The first thing to know about Cousin Ken was to never stare at his scars or he’d break your fingers. Dav learned this when he stared at Cousin Ken’s scars and he broke his fingers. “He’s sensitive,” Brendam explained, as Dav crawled out of the house. “You should go away and never come back.” But Dav didn’t go away. He looked down, and tried his hardest not to cry. He’d spent too much time looking for Cousin Ken to go away after just a look. Brendam didn’t care for his tears. “Wait here,” he said, as he opened the door to Cousin Ken’s house. “He needs me. I’ll apologize on your behalf, and then he’ll call the hospital so they fix your hand immediately. Then you’ll leave.” Dav didn’t reply. Cousin Ken’s house wasn’t a mansion, even though it should have been. It was small, and wooden, and full of shadows. The blinds were all closed, the door had no glass. Dav lived in a castle made of gold, full of light and wealth—and he knew why. Cousin Ken had created, all alone, the family riches. And yet, he lived in misery. It didn’t make sense… at first. But now, as Dav waited for Brendam to come out, looking at the holes in the walls, the unkempt garden, the filth on the side of the road, Dav felt the pain, like hot needles going upwards, from his hand all the way to his shoulder. His beautiful face darkened with a frown. The house made sense now. If that [i]thing[/i] inside—and Dav remembered the scars, running from the forehead to the very base of the neck, turning the face into a lumpy mess of flesh and red tissue. He remembered the short arms and the misshapen back, how it looked like a crumbling, broken mountain—had really been Cousin Ken, he fit the house perfectly. But still, it didn’t make sense why he would want to live this way. “Good. You waited.” Brendam got out and closed the door behind him. Dav wanted to get in again, to talk with Cousin Ken—even if his hand still hurt—but just a look at Brendam’s face told him what was best for him. Part of him disliked being ordered around by what was almost a complete stranger, but he [i]knew[/i] Brendam, or at least, he knew his reputation. He was, famously, Cousin Ken’s caretaker and only friend. Dav swallowed. “Look, I’m sorry, I—I didn’t know…” “I apologized for you.” “I shouldn’t have stared, I—” “You shouldn’t have come here.” Brendam took Dav’s hand and examined it. “You knew this would happen.” “I didn’t!” “And yet, you came.” “I didn’t know!” Dav yanked his hand from Brendam’s grip, causing him to flinch and look at him, really look at him, for the first time. “My God,” Brendam said, and his voice sweetened. “How old are you?” “Mother told me not to come,” Dav said, looking off to the side. “She… I had no idea this was going to…” He shivered. “Was that really him?” Brendam gave him a soft smile. “You poor kid. You really didn’t know.” He nudged him, so they would walk together down the street. “That was, indeed, the man you know as Cousin Ken.” “But he can’t be!” “Oh, can’t he?” The sky seemed to clear when the house disappeared in the distance. Birds started singing again. The air smelled fresher. They walked faster. “And how did you imagine him, then, kid? Suit and tie, a handsome face? A great mansion, people lining up by his door? A powerful man?” “Yes! How can he look like that? He’s a—a monster! Why hasn’t he fixed his face, his—” Brendam walked with his hands linked behind his back, and he shot Dav an unreadable stare. “Kid…” “David.” “David.” Brendam nodded. “Did you think your cousin was happy?” “No.” “Exactly. No great man was ever happy, David. Ever.” His eyes sparkled. “And you know why?” Dav didn't reply. “Because misery, David, misery breeds genius,” Brendam said. He was looking up front, face completely expressionless. “Try to imagine, if you can, a man who would give it all to invent a machine that creates perfection. A device that builds beauty. Wouldn’t that be an ugly man?” A grunt. Dav was young, yes, but old enough to recognize condescendence. “I don’t see how that’s relevant. Cousin Ken didn’t need to be like that.” “Didn’t he? I believe he did. Necessity is the backbone of invention. We don’t look for the things we don’t miss.” A sigh escaped Brendam’s lungs. “Thanks to Ken, David, you will walk into that hospital, you will step in that wonderful room full of mirrors, and you will get your bones mended. Your wounds will disappear without stitches, your scars will fade away.” “Yes.” The words were hard in Dav’s throat. “I know what Cousin Ken invented.” “And I’m trying to tell you why he invented it. Why he [i]had[/i] to invent it. Why he’s the only one who could invent it—because that was his dream. That was what he needed, all his life. A room full of mirrors, and what you see in them is a misshapen, hurt creature… but then the reflection changes. And the hurt goes away.” He pointed at Dav's hand. “How long will it take them to cure this? A minute? Two?” “I don’t know.” Something in his voice made Brendam stop. He looked doubtful, now. His lips pursed. “I’m not trying to humiliate you. I’m… sorry. Ken is dear to me, and—I’m sorry. I just don’t know how much you know.” “I know what you’re telling me. That Cousin Ken invented that thing.” Dav raised his swollen hand. The fingers were twisted, like claws. “The thing that can fix this.” “Yes.” Brendam continued his walk. “But do you know how it works?” “It… fixes you.” “No. It doesn’t ‘fix’ anything. Fixing implies solving a problem, restoring what’s wrong. What Ken made, it just…” Brendam swept his hand to the side. “Changes it. But it doesn’t fix it.” Dav frowned. He was young, his hand hurt, and he didn’t want to admit it. “I don’t understand.” “Hmm. Ken grew up looking at the mirror,” Brendam said, “and wishing that somebody would take away the bad. The wrong. The [i]ugly.