The Altonevers (21 page)

“
Yeah so. That happens to
everyone,” she says.

“
So when you do one thing
and not the other, of any of the other plausible actions of that
instant, the actions not taken are still made.”

“
How could they be if I, or
whoever hasn’t done them, having instead done another?” she
asks.

“
Each of the infinite
number of other possibilities become like an echo. The start of a
probability path divergent to the path you’re on according to the
acion that you’ve taken, you’ve taken. It still happens but to one
of the infinite others of you,” he says, “echoes of
yourself.”

“
So it’s all predetermined
is what you’re saying, like fate?”

“
No, sort of, I mean to me
you are who you are based on choice and circumstance, but in a
weird sort of way you, me, anything that ever moved, let alone
thought, exists as every possible thing or person you can be at the
same time.”

“
How do you suppose
that?”

“
Because if the infinite
others, the echoes of you, are echoes to you, then you must also be
an echo to them,” he says, “the probability wave actually exists at
all times and we can only see them now because we are between
places, between Altos and not on the proper train. I think it's the
probability waves cast pink and yellow, ebbing and flowing
florescence at the instant of divergence, that it’s what actually
fills the entire eternity, but who knows, you know,” he
says.

“
Ours?” she
asks.

“
If you want to think that,
sure,” he says, “but I was thinking of everything to ever exist
simultaneously echoing to fill the volume of all known and unknown
realities, physical or not,” he says.

“
Then which one is the real
one, me? the rock we see, or the pink and yellow ebbing and flowing
echo?” she asks.

“
All of them, us, me, you
them, everything is at once. Though the one you see I guess, as you
see it, is as it is when you see it.”

“
Wait, then what’s the
length of a moment, a single instant in time when a divergence from
one path to another can take place?” she asks biting her bottom lip
white.

“
I don’t know, the smallest
measurement in time, but who’s measurement. The whole of existence
is completely filled with the infinite variations of all things
contained in it, of itself, and it’s infinity. Infinity, eternity,
the same thing really,” he says.

“
So, inch by inch, if the
big bang-”

“
The big bang?” he asks,
stressing the the.

“
Uh, a big bang occurs in
the smallest fraction of a measurement of time later or before, and
the entire universe would be different,” she says.

“
An, entire universe, but
yeah something like that,” he says.

“
Even so, if all things
were the same and the moon collides with the earth an inch off,
this would place each slightly out of orbit right?” she
asks.

“
Hmm, yes I suppose, I
think I know what you’re getting at,” he says.

“
So that means every
possible way, inch by inch by inch must have occurred and will
occur, throughout...forever,” she says.

“
Yes,” he says.

“
So it's that every
eventuality of a single moment, in all the infinities of time, is
in every conceivable place at once, and fills the entirety of
eternity,” she says.

“
Close, but I suppose that
the probability waves, that expand infinitely are what eternity
itself is made of,” he says.

“
You’re saying existence
itself exists within itself and due to itself at the same time?”
she asks.

“
There’s something about
entropy I forgot, I think it's related,” he says stroking his chin
behind an innumerable number of pink and yellow phantom facial
expressions.

“
Wait, then what is the
future, you said splits at the present, so what is the
future?”

“
There is no future and no
past, only the forever present. We can only ever be in the present
through the passage of time. Everything is a construct, to attempt
understand what we perceive Anna. Just because we understand things
as describable doesn’t mean that anything actually is,” he
says.

“
Maybe, then a planet can
reach its moon's orbit, but how can it reach out of the orbit of
its sun?” she asks.

“
Yes, sounds impossible,
but that’s probably happening all around us right now. Infinitely
exploding bursts of all things possible, existing in one place at
once,” he says.

“
Then how come we don’t see
it? feel it?” she asks.

“
Why would we evolve to? We
are progeny of our own Alto, our own standard. We don’t feel it, or
see it, we don’t perceive it so it doesn’t seem real to us,” he
says.

“
Hmm,” she hums with a look
of consternation, “then what’s the scale?”

“
The scale you mean the
scope?”

“
I guess”

“
Infinitesimally small to
the too big to even be perceivable, everything, all things, the
fabric of existence itself, Anna, eternity the all of it,” he says.
Anna stares at her open hands, contemplating all the constellations
she’s ever seen, as microscopic spheres radiate pink and yellow
waves of probability from her open palms.

“
Why do you keep saying
eternity?” she asks.

“
Eternity is the body of
all of time, all of existence.”

“
Like an ocean?” she
asks.

“
Yeah, I kinda see that
Carrots. Sort of like the ocean currents of existence,” he
says.

“
Then what’s at its
surface?”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
Every ocean has a surface
with waves, you know, air above and land and birds and that kind of
stuff,” she says.

“
I never thought of that
part, what’s outside of eternity?”

“
And how big is it?” she
asks.

“
How big? I guess that
depends on the scope of your perception of it, it goes on
infinitely though. So expansive It'll overload anyone to think of
it as existing in the first place. Don’t believe me? try it for a
while,” he says, “I have.”

“
Yes, but you didn’t say
that you do, you see,” she says. Both of their pupils are dilated
to the size of nickels as they look to each other and around to the
flowing and ebbing pink and yellow in awe.

“
What's one, of the
infinite number of one’s?” he asks her as though a
riddle.

