I wrote this over a year ago. I was a little upset when I saw Loki the other day, because it is basically a story that I've been wanting to tell for some time. I thought I would share this draft with you, because I like this moment... and remember - I wrote this over a year ago, so it IS my idea and not just stolen from Loki :)
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“How many stories are there?” Mr. Silvers gestured towards the filing cabinets. There were hundreds of them. Thousands. Row upon row of dull, cream-colored, three-drawer filing cabinets filled dozens of rows, with dozens of cabinets in each row.
“You can’t count it,” Mikah answered, “infinite. There are an infinite number of stories.”
Mr. Silvers paused. He drew a breath. “Try again.”
Mikah scrunched his nose. “I guess… I mean, if everyone who has ever lived has their own story, then it would be the same number as the number of people who ever lived. Whatever that number is. A couple billion? I don’t know…”
“Nope,” Mr. Silvers replied, scratching behind his ear.
Mikah drew a breath. He scanned the cabinets. Thousands of them. Each filled with tens of thousands of words. Stories within stories. But… “there’s one,” Mikah concluded at last, “there is only one story.”
Mr. Silver smiled. Pleased. “Explain.”
Mikah struggled. This seemed like an advanced thing to be asking a thirteen-year-old. Shouldn’t he be, like, learning about rocks or something? “Okay. There are all of these stories. But they all connect. I mean, you have your story, and I have mine, but at some point we cross over. You appear in my story for a bit, and I appear in yours. So, we are sharing the story. And that happens for everyone. Everywhere. For all time.”
“For all times,” Mr. Silvers corrected, “Yes. For all times. All one story. But there are… other drafts. Plot holes. Inconsistencies along the narratives.”
“Alternate realities,” Mikah answered. He had been learning
from Doc Stalwart after all.
“How would you do that?
“You destroy all of all the other drafts.”
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