he’s a psycho.
“Do this,” I say, spinning my finger again. “Glue me in place.”
At that he grins—a happy smile that kicks my heart into warp drive—his eyes crinkle at the corners, and he says, “You felt it too?”