King of Diamonds

Parallel Universes Excerpt

If parallel universes did not exist, the CIA would have to invent them. The cost would be, literally, astronomical. But if the CIA were to stick its head in the sand and ignore reality, as some have wished it would, we could wake up tomorrow surrounded by alien spacetime without ever knowing it.

We may anyway, as the latest notion to come sailing like a paper airplane out the windows of the ivory towers says the parallel universes are as flat as pancakes and stacked atop each other like an infinite pile of dollar bills. (They may even be used as currency by gaseous beings of megaversal heft.) Old Touslehead showed that in a saddle-shaped universe, parallel lines do meet. So too, in a megasaddle-shaped megaverse, if they're all stacked together like dollar bills, must parallel universes.

Thank S/He/It that parallel universes do exist and we don't have to deal with yet another CIA snafu. In some of these universes (probably dreamed up by the CIA), Mighty Casey upholds American values by dialing long distance. In some (probably dreamed up by daffy southpaws), baserunners circle the bases backwards. In still others (dreamed up by authors with no better things to write about), Whizzo Mark Salot IV lost his fourth game, evening his record at 2-2, and went on to become just another ballplayer, a so-so hurler with a mediocre record. Not so in our parallel universe.