“
I have no idea, what do
you think?”

“
Hell if I
know,”

“
I asked what you think,
not what you know?”

“
What's the difference?”
she asks.

“
I don't know, it's just a
thought,” he says.

“
Ahh what do you know?” she
says dismissively.

“
The reason why you
ask.”

“
Huh,” she says.

“
Is to know instead of to
think,” he says.

“
Well if I have to think
about it, it sounds like the answer is nothing,” she says with
uncertainty.

“
But that’s only half the
answer,” he quips.

“
What’s the other half?”
she asks stumped.

“
Everything, one thing is
all things, it's the infinity of a thing and all things
collected?”

“
I guess,” she
says.

“
What’s one person, to the
one they love and who loves them?”

“
Everything,” she answers,
“why is everything pink and yellow?”

“
I don’t know, but it makes
me think of pink lemonade,” he says, as they careen through the
pink and yellow probability waves radiating infinitely outward to
fill the volume of existence, that they themselves persist within
and perpetuate. The mackle is oscillating as shimmering fluorescent
light while humming like millions of harp chords strummed at once.
Converging minutes later into a seemingly singular, physically
solid path of perceivable reality.

Windows, walls or
doors

A forceful jolt rumbles through the
car, rattling their bodies and bones. The soot whips off the
windshield, leaving a trail of prismatic powder suspended as a
stretching splash through the air behind them. She turns on the
wipers to see in the seconds long blizzard. The sound of whipping
wind washing over surfaces resurfaces to her ears, and making her
have to squeeze the wheel to steer. Gravity returns and so does the
friction of the tires rubber gripping the ground. Along with the
smell of smoke and sweat to their noses, and the taste of their
dried mouths. The car drifts harshly to the left and she swerves to
stay on the bumpy road.

“
Did we blow a tire?” she
asks.

“
I don't think so,” he
says. She rolls down the window sticking her head out to check.
Feeling fresh air fill her lungs and sweep the fumes from the
cabin. Refreshed to feel it wash across her face, then driving with
her hand hanging out of the car to touch it with her
fingers.

“
What is that?” she asks
pointing to a large ring floating a mile above the tallest
buildings of a brick city, with electric blue around it’s center,
but oranges, yellows and white glows disappearing miles from the
middle of the halo.

“
Looks like an up halo,” he
says.

“
Why do they call it that?”
she asks.

“
This is a split dimension,
top and bottom. The people from the top jump from up, the people
down here jump from down.”

“
So two are connected into
one Alto?”

“
Existing as one Alto,” he
corrects her “and maybe, but probably a parallel, this usually
happens when parallels cross paths.”

“
That doesn’t sound
possible.”

“
It's right there,” he says
pointing to the slowly spinning ring resembling smoke flowing in
light floating miles above ground level.

“
Oh, whatever. You think
there's a station here,” she asks.

“
Hope so, or up
there.”

“
I have a bad feeling about
this place. Everything looks so close together, like it's
condensed?” she says.

“
Yeah,” The massive
atmospheric halo sits like a crown above the brick and mortar
mega-metropolis of multilayered monolithic structures rising from
the horizon. The buildings are packed densely next to and atop each
other, conforming to overall mismatching three dimensional puzzle
of massive brick rectangles standing erect. Most of them are
floating within ten feet of the building next to it. The main level
is all concrete roadways lit by of street lights spread in the
shadows of the many more layers and clusters of structures stacked
alongside and floating above and below one another.

They come to a destroyed
section of road at the city's limits. Unable to drive any further
they leave the car behind, and march over hills of dirt into dour
looking forgotten villages built over each other up thousand foot
steep hillsides. The further they go the higher and more tightly
packed the windows stacked one atop the other become. Until
everywhere they look, up and down, all they see is they're
enveloped on any side by wall and windows. The whole of the city
slowly hovers circularly around it’s center where the stacks of
structures are highest, not touching the halo high above.
The only way to move about is to navigate a
multitude of metropolitan multilayered clusters of structures
through narrow passageways interconnected by stairways, ladders and
smaller causeways leading to fire escapes, catwalks and windows.
The windows here are used as doors, to go into one and out of
another and running through apartments and hallways is commonplace,
actually a part of their culture. The inhabitants don't mind, it’s
just how they know how to get around.

After walking fruitlessly up and down
for nearly an hour they figure walking up a couple more stories
they may be at least be able to go straight for more than thirty
feet on a flat surface. Down a few long alleys and climbing tens of
small separated stairways and ladders. The walls of one structure
are so close to the other they're barely an arm’s length from the
window sill of the other side. She scrapes her fingernails along
the bricks as she passes, welcoming it's coarse feel compared to
the textureless place she’d just come from. Now hundreds and
sometimes thousands of feet off ground level they climb every
stairway and ladder they come across, higher and higher, leaving
the ground far below. The air starts getting thicker and more humid
as moisture condenses at the top of a space contained on six sides
by brick structures. The two meander mindlessly tired, looking for
a place to sleep, traveling through twisting narrow paths of fire
escapes and catwalks. She loses her sense of north and south,
senseless from constantly going up and down and over and across.
The wind whispers, though sometimes shoves them off their feet with
sporadic gusts funneling through the carelessly constructed narrow
brick canyons and crevices.