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.’It’s Adnan who speaks, eliciting a glare from Dazza warning that this better not be him just geeking out at a time like this.But Adnan’s not trying to be facetious or inappropriate: he thinks some of them may genuinely find this comforting.‘It’s known as Many Worlds theory.In a parallel universe, Dunnsy is still alive and we never came here on this trip.’‘Oh, come on,’ Dazza says irritably.‘Load of shite.This is serious, Adnan.’‘So am I.This isn’t whacked-out fringe stuff.More physicists accept the existence of parallel universes these days than deny it.It’s one of the possible implications of the quantum uncertainty principle.At every quantum juncture, the universe splits, creating an infinite number of parallel universes.Right here, where we sit, we are co-existing with infinite, slightly varied versions of ourselves and our world, and in one of those - in many of those, in fact - Dunnsy never died and we’re doing something else of a Saturday lunchtime.There’s more evidence to suggest this than there is to support the existence of Heaven or Hell.’‘So where, physically, are these other universes?’ Rosemary asks, suddenly wanting to get analytical now that her religion has been challenged.‘I mean, I’ve heard you ask where Heaven is when the universe is so huge.Where, then, is this multiplicity of universes?’‘It’s right here.They’re all right here in different waveforms.But it’s like our perception is a radio and we can only tune into one frequency.We can only follow one branching path of our own reality.’Dazza feels his hackles fall.He actually likes the sound of this: that he’d be better thinking of Dunnsy living out his life the same as the rest of them than thinking of him in Heaven, which has in recent years started to sound more and more like just a consoling thought for the living rather than a reality for the dead.Guthrie’s natural inclination to go on the defensive at Adnan’s dismissal of Heaven and Hell is derailed by the tantalising nature of what this alternative offers.In another version of reality, he left his office a few seconds earlier, a few seconds later, never encountered the fourth years, and got there in time to intervene.Deborah feels a shudder as she thinks of the parallel universe in which she pressed Send and shared that photo.She’s ostracised, in lesbian hell, maybe looking at expulsion and even the sex-offenders register.One click, a no to a yes, a zero to a one, that’s all it would have taken to split her universe into two vastly different paths.‘Is this maybe why we can feel people once they’ve gone?’ asks Michelle.‘Or why we sometimes say we feel like someone walked over our grave?’A number of heads nod, a murmur echoing approval of this suggestion.‘No,’ answers Matt, silencing it.‘There’s complete decoherence.We can’t interact with branching parallel paths.’ He says it flatly, typically oblivious to the fact that he’s slamming a door in the face of their hope.That’s Matt for you, Adnan reflects: can’t get a word out of him for ages, then he chooses to voice something that would have been better left unsaid.‘But you said last night,’ Ewan appeals to Adnan, ‘if we could move in the fifth dimension we could travel between universes.’Adnan shakes his head, wishing he could tell him otherwise.‘Ironically, if we could access higher dimensions, we could reach the furthest points in space, but we couldn’t reach the parallel version of our own reality that’s right alongside us.Once it’s gone, it’s gone.’There’s silence again after he says this, leaving Adnan feeling like it’s his fault.He lifted them for a moment only to drop them again, albeit with a lot of help from Matt.Thus he’s un accustomedly grateful when Rosemary wades back in.‘That’s why Heaven is a much better concept,’ she says.‘Because even Adnan would have to admit that there is a possibility that we can reach there and be reunited with our lost loved ones.Whereas there’s no possibility of seeing them again in the worlds he suggested.Is that right?’Adnan nods.He tries to be magnanimous and offers a little smile, but he’s always uncomfortable giving up concessions to faith-heads.This is partly because he feels it’s never reciprocated, but more so because it’s like giving money to a junkie: you know they’re just going to use what you gave them to make their problem worse.‘Well I just hope there’s a Hell so that that wee cunt’s paying properly for what he did.Fucker got off lightly.’It’s Kirk who speaks.Of course.Guthrie says nothing, reading it astutely.Kirk looks like he wants to be challenged, so that he can further rev up his moral indignation.With Guthrie not biting, Kirk directs his stare at Blake, all but demanding a response.Blake just nods.‘Look, I’m not here to sell you some Jesus Juice on this,’ he says.‘I could tell you how forgiveness will help you deal with this in the long run, but nobody’s ready to hear that, not at this stage.We’ve all seen those front pages and we’ve all used those words: evil, beast, monster.But those words don’t tell us anything.What Robert did was monstrous, nobody could ever deny that.’‘Here come the trendy excuses,’ Kirk mutters.‘There’s an important difference between excusing and comprehending, Kirk,’ Heather intervenes.‘You say it’s no excuse, that’s your right, but Robert’s upbringing is an inextricable part of what happened.This was someone who had known nothing but violence since he was brought into the world.’‘Evil breeds evil,’ says Kane.Pain multiplies.‘I prefer to think of evil as simply an absence of good,’ offers Blake.‘Like darkness is an absence of light.As I’m sure Adnan could tell us, darkness is the more prevalent state of the universe.Chaos is the natural state.Second law of thermodynamics: entropy always increases.Order always decays [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]