Onesa laughed with all her heart, while uncle Sile told, laughing himself, how he had proposed to a gypsy girl to guess for him in the jar, and she had set off a flood of swearing, and to stop it, the armed intervention of the bulibasha had been needed—a he read with his hair on the fence. In fact, everyone was laughing, and her cousin, the chubby Gică, leaning against the window, was laughing so loudly that its windows and trinkets rattled hysterically, as if they were laughing too. Stranger, Onesa half-thought realized a little later, it started to be when Gica moved away and yet the display case kept moving and rattling... Actually, wait, the whole room was shaking; the trinkets did not laugh, but rather screamed in fright, as did Onesa and everyone in the room, terrified, while the light suddenly went out and the whole apartment, with furniture and people, shook in the dark...

- Earthquake!... she cried and realized that she had woken up screaming.

When he saw that he was at her house, in the village, in the yard, he calmed down a little more.

Her father appeared in the doorway, with a tired, sleepless face.

- I'm fine, father... I dreamed again that there was an earthquake.

Onesa went out to the gate. It was a cold and gloomy morning. You found it hard to believe that after last night's misfortune everything was unchanged here. The plain blending into the clouds in the distance, the calm mountains beyond the village, the murky river, huge and quiet, flowing indifferently.

— Onesa!

He had by no means expected this voice. He turned—Horia was smiling at him, across the road, in front of his gate. What was he doing at home? Wasn't he at college, in Bucharest? Only he was missing...

But of course, he realized at the same time. It can be seen that Horia had come home because of the earthquake. He nodded to her without saying anything.

He suddenly remembered that he wanted to jump up and take him in his hands, hit him with his fists, so that he would calm down. Of course he couldn't. And under no circumstances in front of the goal, where everyone could see them.

- What are you doing? Horia asked her, reaching their gate.

- I do not know.

"We're all a little confused," he smiled at her.

That impatient smile of his!

- I slept a little late...

— Măcar ai dormit.

- It's about sleep... I fell asleep in the morning, and as I fell asleep, I dreamed again... and woke up... and so on.

"Did it feel so bad here?"

— I was in the city, at the block... It's as if even now, here, in the yard, I can feel how it moves...

- I believe you. I kiss your hand, Aunt Lenuta! he suddenly shouted to the girl's mother. I wanted to ask if you would take Onesa on a boat ride!

- What boat are you dreaming of?! Onesa protested, returning to her original state.

— Of course, Horia, it will do him good...

"I'm not going anywhere, mother!" cried Onesa.

"It will do you good to float down the river a little." Come on, take a ride with Horia.

"The Danube is angry," Onesa made one last attempt.

"Not as angry as you," her mother laughed. Be careful!

Horia rowed steadily as the boat quietly made its way through the small waves. He was on the quiet stretch where he didn't have to fight the river. Onesa realized that, although she had known Horia all her life, it was as if the first image she had of him in her mind was of him rowing, his strong arms pulling at the oars so hard that he seemed to be pushing the entire Danube out to sea. "Bullshit bullshit!" she thought to herself, shaking her head to banish the thought.

"Mosquitoes?" he asked laughing.

- Where else have you seen mosquitoes in March?!

- You seem to have seen one...

- Yes, and I chased him. I chase away everything that annoys me.

"And what annoys you the most right now?"

Onesa smiled and averted her eyes, looking towards the Danube.

- I don't know what ideas you have, the girl told him, continuing not to look at him.

- There are no ideas, Onesa. Because they don't come from the head. I come from below.

The girl suddenly turned to him, her eyes wide.

- No, wait, laughed Horia. I meant from here.

"I mean, what do you mean?" That you have a heart?

— Onesa…

"Listen, it was a kiss and that's all!" she threw them. A mistake, which you can be sure will not happen again!

— Ah, but I know very well that it won't happen again.

The girl looked at him very doubtfully, but, he secretly hoped, also curious. The boat had stopped, the sun was starting to come out a little, and a barge was slowly coming upstream. How do you mean it won't happen again?...

- So you went to Cernavodă yesterday, Horia told him.

— Of all the days, just yesterday we had to go there, to the 4th floor!

— But I know you liked going to Cernavodă...

"I liked it," she shrugged.

— Se pare că nu e mereu la fel.

- What do you mean?

— That kiss won't happen again either. The next one will be different! he said smiling and looking bravely in her eyes.

Onesa took water from the river and splashed him, which seemed to amuse him beyond words.

