Emma had three marbles.
One red, one blue, one green.
She set them on the table in a triangle and stared at them.
"What are you doing?" Bunny asked, not looking up from his ledger.
"Thinking."
"About what?"
"Planets."
Bunny's pen paused. "Why are you thinking about planets with marbles?"
"Because planets know where each other are," Emma said. "Even when they're really far apart. And I want to know how."
"Gravity."
"But what IS gravity?"
Bunny sighed. He'd been through this before. Emma's questions never had simple answers. "It's... a force. That pulls things together."
"But how does it pull? What's doing the pulling?"
"The... mass? The curvature of spacetime?"
Emma pushed the red marble slightly. The other two didn't move.
"If it's pulling," she said, "why don't these move when I move this one?"
"Because they're marbles, not planets."
"But they're both round things in space."
"Emma—"
"And if planets are really far apart, how do they know to pull on each other? How does one know where the other one is?"
Bunny set down his pen. This was going to take a while.
"Alright," he said. "Show me what you're thinking."
Emma picked up a rubber band from Bunny's desk. Stretched it between two marbles.
"What if they're connected? Like this?"
"But planets aren't connected by rubber bands."
"I know that." Emma frowned at the rubber band. "But what if there's something like this? Something we can't see?"
"That's... closer. Think of it like invisible lines."
"But lines go straight. And planets move in circles. Ellipses."
"Okay, so curved lines."
Emma pulled the rubber band tighter. "But if it's pulling them together, why don't they crash?"
"Because they're also moving sideways. The pulling and the moving balance out."
"But WHY are they moving sideways?"
Bunny opened his mouth. Closed it.
He didn't actually know.
Emma removed the rubber band and rearranged the three marbles. Closer this time.
"What if," she said slowly, "they're not connected by something. What if they just... know where each other are?"
"That doesn't make sense."
"Why not?"
"Because knowing requires... information. Communication. They'd have to send signals."
"Do particles send signals?"
Bunny paused. "No. Entangled particles don't send signals. They just... correlate."
"So they know without sending."
"That's different. That's quantum mechanics."
Emma looked at him. "Are planets quantum?"
"No. They're too big."
"But they're made of particles."
"Well, yes, but—"
"So they're just big particles."
Bunny stared at her.
Emma picked up the three marbles again. Held them in her palm.
"What if planets are like these? They started together. In the same place. Then they spread out. But they still remember where they came from. And they still... know each other."
"That's—" Bunny stopped.
That was actually... not wrong.
"Like entanglement," Emma continued. "But big. Planets crash into each other when they're forming, right?"
"Yes."
"So they interact. They touch. They become... connected."
"Entangled."
"Exactly." Emma set the marbles down in a triangle again. "And after that, they don't need rubber bands. They don't need to send signals. They just exist in the same system. And the system knows where everything is."
Bunny stared at the three marbles.
Then at Emma.
"You just described relational positioning."
"I did?"
"You said they know where each other are because they're part of the same system. That their positions are relative to each other, not absolute."
"Well, yeah. That's obvious."
"It's not obvious, Emma. That's—" Bunny rubbed his temples. "That's actually quite advanced physics."
Emma shrugged. "They're just big particles."
Bunny picked up one of the marbles. Moved it slightly.
In his mind, he imagined the other two adjusting. Not because they were pulled. But because their positions were defined relationally.
You are here, so I am here.
"Gravity isn't a force," he said quietly.
"What?"
"Gravity. It's not pulling. It's... a map. A description of how close things are to each other. How they're positioned relative to each other."
Emma nodded. "That makes more sense than invisible rubber bands."
"It does, doesn't it?"
"So planets know where each other are because they're part of the same map. And the map keeps them coordinated."
"Yes."
"And the map is gravity."
"...yes."
Emma picked up the three marbles. Rolled them in her hand.
"So if planets are entangled like particles, and gravity is just the map of where they are relative to each other..." She looked up at Bunny. "What about time?"
Bunny's eye twitched.
"What about time?"
"Time is distance, right? Between when something was and when something is?"
"That's... one way to think about it."
"So if you fold the map—like we did with the glitter triangle—then the distance goes away."
"Emma—"
"Which means time is also just coordinates. And coordinates can be folded."
Bunny slowly lowered his head to the desk.
Emma patted his shoulder. "It's okay. I know it's a lot."