Infinity: A Jenlisa AU

Chapter 9

"But those other realities don't really exist."

"Actually, they're just as real as the one you and I are experiencing at this moment."

Lisa, with confusion apparent on her face, asks "How is that possible?"

"It's a mystery. But there are clues. Most astrophysicists believe that the force holding stars and galaxies together-the thing that makes our whole universe work-comes from a theoretical substance we can't measure or observe directly. Something they call dark matter. And this dark matter makes up most of the known universe."

"But what is it exactly?"

"No one's really sure. Physicists have been trying to construct new theories to explain its origin and what it is. We know it has gravity, like ordinary matter, but it must be made of something completely new."

"A new form of matter."

"Exactly. Some string theorists think it might be a clue to the existence of the multiverse."

Lisa looks thoughtful for a moment, then asks, "So all these other realities...where are they?"

"Imagine you're a fish, swimming in a pond. You can move forward and back, side to side, but never up out of the water. If someone were standing beside the pond, watching you, you'd have no idea they were there. To you, that little pond is an entire universe. Now imagine that someone reaches down and lifts you out of the pond. You see that what you thought was the entire world is only a small pool. You see other ponds. Trees. The sky above. You realize you're a part of a much larger and more mysterious reality than you had ever dreamed of."

Lisa leans back in her chair and takes a sip of wine. "So all these other thousands of ponds are all around us, right at this moment-but we just can't see them?"

"Exactly."

Jennie used to talk like this all the time. Would keep Lisa up late into the night stating wild theories, sometimes trying things out, most of the time just trying to impress her.

It worked then.

It's working now.

Lisa looks away for a moment, staring through the window beside their table, watching the water glide past as the light from the surrounding buildings swirls in a kind of perpetual shimmer across the blown-glass surface of the river.

She finally looks back at Jennie over the rim of her wineglass, their eyes connecting, the candlelight quivering between them.

She says, "In one of those ponds out there, do you think there's another version of you that stuck with the research? Who made good on all the plans you had in your twenties, before life got in the way?"

Jennie smiles. "It's crossed my mind."

"And there's maybe a version of me that's a famous artist? That traded all this for that?"

Jennie leans forward, pushing their plates out of the way so she can hold both of Lisa's hands across the table.

"If there are a million ponds out there, with versions of you and me living similar and different lives, there's none better than right here, right now. I'm more sure of that than anything in the world."

___________________________________

Three locks retract in the door, but Jennie is too sedated to even startle.

It swings open.

Yang-something wears a tux.

Wire-rim glasses.