(If you take the time to read this story I’d love if you could leave me a comment with your opinion on it. Thank you so much)
I’m tired of living in my shitty town, you might think that being a pretty girl solves your problems but it doesn’t. I’ve always been into physics, you know I’m kinda like Sheldon from the Big Bang theory but pretty and without his social anxiety. I’m 5.3’, I used to like long hair but it’s been a while since I decided on a chin-length cut. Since I was little I used to swim and play volleyball a lot so my body developed nice from a very young age.
Being a girl on a small town is hard, but being the only girl studying physics is way harder. People always assume I’m just a pretty face…
I got really into quantum physics and I began studying this theory that says parallel realities exist and how they work. According to a book I found on a garage sell, Erwin Schrödinger used to think there are several parallel universes and that there are cosmic patches exactly the same as ours (containing someone exactly like you), as well as patches that differ by just one particle’s position, patches that differ by two particles’ positions, and so on, down to patches that are totally different from ours. So if we could separate the particle that differentiates our universe from another one and modify it, we could technically jump between universes or realities.
Call me crazy if you want, but somehow I know this can’t be only a theory, the more I read about it, the more I’m hooked on it.
Lately I’ve been trying hard to find more information about this topic, but my teachers and classmates all think I’m wasting my time. One of my classmates said to me that I’m as crazy as his dad is and it turns out his dad used to be the owner of the book I found on the garage sell and I really need to know what he thinks about it, so I asked him if maybe I could come by his house some time to talk to his dad, and he said I could find him every afternoon drinking coffee and reading books in a local coffee shop.
I couldn’t wait any longer, so that afternoon I took my notebook, my book, a pen and headed straight to Eugenio’s coffee shop (No, Eugenio is not the owner, it’s a Salvador Dali inspired coffee shop)
There was only person sitting outside, no one wanted to be out on such a windy day but Mr. Jaff seemed to be just fine drinking his coffee, reading a book and smoking a cigarette.
“Hi Mr. Jaff, my name is Nicole Way I’m…” I said “You’re my sons classmate, right?” He interrupted me
“Yes sir, I am. I’m sorry to bother you, but I asked your son if I could talk to you sometime and he told me you’d be here. Do you think maybe I could steal some of your time?” I asked politely
“Well, that depends. What do you wanna talk about?” He said
“I bought this on a garage sell your wife held a few years ago, and William (his son) told me it belonged to you” I said while showing him the book
“Ohh I haven’t seen that book in such a long time… Are you liking it so far?” He asked
“I do, and I’m really interested in parallel universes, I want to understand more”
“Ok Nicole, we can talk about it, but you have to know my coffee mug is almost empty and I don’t like to discuss physics without caffeine” he said
“Don’t worry Mr. Jaff I’m buying the next rounds” I said smiling
He is the wisest person I’ve known, and the best part is that he doesn’t think he is wise, he acknowledges the fact we’re never gonna know everything about anything and I admire him for that. We sat there for about 3 hours and he told me he was willing to teach me everything he knows about multiverses if I’m willing to learn. Of course I happily said yes and we arranged schedules to meet here at Eugenio’s every afternoon.
Something I found very odd is that sometimes Mr. Jaff would come wearing the weirdest and ugliest glasses I’ve seen, with little circles in them but I figured it was rude to ask him about them, but it amazed me that no matter how hard I tried to find the contacts line in his eyes when he was bared eye, there was none. I mean, if he needs such thick glasses how could he be walking around without any visual aids?
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It’s been 3 months since Mr. Jaff and I got involved into the parallel universes talk and now I know a whole lot more about them, he explained to me every theory he found and even showed me some research and theories he’s done for himself and he even said he is willing to show me his biggest accomplishments so far and even if I’m very honored since he’s never even talked about this to anyone but me I don’t know what to expect.
He told me to meet him up on the shed at his backyard at 11:00 am
“Mr. Jaff? Are you here”
“Yes Nikki come please” I heard him saying
“Where are you?” I said. To my surprise what it seemed like a regular shed was a lab like the ones you see in cartoons or movies
“Come Nikki, here’s my master piece” he said proudly
When I saw the “master piece” I thought he was joking, it was a shower like spot with a cristal door. -Ok, he’s finally nuts - I thought
“This is the transuniversal machine” he said to me
“The what??? Mr. Jaff that’s a shower”
“Ahh Nikki, don’t tell me you don’t know things aren’t what they seem. This is my biggest secret and biggest invention as well. You see, you’ve been talking to more than one Mr. Jaff, the ideas and knowledge shared with you come from two different old guys.”
