I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a little freaked out. It’s this new theory of the “multiverse” that’s getting so much attention. Imagine: infinite universes out there, many of them with near identical copies of you. They say every possible outcome in your life will occur in another universe.

So, you’re a dismal failure who never achieved anything. Don’t fret. In a parallel universe, you might be drinking expensive champagne on your yacht and talking shop with Donald Trump.

So, your wife ran off with your brother and took the truck and the dog to boot. Take heart. One universe over, the shrew is serving you drinks and vacuuming floors in your palatial estate. Your dog watches over your fleet of trucks and your brother is in prison.

So, the Red Sox finally win a World Series after 86 years of heartbreak. It’s been year after year of thwarted hopes, for as long as you can remember. But somewhere in the multiverse, the Sox have won so many championships, it’s sickening.

Every possible outcome. Those horrible mistakes you made here never happened there. You ate right, exercised and took vitamins every day in some other universe. You are buff and not ashamed to take your shirt off on the beach in another dimension.

The multiverse has its privileges. And it is scientists who claim it as fact, not tabloid writers drunk on cheap wine. To account for errors in the math of quantum physics, some say the existence of multiple universes is the only possible solution.

Before you go scoffing and stuffing the newspaper into the bird cage, think about the possibilities. You can eat ice cream all you want because in another universe, you do ab crunches every day. You can tell your boss off right now because in the other world, you are independently wealthy.

Personally, I feel liberated. I’m going out to buy a boat and some cool cars because I can probably afford it one or two dimensions over. If that money-grubbing Mark LaFlamme in the next universe isn’t good for a loan, who is?

Really, man, it’s time to relax. String theory dictates that our time here is really not that important. We’re just an insignificant speck in an infinitesimal bubble in the froth of a sea of universes. Stop hollering and worrying all the time. Chill out and let some other you do all the heavy lifting. This applies especially to politicians and city leaders.

So in one universe, the Palesky tax cap will pass. We may lose some cops, a library and City Hall. So what? Somewhere out there, the streets of Lewiston are paved with gold. There is no crime because people have everything they want. You don’t worry about property taxes because your property is made of cash. Owe some money? Just peel off a shingle and give it to the happy tax man.

In that particular universe, City Administrator Jim Bennett doesn’t have to sweat and strain every time he wants to beautify a new section of Lewiston. He just issues a command to his elite army of servants (they look like the Munchkins from Oz) and presto! A new fountain!

In the Auburn of another world, city leaders don’t get screamed at every time they try to make a building improvement. That’s because in that universe, the people of Auburn live under toadstools and do city business on lily pads. That big whatchamacallit that hangs over the lower end of Main Street is worshipped rather than scorned in the other Auburn.

Worlds in other universes don’t necessarily follow the same laws of physics as we do. Things will get interesting at the summer festival since balloons that go up won’t necessarily come down. Skiers at Lost Valley will have a blast going up the hill but they will sweat and struggle to get down. They will need giant anchors to keep Saints Peter and Paul Church secured to the earth. And so on.

I’m getting carried away. I know I am. People back away from me slowly when I start talking about the multiverse. My wife doesn’t allow words like singularity or participatory anthropic principal around the house. Not in this world, anyway.

It doesn’t matter. I’m just about done here. I’ve got to get a column done on time so I won’t get yelled at. Hey, do you suppose that in one of the multitudes of universes out there, editors are nice?

Nah. No way. That’s just too far out.

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter.

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