I would like to say that English is not my first language, and I have not proofread this first draft, so please, no abusive comments on grammar.
and now, the piece.
A Tribute to Rachelle
2005, thanksgiving day: I met you, under the stars and the ocean where sun was going down. Trees were green, sky was yellow, and your face was red. You said it was cold, but I felt warm, under the stars.
2006, summer: I called you, you told me you like me, maybe one day you’ll be around me.
2008, a week after Valentine’s day: I told you to follow your heart, again, when we were bathed in sunset. You were finally here, right here where I studied. I kissed you, and we ran down the hill together.
First awakening after the best day of my life: I woke up in a dark room with a small window that let in a small ray of light. It must be around time of sunset judging by its color. I feel strangely content, but where am I? and where are you?
Second awakening after the best day of my life: I woke up on a bench under a tower, extending as far as my eyes could see, that was rendered
red, yellow, and all sort of colors before the setting sun. I instinctively looked around, you weren’t there. Such a perfect sunshine, but you weren’t there to share with me.
Third awakening after the best day of my life: I woke up in space, because the earth was below me, and it looked round, and for some reason I wasn’t in a space suit. I see a large disk in front of me, occupying the most of my field of vision, so reflective that it resembles a mirror. On this mirror, there were two suns that were approaching. Around this sun, there was the beautiful color of red, orange and yellow, and when I looked above me, the sky was blue infused with yellow. I think, somehow there’s air in space now.
Fourth awakening after the best day of my life: I woke up in Santa Cruz, I think, because the land looked like where I first met you, but it didn’t look like where I first met you, because there weren’t any trees. In fact, there was only barren ground and nothing seemed to be alive. None the less, there was the sunset, the stars, just like the day I met you. I think I am getting used to watching sunset without you.
Final awakening: I woke up in a stately room, and for the first time, there was another person.
“You probably wonder about your where about, and where have you been.”
Yeah, my where about, and I definitely wonder about where she is.
“I am your son, a many-world philanthropist.”
“Good to see that you are even more of a self-centered asshole than me, son.” I can’t help to notice that my son seemed to be 50 years older than me.
“You see, every time you, a cat, or an atom make a decision, to kiss someone, to eat some catfood, or even to go left or right in a simple high school physics experiment designed to demonstrate the uncertainty principle, many world emerges. Take you and her for example (I became quite embarrassed. Telepathy can cause universal embarrassment in a college aged man), when you decided to kiss her, there were countless worlds where you run down the hill together, there were some worlds where she pulled herself back and blew the rape whistle on you, and there were even a couple worlds where an atomic war just occurred and your kiss didn’t quite land before you were vaporized. There are obscene amount of worlds, but of course, most worlds are largely the same, because statistically, every worlds features the most likely outcome in any action.
“When I first devised the mathematics of the quantum continuum, I was 30 year old and lived on welfare because nobody found my research to have any practical uses. Within two years of my discovery, I became the richest man in the world, for a very simple reason: I can forsee the future by traveling through time.
“Now, I called myself a many-world philanthropist, is because I hate to see people suffer. in 99.5% of the uptime world I see, humanity has been wiped out by a supernova nearby. This is not the case in my world, because my theory, obliterating the obstacle and both space and time, enabled gathering of energy from high energy stellar objects such as neutron star and with this source of energy, humanity can erect a shield. You already seen the shield in your third awakening, it’s simply another atmosphere above our atmosphere. Naturally the pressure of such atmosphere would change our surface pressure, but a thin, transparent shell enveloped earth and contain our inner atmosphere.”
“Naturally, I realized that my discovery of the quantum continuum theory is not a statistical likelyhood. I then devised a computer program to scan for the decisions that most parallel worlds didn’t make. Interestingly enough, there was only one decision, and it was made by you.”
“Me?”