“WHAT? Mr. Jaff come on, I think you’ve lost your mind” I said laughing a little bit
“I haven’t Nikki, let me show you” he said going into the shower like thing
I was not prepared to what I saw… Light flashed and the loudest squeak I’ve heard came out of the “transuniversal thing”, for a brief moment he was gone and suddenly there he was again but this time he had his thick glasses on.
“What the hell Mr. Jaff How did you do that?” I was gobsmacked
“I am Joseph Jaff Nikki, but I’m not the Mr. Joseph Jaff of your reality. You see, your Mr. Jaff and I are both from parallel universes, but we found a way to shift between spaces a long time ago. There’s a Nicole way in my reality too, but she is a little different. She is talking to your Mr. Jaff right now… Would you like to come and see my reality?” Mr. Jaff said
-This can’t be possible- I thought… “Yeah I do want to, but will it hurt me?” I asked not believing his words
“no dear” he said while laughing a little “it’s not gonna hurt you, but I recommend you to wear these earplugs” he said giving me two tiny pieces of rubber “You see, your Mr. Jaff and I have some hearing loss because of the loud squeak this machine does”
I couldn’t believe him, I was a little scared but what the hell… If I die at least I’m not gonna live in this town anymore. I went inside the shower and I kept my eyes wide open cause I didn’t wanna miss anything but all I could see was a bright light and boom there we were, with the bare eyed Mr. Jaff and next to him was someone who looked exactly like me but with big thick glasses.
“Is this it? What happened Mr. Jaff? Is this a joke? Who is she?” I asked freaking out a little bit
“Calm down Nikki, this is Nikola… She is the Nicole Way from this reality” Mr. Jaff said
“You are not joking right?” I asked
“He is not Nikki, my name is Nicole Way. I live in Prescott street 1432. I have 2 brothers, my parents are Nicolas and Margaret Way… sounds familiar? If you don’t believe me, here, look at this” She said while taking her glasses off
I didn’t know what to say… I mean Mr. Jaff could be joking but this girl looked exactly like me.
“Oh my god!!! But how?!!” I asked
“Mr. Joseph Jaff from here and the Mr. Jaff from your reality are both very clever physicist, they both found a way to shift between realities a while ago. I got into astrophysics and began studying at the local university and there I met William (the son of Mr. Jaff) and he told me about his crazy dad… He used to be bullied a lot because of his big bare eyes”
“What?!! I mean our stories are a little different, but basically the same… My classmate William is very shy as well but he gets bullied because of the weird looking glasses he wears” I said
“Well” The Mr. Jaff from my reality said “Joe Jeff of this bespectacled reality and I share another interest. He likes people with good eyesight, and when I got to see his world I went crazy for people wearing glasses, I guess you want what you don’t have”
“I’ve never wanted to wear glasses, I can see just fine” I said
“And I’ve never wanter not to wear them, it’s so weird to see someone without them” Nikola said
“That’s because you don’t know each others worlds… But here you go, this is your opportunity. You can either know each others worlds or forget about this and go back to your normal lives” Mr. Jaff said
“I would really like to know a parallel reality” Said Nikola and as much as it frightened me, I wanted to too.
“What the heck? What can I lose?” I Said smiling
“Wait a second” Said Mr. Jaff. “There’s nothing to loose if you are careful, but if you speak to anyone about this there might be everything to lose”
“Yeah, like someone is gonna believe we’ve actually traveled between realities” I said
“Perhaps not, but you don’t know who might hear. There are bad people out there Nikki, and they’re sure gonna use this against humanity” Mr. Jaff wisely said
“Absolutely, you’re right… but I have a question, how is she going to be in this world if she looks so different from me without glasses???” Said Nikola
“Here Nikki, try this on” he handed me a pair of weird looking glasses
I put the big heavy glasses on and immediately I felt dizzy “I can’t see anything Mr. Jaff. You do know how refraction works right?” I said
“Yes of course I do, I just wanted to see if they fitted correctly. You’ll have to wear a pair of super strong plus contacts under those to compensate the strength. Your glasses are still gonna be weaker by almost 18 diopters to the ones Nikola wears, but it’s better than being bared eye here” Now that was clever, right?…
“And what about me? I can’t wear contacts, there aren’t even contacts with my -42.5 prescription , are there? and if you add my -4.75 astigmatism it’s impossible” Said Nikola
“Yes, but here let me put this -20 contacts for you. I’m sure you’ve never tried contacts before and it’s gonna be hard for you to do it. Over those contacts you will wear a -21 glasses with the amount of astigmatism correction you need. For now I can only give you this -19 glasses but they don’t have any cylinder correction so you’ll have to manage with this” Mr. Jaff said to Nikola while helping her put the contacts into her eyes
“Wow, everything looks bigger” she took a look at the glasses and it amazed me she had to hold them almost touching her eye ball “It’s blurry but I can manage” Said Nikola
“Now my turn” I said
“Here, put this contacts in and let me get your glasses” said Mr. Jaff giving me a contacts case
I used to wear contact lenses for halloween so I already knew how to put them in but as soon as I got the second one in I got very desperate
“Ok, I don’t know if I can do this, I can’t see anything, I really can’t even see my hands…” I said
“Grab the glasses I left for you in the table and you’ll feel better” Said Mr. Jaff while looking for something in his drawers
“I can’t even see the table Mr. Jaff” I said fumbling around
“Here you go” Said Nikola while putting a pair super heavy glasses on me
Everything went into focus, not as sharp as it was without the glasses and contacts combo, but I could manage.
