The Dreamweaver by David Bruce Albert Jr., [email protected]

It is often said that like attracts like; if this is so, then it is perhaps no mystery that the chaos of a busy metropolitan airport would attract another kind of chaos which, on its surface appears worlds apart from the concerns of the business traveler, and yet, at the same time, only the beat of a heart - or the clogging of a fuel pump - away.

Neither the physics nor the metaphysics of chaos were of any interest to Alicia as the opening taxi cab door injected her into the churning mass of humanity congregating at the gateway to the airport. Her concerns were for finding the right gate, the flight being on time, the business meeting she would attend if and only if the pieces of the air travel puzzle all fell in their proper places. The chaos and frustration in her mind made the chaos of the airport transparent - like reveling in like. Juggling one suitcase in each arm, along with address book and computer, through the lines, passing through one doorway after another, stopping to notice nothing along the path. The panhandlers, children pleading with parents for yet another souvenir, bumping the sides and walkers-through up the escalator, give your soul to Krishna, Mommy! Mommy! Where are you, Mommy?, Coming through! Coming through!, the pilots and their flight cases, no damn place to sit until boarding time...

A quick look up from her schedule book - the usual mass of jet commuters: suits, ties, and important things to do. Except for one, standing alone in the corner. Looking like an advertisement for a cheap country-western bar: cowboy hat, dirty boots, unkempt clothes and hair, probably a good splashing of eau-de-horse-manure, and... No computer, no brief case, what a freak. Probably meant to get in the Montana or Texas line and couldn’t spell New York. With my luck the one I’ll wind up sitting next to.

Dammit, just as she had thought, she found her seat on the plane right next to the freak. Thankfully she was wrong about the odor; strange, it was more like the electric smell of a neon sign. The passenger eyes were fixed on what lay beyond the window; he glanced briefly at Alicia as she took her seat, then returned his gaze to the Outside. Taxi, takeoff, climbing, day into night; the events passed for non-events as Alicia absorbed herself in her word processor and her tables and charts. Until the oxygen masks fell from the ceiling...

In an instant the outside became the inside, and the thought of the rapidly approaching ground registered somewhere between “Shit” and “Fuck No” on Alicia’s mental Richter scale. There were cries, screams, prayers for salvation sounding more like demands for deliverance. And then there was the Stranger’s gaze; what had been fixed on the window was now fixed on Alicia’s eyes. Dark, penetrating, burning, but strangely not cruel...

“I much prefer submarines to airplanes, don’t you?” The Stranger had finally spoken, and as the periphery of Alicia’s vision expanded from the his face to her surroundings, she saw what indeed did appear to be a submarine. Radar screens sweeping a glowing green, other screens flashing and drawing strange patterns, switches, valves, lights and colors in the darkness of the Deep. No longer dressed in cowboy, the Stranger appeared in dark pea coat and turtleneck, with insignia Alicia assumed meant Captain.

“To be completely surrounded by the element of Water,” he continued, looking about the interior as he spoke, “It has a certain, well, comfort, that the Air just can’t provide.”

“Y - Your element?” Alicia almost whispered.

“Its etheric complement, to be precise. Attraction of opposites, as they say. Well, that is of little importance here. I thought we might have this brief moment to chat, seeing as it is very likely the last moment you will ever have.” The tone was matter-of-fact, not threatening, which made it all the more threatening.

“Am I going to die?” What else could Alicia have asked?

“Whether any event, including your death, will occur is a matter of probability. A quantum event, with some finite probability. Synchronicity is my area, not quantum events, although there are certain overlaps. Anyway, we should refer your question to an expert on quantum events, and as luck would have it - although you admittedly have very little of it right now - here comes just such an expert. Herr Professor, a moment, if we may!”

Alicia turned in the direction of the Stranger’s gaze, and saw a bright mist in the distance. A man appeared in the mist, walking towards them. As he drew nearer, she could see that he was quite elderly and very thin. His dark pin-stripe suit looked more like it was hanging on a clothes hanger than a human body; not surprising, as Alicia had by now deduced that whatever was approaching could not have been a human body anyway.

“Professor! Herr Professor! A moment of your time, if we may?”

“Yes, yes, all in time...” The Professor’s voice quivered, but nonetheless had an authority about it. “I was just calculating the effect of eternal...”

The Stranger cut him off. “If you are calculating something eternal, then giving us a moment of your time won’t matter much.”

“Only a Doctor of Philosophy would draw a conclusion such as that!” muttered the Professor, looking up from his mass of papers.

“Sorry, my friend, but our guest here is a bit pressed for time. She is wondering about the probability of her surviving this plane crash.”

