Possibilities

Bianca Tellez

“Do you think we’re capable of seeing something other than ourselves?”

“I don’t think I follow.”

“I mean,” Hesitation. It was one of those moments where you knew exactly what you wanted to say but had no way to put it into words. Somehow even a thousand words couldn’t accurately describe the infinite range of emotions you felt. The curiosity that bubbled from the deepest parts of your mind. The wonderous sparkle that you knew would blink back at you in your own reflection. The secret longing that practically ate you alive.

“I mean we live in a blur of moments and those moments are the only things that matter. But what about the moments we don’t get a chance to see? The moments that are lost to other universes? The possibilities? Like this morning. I was sitting in the library, and I had my bag on the chair beside me. This woman walked in, and she was obviously really tired. I thought about what would happen if I just took my bag off the chair and invited her over. She would thank me and awkwardly sit down because Oh my God! What does this person want from me? I would take my lunch out of my bag and offer her some, and we would eat it in secret so the librarians wouldn’t notice. She would tell me about how she just started taking college classes again, because she had to drop out when she got pregnant. She would have a daughter who was in kindergarten now, and she had eight hours a day to kill so why not finish that degree in chemical engineering? I didn’t do that though. She walked away to a different table, but I could so clearly picture her and her daughter three years later when she finally graduated. That little girl would be so proud of her mom and I just sat there because it was early, and I didn’t really want to talk to anyone.

And then at the store, I almost crashed into this guy in the cereal aisle, and we both went our separate ways shortly after. But what if we hadn’t? I could so clearly see this conversation that we would have. I’d notice the things in his cart and point out that it looked like he was going on a trip. He’d say he was, and we’d talk about how I haven’t been on one in years. Then, shockingly enough, he’d say his friend bailed on him and that I was welcome to join as long as I chipped in on gas money. We’d travel all around the US and later the world, seeing everything from rain forests to deserts to mountains. But again, neither of us had any intention of making small talk. I honestly believe that those moments, those futures we live out in brief two-second interactions with strangers are some of the purest thoughts of all. They’re the moments where we don’t judge based on anything. We look at somebody and can suddenly see a whole range of possibilities of every kind.

Or what about right now. I can see us finishing this conversation. I would finish ranting about everything that went on inside my brain, all these possibilities. Possibilities that are so astonishingly clear to me and my brain that I’m sure they’re happening somewhere else outside our own little universe. But you would sigh. You would sigh and shake your head and gently tell me You’re overthinking again. I would insist that I wasn’t. I would tell you that this isn’t something that happened once. This is something that happens constantly. I’m constantly seeing futures where I’m just a little bit kinder. Ones where I put something into the world instead of taking from it. I see them so vividly that it disappoints me when they’re not real. I’d tell you that sometimes I wonder if you have these flashes of possibilities. I wonder if everyone has them. I wonder if anyone acknowledges them or if they simply float away to come true in another universe. I’d tell you that I really, truly, deeply hope that one day I will be able to make my possibilities something more than that. Maybe one day an alternate me will have a possibility that they let go and I will be the lucky one in the universe where that possibility becomes real. I’d tell you all of this and you would smile. Smile and wonder if it’s all just another possibility left to come true in another universe.”