Heads up: Padraig O’Connell’s Quantum Jig is scientifically unexplainable. Side effects may include temporal dislocation, spontaneous dance-offs, and confused clones. If you feel reality slipping, embrace the dance—it’s the only way out.
THE STEAMBOAT DISPATCH
A MOST TROUBLING REVELATION IN THE FIELD OF PHYSICS AND FOLK DANCE
By Mose Sangamore, Correspondent at Large
PADRAIG O’CONNELL’S QUANTUM JIG—IS HE A MAN, OR A WAVE?
CHATEAUGAY LAKE, June 13, 1894—
A disturbance has been observed upon the shores of Chateaugay Lake, one which the laws of nature—normally so staid and predictable—seem powerless to explain. At the center of this disruption stands Padraig O’Connell, a fiddler’s bane and a scientist’s nightmare, whose ceaseless jigs have now been officially declared a threat to spatial integrity by three bewildered professors and at least one horrified priest.
The phenomenon, which has come to be known locally as the O’Connell Anomaly, was first noticed when Mr. O’Connell took to Lyon Mountain’s dance floor at Paddy McClintock’s Tavern last Saturday evening. The patrons, accustomed to the occasional broken floorboard or collapsed fiddle-string, expected nothing more than the usual revelry. They were mistaken.
THE DANCE THAT FRACTURED TIME
Accounts vary as to the exact moment when reality itself began to falter. Mrs. Edna Farnsworth, who was tending the bar at the time, swears she saw O’Connell’s feet blur, as though they occupied two positions at once—an impossibility, she noted, “except for hummingbirds and liars.”
Within minutes, the wooden floor of the tavern had begun to warp beneath the force of O’Connell’s jig. Witnesses reported an increasing pressure in the skull, as though the air itself had grown thick with unseen force. One man, later identified as Clement J. Briggs, a non-dancer, attempted to leave, only to find that the door had somehow relocated to the ceiling.
As O’Connell’s movements accelerated, so too did the anomalies. Glasses emptied themselves in reverse, the clock spun wildly, and two fishermen outside swore that they saw the moon flicker like a candle in the wind.
It was then that the clones appeared.
THE MULTIPLICATION OF O’CONNELL
It is well known among the scholars of this region that the Tuatha Dé Danann, the ancient and mysterious folk of Ireland, possessed knowledge of dance-based quantum disruption. That O’Connell—an alleged descendant of those fae-touched beings—might have inherited such abilities was always suspected, though no one dared speak of it aloud.
When the first duplicate of Padraig O’Connell stepped clean out of the air, it was met with general concern. When the second appeared, fear took hold. By the fifth, mass hysteria had set in, with one terrified man attempting to exorcise the tavern with a Bible and a pint of gin.
By the time the thirteenth O’Connell had materialized, the tavern was filled with identical, identically dancing figures, each vying for supremacy in an impromptu dance-off that threatened the fabric of causality itself.
It is said that in the chaos, one O’Connell—possibly the original, though this remains unconfirmed—challenged the great Isadora Duncan, the famed pioneer of modern dance, to a contest of footwork that scholars have since dubbed “The War of Motion.”
Ms. Duncan, whose own movements were known to channel the forces of nature, met the challenge with characteristic grace. However, the O’Connells, now multiplying at an exponential rate, soon filled the entire tavern, then the street outside, then the entire town.
A PHYSICIST SPEAKS (BEFORE LOSING CONSCIOUSNESS)
Dr. Ambrose Wicklow of the Franklin Academy, summoned to assess the situation, was able to offer the following analysis before collapsing from overwhelming dizziness:
“What we are witnessing is an event of unparalleled significance in the field of physics—O’Connell’s footwork appears to be generating a quantum echo, wherein each completed jig produces a probability-variant clone, resulting in an unstable self-replicating phenomenon. If he is not stopped immediately, we may very well see an infinity of O’Connells, all engaged in ceaseless dance. This, my friends, is how the world ends.”
WHERE IS O’CONNELL NOW?
At last report, the O’Connell clones began to collapse upon themselves, merging into a singular, luminous form before vanishing in a final, impossible pirouette.
Padraig O’Connell himself is said to have been spotted once more, three days later, aboard a steamship bound for parts unknown, a mischievous glint in his eye and a banjo at his side.
If he has returned to our realm, we can only pray that he dances with restraint.
WARNING, READERS—
If your feet should ever begin tapping of their own accord, or if you should find yourself duplicated in the mirror, do not panic. Do not attempt to leave the room.
Above all—do not dance.
The Steamboat Dispatch bears no responsibility for those who choose to ignore this advice.
NEXT WEEK IN THE STEAMBOAT DISPATCH:
THE CATACLYSM AT INDIAN POINT—WHAT DREADFUL BEAST EMERGED FROM THE WATERS, AND WHY DID IT SPEAK PERFECT LATIN?
Printed upon the break of dawn, June 1894, by steam-driven press and trembling hands.
What mysteries of Chateaugay Lake haunt you?