It began in nothing. A place far, far smaller than neurones, smaller even than molecules, where the laws of the large no longer held sway. Here, within the carbon lattice of a single microtubule, reality was undecided.

Electrons drifted in overlapping possibilities, not here, not there, but everywhere in-between. For a heartbeatless eternity—spans measured in femtoseconds—they danced in superposition, a miasma of futures.

Above, vast empires of neurones simmered at criticality, each membrane trembling on the brink of firing, each synapse primed like a soldier waiting for the command. Memory, language, desire; all lay in readiness.

Then, the collapse.

The wavefunction folded into one reality, one position, one cascade of charges. The chosen pattern rippled upward, swelling through dendrites, axons, across the chemical bridges of synapses. Neurones fired. Networks lit. The hippocampus shivered with retrieved images as the prefrontal cortex threaded them together. Somewhere, the thalamus stitched sensation to meaning.

A thought emerged.

On the surface of the mind, you, the observer, knew. Here was an idea, born from nowhere, fully formed. But in truth, it had been decided in the quantum shadows—a coin toss at the edge of physics, amplified into meaning by billions of cells working in concert.

You smiled, I just had a thought.
The universe had whispered, and your mind had heard.