Tim arrested Bob’s momentum with a hand on the elbow in the busy hallway. They retired to a nearby potted plant out of traffic where they had a discourse, at Tim’s urgent insistence. “Schizophrenia, OCD, Bipolarity.”

Bob made a straining expression, his face turning red. “What’s the matter?” asked Tim.

“I’m trying to give a shit,” Bob said. Tim rolled his eyes and said, “I’m getting to the point!”

Tim spread his hands apart, framing a single phrase his mouth sounded: “Quantum Entanglement.”

Bob’s face turned red again, and someone brushed brusquely against Tim.

“Geez!” Tim said over his shoulder, and turned to Bob. “Just listen a moment. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

Bob sighed, resigned himself to this oddity. “Yes, but the only thing I know about the subject is that it royally pissed off Einstein.”

“Yes! And he was the very one who formulated the theory! Okay… I’m going to try and explain how it works. This is affecting the spin properties of particles, but I’m going to use examples. Don’t think that this is actual; the reality is infinitely more complicated than this…”

“Yes, Tim.” Bob looked at his watch. “Go on.”

“Okay, let’s say when your arm goes down, someone’s arm goes up, and vice versa.”

“Ok.”

“If someone moves his head forward, your head goes backwards, and when he sits down, you stand up.”

“Yes, an oppositional Simon Says, got it.”

“That’s right! Ok, free will. Is there such a thing?”

“Hell, yeah!” Bob lightly slapped Tim, who drew back, shocked. “Yep, that’s free will, baby!”

Tim chuckled. “You slapped me because someone’s arm moved down.”

“Bullshit.”

“Remember, that’s just an analogy! That’s what quantum entanglement is… two particles are separated across a distance, yet communicate their spatial locations. Got it?”

“Yes,” Bob said wearily. “You’re talking about spin. So if a particle spins up its complement spins down.”

“Yes! Now you see?!”

“No.”

Tim sighed. “Free will is made obsolete. If the particles in your body respond to the behavior of a complementary particle, was it really yourself that initiated that action?”

Interest had entered Bob’s eyes. “Wow, that’s a mind-bender. Well, supposing quantum physics is right, that is.”

“That’s true,” Tim conceded. “Now to my original point. OCD.”

“Gesundheit!”

“Har har. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder individuals find they have to repeat a certain sequence of actions before they are satisfied.”

“No shit, Sherlock. Think I got my degree and forgot everything?” Bob became misty eyed. “My aunt had OCD. I remember one time she had to walk on some bad sidewalk. She couldn’t step on the cracks. If she did, she had to spin around ten times, but when she did that, she kept stepping on the cracks. It took us forever to get her away from that three foot stretch of concrete.”

“Geez. Well, I propose that most psychological disorders, especially OCD are actually differential gears in the great machine that is reality!”

“How’s that, Tim?” Bob had given up on getting home early.

“Reality is pretty much, no matter how much we argue about it, the sum of human perception. Reality is only what we measure with our senses. Bohm suggests reality exists not a concrete location, but a consensual holographic manifestation of our minds. It is essentially a human condition. But there is an underlying logic to it, a mathematical reality. OCD is how the system fixes itself, with some unfortunate individuals besotted with the behavioral issues therein. ”

“Let me get this straight… people are OCD just to correct the equation, balance the account so to say? What about schizophrenia?”

“You’re sharper than I thought–”

“Gee, thanks. Forgetting about the degree there, Tim.”

“–and, as for schizophrenics, the brain is made up of atoms. Thoughts rise from the electricity activity of the brain and are affected as well…”

“That’s a lot to wrap my head around. Now fuck off, Tim,” Bob said and pushed Tim with an outstretched forefinger. “I’m billing you for this. If you come to me again outside our regularly scheduled programming, I’ll have security toss you out, and you can get sikowanalized somewhere else!”