"Encouraging," said Horia. If you didn't like that kiss, I was getting acquainted not with a handful of water, but with the whole Danube!

"My, my, how clever you are!" You made a bad fool of yourself in Bucharest!

- You know that Bucharest is beautiful and I made friends... but I would feel better if you were there too.

Onesa really blushed for good. Shame, joy, nerves? It wasn't very clear to her either, and this made her even angrier.

- Horia, you must understand one thing. I wouldn't come with you to Bucharest, to non-Bucharest, to Honolulu, on another planet, because you still like planets, I wouldn't come anywhere and I wouldn't be your friend... even if you were the only person on earth ! No, I'm lying, if you were the only man on Earth I would come!

The young man continued to be amused and resumed rowing, apparently without much effort.

"You're even more beautiful when you're angry," he snaps at her, "but you're downright gorgeous when you're making casual statements."

"Actually, what do you have to do with me?" she burst out. You're going to stay in Bucharest, you're going to become a physicist, you're going to read about planets and aliens and other nonsense that doesn't exist. I will stay here, in the village, all my life. I like it here. Maybe I work the land, maybe I become a teacher, who knows? And you think I don't know that mom likes you? Well, yes, he sees me arm in arm with you on the street, look, Oana married Horia, the pride of the village, a student in Bucharest, athlete, hell, even a science fiction writer! Although if I tell him you kissed me then, I think he'll chase you all over Capidava with a pitchfork!

Horia had listened to her with great interest, laughing out loud, but had not stopped rowing all this time.

"Do you understand, Mr. Astronaut?" Me and you, together? That's just science fiction!

"Allow me to contradict you," he said, and the boat stopped in the mud. Horia tied the line to a log sticking out of the water, jumped out of the boat and took a few steps through the mud until he reached the grass.

- What do you imagine you're doing?! she asked him in astonishment.

"You said you'd be my girlfriend if I were the last man on Earth!" Well, my dear Onesa, look at me, I'm the only man on earth!

— Ce?!

"See this little island?"

- Of course, I've known her since I was little, how could I not see her?

- There is water around. Here is land. And surely there is nobody on the island now. So I'm the only man on earth!

Onesa's face had become red as fire, and, further to prove to him that she was not impressed, she also jumped out of the boat and went up to the little deserted island, covered with a thick forest, just opposite their village.

"I'm also coming more to see what other nonsense you can think of." Is this how girls are conquered in Bucharest? she demanded an account.

- I have no way of knowing. I like you and only you. And let me tell you something else. You just stated that planets and aliens don't exist.

"Horia, that science fiction nonsense is good for ten-year-olds." This is our world, there is no other world!

- Does not exist? And then why are archaeologists digging through the ruins of the fortress?

- Well, the Capidava fortress existed.

- Yes. Two thousand years ago. Do you realize that a spaceship could reach the aliens, if they exist, but no one can reach that city from two thousand years ago? That fortress, which existed here, is another world. Who says there aren't other worlds?

The girl burst out laughing and sat down on a log. The barge was passing by the island and the sailors waved to them.

- There would be, Onesa made a concession. But who cares? Our life is here. There is nothing science fiction about it.

- True. But what if there are parallel worlds? Have you heard of this?

"Yes, of course, while I was milking the cow yesterday, I discussed the matter with mam'mare!"

- Be careful, in the universe there are an infinity of worlds like ours - but not really exact like ours. These worlds sit next to each other, like... I don't know... like texts from a volume of stories. Each of these texts is a complete world, which does not conceive that it shares space with other complete worlds, does not conceive that there are others. Or, if you will, the worlds are like books in a library. Volume after volume, apparently the same title, in countless copies. But each volume differs by a single letter from the previous one. Now imagine there are dozens of books on the shelf, hundreds of shelves, thousands of…

- Hey, help! Onesa suddenly shouted to the sailors on the barge. I have a madman here!

- Those people can't hear you, Onesa, you can shout as much as you want. On the Danube, no one can hear you when you shout.

- Ooo, it will be another world!

- It's not another world, it's a ship that travels between worlds. This island is a world, our village is a world, Bucharest is a completely different world. But between these worlds you can reach easily; between parallel worlds, I don't know.

"Hm, probably the characters in the books, if the books are still glued together, can pass from one volume to another," said the girl. Or at least they can see into the worlds next to them.

- Well done! You have the makings of a sefist!

— I'm not convinced that this is good!

