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to bring into being an infinite number of universes. Soon, new universes were once again whizzing through the vacuum. I revised my earlier decision that there should be only One. Or, more precisely, my creation of quantum physics necessarily required the Many. Peering out into the Void, I tried to find my original universe, the first one I’d made. But it was hopelessly lost among billions and billions of others flying about, throbbing spheres, distended ellipsoids, gyrating cosmoses thrashing with energy. The Void trembled with rumbles and shrieks and sharp popping noises.
    By and by, Aunt Penelope emerged from her hiding place, Uncle Deva from his. You’ve been busy, said Uncle, looking with mild annoyance at the many universes flying about. If I were you, I wouldn’t get attached to any of them. You’ll just be disappointed. I took Uncle’s comment under advisement. Already, I was rather fond of some of the expanding spheres.
    What’s in those things, anyway? asked Aunt Penelope. Space, I answered. Umph, she said. Well now that we have space, I’d like, please, a chair to sit down on. I’ve been standing for a very long time. So I made a chair for Aunt Penelope. That chair was my first creation of matter. It had three curved legs and an octagonal back, and I’d designed it to be comfortable but not too comfortable. My aunt sat down on it without comment.
    Far more awaited. I wanted to make more matter. I wanted to make galaxies and stars. I wanted to make planets. I wanted to make living creatures, and minds. But for the moment, I sat and I meditated and I gazed with contentment at the empty but vibrating universes I had made.

A Stranger Appears in the Void
    I meditated. I did meditate. I am meditating. I will meditate.
    Although I had emptied my mind of thoughts, I was still conscious of the new universes flying about. I could feel the presence of the pulsating spheres, I could feel the volume and space within them. More importantly, I could feel the
potential
of space now scattered throughout the Void. While I drifted in my meditative state, I was no longer drifting through a shapeless and timeless Void, but a Void now tessellated with time and with space. The emptiness shimmered with possibilities, each tiny volume trembling with a nebulous version of everything that could possibly be, everything I might eventually create. It was a pressure, a weight, a low humming sound. And I had changed myself as well as the Void. A great
unfolding
had taken place within my being, as if every degree of consciousness had multiplied into a thousand degrees of consciousness, every possible action had branched into a thousand possible actions. With the new quantum reality, I was exquisitely aware of the fantastic number of possible decisions and possibilities at each point of existence, each with its own consequences leading to an infinite chain of potentialities. Henceforth, when I decided to create a thing, I would necessarily need to create not only that thing but every conceivable variation of the thing, each with its own probability. Existence was now multiplicity. These new sensations and realities were not unpleasant, but they did require certain adaptations and allowances.
    When I finally emerged from my meditations, a stranger was standing beside me. And behind him, another creature, a fat and squat being whose countenance seemed frozen in a grin. In the unending expanse of existence, there had never been anyone other than myself, Aunt Penelope, and Uncle Deva. I was pleased to have another being to talk to, yet I was not accustomed to meeting things I had not made.
    “Good day,” said the stranger. “If I might take the liberty of using that expression. It will come with future creations.”
    “I have not invited you here,” I said.
    The stranger nodded, an acknowledgment of my comment but without any apology. He was tall and thin, and he held himself both with ease and with a formality. “You have a congenial