Free Multiversum by Leonardo Patrignani

communication with the other side was complicated and often incomprehensible. Correct?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Over time, both you and Jenny have refined this technique to communicate, exchange information, learn something more about each other.’
    â€˜Why are you telling me something I already know?’
    â€˜Listen to me! In the past few months things have evolved. You’ve managed to communicate without feeling pain or fainting, or experiencing any interference from voices or images that have nothing to do with your lives. In other words, short but actual conversations, getting clearer and clearer with time.’
    Alex thought back to the first time he’d managed not to faint, when he’d heard Jenny’s voice at the university library and it had felt as if he were floating in limbo, while his body sat rigid in a wooden chair. ‘What’s your point?’
    â€˜Jenny confirmed that she exists by making a date to meet you somewhere you’d never heard of. And from what you’ve told me, she also told you things you couldn’t possibly have known …’
    â€˜The name of an Australian mayor.’
    â€˜Exactly. Ergo, Jenny exists, beyond the shadow of a doubt. And she lives where she says she does.’
    â€˜But she wasn’t on that pier! She said she was, but there was no one there at all!’
    â€˜Alex … Jenny was on that pier.’
    A boy on a skateboard went racing past the pizza place, leaping over the kerb at top speed. Alex picked up his backpack and went over to the counter, pulled out the debit card, and handed it to the attendant without so much as a glance at the price displayed on the cash register.
    â€˜Are you still there?’ asked Marco.
    With a nod, Alex thanked the attendant and left the shop. He went over to the low wall and looked out over the golden sun-kissed surf.
    â€˜Marco … what the hell are you saying?’
    â€˜Exactly what you heard me say. That from now on we have to see things differently, my friend.’
    â€˜Forgive my ignorance but, as far as I know, if a person is on a pier looking at a lamppost and I’m on the same pier looking at the same damn lamppost, I ought to see the person, too!’
    Marco smiled as he riffled through the pages of notes on his desk. The papers were piling up, and the Mac’s keyboard was buried under a stack of sheets. He’d tidy up later.
    â€˜Okay. Let me give you one small example to show you what I’m talking about.’
    â€˜Go for it.’
    â€˜Ten years ago, I don’t get paralysed from the waist down in that accident. The car slides into the ravine but it crashes into a tree, only damaging the engine block: my parents survive, and now your friend is completely healthy.’
    â€˜What are you going on about?’
    â€˜It’s a hypothetical scenario. Can you picture it?’
    â€˜Well, sure … I can picture it. And I so wish it was true. Unfortunately, it’s nothing but a fantasy.’
    â€˜Do you agree that there are certain events, in all our lives, that change the course of our existence forever?’
    â€˜Of course.’
    â€˜Some are more serious than others — take for instance the car crash I was in — while others might seem totally trivial, but are anything but. Nothing is insignificant. The concept of just how serious something might be is completely relative. Everything changed for me that day because I lost my family and the use of half my body. For the president of the United States, if there’s a scandal that threatens his re-election, then that’s serious. For each of us, there are hundreds of different critical moments.’
    Alex listened carefully to his friend’s words. He was reminded of the ‘theory of lines’ that he’d come up with while observing the people at Charles de Gaulle Airport. Every person was a path. According to what his friend had to say,