The boy laughed, broke a stick with which he began to whip the air, and continued:

- Let me tell you one more interesting thing. Quantum mechanics refers to subatomic particles, and things happen there differently than at our level. Look, that barge was upstream, then it was near the island, now it's downstream and in a quarter of an hour it will be around the bend of the Danube. There are different positions and the barge can only be in one position at a time. Well, subatomic particles behave differently from objects in our world; it is as if they are in several positions at once, the so-called superposition. As if the barge were both downstream and upstream at the same time.

— Let me see if I understand, Mr. Physician-Amorez. Maybe I'll be your girlfriend, maybe I won't be your girlfriend, maybe we'll even get married! Forgive me for laughing, but the idea is very funny!... Like that. So in quantum mechanics I am and at the same time I am not your girlfriend, right?

— Not only that you are and you are not my friend at the same time, but both versions occur — but in parallel worlds. In one book in the library we are together, in another we are not; in this world I come after you, in another you run after me, and in a third we don't even know each other, while maybe in another we are brother and sister! However, you cannot be in two cards at once. And even if at shelf level we are and are not together (in superposition), when you read you can only read one book at a time. It is the so-called collapse of the wave function: unobserved, the variants coexist simultaneously in superposition, but when one makes an observation, each possibility occurs in another variant, in another world. Basically you can say that as long as no one reads the book, all options are possible. When one opens and reads the book, one of the variants materializes.

"So somewhere in a parallel world I'm going to say yes to you?"

- Surely. And I have the impression, and I'm telling you as a physics student, I have the impression that this is that world! What do you say?

— Dear Horia, I will answer you.

Onesa was smiling red in her cheeks, and Horia was waiting for an answer, but it was delayed. He stopped swinging the club and bent it into a circle, then released it again. At last the girl spoke:

"I have a quantum answer for you." Yes and no!

"It can't be," he laughed. If you maintain uncertainty, it means that we remain only observers.

- You got it perfectly! Onesa burst out laughing and jumped off the log, running to the boat. Horia broke the stick and threw it away, realizing that he had just fallen into his own trap. Come on, give a woman quantum mechanics—and instead of unraveling the mysteries of the microcosm, she'll give it to your head!

"I bet I know what you're thinking," continued the girl, sitting down in the boat. Shall I take her to the shore? Shouldn't I take it to the shore?... Come on, collapse the wave function!

Horia was paddling a little dejected, though he tried to look calm and even flashed a half-convincing smile, but it faded rather quickly as they neared the shore.

- Stop being sulky, the girl threw him. I felt good and forgot about the earthquake. I like talking with you. But there is only one world. To stay! There are no other worlds, understand? Stop thinking about them, because you are wasting the time you have in this world.

Horia tied up the boat and tried to say something to him, but Onesa ran away towards the house. When he reached the gate, he turned to him and called out to him once more:

"There are no other worlds!"

Cutre mur a re

Onesa stumbled out the gate. It had been a terrible night, she was dizzy, tired. It was a cold and gloomy early March morning. People were talking heatedly in the street. A few yards away, in a group of girls and boys, he saw Horia startle. What was he doing at home? Wasn't he in Bucharest?

- Horrible!

The young man and the others turned and burst into mocking exclamations.

— Oh, and Onesa is drunk...

Emboldened that Horia was smiling at her, Onesa wanted to approach him, but slipped and fell to one knee in the mud, much to the amusement of the others.

"Leave her," Horia told them placatingly, helping her to her feet. She would have drunk it too, she was scared by the earthquake.

- Earthquake? Was there an earthquake?! she asked, genuinely surprised, and the laughter erupted even louder.

- Horia, let's go to the clearing, Luminita invited him (that Luminita bitch, she had been stalking him for a long time!) and they all left, leaving the village drunk alone. However, Onesa was not the type to be left with one or two. He followed them, and when Horia was a little behind, opening his pants by a bush, he found himself with the girl appearing with a victorious grin.

- Oneso, have you gone completely crazy?! he exclaimed covering himself.

- Stop being so shameful... It's not something I haven't seen before.

Horia seemed to grow angry; approached her and said menacingly:

- If you ever say that again... I'll drown you! Do you understand, you fool?!

And putting his palm on her face, he pushed her violently, throwing her backwards into the mud, and then ran after the others. Onesa stayed there for a while; she was too hungover, her head hurt too badly, and her soul even worse, to have the strength to get up.

