Sorry Please Thank You

by Charles Yu

  It seemed like I should say something. So that’s what I said.

  “It seems like I should say something,” I said.

  “Look at that,” Samantha said. She pointed to the word “open” hanging out there, just above the horizon line.

  I thought back to that afternoon when we first saw the word in our apartment. How I had come home from work when I wasn’t supposed to, when she wasn’t expecting me, and how that disruption in our regular pattern had spread into a larger dislocation through the closed system of our physical and verbal environment. I’d come home a moment too early, before she’d had a chance to put her costume on, and something had changed, and we could never go back.

  “There it is,” she said, pointing to the place where our wall used to be.

  And the word “door” was back, hanging there like an airship, waiting to take us somewhere. It started to drift away, and Samantha reached out and grabbed on to the first “o” and pulled herself up, straddling the letter, the quotes like wings, keeping her in midair. She looked at me, waiting to see what I would do. I wanted to ask her if she wanted me to follow her, but I knew that was exactly the kind of thing she couldn’t stand about me. I could let her go by herself, and tell her I’d be here when she got back, knowing I would never see her again. Or I could go with her, and we could keep looking for new doors, we could keep going until we found the place, or the movie, or the poem, or the story. The story we were meant to be in together, the one where there were no more “she saids” or “she dids,” the story where everything we said and did was exactly what we meant and felt, and if we never found it then we would keep opening doors until they were all open.

  Note to Self

  Dear Alternate Self,

  I read in the paper today about the quantum multiverse and how there are billions of me out there. Did you know about this? Anyway, I have a proposition for you to consider. If you would be interested in more information about my idea, please write me back and I will explain in greater detail what I am thinking.

  Anxiously awaiting your response,

  Me.

  You.

  Us?

  Dear Self,

  I was just about to write you the same thing.

  Yours truly,

  You

  Dear Alternate Self,

  You were? Whoa! Wait, what?

  Dear Self,

  I think you’re confused.

  Yours truly,

  You

  Dear Alternate Self,

  I’m confused? I think you’re confused.

  Anyway, whatever. Here is why I’m writing. This morning, I was eating breakfast (I had Cheerios with thin slices of banana and nonfat milk), and I was reading the paper and came across an article in the science section about the multiverse (I don’t normally read that section, but Cheerios with sliced banana is my favorite and I still had about a third of the banana left unsliced, so I had a second bowl, not a full bowl, about a third of the original bowl, so that the Cheerio-to-banana-slice-ratio would be correct). I had finished browsing the sports and business sections, and

  Dear Self,

  You randomly picked up the Tuesday science section.

  Dear Alternate Self,

  That’s right. How did you

  Dear Self,

  Know what you were going to say? Come on, dude.

  Dear Alternate Self,

  Oh, right. Gotcha. Nice one, heh. Don’t I feel silly.

  Dear Self,

  I feel silly for you.

  Dear Alternate Self,

  Anyway, what was I saying?

  Dear Self,

  You were saying … wait, before we get into that, can I bring something up?

  Dear Alternate Self,

  I think I know what you’re going to say.

  Dear Self,

  Yeah. You probably do. In fact, there’s like a 99.99999999999 percent chance you do. You aren’t my alternate self. You’re still confused. Wait, does that mean I’m confused? Now I actually am confused.

  First, and this is kind of a small thing, but it is not unrelated to the bigger thing that I want to say, there is the matter of how you address me. I don’t think it should be “Dear Alternate Self.” It should just be “Dear Self.” I’m not a version of you, or a copy. I am you.

  Dear Alternate Self,

  Identical in every way, down to the quantum state of every last particle. I couldn’t agree more.

  Dear Self,

  Right. And that’s what this is about, isn’t it? Quantum computation. That’s why you are writing to me, to yourself, to ourselves. How can I be so certain? Because that’s why I am writing to you. So don’t call me Alternate Self. Just Self. You call me Self, I call you Self.

  Dear Alternate Self,

  Will do.

  Dear Alternate Self,

  Whoops, sorry.

  Dear Self,

  This isn’t going to be—it can’t be—a dialogue between the two of us, at least not in the way that you (and I) was/were thinking when we wrote that first letter to each other. You write to me, I think about what you wrote, I write back to you. Whatever interaction is to come of this, that’s not how it works. Right?

  Dear Self,

  Right. Gotcha. On the same page now. Let’s dispense with the formality of the letter and just write to ourselves, in one long letter. How does that sound? Sounds great. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Can you stop that? Okay. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Stop it. Okay. Okay, so this is what we’re thinking. You’re getting us a little off track here, already, and for reasons that will become more clear to you, it’s especially important for me to stay on track. The problem, I guess, is that I’m not exactly sure what that entails. That’s why I am writing this to you. Actually, I don’t know exactly why I am writing this to you. I just know that I am. Writing this to you, I mean. But wait, I guess I’m not even sure about that. First principles. Back to basics. Foundational assumptions. I am who I am. You are who you are.