“Wow, everything is so small… I’ve never worn glasses before” I said
“Well, you better get use to them if we’re gonna do this. You see, in this reality being visually stable is very unusual” said Nikola
“In my world wearing glasses this thick is possible, but is not as usual either” I said
“Let me explain something” said Mr. Jaff “Our worlds are exactly the same, the only difference is that the eyes in our world are more rounded, there are a whole lot of possibilities and billions of realities out there, but the Mr. William Jaff of this visually impaired world and I are fascinated by each others realities so we decided we would stick with only discovering this two universes. We found a way to switch places a long time ago, he fell in love with my wife and her perfect green eyes, and I fell for his and her small, almost blind eyes. Why do you think our sons are in the opposite realities? My son is actually living in this shortsighted world having perfect eyesight, and his son needs super thick glasses in the visually stable world… ” Then it hit me, Mr. Jaff had been having sex with his wife of the other reality, it was confusing but I guess they count as the same person?
“All I ask is for you to be careful, give each other any important details and learn as much as you can, now I’m gonna give you a few minutes to discuss this and we’ll have to go back Nikki” He said
Nikola and I gave each other every fact we thought it was important, we even wrote down a list of basic things and it was really weird cause she was me, same fears, same achievements… everything. We even agreed to call the Mr. Jaff of my bare eyed reality Joseph, and the one on hers Jaff. After about an hour of a very interesting conversation Joseph and I went back to our reality.
We said our goodbyes and then I left.
On my way home I was thinking how crazy everything sounded in my head, and I forgot about the glasses I was still wearing till someone called my name
“Nicole?? Is that you??” A voice across the street said, but I couldn’t tell who it was till she was about 4 feet away from me
“Ohh hi Nancy, how are you”
“I’m fine thank you, I almost didn’t recognize you in those glasses… I mean I’ve never seen you wearing glasses” she said
“Ohh I had been wearing contacts for a long time, maybe that’s why you don’t remember” I said
She looked at me in disbelief “Ummm that’s a little bit weird, we’ve were in the same school for over 6 years and never once I saw you in glasses, but I guess your eyes were just fine”
Good thing most people, like me, don’t really know anything about glasses or contacts
“Hey, listen Nancy it’s been really good talking to you but I need to go now. Have a nice day”
“Ohh sure Nikki, it was nice to see you too. Hope your eyes get better” Said Nancy
Walking home I realized I had a problem, how was I going to go through my house and get to my room wearing this glasses? I mean my family was gonna be there and they know I don’t wear glasses and taking the contacts out was not an option since I had left the case at Mr. Jaffs. I tried to stay positive and came up with a solution.
As soon as I opened the door I took the glasses off, but boy was I not prepared for this, how do people with bad eyesight live??? I couldn’t see anything, and when I say anything I don’t mean pitch black, what I mean is everything became super blurry, I could not distinguish any shapes, even guessing where I was going in my own house became a challenge.
“Hey Niks, I’m glad you’re home… can you take a look at this old thing?” My grandpa said
“Uhmm sure grandpa, just give me a minute” I said going straight to the bathroom.
I took the contacts out and kept them in my hand, it was such a good thing to be able to see again. I went out and grabbed a glass from the kitchen counter, poured a little water in it and put the contacts in.
“What’s wrong paps?” I said
“Ohh don’t worry dear, your mom has it under control”
I was surprised I didn’t even see my mom and dad were on the living room, not even their body shapes…
“Ok, call me if you need anything, I’ll be in my room” I said
When I was alone I was finally able to think about everything that had happened today. Was this real? Had I gone crazy? I mean Mr. Jaff could have a twin and be pranking me, but what about Nikola from the other reality? She was exactly like me but with thick glasses… There were so many things on my head that I thought about every possibility till I fell asleep…
https://vision-and-spex.com/everything-is-possible-t1972.html