“My father, there was one woman that you felt strongly about in your young adulthood. In my world, she dumped you two days after your first date with her. you were hurt and bewildered, but you eventually got over it and married my mother in medical school. Ever since I was a kid, you initiated discussions of science with me over the dinner table, and without those words, I would not have received the unique circumstances that later led to my obsession to the quantum continuum theory.”
“However, in most of the worlds, you ended up in a commited relationship with her. Ironically, statistics did not permit you and her to be together, and in most of the worlds you broke up with her anyway. But an actual relationship would have hurt you much, much more and indeed, it is statistically likely for you (or your counterpart in a specific world) to be so devastated that you never found a loving family, and in most of the worlds I grew up just being mundane, or worse, with a bitter resentment to the world. In fact, it’s surprisingly common to see you telling me that there is no order in the world, and even your most beloved thing may be taken away. You managed to persuade me away from being obsessed to science, even in those worlds that you did found a family.”
“And of course, without my theory, humanity was blasted away by supernova. The barren santa cruz is the aftermath of such stellar violence. I want to change the fate of humanity in most of the worlds, I want to make it statistically likely for men to survive, and therefore, I did something unimaginable. I designed a weapon, a statistical bomb, that altered the energy state of a specific area of matter a specific area by using an elementary particle that can travel between the parallel worlds. I detonated the device two days after your so called the best day of my life and created so much doubt in her mind about you that she refused to see you again. As of now, in most of the worlds, you dumped you cold after two days and I was born with a passion for science. Talking about being a superhero.”
“By the way, you are five hundred years ahead of your time, she is long dead.”
“Why am I here?”
“I don’t know, you are just the equivalent of my father in one of the world, out of infinite amount of them. I somehow wanted to at least let one of you know why I did this. Most of you never even realized that your fate have been changed. It was profoundly painful for most of you, but almost all of you got over it.”
I sighed, and walked to the window. I must be that one person, the one person who have lived the unimaginary, one out of infinite, a statistical oddjob.
Yet, I am oddly content, for I always had you, for you never said good bye to me.
Outside, the sun was setting again, and I knew you would never be there for me again, not for me, not for all of us.
But after five hundred years, I still miss you.
and now, the piece.
A Tribute to Rachelle
2005, thanksgiving day: I met you, under the stars and the ocean where sun was going down. Trees were green, sky was yellow, and your face was red. You said it was cold, but I felt warm, under the stars.
2006, summer: I called you, you told me you like me, maybe one day you’ll be around me.
2008, a week after Valentine’s day: I told you to follow your heart, again, when we were bathed in sunset. You were finally here, right here where I studied. I kissed you, and we ran down the hill together.
First awakening after the best day of my life: I woke up in a dark room with a small window that let in a small ray of light. It must be around time of sunset judging by its color. I feel strangely content, but where am I? and where are you?
Second awakening after the best day of my life: I woke up on a bench under a tower, extending as far as my eyes could see, that was rendered
red, yellow, and all sort of colors before the setting sun. I instinctively looked around, you weren’t there. Such a perfect sunshine, but you weren’t there to share with me.
Third awakening after the best day of my life: I woke up in space, because the earth was below me, and it looked round, and for some reason I wasn’t in a space suit. I see a large disk in front of me, occupying the most of my field of vision, so reflective that it resembles a mirror. On this mirror, there were two suns that were approaching. Around this sun, there was the beautiful color of red, orange and yellow, and when I looked above me, the sky was blue infused with yellow. I think, somehow there’s air in space now.
Fourth awakening after the best day of my life: I woke up in Santa Cruz, I think, because the land looked like where I first met you, but it didn’t look like where I first met you, because there weren’t any trees. In fact, there was only barren ground and nothing seemed to be alive. None the less, there was the sunset, the stars, just like the day I met you. I think I am getting used to watching sunset without you.
Final awakening: I woke up in a stately room, and for the first time, there was another person.
“You probably wonder about your where about, and where have you been.”
Yeah, my where about, and I definitely wonder about where she is.
“I am your son, a many-world philanthropist.”