  Who am I? I am you. And you are me. Are we the same person? Depends on what you mean by person. I don’t have a good working definition of person, which I am guessing means you don’t, either. Assuming, as noted above, that in your reality there is still something called science fiction, you should be familiar with the idea of multiple universes. You have to be, because when I say “you” I mean my intended reader for this writing, which is, by definition, a version of me who understands this concept. Okay, so, multiple universes: the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes (including your universe) that together make up all physical reality.

  Anyway, I guess this is probably the first thing we should have established.

  The multiverse? It’s real.

  There are an inconceivably large number of copies of you. I’m one of them. (Are you sitting down? I am.) I’m not a particularly notable copy, I’m pretty sure there cannot be such a thing. But between you and me, I might be interesting, because, up until the moment you read the third sentence of this paragraph, you didn’t realize that I existed, that there are countless versions of you and me out there. We had been trading letters back and forth, but we hadn’t said it to ourselves, to each other yet. And now that we have, we both know it. You know it now, so I know it. And/or vice versa. I’m the one telling you this. I guess I’m notable in that I was sitting here, in my universe, and I realized that if there is a multiverse, then I should be able to communicate with other versions of myself by simply writing to myself in my own universe. The trick, I guess, the hard part, was in figuring out how to word it, and to whom to address it. I figured I had to couch it in terms that would be palatable to you, so I wanted to mention science fiction, but not actually call it that, so that you would know that I had a certain level of self-awareness, especially about how crazy all of this sounds. But now I am thinking that, since I could have called it science fiction, but didn’t, there is a world out there in which I wrote this to you, but did call it science fiction, in which a version of you/me
is reading this, thinking it is all science fiction, which is fine. Let’s forget him—he was bound to happen anyway. He split off from us the moment we started this letter. You are my intended audience. And I suppose I am yours. So, I didn’t call it science fiction, because, well, my life is real and so is yours and even though this may seem impossibly remote and fantastical and too abstract to matter, it matters to me, and I know that it matters to you, too, and sitting here, thinking about all of the possibilities, lost and never known, all of the regrets, all of the would haves and could haves and should haves, three different types of universes, all of them every bit as real as the one you are in right now. In fact, maybe you are in one of them. What is “is” to you is “could have” in the eyes of someone else.

  What we’ve created here is a space, a kind of meeting place for other versions of ourselves. Like a time travelers’ convention, it can take place anywhere. Just by putting this down on paper, by addressing a letter “Dear Self.” My note to self is entangled with your note to self. So you’re sitting there, like me, writing this to yourself.

  We’re corresponding.

  We are correspondents corresponding in our corresponding universes.

  Is that what writing is? A collaboration between selves across the multiverse? I’ve written stories that had to be wrung out, drop by drop, in the arid environment of the desert of your imagination.

  You’ve written other stories that came in a rush, your forehead clammy, feverish, trying to just keep up with the words as they were pouring out—but from where? Nowhere you can go back to. Nowhere you understand. Do you think you know how writing works?

  I’ve seen a lot of things, and you’ve probably seen a lot of things. What is happening right now as you read this? Am I the writer and you the reader? Or are you writing it and I’m reading it? If you think you are writing, do you feel like you know where it’s coming from? If you think you are reading, is this information you are learning, passively? Or do you feel like you could be creating it? Does it occur to you as a voice in your head? Your own voice in your own head?

  I feel, of course, that I am writing all of this, and it is all coming from me, but then again, how can I be sure?

  How can I be any more sure than you are?

  Dear Selves,

  Hey guys!

  Whoa.

  What was that?

  I don’t know.

  We split off again.

  You guys started without me!

  Aaaaaaghhh!!!

  Don’t flip out.

  Who are you, how did you get in here?

  What do you mean? I’m you. I’m totally you guys.

  No you’re not. You’re like, in a different font.

  Aaaggh! What happened? What is happening?

  I switched into his font!

  HEY GUYS

  Aaaggh! Now what’s happening?

  Okay, stop freaking out.

  How can I not freak out? It’s getting worse.

  Sorry I freaked you guys out.

  I hereby convene the Hundred and First Annual Conference of Our Self.

  Who is that?

  It’s you.

  No it’s not.

  It is.

  I’m not talking anymore until I find out what’s going on.

  Me neither.

  SAME HERE.

  Hello?

  Hello?

  Hello?

  Hello?

  Hello?

