Тед Чан - Exhalation - Stories

These questions had been a matter of debate ever since the first demonstration of communication with a prism. When prisms with pads about a hundred kilobytes in size were developed, an atmospheric scientist named Peter Silitonga conducted a pair of experiments to settle the matter.

At the time, a prism was still a large array of laboratory equipment that used liquid nitrogen for cooling, and Silitonga required one for each of his planned experiments. Before activating them he made a number of arrangements. First he recruited volunteers in a dozen countries who were not currently pregnant but were trying to conceive children; in one year’s time, the couples who’d successfully had a child agreed to have a twenty-one-loci DNA test performed on their newborns. Then he activated the first of his prisms, typing the keyboard command that sent a photon through a polarization filter.

Six months later, he scheduled a software agent to retrieve weather reports from around the globe in one month’s time. Then he activated the second of his prisms, and waited.

Nat liked that, no matter what the issue was, support-group meetings always had coffee. She didn’t care so much whether the coffee was good or bad; what she appreciated was that holding the cup gave her something to do with her hands. And even though this support group’s location wasn’t the nicest she’d ever seen—a pretty typical church basement—the coffee was usually really good.

Lyle was at the coffeemaker pouring himself a cup as Nat walked up. “Hey there,” he said. He handed her the cup he had just filled and started pouring another for himself.

“Thanks, Lyle.” Lyle had been attending the group just a little longer than Nat had, about three months. Ten months ago he’d been offered a new job and couldn’t decide whether he should accept it. He’d bought a prism and used it as a coin flip: blue LED accepts the offer, red LED rejects it. The blue LED had lit up in this branch, so he took the new job while his paraself stayed at his existing job. For months they both felt happy with their situations. But after the initial novelty of the new job wore off, Lyle found himself disenchanted with his duties, while his paraself got a promotion. Lyle’s confidence was shaken. He pretended he was happy when communicating with his paraself, but he was struggling with feelings of envy and jealousy.

Nat found them a couple of empty chairs next to each other. “You like sitting up front, right?” she asked.

“Yeah, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“It’s fine,” she said. They sat and sipped their coffee while waiting for the meeting to start.

The group’s facilitator was a therapist named Dana. She was young, no older than Nat, but seemed to know what she was doing. Nat could have used someone like her in her previous groups. Once everyone was seated, Dana said, “Does anyone want to start us off today?”

“I’ll go,” said Lyle.

“Okay, tell us about your week.”

“Well, I looked up the Becca here.” Lyle’s parallel self had been seeing a woman named Becca for months, after a chance meeting at a bar.

“Bad idea, bad idea,” said Kevin, shaking his head.

“Kevin, please,” said Dana.

“Sorry, sorry.”

“Thanks, Dana,” said Lyle. “I messaged her, I told her why I was messaging her, I sent her a photo of my paraself and her paraself together, and I asked if I could take her out for coffee. She said sure.”

Dana nodded for him to continue.

“We met on Saturday afternoon, and at first we seemed to hit it off. She laughed at my jokes, I laughed at hers, and I was thinking, I’ll bet this is just how it went when my paraself met her. I felt like I was living my best life.” He looked embarrassed.

“And then it went all wrong. I was saying how great it was to meet her, and how I felt like things were turning around for me, and before I knew it I told her how using the prism had screwed things up for me. I talked about how jealous I was of my paraself for having met parallel Becca, how I was always second-guessing myself now, and on and on. And I could hear how pathetic I sounded as I was saying it. I knew I was losing her, so out of desperation I…” He hesitated, and then said, “I offered to let her borrow my prism so she could talk with parallel Becca, and that Becca could tell this one what a great guy I could be. You can imagine how well that went over. She was polite, but she made it clear that she didn’t want to see me again.”

“Thanks for sharing that, Lyle,” said Dana. She addressed the rest of the group. “Does anyone want to say anything in response?”

This was an opportunity, but Nat wasn’t going to jump in right away. It’d be best if the other group members spoke first.

Kevin started. “Sorry about my earlier remark. I didn’t mean that you were dumb for trying it. What I was thinking was it sounded like something I would do, and because of that, I had a bad feeling about how it was going to turn out. I’m sorry it didn’t work out better for you.”

“Thanks, Kevin.”

“And really, it’s not a bad idea. The two of you have got to be compatible if your paraselves are a couple.”

“I agree with Kevin that the two of you are compatible,” said Zareenah. “But the mistake that all of us keep making is that, when we see our paraselves experiencing good fortune, we think we’re entitled to the same good fortune.”

“I don’t think I’m entitled to Becca,” said Lyle. “But she’s looking for someone, just like I am. If we’re compatible, shouldn’t that count for something? I know I made a bad first impression, but I feel like our compatibility should be a reason for her to overlook that.”

“It’d be nice if she did, but she’s under no obligation to do that.”

“Yeah,” said Lyle grudgingly. “I see what you’re saying. I just feel so…I know I say this all the time, but I feel envious. Why am I like this?”

Now seemed like a good time. Nat said, “Something happened to me recently that I think might be similar to what Lyle’s going through?”

“Go ahead,” said Dana.

“Okay, I’ve got this hobby where I make jewelry, mostly earrings. I have a little online store where people can buy them; I don’t fill the orders myself, I just upload the designs and this company fabs them and mails them to customers.” That part was all true, which was good in case anyone wanted to look at her store. “My paraself was just telling me that some influencer happened across one of our designs, and posted about how she loved them, and in the last week my paraself has sold hundreds of earrings. She actually saw someone at a coffee shop who was wearing the earrings.

“The thing is, the design that got all the attention wasn’t one she made after I activated the prism; it’s one from before. Those exact same earrings are for sale in my store in this branch, but no one’s buying them here. She’s making money for something we did before our branches diverged, but I’m not. And I resented her for it. Why is she so lucky and I’m not?” Nat saw some others nodding in sympathy.

“And I realized, this didn’t feel the same as when I see other people sell a lot of jewelry in their online stores. This is different.” She turned to face Lyle. “I don’t think I’m an envious person by nature, and I don’t think you are, either. We’re not always wanting what other people have. But with a prism, it’s not other people, it’s you. So how can you not feel like you deserve what they have? It’s natural. The problem isn’t with you, it’s with the prism.”

“Thanks, Nat. I appreciate that.”

“You’re welcome.”

Progress. That was definitely progress.