The Mayflower Tree: Mirror-Mirror

It was a holiday and I was visiting the Mirror-Maze section of the amusement park.

Walking through the maze, I was surrounded by multiple images of mine in the mirrors around me. They were everywhere………., in front of me, behind me, to my right, and to my left. Then there was one above me on the mirror attached to the ceiling.

I started feeling a bit dizzy, so I took a pause. Catching my breath I was enjoying being surrounded by my own images. They looked just like me. They moved exactly as I moved. If I moved to front, they moved to front. When I moved back, they too moved back. When I laughed, they too laughed. When I made a face, so did they too. I started entertaining myself by moving my body-parts in various dance-like movements. I was enjoying the sight of the images mimicking me.

Suddenly, I felt that one particular image of mine, the one right in front of me, was a bit different. I felt that this one wasn’t mimicking me........

I watched it once again, a little more attentively this time, just to make sure that it was only my own reflection in the mirror. Yes, it looked exactly like me, dressed in white shirt and grey trousers, and wearing the same specs. It was me undoubtabally.

Looking towards my reflection, I made a weird face, then smiled, and then removed my specs expecting it to follow my actions……..

But it didn’t………

Rather, it kept on staring at me with serious and meaningful look.

I got a feeling of bewilderment and uneasiness in me. What this image is? Who is it?

Before I could react, the image moved. The man quickly took out a revolver from his pocket and put pointed straight towards my head. “Freeze,” he shouted.

So, he wasn't my reflection, but someone real.

Raising my hand up I asked, “Who are you? And what do you want?”

“I am you,” he replied staring straight into my eyes. “I am your persona from the parallel universe,”

Watching my puzzled looks, he went on to elaborate.

“You may not know, but a parallel universe exists which is just a replica of your own universe, and that’s where I come from.”

“My universe is a parallel universe to your universe. Everything and everyone who is in this world, has an exact replica in the parallel universe. Like you exist in this world, and I am your replica existing in the parallel world.”

I had started to understand.

“So it was true,” I thought. “The speculation that a parallel universe exists is true.” And I here was facing my own persona from the parallel universe who had traveled through light years to meet me.

The Parallel universe

He spoke more. “Whatever happens in your universe happens in our universe. Every event which happens in your world happens exactly in the same way in our world too."

“But there is a major difference- On timescale, my universe precedes your universe by exactly one hour,” he informed me. "It means that whatever happens in your world, happens one hour before in the parallel universe, " he continues.

“Foe example, I was actually born in parallel universe exactly one hour before you were born in your universe. And I will die exactly one hour before you die,” he explained.

As I understood what he was saying, I asked the question most relevant in the situation, “What do you want? Why have you come here?”

He looked straight into my eyes and replied, “I have come to commit suicide. I am fed up with my life in the parallel universe and want to die. However, I can not cease to exist as long as you are existing, so I have come here to kill you……..so that I too would stop existing.”

“You are the root cause of my existence,” he said without taking his eyes off from me. “I am going to kill you now just to allow myself give up my existence.”

Before I could react, he pressed the lever of revolver. I heard a loud bang and then sound of shattering of glass. Then I felt a sharp pain inside my head caused by the bullet travelling through my brain. Soon, I was dead.

However, just an hour before I died, my parallel persona from the parallel universe had to die. As per the laws of parallel universes, all events of his universe had to precede the events of this universe by one hour. This included my death also. Hence ‘his death’ took place exactly one hour before ‘my death’....

But again, as he died one hour before the time he met me to fire the bullet, he could not have fired the bullet at me (A dead man can’t hold a revolver and shoot). This chain of events logically resulted into my not getting shot at and killed. So I survived.

But since I survived, he stayed alive (and didn’t die an hour before). And since he was alive, he certainly met me and fired that killing bullet at me. This improvised chain of events could have no other consequence than my being dead, killed by the bullet he shot. But my death meant an even earlier death for my killer (an hour before), and so again I escaped getting killed. But then…………………

The events created by me and my parallel persona from the other universe had pushed both of us into fifth dimension. We were trapped in the fifth dimension shuttling back and forth between events and didn’t know how to come out………

My family searched for me everywhere but couldn’t find. They had last seen me entering the mirror-maze. Nobody saw me coming out from there, but at the same time, they didn’t find any trace of me inside the mirror-maze either.

Naturally. People from this world could not see the fifth dimension I had got trapped into.