  How many of us are there? Hello. Hello. HELLO. Hi. Yo. We have a quorum. Meeting’s in session. Ready and waiting. Do we know what we’re doing? What’s the plan? Anyone have a plan? Anyone. Someone go first. Please, someone, anyone, go first. Someone, anyone.

  Thank You

  Yeoman

  We reached the final frontier today.

  Again.

  No one wants to be the first to say it out loud, so it’s one of those things where we have cake and beer and everyone mouth-smiles at each other while our eyes are all, does anyone even know what is going on anymore? As in, this is cool, for real it is, but seriously, what the hell.

  I’m on the observation deck looking at it. The last world. Am I excited? Sure I am. Even if this is the seventeenth time we’ve been here. I’m excited. I guess we’re still searching. Technically, I think we’ll always be searching. As long as we are on this ship, have these uniforms on, we are searching. For something. Nothing wrong with that. But the thing is, to be honest, lately it has started to feel less like searching and a bit more like, I don’t know, wandering.

  Monday:

  Monday mornings they announce the crew members for the week’s away team, and it’s always the same: our captain, the XO, the medic, the security chief, the ethnographer, and an unnamed yeoman.

  This week’s yeoman: me.

  Also: the yeoman always dies.

  Information that would have been useful to know before I accepted the position.

  They said, here is your new uniform.

  They said, oh yeah, you get a pay raise.

  They said, hey, how about a promotion? And I said, yes, yes, I’ve wanted to be a yeoman ever since I was a kid. To go down to the surface with the bridge officers. To wear that new uniform, get that little bit of extra money in the check.

  They said, yes, yes, that’s what it’s like. They said, it’s even cooler than you think. They said, great, great, good good, all good, congratulations.

  No one said anything about dying.

  Galactic HR assigns me a Coping Specialist.

  We meet over breakfast in the nonofficers’ mess.

  He orders a Denver omelet, a bowl of cereal with two percent milk, an English muffin, grapefruit juice, coffee, and a Yoo-hoo.

  “You shuh haf fomefing,” he says, mouth full. He swallows a big lump of starch, washes it down with milk from his cereal bowl. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

  “How old are you?”

  He says he’s twelve, but if I had to put money on it he’s ten, ten and a half, tops.

  “Anything you want to talk to me about?” he says, stuffing a forkful of egg and bell pepper in his face.

  “I’m good,” I say.

  “Fuit yourfelf,” he says, chewing with mouth open again. A little piece of scrambled egg falls out.

  I watch him eat way too much way too fast. When he’s done, he wraps his English muffin in a napkin for later and hands me his card, tells me to call him if the whole meaningless-death thing starts to bum me out.

  “Or if you start to experience fear-of-death symptoms,” he says.

  I ask him what a fear-of-death symptom might be.

  He thinks about it for a second.

  “Pretty much just fear,” he tells me. “Also, extreme fear.”

  “Here’s the thing,” I start to say. I want to tell him that I’m married, that in less than three months I’ll be a father, that dying this week would really throw a wrench into my family planning. I want to say all of it, but for some reason, I can’t. So instead, I tell him he has a little piece of ham on his shirt.

  “Score,” he says, and pops it into his mouth.

  Over dinner that night, I try to figure out how to explain it to my wife.

  “They posted the list this morning.”

  “And?”

  “You’re looking at the newest member of the away team,” I say.

  “Yeah?” she says, reaching to take my hand.

  “Yeah,” I say, pulling my hand away.

  “Wait, I thought this is what you wanted?”

  “I’m the yeoman.”

  “Oh,” she says. “Wait, what does that mean?”

  “I’m probably going to die later this week.”

  “So, no movie night?”

  “I am serious.”

  “So am I. I love movie night.”

  “I’m the yeoman,” I say, raising my voice. “Do you know what that means?”

  She shakes her head.

  “The yeoman always dies.”


  She puts her fork down and doesn’t say anything for a while, just sits there running her hand over the horizon of her pregnant belly.

  “There’s a small insurance policy,” I say. “I got a packet from Human Resources, let me go get it.”

  When I come back into the room with the folder, she’s putting on her coat.

  “Um?” I say.

  “This is bullshit. We are not living off a death benefit.” This isn’t how she talks usually, but then again, she’s twenty-eight weeks pregnant. She is not messing around. “I’m going to see the captain.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I say. “You can’t do that. You’re not even wearing pants.”

  “You are not dying for this new job,” she says, and she’s right. It hurts to admit it. “I love you, but yeah, I said it. Your new job sucks. This sucks. Living in a converted closet sucks. You even kind of suck. The only thing that doesn’t suck is this baby that we are going to have.”

  “You know, some people would be happy about this. It’s a promotion.”

  She just looks at me like, who do you think you are talking to.