Multiverse Terminal

Neil Armstrong was the first person to step on the moon but I am going to be the first person to do something more remarkable: step into another universe and verify the Many Worlds theory.. I enter the Multiverse Terminal Machine. I am pressing the button.

I feel a strange sensation which I can't place. When I open the machine's door I see what is unusual. I am completely naked. Am I in a universe where people go around naked?

I'm greeted by a woman who looks like my assistant Mel. “Welcome to the multiverse, sir. Are you Doctor James Chaloner?”.

How did she know my name? I ask the standard question. “That is my name. Who is prime minister and who is president of the United States?”

“The prime minister is Boris Johnson and the president of the United States is Joe Biden.”

Perhaps the machine hasn't worked at all, other than removing my clothes, and I'm still in my own laboratory.

She continues, “The man who came through before you came from a universe where Jeremy Corbyn was prime minister and Donald Trump was President of the United States. I can provide you with clothes but you cannot leave this laboratory. I know you won't commit a crime but Immigration Control insist on valid ID.”

I didn't think to bring my passport but it would make no difference anyway because it would have gone wherever my clothes are.

“I'll switch the television on. The news is about to start on EBC One. It will help you to learn about this universe and how it differs from yours.”

“Buckingham Palace has announced that the President is ill. It is not serious and he tests negative for Covid-19. On medical advice however he will not be attending the Climate Change Summit in the Kingdom of Scotland. Therefore the English delegation will be headed by Prime Minister Johnson.”

I hope that a leap will find me back home but my colleagues will be working to improve the machine so that multiversonauts retain their clothes. When I pressed the button the machine recognised me as a single entity but my clothes as extraneous. Macro-Quantum Entanglement can function only when the machines are almost identical. Therefore if my colleagues succeed in improving the machine it will be impossible for me to return.

I go back into the machine. I am pressing the button.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

100-word challenge

Image
Entries for the 100-word challenge can be sent to worthingflash@gmail.com  at any time. The winner will get a copy of the cheerfully entitled "Murder from Beyond the Grave" signed by Derek and Angela McMillan. They also get the kudos of winning the challenge! 100 words is the upper limit but entries can be fewer than 100 words if you so desire. There is no restriction as to subject or genre. You do not have to live in Worthing to enter. "Normal" stories for #worthingflash are still welcomed of course. The upper limit is 1000 words and there is no lower limit. Any genre or subject is welcome. 73,000 people have visited the blog so plenty of people will read your work.
Read more

40 Units

  “ You take forever to order just like with everything else, you haven’t changed at all have you?” A familiar voice with an unfamiliar face calls from behind. A long-lost friend welcomes unfamiliar emotions. We stare at each other in silence because I don't want to have small talk. I know her life ain’t easy, and at the same time, I still fall into the same small talk I desperately want to avoid. Cause just looking at her I know it’s not easy. Taking care of four kids by herself while working at Church's chicken ain’t nothing to even smile about. But I still ask her “How's everything” because I have no clue what else I should say to you. I want to make a joke, cause you know me as a class clown but life is no joke, and I know that better than anyone. Life's not fair in the slightest and I’ve always known that from being in foster care. Yet even I didn’t think life could be so cruel to just steal Rufina’s life from her. You tell me about how tough things ha
Read more

Sawtooth

Image
Sawtooth - Karen Schauber - He waves at me with that sawtooth smile and halloumi complexion, and I swoon just like the last time (last guy). My bus leaving in ten, but I jump up and squeeze past the bulky woman seated next to me, her closed-loop reusable plastic bag bulging with a thick baton of Hungarian salami, fragrant spicy olives and pungent Bryndza, Limburger, and Epoisses cheeses—she mentions meeting her beau for a picnic by the lake, him bringing the libation and the worsted wool blanket—as I zoom to the front of the bus begging the driver to let me off, and I don’t even want a refund, I just need to get off. Hiram is perplexed but willing to indulge as I force his arms open for the hug of a century, I’m squeezing so hard he issues a little cough, but I don’t let go because I think I’ve found what I’ve always been looking for and realize that I can make the Carpathian Mountains my home after all. I’ll learn to sew pretty embroidered blouses and sell them at the ma
Read more