GRGR(8)--parallel worlds

[j minnich]

John M writes:

>What if TRP were playing here w/ an *alternate* or *parallel universe* type
of narrative 
>thing?  You know the device--doesn't Phillip K. Dick use it in one of his
novels--What if 
>Germany had won the war?  What if Hitler had been assassinated? What if
Kennedy 
>hadn't? etc.  It's a tried and true science fiction/fantasy device, I
believe.  (I am sure you 
>erudite folks will provide other examples of the genre--I really am
interested in knowing).  
>Anyway, there's a coupla other suspicious time warps (which I have to go
back to my 
>notes to properly describe) that lead me to wonder if maybe *which do you
want it to be* 
>might also apply to Roger and Jessica's fate.  Imagine another world in
which the war 
>doesn't end in 1945, but continues, maybe forever.  Dismal thought, but
what if in this 
>world Roger and Jessica stay together, also maybe forever?  What if there
werre a little 
>door to this world in this section of the narrative?  
>
>An outlandish attempt to save the text, but lotsa fun to imagine.  Is it
nonsense, or just 
>maybe plausible?  Which do you want it to be?
>

I just had another forking inspiration about this "forking paths" string.
How about the book of Genesis, where alternate versions of the creation of
Eve are given? In chapter one, Adam & Eve would appear to have been created
simultaneously on the sixth day.  A chapter later, we get the more familiar
"Adam's rib" version. This'd seem like a pretty early generation of
alternate or parallel universes. I wonder, does the Beaver get Jessica in
the same fork as we get the Embarcadero Freeway?  Which do I want it to be?
I suspect it was just gas.    -j minnich
---------------------------------------------------------------
The poet is dead.
Nor will ever again hear the sea lions 
Grunt in the kelp at Point Lobos.
Nor look to the south when the grunion 
Run the Pacific, and the plunging
Shearwaters, insatiable, 
Stun themselves in the sea.  
   -W. Everson