But within two steps that feeling was confirmed. I glanced out at the street beside me; it was rush hour and the cars streamed past, clean cars and dirty ones, old and new. But every one of them was painted a single color only, mostly black, and there wasn’t a tail fin or strip of chromium in sight. These were modern, fast, good-looking cars, you understand, but utterly different in design from any I’d ever before seen. The traffic lights on Third Avenue clicked to red, the cars slowed and stopped, and now as I walked along past them I was able to read some of their names. There were a Ford, a Buick, two Wintons, a Stutz, a Cadillac, a Dort, a Kissel, an Oldsmobile and at least four or five small Fierce-Arrows. Then, glancing down Thirty-seventh Street as I passed it, I saw a billboard advertising Picayune Cigarettes; “America’s Largest-Selling Brand.” And now a Third Avenue bus dragged past me, crammed with people as usual this time of day, but it was shaped a little differently and it was painted blue and white.
I spun suddenly around on the walk, looking frantically for the Empire State Building. But it was there, all right, just where it was supposed to be; and I actually sighed with relief. It was shorter, though-by a good ten stories at least. When had all this happened? I wondered dazedly and opened my paper, but there was nothing unusual in it-till I noticed the name at the top of the page. New York Sun, it said, and I stood on the sidewalk gaping at it; because the Sun hasn’t been published in New York for years.
Do you understand now? I did, finally, but of course I like to read-when I get the chance, that is-and I’m extremely well grounded in science from all the science fiction I’ve read. So I was certain, presently, that I knew what had happened; maybe you’ve figured it out too.
Years ago someone had to decide on a name for a new soft drink and finally picked “Coca-Cola.” But certainly he considered other possible alternatives; and if the truth could be known, I’ll bet one of them was “Coco-Coola.” It’s not a bad name-sounds cool and refreshing-and he may have come very close to deciding on it.
And how come Ford, Buick, Chevrolet and Oldsmobile survived while the Moon, Willys-Knight, Hupmobile and Kissel didn’t? Well, at some point or other maybe a decision was made by the men who ran the Kissel Company, for example, which might just as easily have been made another way. If it had, maybe Kissel would have survived and be a familiar sight today.
Instead of Lucky Strikes, Camels and Chesterfields, we might be buying chiefly Picayunes, Sweet Caporals and Piedmonts. We might not have the Japanese beetle or the atom bomb. While the biggest newspaper in New York could be the Sun, and George Coopernagel might be President. If-what would the world be like right now, what would you or I be doing?-if only things in the past had happened just a tiny bit differently. There are thousands of possibilities, of course; there are millions and trillions. There is every conceivable kind of world, in fact; and a theory of considerable scientific standing-Einstein believed it-is that these other possible worlds actually exist; all of them, side by side and simultaneously with the one we happen to be familiar with.
I believed it too now, naturally; I knew what had happened, all right. Walking along Third Avenue through the late afternoon on my way home from the office, I had come to one of the tiny points where two of these alternate worlds intersected somehow. And I had walked off out of one into another slightly altered, somewhat different world of “If” that was every bit as real, and which existed quite as much, as the one I’d just left.
For maybe a block I walked on, stunned, but with a growing curiosity and excitement-because it had occurred to me to wonder where I was going. I was walking on with a definite purpose and destination, I realized; and when a traffic light beside me clicked to green, I took the opportunity to cross La Guardia Avenue, as it was labeled now, and then continue west along Thirty-ninth Street. I was going somewhere, no doubt about that; and in the instant of wondering where, I felt a chill along my spine. Because suddenly I knew.
All the memories of my life in another world, you understand, still existed in my mind; from distant past to the present. But beginning with the moment that I had turned from the newsstand to glance up at that painted sign, another set of memories-an alternate set of memories of my other life in this alternate world-began stirring to life underneath the first. But they were dim and faint yet, out of focus. I knew where I was going-vaguely; and I no more had to think how to get there than any other man on his way home from work. My legs simply moved in an old familiar pattern, carrying me up to the double glass doors of a big apartment building, and the doorman said, “Evening, Mr. Pullen. Hot today.”
“You said it, Charley,” I answered and walked on into the lobby; and then my legs were carrying me up the stairs to the second floor, then down a corridor to an apartment door which stood open. And just as I did every night, I realized, I walked into the living room, tossing my copy of the Sun to the davenport. I was wearing a suit I’d never seen before, I noticed, but it fitted me perfectly, of course, and was a little worn.
“Hi, I’m home,” I heard my voice call out as always; and at one and the same time I knew, with complete and time-dulled familiarity-and also wondered with intense and fascinated curiosity-who in the world was going to answer; who in this world?
An oven door slammed in the kitchen as I turned to hang up my suit coat in the hall closet as always, then footsteps sounded on the wood floor between the kitchen and the living room. And as she said, “Hi, darling,” I turned to see my wife walking toward me.
I had to admire my taste in this world. She was a big girl, tall and not quite slim; black-haired and with a very fair complexion; quite a pretty face with a single vertical frown line between her brows; and she had an absolutely gorgeous figure with long handsome legs. “Why, hel-lo,” I said slowly. “What a preposterously good-looking female you are!”
Her jaw dropped in simple astonishment, her blue eyes narrowing suspiciously. I held my arms wide then, walking toward her delightedly, and while she accepted my embrace, she drew back to sniff my breath. She couldn’t draw back very far, though, because my embrace-I simply couldn’t help this-was tight and close; this fine-looking girl was a spectacular armful. “Now I know why I go to the office every day,” I was saying as I nuzzled her lovely white neck, an extremely agreeable sensation. “There had to be a reason, and now I know what it is. It’s so I can come home to this.”
“Al, what in the world is the matter with you!” she said. Her voice was still astonished, but she’d quit trying to draw back.
“Nothing you can’t remedy,” I said, “in a variety of delightful ways,” and I kissed her again.
“Honey,” she murmured after a considerable time, “I have to fix supper,” and she made a little token effort to get away.
“Supper can wait,” I answered, and my voice was a full octave deeper, “but I can’t.” Again I kissed her, hard and eagerly, full on the lips. Her great big beautiful blue eyes widened in amazement-then they slowly closed and she smiled langorously.
Marion’s face abruptly rose up in my mind. There in the forefront of my consciousness and conscience, suddenly, was her betrayed and indignant face, every bit as vivid as though she’d actually walked in through the door to discover this sultry brunette in my arms; and I could feel my face flame with guilt. Because I couldn’t kid myself, I couldn’t possibly deny the intensity of the pleasure I’d felt at this girl in my arms. I knew how very close I’d come to betraying Marion, and I felt terribly ashamed, and stood wondering-this long length of glorious girlhood still in my arms-how to end the situation, and with charm and grace. Now a moment later, her eyes opened, and she looked up at me questioningly, those full ripe moist lips slightly apart. “Hate to say this,” I said then, sniffing the air thoughtfully, “but seems to me I smell something burning-besides me.”