Page 30 of Under Story

“We don’t know,” he continued. “There are lots of interesting theories. Maybe time does move in two directions, but the human mind can only perceive one of them. On the other hand, the closer you look at the universe, the more asymmetry you see. Take matter, for example.” Eli raised the saltshaker. “Everything we touch, even air, is made of matter, and matter is made of particles. But the universe also contains something called antimatter, made of antiparticles. You can think of these as partners to their particle companions, with the opposite charge and the opposite spin.” He lifted the pepper shaker now, holding it next to the salt. “Matter and antimatter are created together. When they meet, they destroy each other. The Big Bang should have produced them in equal quantities. But if that had happened, both matter and antimatter would have been annihilated, and our universe would contain nothing but energy.”

Eli put the pepper shaker back down, holding only the salt.

“We know that didn’t happen. I’m here, and so are you,” he said. “For some reason, an infinitesimal amount of matter survived—one particle per million—and this became the universe we know.”

“Why?”

“We aren’t sure. And for a physicist, that’s the worst kind of nails on a chalkboard. We hate things that can’t be reconciled: rules that apply here but not there, then but not now,” said Eli. “The asymmetry got me thinking. What if we don’t live in a universe? What if we live in a Duoverse?”

Laurel heard the word not whole but split: duo verse, a conversation between two people, as they were having now.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“It makes more sense with pictures.” Eli took a paper napkin and pulled his ballpoint pen out of one pocket. “The Standard Model imagines the structure of the universe like this. Space and time begin with the Big Bang”—he made a dot—“and from there, they expand. Time moves forward, and matter reigns.”

Extending from the bubble, to the right, Eli drew a sideways cone.

“But it’s asymmetrical,” said Laurel.

“Unless we aren’t seeing the full picture.”

Eli handed her the pen. Laurel mirrored his drawing, adding a second cone, moving left.

“There’s still an asymmetry, though,” said Eli.

He waited for her to find it. Laurel put her finger on the dot.

“Two universes,” she said. “One big bang.”

“There you go,” said Eli.

He turned the napkin over. This time, he traced the base of his wineglass and drew a horizontal line through the center. He wrote UNIVERSE above the upper semicircle and drew a curved arrow, pointing right, inside it. In the lower half of the diagram, he wrote ANTIUNIVERSE and drew an arrow pointing left.

“As time moves forward here,” he said, “it moves backward there.”

Eli wrote big bang at the horizontal line on the left; on the right, he wrote end of time. In the lower semicircle, he reversed their positions.

“Our Big Bang is still over here, on the left. And if we follow the arc of our universe, in a few hundred billion years, we’ll find ourselves here: at the end.”

“Which is where their universe begins?”

Laurel didn’t know who she meant by their. The thought of an antiuniverse was dizzying enough, much less what—or who—might live there.

Eli nodded. “Our Big Bang marks the end of their universe. And their Big Bang would be the end of ours.”

Laurel pictured a reverse of the Big Bang: a sudden suction into nothingness. Eli’s model was as heady as theory always was, it was could-be and make-believe, but even in her doubt she felt its pull. She peppered him with questions as they drank more wine and ate. When the waiter cleared their table, Laurel felt the same despair she had at Seymour’s party, and years before that, in the orchard: once again, their time had ended. They said goodbye beneath a streetlamp, the rain turned back to mist.

“I’ll see you,” she told him, the same thing she’d said in the orchard, though she felt less hopeful this time.

“Wait.” Eli took out a Nokia cell phone. “Do you have one of these?”

“Oh, I don’t,” said Laurel, “not yet, it’s silly, but there’s a landline in my apartment, and I haven’t found the need to…”

She stopped. Why was she stammering?

“I could give you my email address,” she said. “In case you ever…”

“In case I need to ask you something,” he said, helpfully.