The Casimir Effect: A Short Story

by Antonio J. Hopson

Despite Carlos' mundane life, killing weeds for his father's rich customers, he is billions of miles from the stars he observes in the night sky, or from the kids who sit in the canteen with their healthy sandwiches and bottled water. His life is far from their reality, and the reality of a stable life in America as he dreams of becoming a citizen. While their families provide them with nice clothes, large houses and cars to travel to school in, Carlos makes do with gas-fumed rags of clothes and a gap between his front teeth. In order to cope, he immerses himself in thoughts of the universe, and learns of black holes, gravity and the beguiling Casimir Effect. But deep down, the troubled Carlos only yearns to return to his simple beginnings and to see, once more, his mother and her chickens scratching around in the dust by her feet, to escape the drudgery of his life, and from pitying his sick father, who has no more dreams other than the next yard and the next tangle of weeds on his list.

16 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 4, 2017

About the author

Antonio (AJ) Hopson honed his skills writing speculative fiction, flash fiction and essays. His stories have been widely published: Quiet Shorts Magazine, Letter X, Creation, The Wonder Boy Review, Ascent, 20 Dissidents and Old Growth Journal, The Harrow Magazine, Monongahela Review, The Subterranean Quarterly, OutCry Magazine, Lost Magazine, The Angler, The Piker Press and also NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu's Exquisite Corpse Magazine. He has received Farmhouse Magazine's Reader's Choice award and performed as a featured author at Seattle's Richard Hugo House. As a performer and panelist, he has appeared at Seattle's Rainbow Bookfest. In 2008 he was selected to participate in Evergreen College's Literary Conference on "Activism and the Avant-Garde" and in 2009 he was an EPPIE Award Finalist. Please visit AntonioHopson.com to see what he is up to these days.