[/i] I think he wondered who was responsible, or why it had to be this way.” “Okay. So he went and invented a way to fix that.” Dav couldn’t help the frustration creeping to his voice again. “But then why didn’t he fix himself after that was done? Why does he still look like that?” The picture of Cousin Ken, his back and his arms and his face, it all came back to him, and he shivered again. “He can get rid of the scars, and the lump in his back, and… everything. So why?” Brendam wasn’t smiling. “Don’t you think he tried?” This made Dav stop. “Oh.” “He created a machine to fix himself. You think him a monster, don’t you?” Brendam’s hands, still linked behind his back, tightened. His knuckles went white. “You’re scared of him. Imagine [i]being[/i] him. Being disgusted by what you see in the mirror, knowing everybody thinks the same... Do you really believe he didn’t try to solve his problem after he invented the machine?” “The… It didn’t work on him?” Dav felt a pressure on his chest. “It didn’t…?” “It’s…” Brendam took a deep breath. “It’s a little hard to explain. I’m trying to put into words. Maybe you should think of it as [i]choices[/i], David.” Dav blinked. “Choices?” “Yes. That’s how the machine works. Your life, what you are, what you see around you? It was created by choices. Everything you do, everything you say, everything you [i]think[/i], is a choice. Choices change the world. They shape reality.” He pointed at the street. “What if I pushed you in front of a car right now? You would die. What if I didn’t? You wouldn’t.” His eyes flared. “It’s a choice.” Dav tried to think about it. “Okay.” Brendam saw through the façade. “Hmm. Every time you do something.” He snapped his fingers. “Bam. The world changes. But what if you hadn’t done it? What if you had chosen another option? Then the world would be different, a little bit.” “So everything I do changes the world,” Dav said. “If only a little. That’s what you mean?” “Not just your choices. [i]Everybody’s[/i] choices. And what about the things that we don’t choose, like the things left to luck? A coin that lands on tails instead of heads. A mutation that doesn’t happen. A car that stops in time.” Brendam closed his eyes. “Do you follow me?” “Yes, I think.” “Good. And in some hypothetical universe, in some reality that’s not our own, your choice might have been different. And in a third one, something else changes. Imagine infinite realities, and each one can be the same, or completely unlike our own. Because every time there’s a choice, there's a chance.” This made Dav stop to think. He remembered all the times he’d been to the hospital for a minor cut or a small wound. He remembered the room with mirrors on the walls, the room that held the machine Cousin Ken had invented so many years ago. When you stepped in that room, and the lights turned on, you could see your reflection, and your reflection’s reflection, and so on. You could see infinite versions of you. Infinite Davids. Dav muttered “Oh”. “Get it? Every choice, every chance. That means that everything that can be possible [i]is[/i] possible… Somewhere else. In a different reality.” Brendam ran a hand through his long hair. “In another world, I could be a woman. Why not? But everything else, it would be the same. Or absolutely different. Or I could be dead.” Dav nodded. “So the machine creates that. It…” he frowned. “It makes anything because it could have happened. It works by… It takes every, every possible choice, and then it… makes it real?” “Maybe. Maybe it calculates every possibility, and then indeed makes it a reality. Or maybe it reaches somewhere we can’t see, and [i]takes[/i] what it needs from that universe where things didn’t go the same way. What matters is, it doesn’t fix any of your problems. It just puts them away, swaps them for something else. Something better.” Dav thought, again, about the infinite Davids. At first they would be exactly like you knew you were. But then the machine would turn on, and then there would be a humming noise, and the reflections would all change. Slowly, at first, but then they would go faster. And little by little, as they changed, [i]you[/i] would change, too. The blood would go away, the pain would disappear… “So the machine chooses?” he asked. “How can it know what’s a better choice?” “Oh, it doesn’t. That’s the doctors, I’d say. They…” Brendam shrugged. “They calculate, and