That's how she was found, a little later, by nea Botache, the fat, alcoholic and deranged man who had his bed in a former warehouse, on the outskirts of the village. He looked at her, touched her leg, called her softly... She seemed faint, if not dead. What was there to do? He looks around, scratches his head...

Then he climbed on top of her and began to pull her skirt aside, trying to penetrate her; it was a unique opportunity, as it seemed the very last! Onesa, however, woke up and began to scream; they fought a little and the young woman managed to get the drunken scoundrel off her.

"I'm going straight to the police!" she threatened him as she struggled to her feet.

- Come on, don't go, because I didn't do anything to you! I'll give you what you want!

"Do you have brandy?"

- I have, do it! I have half an appointment! I give it to you!

A little later, Onesa took the first sip of brandy, which put her on her feet. "I'm done with that Horia fool! Give it to me!" she told herself. By the second it had warmed up and by the third it set off bravely towards the clearing, after Horia! On the way, however, he heard his voice and noticed that the boy and Luminita were talking near the dilapidated shed that had been, years ago, a stable. The construction of thick concrete walls, which were now about to fall at any moment, was considered dangerous and even Botache avoided it, but now the two young men were standing next to it in the grass, and Horia was scribbling something with a chip of brick on the wall Gray.

Onesa crept through the bushes and trees, until she got close enough to Horia and Luminita to hear what they were talking about.

— Is this how girls are conquered in Bucharest? Luminita demanded an account, hitting him gently, jokingly, with a book.

- I have no way of knowing. I like you and only you.

- Wow, wow, you made a bad fool of yourself in Bucharest! But in the end, it's interesting what you say there.

- It is, but things, you know, go even further. Not only are you and you're not my girlfriend at the same time, but every possibility occurs — but in parallel worlds. In one book in the library we are together, in another we are not. And even if at shelf level we are and are not together, when you read you can only read one book at a time. Look, for example, let's take this book, he showed the cover of the volume the girl was holding.

— "Space Evil The Man With No Name." What title is this?!

— It is an illustration of superposition. As long as you don't open the book (that is, you don't notice the particle), the book has both titles at the same time. But when you open the book (notice the particle) at the front page, only one variation occurs — what title do you see on the front page?

— "The Man Without a Name."

- Yes! There are two versions of this book, which differ, among other things, by this title on the title page: some are called "Space Evil", others "The Man Without a Name". It is the so-called collapse of the wave function: unobserved, the variants coexist simultaneously, but when someone makes an observation, only one possibility occurs.

— My dear Horia, to be honest, I think that... the wave has kind of collapsed!

"That sounds like giving in!"

Luminita got up from the log and, moved, said to him:

— Horia, I felt good and forgot about... the earthquake. I like talking with you. But there is only one world. To stay! Stop thinking about the worlds that don't exist, because you're wasting the time you have in this world, she smiled so expressively that the young man gathered courage, took her in his arms and kissed her.

Onesa, with tears in her eyes, looked down at the ground and stayed like that for a while. After Horia and that smelly girl had left, he went to the place where they had been sitting and stared at the heavy concrete wall; the young man had scribbled incomprehensible formulas and words, some in capital letters, which, however, did not make them easier to understand. Looking around, he saw the book lying in the leaves, one corner smeared with mud. It had most likely fallen to the girl when they left. Onesa opened it at random and read in her mind, “Of course, she couldn't be sure of the real existence of those parallel worlds…”. What the hell could that mean? I mean, those are good parallels, if you have them, but…

— Come on, suddenly heard the hoarse voice of Mrs. Botache, who apparently was so demented that she had followed her, do you still have that brandy of wine?...

The girl sighed deeply and, without turning around, showed him the bottle, which still had some RDV in it. He was reading the words on the wall without being able to understand anything, as if they were from another world... "Another world?!" she told herself.

- Yes, give me that bottle too!

He put the bottle down without looking at him.

"Oneso… I like you," he whispered. She felt his hands on her buttocks, but stopped protesting. After all, what did it matter? She was no match for Horia. Luminita was suitable for Horia, she studied well, she was polite. And don't drink. Onesa drank and, look, she let Botache touch her. Maybe Horia really was in another world and she would never be able to get there... She took a shower and told herself that, after all, nea Botache's caresses weren't so bad.

"Come in," she whispered.

They entered the disused building and Onesa lay down on the floor, on some dirty cardboard. After a few minutes, nea Botache was inside her and Onesa, who felt that she was already drunk, began to move back and forth habitually and nothing mattered anymore. And at that moment there was a response, the walls of the castle gave way and it collapsed with a terrible thud on the two. There was then a deafening silence, and the dust slowly lifted, revealing, on a fragment of wall left standing, the words scrawled earlier in chalk, WAVE FUNCTION.

