Parallel Universes

First & Last Chapter

The world is either a piece of shit, or implicitly beautiful. Those are the two famous opinions I hear. The irony of it is that normally no one has just one opinion. I hear both of these opinions coming from the same people. So what is the world? Quite frankly, I'm in the middle of the two. It's just a world, just a planet with people. A lot of assholes, a lot of kind-hearted people. It's a nice balance. Admittedly, I'm a part of the asshole group. Not so much in a direct way, though. I just like messing with people until I drive them to frustration. Though, I do like a good conversation every once in awhile.

"Eden? Are you listening to me?"

I turn my gaze to face the man at the front of the room, Mr. Kohler. Or as I like to call him, Bryan, his first name. He hates me calling him by his first name, but he gave up on trying to stop me from it a long time ago. So out of respect, I call him Mr. Kohler in front of the class.

"No I was not, Mr. Kohler. Though you have my attention now, would you like to ask me something?" Like I said, I'm an asshole. Though, Bryan understands me. I normally wouldn't disrespect my teacher like that, but him and me have a certain relationship.

"You know I don't like repeating myself, Eden. I asked, what is the difference between photo system one and photo system two?"

"Good question, I'm not actually sure." Mr. Kohler gives me a stern look. He is about to say something, but gets cut off when the bell rings.

"Don't forget to finish your chapter 2 questions by Monday! Test is on Wednesday! And Eden, please stay here for a moment." I watch my classmates scramble to gather their books, as it is finally the end of the day and they're in a race to get home. Or, where ever most of them like to spend their Friday nights. They all file out of the class, leaving me alone with Bryan. He closes the door after the last of them leave.

"What would you like to talk to me about, Bryan?" I slouch over in my seat and rest my chin in my hand, waiting for a lecture.

"Eden, you're a smart kid. This is the third year I've had you in my class. In grade ten, you were the student with the highest marks in the class. Now you never even make an effort to learn anything. Why's that?"

I sigh and lean back in my seat. "I don't know, school just doesn't interest me anymore. I feel like there are far better things that I could be learning."

He looks at me for a second, unmoving, thinking. He then gets up and spins around and starts rooting through papers on his desk. His desk is always a mess. He's not a very organized teacher. Finally, he finds a thin black folder with some papers inside.

"Here. Let me share this with you. I've been doing some personal research in my spare time, and I haven't shared it with anyone yet. But I think now is the time to, and I could really use someone who's smart like you to help me in this research. What do you say?" Bryan's face gleams. He's surprisingly genuinely excited about this idea.

"Well, what're you researching?" I'm kind of curious, this man is brilliant in sciences. I'm surprised he became a science teacher instead of an actual scientist. Who would want to deal with lousy teenagers all day?

"This research that I'm doing... well, it may sound crazy. But in order to make a discovery, you have to be able to think outside the box. So bear with me. But I believe that it is possible that parallel universes exist. For every choice ever made by anyone on this planet, a new parallel universe is created, exemplifying the different routes that could've resulted from that choice. We are simply one of the countless existing universes. Or maybe we are the leading universe, meaning that every other universe has been created based off of our choices alone. I'm not entirely sure, I have a few theories on the matter." I stare at my science teacher for a moment, shocked by his choice of research. Parallel universes tend to only exist in science fiction stories. But the excitement that he expresses with this research pulls me in a bit. Maybe he can actually prove parallel universes to be possible. "So, Eden, what do you say?"