pick the best for you. A healthier version” A side glance. “A more beautiful one. Do you think you were born like that?” Dav laughed. He couldn’t help it. “No,” he said. “I was… I’ve seen pictures. I had the funniest nose.” Brendam chuckled. “But you don’t, know. You’re beautiful. We all are.” He sighed. “That’s what Ken gave us all. The chance to pick. The ability to get the best of all possible works. Swap your broken wrist for a healthy one, the face of a human for the face of an angel.” Dav nodded. He’d never thought of it this way, like choices, but he didn’t see that much of a difference. Fixing or changing for something better, it was all the same. “And… it didn’t work for Cousin Ken?” A pause. They were close to the hospital now, really close. Dav knew the city like the palm of his throbbing, hurting hand. “That’s the worst part,” Brendam said. “It did. The machine didn’t fail.” Dav frowned. “What?” “The machine didn’t fail. When your cousin went in, the machine worked perfectly. They calculated every possibility.” Brendam looked at Dav. “He couldn’t change.” The words seemed to have an echo, a particular weight. Dav felt them on his stomach, and remembered the look in Cousin Ken’s eyes. He swallowed. “How? How is that…?” “Possible? Feasible?” Brendam asked. There was a smile on his face, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “It shouldn’t be. If I chose to push you in front of a car, you should die. If I chose to dye my hair, it should be red. But with Cousin Ken, that doesn’t work. No matter what he does, no matter what [i]anyone[/i] does, no matter [i]what[/i] happens, he’s the same. All the paths lead the same way. Everything leads up to him, and the bad never goes away.” “God.” “It’s worse than that. You see, when he discovered this, when he saw that he was always the same broken man across all the universes, he got the scars.” Dav’s eyes got wide. His neck itched. “The scars in his face?” “Hmm.” Brendam scratched his nose, rubbed his own forehead. “He wasn’t born with them. They’re homemade, in his words. A fit of rage. Inevitable, really.” His voice dropped. “Literally, inevitable.” “But he could have—” “He couldn’t. Don’t you see it? All of them—all the Cousin Kens, in every single reality, they all found out. They discovered they couldn’t be changed. And they got the scars.” Another deep breath. “All of them, no matter what they chose, were driven to get those scars, at the same time. He created the machine, and it just made it all [i]worse.[/i]” Scars. Dav thought about his mother. Thanks to her, Dav had known of Cousin Ken all his life, but still, he’d always been a mystery. Everything his family had said about him was that Cousin Ken had to be left alone. They were in front of the hospital doors now. Dav looked at Brendam. “But if everything is possible, and if you can pick anything…” “Then at least one reality should be different, but yet, here we are. Arguing about this won’t change anything. He has the scars. He’ll always have the scars.” Dav looked down. “And I stared at them.” “And so he broke your fingers. He was really sorry,” Brendam said. “But, you need to understand that, for him… Well. You can always fix your hand, can you? But he can’t fix his face.” They stood in silence for a moment. Dav, looking down. Brendam, looking at Dav. Then Dav talked. “Mother doesn’t like to talk about Cousin Ken.” A blink. Brendam tilted his head to the side. “Oh?” “Nobody really does. They told me to avoid him,” Dav continued. “I thought they hated him. But…” “But?” Dav made his best to choose his words. “I… My mother. She’s really pretty now. But when she was younger, she wasn’t as much. And now she says she’ll never come here.” “Ah.” Brendam looked to the side. “Of course.” The scars. The short arms. The misshapen back. Dav wondered if they hurt. If they hurt as much as his hand, for example. He talked like one talks in a dream. “He shouldn’t be this unhappy.” This made Brendam frown. “Excuse me?” “Cousin Ken. He shouldn’t be this unhappy.” Dav looked at Brendam eye to eye. “He can’t fix himself, but he helped a lot of people. He saved a lot of lives. He should be happy about it.” Brendam arched an eyebrow. “Are you an optimist, David?” “I don’t know.” “See, that’s the thing. It was a trick question.” Brendam squinted. “Nobody [i]is[/i] an optimist. You need to decide if you want to be one, and then make an effort. Ken made it possible to fix everybody but himself. He made our lives better. And you know what?” Dav took a step back. “Maybe some people would enjoy that.” Brendam’s voice was sweet with anger. “Maybe somebody would love the chance to be a hero, to sacrifice themselves for humanity. And maybe they’d be optimistic about it, and bathe in their own altruism. “But see, that’s a [i]choice[/i]. You need to choose to be a hero, or perhaps to be an optimist. But Ken? That was something he couldn’t do. He never had a choice. Because there’s one truth, and one truth only—no matter what, no matter how, Ken suffers. Good afternoon, David.” And with that, Brendam turned around and left.