“Uhh, yes. That is a complicated problem. Besides the usual subatomic concerns, there is the altitude of the aircraft, that was, uhh, thirty thousand feet, the rate of descent, the mass of the craft, uhh, the surface tension of the water...” The Professor continued to mumble various things as he worked his slide rule back and forth. Finally he stopped. He turned to face Alicia. “I calculate the probability of your survival to be point zero two seven percent.”

“That’s less than three in ten thousand”, chimed in the Stranger.

“Yes, if you were to be in ten thousand plane crashes, you would survive only two. If a hundred thousand, you would make it through twenty seven times,” spoke the Professor as though delivering a lecture.

“But you are only in this plane crash, and your chances of making it through this particular crash are pretty slim,” said the Stranger. “Unless...”

“Unless what?” Alicia was ready for just about anything now.

“Well, I have this theory. You see, there are things that are highly probable, like, for instance, the world having existed five minutes ago, and then there are things that are very improbable, like your making through this crash in one piece. Now, if one could find a way to connect the two - connect something very improbable to something that is almost certain, one could raise the probability of the improbable thing to where it has a very good chance of occurring.” Having said this, the Stranger’s expression changed to one of almost victory.

“Now that’s only a theory,” said the Professor, “Never tested, never proven.”

“Yes, “ agreed the Stranger, “but we have here an ideal situation to test it, and a subject who has very little to lose by trying it.”

The Stranger looked toward Alicia, who sighed. “What do you want me to do?”

“Well, here is the tricky part, finding something that has such a high probability of occurring that its likelihood won’t be significantly reduced by linking it to your survival. Now, there is this ancient belief, that when a person dies, if that person concentrates on one and only one thing at the moment of his death, that thought will come to pass. Death, you see, is eternal, and the moment of death is when passing time meets eternity. So, it stands to reason, that if a person can carry a thought from the passing of time into eternity, and, if everything has some probability and therefore will eventually happen, then whatever thought one carries from life to death will eventually happen. That is as close to certainty as I can get.”

“Untested and speculative,” blurted out the Professor, “and just the reason you never got a teaching job in a real University. But, I have to admit, perhaps testable in the present circumstance.”

“Yes. Now the link between your survival and the certainty of your last thought coming to pass is made by the rather obvious necessity for you to be alive in order to have that thought. The moment of death is postponed by your concentration on your one last thought. But of course, that last thought can’t be upon your death, else it will come to pass. It must be on something else entirely.”

“I would think,” interjected Herr Professor, “that such a thought should be as close to something that is universal, something the universe will likely do whether you think it or not. My philosophical colleague here would say something in “harmony” with the universe, though I’m not sure what that would come to. Something that is in the same general direction the universe is going anyhow.”

“I agree, something universal, but also something personal - something you thoroughly understand. Your thought must be absolutely clear and unconfused. And, one last thing. If this experiment should succeed, then what you have thought - or wished for, might be a better way of putting it - will happen. The world will be the way you wished it to be, and no other. And you will be alive in that world. Your wish will come true, so to speak, and you will have to live with it. I’m not entirely sure I’d want to live in a world that is the way I would wish it, but such will be your fate, if this works.”

“Yes, if. The probability cannot be calculated,” announced the Professor.

“But on the other hand,” replied the Stranger, “the probability of your surviving has already been calculated, if we don’t try. So?”

“But... but, allright, what is it I have to do?” By now Alicia was not only thoroughly frightened, but thoroughly confused as well. Just who in Hell were these people, no pun intended? They were about to experiment with her life, but since the choice was certain death, well, why not...

Replied the Stranger: “You must choose a thought, one thing, about the world as you would have it be. Remember that the more general it is, the more likely it is to happen. Then, you must focus on that one thought and nothing else, nothing, and particularly not your coming death. As if straining to lift a heavy object, so you must strain your mind to think this one thing. Then, we shall see.”

OK, let’s get it over with. Better than another lecture. Choose. If I could choose one thing about the world, what would it be? No time to think about choosing. OK, one thing. Focus. Concentrate. Strain. Push. Sweat. Impact...

Like hitting the water from the high dive. First water, then floating. Debris, airplane parts, luggage, junk all around. Hold the seat cushion for dear life. Floating, bobbing in the darkness. A light, a spotlight, a rescue boat. Voices, hands pulling, up and plop! down on the deck. Made it, made it through. Through to what, though?

“Now we find out”, a vaguely familiar voice said, as a figure bearing the face of the Stranger in a Coast Guard uniform wrapped Alicia in a blanket. “What you wished for,” he said, in answer to the anticipated question. “What kind of world you have created by surviving.”

“Observing! By observing!” came a quivering voice from the Red Cross uniform bearing a cup of hot coffee. “Creation is an unnecessary concept. We observe one among a multitude of possibilities, and that becomes reality.”

“Be that as it may. Now we find out.”

And what would you have chosen?