On May 29^th there took place, in an underground segment of Chicago’s elevated train system, a strange occurrence only a physicist could begin to understand. I’m speaking, naturally, about Brian Goodfellow’s brush with a quantum fissure. Now, as we all know (with the exception of Brian Goodfellow, our heroic and hard-working train conductor), a quantum fissure is a fixed point in the space-time continuum that rearranges quantum realities. A person or object entering a quantum fissure will undergo a seemingly random process of reanimation (“seemingly” because our scientists have yet to determine the causal mechanism), or die immediately.

But even if poor Brian Goodfellow knew of such a phenomenon, what use would that be? For no one can predict, much less escape, the advent of a quantum fissure.

And so, one morning, while conducting the rush hour train towards the Loop, Brian Goodfellow smelled burning tires. Startled by the novelty of this scent (after all, trains do not have tires), he took his eyes off the tracks and noticed one of the circuit breaker panels to his right — with exposed wiring sparking off and on — emitting smoke.

For the sake of tidiness, Brian Goodfellow attempted to fix the panel, and, making good use of his keychain screwdriver, secured some of the loose bolts onto the pliable frame, stuffing the exposed wiring back into place. Unfortunately for him, just then, remote construction workers short-circuited a cable that caused stray feedback into the moving train. During the few seconds of blackout, an anomaly took place that forever changed Brian Goodfellow’s life. I’m speaking, of course, about the quantum fissure.

When the power returned, Brian Goodfellow no longer smelled burning tires. In fact, Brian Goodfellow no longer smelled anything at all. And little did he know that the quantum fissure created a subatomic separation — one that turned his nose into a discreet entity, with a new life outside his own.

Dumbfounded by his nose-less reflection in the window, Brian Goodfellow cried out for his stray appendage, which in that moment he, as if instinctively, referred to as Absalom. “Absalom, Absalom, to where have you fled? Surely a man cannot live without his nose, nor a nose without his face? Surely, you understand! Surely, you’ll return! . . . Absalom! Absalom?”

But there was no response. And Brian Goodfellow was without a nose.

* * *

Now, whereas most people would view his present state in terms of handicap, there was something ennobling about Brian Goodfellow that prevented those thoughts from taking root. There would be no self-pity in the nose-less person of Brian Goodfellow — oh no, Brian Goodfellow would learn to view his weakness as a strength. For now he could, as one obvious example, swim underwater indefinitely (as a result of his altered quantum reality, of course), without the crippling need to surface for air like the rest of us people-with-noses. Indeed, Brian Goodfellow was now the exception, the individual, the extraordinary Nose-Have-Not; and on that day swore to use his curse, that was a blessing, that was a product of a quantum fissure, for good.

Of course, deep in his heart, he still longed to be made whole; and perhaps it was the loss of his nose that awakened this desire.

* * *

His new job as a lifeguard on Lake Michigan was rather uneventful the first few months. Sure, there were the occasional drowning old ladies with flailing arms that, due to the excess of their oily sunscreen, proved to be insurmountable rescues. But for the most part Brian Goodfellow’s desire to have a nose once more began to fade over time, unfortunately, along with his ennobling spirit.

That is, until one night, when our hero, Brian Goodfellow, noticed some strange activity along the docks. A dark figure was stealing into the secured crates, gaining access to a recent shipment of who knows what. What Brian Goodfellow did know, however, was that something must be done. And so he approached the preoccupied figure with infinite (yes, infinite) stealth, gasping when the lighthouse beam, however momentary, circled onto the figure and revealed, for that brief second, the flesh of his flesh.

Absalom turned. “Well, well, well — we meet again, Brian Goodfellow,” he said, as he took a last puff before flicking his cigarette. “How’s life been treating you?”

But Brian Goodfellow, shocked by the magnitude of this reunion, only managed the words, “You’re my nose.”

Absalom laughed. “Actually, I belong to no one. Not you, not the powers that be, not anyone but myself. And you’re a fool to think otherwise.” He reached inside his overcoat pocket. “The last thing I want is to be re-enslaved on your face.”

At those words Brian Goodfellow knew, he just knew, that he was staring into a mirror of all of the evil in his heart. And though that mirror showed only his nose, it was more than revealing, and it awakened a half-suicidal, half-murderous desire in Brian Goodfellow, to the point that he rushed his nose into the lake, submerging both of them into the dark cold below. It was there they fought and struggled and, in a sense, died — each to their individuality.

And when they emerged, they were no longer two, but it would be presumptuous to say they were whole. Maybe he was, maybe they weren’t, maybe we aren’t; for can you really tell, just by looking, who is what is which?