"Jack Finney - The Other Wife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Finney Jack)

Years ago someone had to decide on a name for a new soft drink and finally picked "Coca-Cola." But
certainly he considered other possible alternatives; and if the truth could be known, I'll bet one of them
was "Coco-Coola." It's not a bad name-sounds cool and refreshing-and he may have come very close to
deciding on it.

And how come Ford, Buick, Chevrolet and Oldsmobile survived while the Moon, Willys-Knight,
Hupmobile and Kissel didn't? Well, at some point or other maybe a decision was made by the men who
ran the Kissel Company, for example, which might just as easily have been made another way. If it had,
maybe Kissel would have survived and be a familiar sight today.

Instead of Lucky Strikes, Camels and Chesterfields, we might be buying chiefly Picayunes, Sweet
Caporals and Piedmonts. We might not have the Japanese beetle or the atom bomb. While the biggest
newspaper in New York could be the Sun, and George Coopernagel might be President. If-what would
the world be like right now, what would you or I be doing?-if only things in the past had happened just a
tiny bit differently. There are thousands of possibilities, of course; there are millions and trillions. There is
every conceivable kind of world, in fact; and a theory of considerable scientific standing-Einstein believed
it-is that these other possible worlds actually exist; all of them, side by side and simultaneously with the
one we happen to be familiar with.

I believed it too now, naturally; I knew what had happened, all right. Walking along Third Avenue
through the late afternoon on my way home from the office, I had come to one of the tiny points where
two of these alternate worlds intersected somehow. And I had walked off out of one into another slightly
altered, somewhat different world of "If" that was every bit as real, and which existed quite as much, as
the one I'd just left.

For maybe a block I walked on, stunned, but with a growing curiosity and excitement-because it had
occurred to me to wonder where I was going. I was walking on with a definite purpose and destination, I
realized; and when a traffic light beside me clicked to green, I took the opportunity to cross La Guardia
Avenue, as it was labeled now, and then continue west along Thirty-ninth Street. I was going somewhere,
no doubt about that; and in the instant of wondering where, I felt a chill along my spine. Because
suddenly I knew.

All the memories of my life in another world, you understand, still existed in my mind; from distant past to
the present. But beginning with the moment that I had turned from the newsstand to glance up at that
painted sign, another set of memories-an alternate set of memories of my other life in this alternate
world-began stirring to life underneath the first. But they were dim and faint yet, out of focus. I knew
where I was going-vaguely; and I no more had to think how to get there than any other man on his way
home from work. My legs simply moved in an old familiar pattern, carrying me up to the double glass
doors of a big apartment building, and the doorman said, "Evening, Mr. Pullen. Hot today."

"You said it, Charley," I answered and walked on into the lobby; and then my legs were carrying me up
the stairs to the second floor, then down a corridor to an apartment door which stood open. And just as
I did every night, I realized, I walked into the living room, tossing my copy of the Sun to the davenport. I
was wearing a suit I'd never seen before, I noticed, but it fitted me perfectly, of course, and was a little
worn.

"Hi, I'm home," I heard my voice call out as always; and at one and the same time I knew, with complete
and time-dulled familiarity-and also wondered with intense and fascinated curiosity-who in the world was
going to answer; who in this world?