Written for Pancreatic Cancer UK to fundraise and help raise awareness of this terrible disease after losing my dad in November 2020.

Part 2

What am I?

I had believed all my life that I am like anyone else.  I’m a human being, though not normal, but I do a normal job nurturing young minds as a teacher.  I didn’t read much philosophy until now; this was too weird.  Kirsty and I are not sisters, but our genetic make ups are not like anyone else before. The scientists in the Pathology lab are excited about their new discovery.   They are asking how many of us are out there?  Are we all teachers? Are our parents really our parents? This was not something I had ever questioned before, but we had to ask.

Telling my mum about this her face told the truth.  She had given birth to me and raised me, to her I was a normal human, no question.  The thought that I was some other being, distressed her greatly.

The Professor

Receiving a letter from Cambridge University, Professor Kenneth Jeffries, Head of Philosophy wanted to meet with us.  The hospital had asked us to sign a consent form to share our case as the open-minded doctor believed that we are not of this world.

It was a week later that Kirsty and I were sat drinking coffee in the spacious office of Professor Jeffries.  Never before, had I been involved in a conversation which I would have dismissed as fiction. This is not a Dean Koontz novel its my life.

Professor Jeffries research was directly related to our situation. His work had been the theory that every life changing decision we make, creates another one of us.  For example, as you agree to marry someone, another you will not marry them, and they will go on to marry someone else and have a different life.  I’m not sure how our stories are so similar, but the theory is that we are from different timelines.  Timelines that all play out at the same time.  How had I crossed timelines? Had my mother crossed it with me?

Hurricane Hannah

For Kirsty and me to have both crossed the timeline he needed to find an event that might have caused this.  I thought back to last year, there had been a raging and crashing storm Hurricane. They had named it Hurricane Hannah.  The professor typed Hurricane Hannah into his Laptop.  There was no mention of it.  There hadn’t been a storm. Looking at Kirsty she was nodding at me, she knew about Hurricane Hannah.

“Did Hurricane Hannah have lightening?

“Yes, why?”

“Hurricanes do not have lightning and thunder because lightning and thunder are formed by vertical winds that cause water and ice to rub together. This friction creates the electrical field that causes lightning and thunder. This churning does not happen with a hurricane, hence no lightening.  However, in 2005, Hurricane Emily, Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Katrina all had a huge amount of lightning and thunder as well.

As the Professor was getting more excited a new question went through my mind,

“What about our families, are they our real families? and are these Hurricanes all related.”

“Your families, I think are your real families, but you are all part of other you’s different decisions.  The Hurricane has somehow messed with the other world timelines.  The you’s that live here have been thrown into the other timeline.  I’m also wondering if other timelines have been crossed before, these are unique Hurricanes as they have lightening.

“And how come have Kirsty and I have parents that look different.”

“Kerry, we’ve compared our fathers but not our mothers.”

Reaching into my pocket I pulled out my phone. Opening my phone gallery I passed it to her.

A likeness

Her jaw dropped, “That’s my mum.”

The Professors’ face was a picture.  “This is exciting, so your mums made a decision at some point that meant that she didn’t marry your same father.  Whether she has met both men we don’t know until we ask them”.

“But hang on, how come are Kirsty and I both here?”

“An explanation could be that more than one timeline experienced Hurricane Hannah. Meeting you two, has made my research fact, your DNA has shown that you are the same, but copies of the original”.

“So where are the originals?”

“I think they and their families have been pulled into your timelines. Somehow 200 miles apart you are both here, both unaware of what has happened until now,  We don’t know how many different timelines there are, but this gives evidence to their existence.  This also poses the question of the average number of copies per person.  Also, with you two here, how many doppelgangers are here on this timeline now? And do the originals know they have been pulled into another time?”

Human  Copies

“That’s a lot of questions to answer. So, all the people who I’ve been talking to have been copies or originals of the ones I know in my world.  I guess its coincidence that we are both teachers and coincidence that we lost our dads to the same disease.”

“Unfortunately, Pancreatic Cancer is common and one of the deadliest cancers as people are often diagnosed too late.”

“But in one of the other timelines there might  be a cure, different decisions leading to better outcomes.”

“Yes, in one of them somewhere there could be a cure, it’s a shame that we can’t recreate Hurricane Hannah and choose which timeline to move to.  If we could find the cure and share it across all timelines wouldn’t that be amazing.”

“What would be good Kerry, is to find the cure to all the big illnesses.  Cancer, Dementia, Motor Neurone, Parkinson’s, there are so many that affect many people.”

“Well, I know in my lifetime there has never been a cure to any of them.  So, my timeline is not worth searching and I guess Kerry’s isn’t either”.

“Of course, the other thing that we know, ladies, is that Hurricane Hannah brought you here.  I will try and work out what makes these Hurricanes unique other then the lightening, unless that is it, we need to know how to move between timelines, however, how would we share the information and get home.  What we do know is that my research and theory is correct.”

My thoughts

Meeting with the Professor had raised questions. From meeting someone identical to me to finding a cure for cancer in another timeline.  This had all become like something out of a film.  However, this is my life and it is real.  What is happening next? Looking over at Kirsty I was glad to have met her, but this was all too bazaar and what about all the friends I had left in my own timeline? And all the new decisions that the original was making.  Only in time we will find the answer, we will wait and see.

Written for a A story a day for Pancreatic Cancer UK

Here is my fundraising page if you would like to donate.  Any size donation is appreciated.