He crossed his arms and frowned at me. "Look," he said. "In my probable
time, you're as much physically there as I am now in your time here.
I'll prove it. I know I'm asleep in the emergency surgeon's room in my
hospital. You know you're awake in your bedroom."
He held out his hand and walked across the floor to me.
"My name's Jones," he said.
"So's mine," I answered, shaking his solid hand. "This must be a very
vivid dream to you."
We smiled at each other, and as he turned away, I caught sight of his
reflection in the wall mirror beside my hairbrush on the cabinet.
"Good heavens!" I said. "In a mirror, you look exactly like me. Is your
name Harry Jones?"
He stopped, walked over to the mirror and moved about until he could
see me in it.
"Harold K. Jones," he said. "You've got the face I shave every morning,
but I've only just recognized you. You're me."
"I prefer to think you are me," I said.
"So you did fail that final pharmacology exam, eh? And I didn't, in my
probability. Well, well. I must admit it seemed more probable I would
fail at the time, but I passed."
"It was that tramp Kate's fault. She said yes too easily."
He coughed and looked at his fingers. "She said no to me. And, as a
matter of fact, after I passed I married her. She's my wife."
"I'm sorry. I meant nothing personal."
"You never married?"
"I never really got over Kate," I said.
"I wonder what would have happened if I had qualified and then not
married her."
"You mean what _did_ happen--to the Harry K. Jones who passed in
pharmacology but did not marry Kate. He must be around in another
probability somewhere, the same as we are. Good heavens," I shouted,
"somewhere I may have solved the fourth octave equation."
"You're right, Harry. And I may have found out how to get hyperspace
relapse under control."
"Harold," I said, "This is momentous! It is more probable that
you-I and I-you will make a mess of things, but there must be other
probability sequences where we are successful."
"And we can get to them," he shouted, jumping up. "Are you using
oxylatohydrobenzoic-pheophenophino?"
"Something like that."
"Three pills last thing at night?"
"Yes."
"Ever have foreign bodies materialize into your time-space?"
"Several breakfasts," I said. "The last egg was yesterday, on my shoe."
"It was Virginia ham with me, so I stopped dieting and increased the
dosage."
"So did I," I said. "I suppose, apart from major points where a whole
probability branches off, we lead much the same lives. But eggs don't
dream. How did the ham get into your waking world?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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