“Good to see that you are even more of a self-centered asshole than me, son.” I can’t help to notice that my son seemed to be 50 years older than me.
“You see, every time you, a cat, or an atom make a decision, to kiss someone, to eat some catfood, or even to go left or right in a simple high school physics experiment designed to demonstrate the uncertainty principle, many world emerges. Take you and her for example (I became quite embarrassed. Telepathy can cause universal embarrassment in a college aged man), when you decided to kiss her, there were countless worlds where you run down the hill together, there were some worlds where she pulled herself back and blew the rape whistle on you, and there were even a couple worlds where an atomic war just occurred and your kiss didn’t quite land before you were vaporized. There are obscene amount of worlds, but of course, most worlds are largely the same, because statistically, every worlds features the most likely outcome in any action.
“When I first devised the mathematics of the quantum continuum, I was 30 year old and lived on welfare because nobody found my research to have any practical uses. Within two years of my discovery, I became the richest man in the world, for a very simple reason: I can forsee the future by traveling through time.
“Now, I called myself a many-world philanthropist, is because I hate to see people suffer. in 99.5% of the uptime world I see, humanity has been wiped out by a supernova nearby. This is not the case in my world, because my theory, obliterating the obstacle and both space and time, enabled gathering of energy from high energy stellar objects such as neutron star and with this source of energy, humanity can erect a shield. You already seen the shield in your third awakening, it’s simply another atmosphere above our atmosphere. Naturally the pressure of such atmosphere would change our surface pressure, but a thin, transparent shell enveloped earth and contain our inner atmosphere.”
“Naturally, I realized that my discovery of the quantum continuum theory is not a statistical likelyhood. I then devised a computer program to scan for the decisions that most parallel worlds didn’t make. Interestingly enough, there was only one decision, and it was made by you.”
“Me?”
“My father, there was one woman that you felt strongly about in your young adulthood. In my world, she dumped you two days after your first date with her. you were hurt and bewildered, but you eventually got over it and married my mother in medical school. Ever since I was a kid, you initiated discussions of science with me over the dinner table, and without those words, I would not have received the unique circumstances that later led to my obsession to the quantum continuum theory.”
“However, in most of the worlds, you ended up in a commited relationship with her. Ironically, statistics did not permit you and her to be together, and in most of the worlds you broke up with her anyway. But an actual relationship would have hurt you much, much more and indeed, it is statistically likely for you (or your counterpart in a specific world) to be so devastated that you never found a loving family, and in most of the worlds I grew up just being mundane, or worse, with a bitter resentment to the world. In fact, it’s surprisingly common to see you telling me that there is no order in the world, and even your most beloved thing may be taken away. You managed to persuade me away from being obsessed to science, even in those worlds that you did found a family.”
“And of course, without my theory, humanity was blasted away by supernova. The barren santa cruz is the aftermath of such stellar violence. I want to change the fate of humanity in most of the worlds, I want to make it statistically likely for men to survive, and therefore, I did something unimaginable. I designed a weapon, a statistical bomb, that altered the energy state of a specific area of matter a specific area by using an elementary particle that can travel between the parallel worlds. I detonated the device two days after your so called the best day of my life and created so much doubt in her mind about you that she refused to see you again. As of now, in most of the worlds, you dumped you cold after two days and I was born with a passion for science. Talking about being a superhero.”
“By the way, you are five hundred years ahead of your time, she is long dead.”
“Why am I here?”
“I don’t know, you are just the equivalent of my father in one of the world, out of infinite amount of them. I somehow wanted to at least let one of you know why I did this. Most of you never even realized that your fate have been changed. It was profoundly painful for most of you, but almost all of you got over it.”
I sighed, and walked to the window. I must be that one person, the one person who have lived the unimaginary, one out of infinite, a statistical oddjob.
Yet, I am oddly content, for I always had you, for you never said good bye to me.
Outside, the sun was setting again, and I knew you would never be there for me again, not for me, not for all of us.
But after five hundred years, I still miss you.
