Prologue…or Epilogue
WHEN CANCER PATIENTS approach the end of their life, they may choose to decline treatment or hospice care to instead spend their final days in the comfort of their own home. And when my son and his wife suggested I do the same, I felt truly blessed. I didn’t want to be a burden on their family, but I trusted that they sincerely wanted to be there for me when my time came. It meant the world to me. And so, I agreed to stay at home under two conditions: no drugs, and no treatments.
At the age of seventy-three, I was perhaps still a bit too young to die, but oddly enough, I felt no fear or regret. I would finish out my life in a large house with my dear wife, my dependable son, my kindhearted daughter-in-law, and my adorable granddaughter. With my family at my side to see me off, even the most excruciating heart failure would be worth it to me. I had lived a good life.
That being said, I needed to make it through the next three days.
“August seventeenth,” I said into the wearable device on my left wrist. It displayed an event registered in my calendar.
10 a.m., Showa-dori intersection, Leotard Girl
The Showa-dori intersection was the biggest one our town offered, just a twenty-minute walk from our house. The Leotard Girl was the name of the statue that stood there.
But…I couldn’t for the life of me remember making those plans.
At the end of each month, my device would list out the following month’s scheduled events. That was how I learned of this one—but who was I meant to meet up with? When did I even add this event? I simply couldn’t recall.
Well…could someone else have put it in for me? These devices were operated via voice recognition, so theoretically it should have been impossible, but there were ways to get around such things. I tried asking my family, but none of them knew about it. My granddaughter even had the audacity to suggest I was having a senior moment!
Obviously, I didn’t want to believe I could possibly be that senile…but on the other hand, I couldn’t think of a reason for my family to lie to me about it. Lately, I was starting to think perhaps I really was going batty. But regardless of who made the calendar event, I could discover the truth by going to the Showa-dori intersection three days from now at 10 a.m., and I was sorely looking forward to finding out. That was the reason I simply could not afford to kick the bucket in the next three days.
I switched off my bedside lamp and settled into bed. Once I woke up tomorrow morning, there would be just two days left to go. Fortunately, my condition was better than usual as of late, so I was optimistic that I would have no trouble going on a twenty-minute walk. I hadn’t visited the intersection in quite a while, and my heart raced like a young boy’s at the thought.
But just as I was closing my eyes and hoping to have a pleasant dream, I heard a knock at my door and lifted my lids once more.
“Come in! Door’s unlocked,” I called, still flat on my back. I reached out to turn my lamp back on. My visitor shyly peeked her head in—it was my ten-year-old granddaughter, Ai.
“Sorry, Grandpa, were you sleeping?”
“No, no. I only just climbed into bed.”
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Not too bad.”
“Can we talk?”
“Of course, sweetheart! Come on in.”
She stepped inside, quietly shutting the door behind her, but whatever she came here to say, she seemed hesitant to come right out with it. This was highly unusual for her, as most days, “meek” was just about the last word I’d use to describe her. What was holding her back this time?
“What’s the matter? Don’t be shy now,” I prompted her in my kindest tone of voice. I sat up in bed.
Even when it comes to family, humans tend to be strict on the same sex and soft on the opposite. As such, Ai seemed to prefer her kindly old grandpa over her naggy grandma. But of course, Grandma loved Ai just as much as I did, and it was thanks to her discipline that I was free to spoil the girl rotten.
Hanging her head, Ai walked to my bedside. She then buried her face in my chest and began to cry.
Now that I thought about it, she usually came to see me first thing after she got home from school, but today had been different. Did something upsetting happen at school? Instead of asking, however, I simply stroked her hair in silence. Eventually, after getting her tears out for a while, she began to tell her story through sniffles.
From what I could piece together, it was really nothing major. Put simply, she had told a boy in her class that she liked him, but he didn’t return her feelings. Of course, while part of me felt that ten was a little early to have crushes on boys, I wasn’t about to belittle her pain. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but feel relief that the cause was merely rejection.
“I… I never should have told him…!” she cried.
But while I found her circumstances relatively trivial, to her, it was practically the end of the world. Hoping to ease that pain, I gave her a pat on the back. “Here, let Grandpa see your IP.”
I took her hand and pointed to the IP band on her wrist. She looked up at me, confusion in her puffy eyes. She then tapped her device. On the holographic screen, below “IEPP” was a six-digit numerical display with three integers and three decimals. The decimals were in constant flux, too rapid to follow with the human eye, but the integers held firm at 000.
As a fifth grader, Ai had surely already learned what this meant.
“You may think you never should have told him, but that’s not true at all. You were very brave today, Ai. Grandpa’s so proud of you.”
“How come…?”
“They’ve already taught you about parallel worlds in school, haven’t they?”
“Yeah…”
“By confessing your feelings, you created new possibilities in other worlds! You may have been rejected in this one, but somewhere out there, he likes you back!”
“So what if some other him likes some other me? I’m the one who got rejected! It’s worthless!”
“That’s not true. Every you is still you, Ai. You’ve shifted two or three worlds away before, haven’t you?” I asked.
“A few times, yeah.”
“In those other worlds, did you still love your grandpa?”
“Of course!” she replied.
“Thank you. Likewise, Grandpa loves any version of you that visits.”
“Right…”
“Parallel worlds are where all our unachieved possibilities take form. Somewhere out there, your bravery paid off. The version of you whose crush is mutual is still the same you. So in other words, your heartfelt confession was absolutely not worthless.”
“I…don’t get it…”
Perhaps it was too much for a fifth grader. Besides, everyone had the right to have their own opinion on parallel worlds. I know that back in my day, I really agonized over mine. But while my sweet granddaughter now pouted in confusion, her tears had at least dried. What a rotten grown-up trick it was to distract her from her pain by making her think about something else.
“Okay then, let’s make it simple. By getting rejected, you now have the possibility of loving anyone else in the whole world. Trust me, you will meet an even more wonderful young man one day, and you will fall in love again.”
“More wonderful? Like who?”
“Hmmm… Like your grandpa?”
“No! I want somebody my own age!” Ai exclaimed.
Ouch. That actually stung a bit.
Regardless, she seemed to have cheered up. Were children simply more resilient? Or would she cry again once she was alone? As I watched her leave the room, I sank back into bed and switched my lamp off. I closed my eyes to prepare for the next day.
What if Ai woke up tomorrow in a parallel world where her feelings were returned? Would this fleeting happiness confuse her? Perhaps she wouldn’t want to come home…or perhaps she would find that her crush wasn’t as great as she thought he was.
As for me, I’d talk to the parallel Ai who shifted here. How had my parallel self congratulated her when he found out? I suspected I could already find the words.