The Multiverse: A One-Act Play

The year is 1990. A twelve-year-old girl, ARIANNE, and her FATHER are seated in a restaurant in Rockwell, Illinois (formerly Bloomington).

[Waitress enters with a tray of food]

WAITRESS: Here you go: a veggie burger deluxe for the young lady, a power salad for her dad, and two Original-Recipe Fanta Colas.

FATHER: Thanks

ARIANNE: Thank you.

WAITRESS: You’re welcome. Your bill is ten dollars even. Just pay at the register when you’re ready.

FATHER: OK.

[Waitress leaves. They start eating]

ARIANNE: Dad, have you heard of the theory of the “multiverse?”

FATHER: Yes , it’s an endless succession of parallel universes in which every possible scenario is played out.

ARIANNE: Well, do you think that there could be a universe somewhere in which the Jews won World War II?

FATHER: (With a slight shudder): Yes.

ARIANNE: So that instead of being a pollution-free National Socialist Aryan paradise with colonies on Mars, that America would be a multiracial cesspool on the skids to oblivion? Do you think that could be possible?

FATHER: Yes, that might be possible.

ARIANNE: Boy, that would really suck.

FATHER: More than either of us could possibly imagine.

[CURTAIN]

* * *

Source: New Order