An Infinite Number of Parallel Universes Read Online Free PDF Page A

She covers her face with her hands and leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees.
    She starts sobbing. It is sudden and terrible.
    Having never been confronted with a crying girl, Archie does not know what to do. He looks upon her as he might a newly arrived alien: perplexed by its strangeness and apprehensive of its potential to lead to the complete destruction of humanity.
    According to the movies and TV he’d seen, he should move next to her, place an arm over her shoulders, and say something reassuring. Yet he doesn’t dare touch her for fear of doing it incorrectly, and he doesn’t say anything for fear of saying the wrong thing.
    She continues sobbing into her hands.
    “On second thought, it’s getting kind of late,” he says.
    She nods, face still hidden behind her hands.
    “I’ll let myself out,” he says, rising.
    Archie stands there for a moment longer, replaying what he said. He does the math.
    It doesn’t add up.
    “I’m sorry,” he says and then walks out, forgetting his clothes in the dryer.
    He steps back into the rain, smiling no longer.

Mari

Cold Beyond Comprehension
Friday
    Mari sets her pen to the page, her head full of stories. She manages to write a couple paragraphs, but then the chattering Spanish from the waiting room’s television colonizes her mind. After cursing herself for forgetting her headphones, Mari closes her notebook. She looks up at the screen.
    There is a man sitting with a woman. Both look groomed yet unkempt, proud yet ridiculous. The host asks them a question, they respond. The crowd boos. The camera keeps cutting to a second man, standing backstage, pacing like a caged animal. When the second man finally decides to walk on to the stage, he rushes toward the first man, anger blazing in his eyes. The first man rises to meet him. Security guards materialize out of thin air and restrain the men. The camera keeps cutting between shots of the scuffle, the guffawing audience, and the eternally smirking and shrugging host.
    Even though there are no subtitles, Mari can guess what is happening. The two men are probably brothers or best friends. The woman, originally one man’s lover, now probably carries the child of the other.
    Mari can’t even begin to comprehend how people get into such situations—and then want to resolve it on national television. She wonders if the guests, the host, and the audience are even real. If they are, she wonders what the hell is wrong with them, why they feed off one another’s pain like parasites.
    “Can I turn this off?” Mari finally asks the receptionist.
    The receptionist glances around the waiting room. She picks up the remote and hits the mute button.
    “Thanks,” Mari says, though her eyes linger on the now pantomimed drama.
    After summoning the power to look away, Mari opens her notebook and rereads what she had written, trying to regain her flow.
    But she can’t. It’s gone. She can’t find whatever words or sentences or ideas she meant to set down next. It is like walking into a room to retrieve something only to forget what it was she had wanted.
    Mari sighs. Closes her notebook.
    She leans back. A potted plant sits in the corner of the room. Mari cannot tell if it is real or fake. She scans its leaves for imperfections, always reliable evidence of authenticity, and then reaches over and takes one between her fingers. She concludes that it is fake.
    She pushes around the magazines. None of them interest her, but one cover catches her attention. It features a girl riding on her mother’s back, enjoying a day at the beach. This reminds Mari of when she was little and her mom used to take her out on “Ladies’ Night” every Tuesday night. Usually, they would dress up and start with dinner at a nice restaurant. After dinner, her mom would have some surprise activity planned for them. Sometimes they’d see a movie that her brothers and dad would never be caught dead watching. Sometimes they’d go to the mall. Sometimes