The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq

Marie-Thérèse cooked and served, needing to keep busy; now and again she would stop and cry a little and then go back to cooking.
    Annabelle had been there when the ambulance came and when the Renault came back. At about one a.m., she rose and dressed—her parents were asleep—and walked to the gate of Michel’s house. The lights were still on, and everyone was probably in the living room, but it was impossible to make out anything through the heavy curtains. A light rain fell. Ten minutes passed. Annabelle knew she could ring the doorbell and see Michel, but she could also do nothing. She did not know that these ten minutes were a concrete example of
free will;
she knew only that they were terrible and that when they had elapsed, she would never be quite the same again. Many years later Michel proposed a theory of human freedom using the flow of superfluid helium as an analogy. In principle, the transfer of electrons between neurons and synapses in the brain—as discrete atomic phenomena—is governed by quantum uncertainty. The sheer number of neurons, however, statistically cancels out elementary differences, ensuring that human behavior is as rigorously determined—in broad terms and in the smallest detail—as any other natural system. However, in rare cases—Christians refer to them as
acts of grace
—a different harmonic wave form causes changes in the brain which modify behavior, temporarily or permanently. It is this new harmonic resonance which gives rise to what is commonly called
free will
.
    Nothing of the sort happened on this occasion, and Annabelle went home. She felt much older. It would be almost twenty-five years before she saw Michel again.
    At three a.m. the telephone rang; the nurse seemed truly sorry. Everything possible had been done, but very little was possible. Her heart was too weak. At least they could be sure that she had not suffered. But, she had to tell them, it was over now.
    Michel went back to his room, taking short steps, barely twenty centimeters at a time. Brigitte moved to get up but Marie-Thérèse prevented her. For a minute or two there was silence, and then a sort of mewing or howling from his room. Brigitte hurried to him. Michel was rolled into a ball at the foot of his bed. His eyes were wide open, but his expression was not one of grief, nor of any recognizable human emotion. His face was filled with abject, animal fear.

PART TWO
Strange Moments

1
    Bruno lost control of the car just outside Poitiers. The Peugeot 305 skidded across the expressway and hit the guardrail, spun 180 degrees, righted itself, then stopped. “Christ!” he muttered numbly, “Jesus fucking Christ!” A Jaguar hurtled toward him, doing 220 km; the driver braked sharply and swerved, narrowly missing the other guardrail, then drove off leaning on his horn. “Bastard!” screamed Bruno, climbing out and shaking his fist. “Fucking bastard!” Then he got back into his car, made a U-turn and continued on his way.
    The Lieu du Changement was founded in 1975 by a group of ’68 veterans (in fact, they were more “spirit of ’68,” since none of them had actually been involved in the riots). It was just south of Cholet on a vast estate scattered with pine forests that belonged to one of the members’ parents. Their plan, inspired by the liberal values of the early seventies, was to create an authentic utopia—a place where the principles of self-government, respect for individual freedom and true democracy could be practiced in the “here and now.” The Lieu was not a commune, but had the more modest aim of providing a place where like-minded people could spend the summer months living according to the principles they espoused. It was intended that this haven of humanist and democratic feeling would create synergies, facilitate the meeting of minds and, in particular, as one of the founding members put it, provide an opportunity to “get your rocks off.”
    Just before Cholet Sud, Bruno took