... but I stopped. Now I'm a dad, and may blog again...

Monday, November 08, 2010

108: from there to there

How was your bonfire night?  Ohhs and ahhs and whoops of delight?  Bonfire toffee and parkin and a polystyrene cup of mulled wine?  Straining your neck upward, with your little one sitting on your shoulders and your loved one holding on tight with mittened hands?  Gazing open-mouthed as thousands of pounds explodes brightly in the sky, in celebration of the violent oppression of a Catholic rebellion?  Attending a big public gathering, or holding your own small bonfire in the garden, letting off some little fireworks and supervising the children with sparklers?  Oh, what simple pleasures life throws our way.

I spent it coughing at the TV, but that’s my problem.  In another universe there was a Kevin doing some or all of the above things. In yet another universe there is a Kevin aimlessly browsing Amazon and adding DVD box sets to his wishlist.  Oh no wait, that’s this universe.  Shame we can’t traverse the multiverse and view the literally infinite varieties of me that inhabit these parallel dimensions.  Well, with the magic of the hastily cobbled together off the top of my head written word, we can do just that.  Start your engines, get your motor running, head out on the highway, the circuits of time dude, modern technology William, the transwarp drive, break the speed of reality, press the big green button with GO written on it.  And we are there; the foam of universes constantly forming, expanding and popping spreads out before us from there to there.

In this universe Kevin is a technical drawer working on the Nazi nuclear Uranverein.  In that universe Kevin wears a bowler hat and smokes a pipe.  In this universe Kevine is a glamour model posing seductively in adverts for various services in the back of the Sunday Sport.  In that universe Kevin is a sheet of tarpaulin left haphazardly on the lawn causing the grass to die quickly.  In this universe Kevin is an architecture student harbouring secret desires to sing I Am What I Am.  In that universe Kevin is a ginger tom cat called Marquis living with a permanently bemused old woman called Nigel.  In this universe Kevin sits alone in a room considering the function of a tea cosy.  In that universe Kevin is a living fossil yet to be discovered by modern science.  In this universe Kevin is a train driver about to break marginally too hard, causing some brief surprise to his passengers, but nothing that won’t be forgotten about soon enough.  In that universe Kevin is a toilet attendant, making men feel uncomfortable urinating, armed only with an array of aftershave bottles.  In this universe Kevin has succumbed to elephantiasis ending his promising career as a basketball coach.  In that universe Kevin is the entire cast of the Black and White Minstrel Show drawn on the inside of an empty match box.  In this universe Kevin is the unwitting direct descendant of your Uncle Desmond.  In that universe Kevin has an unexplainable desire to visit Papua New Guinea and settle down with a small herd of goats and a collection of stamps.  In that universe Kevin is looking back at this universe convinced that he is looking into a mirror.  In this universe Kevin is looking back into that universe convinced he is having a bad dream.  In that universe Kevin is doing exactly what I am doing right now except a single electron in his 48 molar has a different property of positional probability.  In that universe Kevin is spelt Keivan.

Such is the nature of infinity.

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