Under the rubble, Onesa clung to life as if out of obligation; he knew it would all be over in the next few moments, but he no longer felt physical pain, but spiritual relief. A light appeared in the rubble, as if someone was looking for them. Onesa did not think about heaven or hell, she knew that such a thing did not exist. More lights appeared and a hand lifted her from the rubble, but it was already too late.

Trembling

Onesa laughed heartily, while Uncle Sile told, laughing himself, how he had proposed to a gypsy girl to guess at him in the jar, and she had set off a flood of swearing, and to stop it, the armed intervention of the bulibasha was needed — to read with the hair on the fence. In fact, everyone was laughing, and her cousin, the chubby Gică, leaning against the window, was laughing so loudly that its windows and trinkets rattled hysterically, as if they were laughing too. Stranger, Onesa half-thought realized a little later, it started to be when Gica moved away and yet the display case kept moving and rattling... Actually, wait, the whole room was shaking; the trinkets did not laugh, but rather screamed in fright, as did Onesa and everyone in the room, terrified, while the light suddenly went out and the whole apartment, with furniture and people, shook in the dark...

- Earthquake!... she cried and woke up screaming. It was at her house in the village.

Onesa went out to the gate. It was a cold and gloomy early March morning. The plain in the distance merged with the clouds and the murky river, huge and quiet, which didn't even seem to know what had happened.

— Onesa!

He had by no means expected this voice. He turned—Horia was smiling at him from across the road, in front of his gate. It can be seen that he had come home because of the earthquake.

— Hello, Horia! she smiled at him.

Onesa wanted to jump into his arms, for him to hold her in a strong and protective embrace, to calm down. Of course he couldn't. And under no circumstances in front of the goal, where everyone could see them.

- What are you doing? he asked, reaching their gate.

- I slept a bit late... although that wasn't sleep. As I fell asleep, I dreamed again that there was an earthquake... and I woke up... and so on.

"Did it feel so bad here?"

- I was in the city, at the block. It's as if even now, here, in the yard, I feel the earth moving beneath me...

"Would you feel better on the water?"

The girl's face lit up. Horia rowed with his innate confidence as the boat quietly made its way through the small waves. He was on the quiet stretch where he didn't have to fight the river. Onesa realized that, although she had known Horia all her life, it was as if the first image she had of him in her mind was of him rowing, his strong arms pulling at the oars so hard that he seemed to be pushing the entire Danube out to sea. Onesa smiled and admired the river for a long time.

— Onesa…

"Listen, it was a kiss and that's all!" she snapped. A mistake, which you can be sure will not happen again!

— Ah, but I know very well that it won't happen again...

The girl looked at him with scared little eyes.

- Not?!

Horia burst out laughing and dropped the oars, to which Onesa took refuge in the bottom of the boat.

"If you come near me now, I'll scream!"

- On the Danube, no one can hear you when you shout.

"I know," she giggled. I just wasn't shouting so that someone could hear me!

- What amuses you with this game! he replied, without a trace of annoyance.

Onesa took water from the river and sprinkled him, which seemed to amuse him beyond words. Then the girl became serious and seemed to want to say something to him, but hesitated. Horia left her to her own pace, flicking her fingers in the cold river water. And finally Onesa spoke.

- The earthquake was terrible. I thought we were all dying. And you know who I thought of in those moments? At you. That has to mean something, right?

- Of course it means, because I also came home... not necessarily for my people. And by the way, it's not just about what happened last night. It's also about in general. Bucharest is beautiful, I made friends... but I would feel better if you were there too.

- Horia, you must understand one thing. I really like sitting with you, telling me about planets and ships and atoms. I would listen to you for hours. I feel calm and protected with you. But you will not return to the village. You are a student in Bucharest, you are going to become a physicist. I, after high school, will not go to college. I love it when you tell me about parallel worlds, but I don't understand much. I like our village, I like the Danube, I like nature. You will go back to Bucharest on Monday. That's where your life is, that's where you're going to get married. This is just an affair with a girl who likes you. A girl from a parallel world, she smiled sadly.

"You really don't think I'm in love with you?"

"I really think I'd like you to be my friend... but I'm still afraid you won't be able or willing to stay with me here, and I don't know if I'd come with you there either."

"We could both stay in the same place, if it's what I think it is between us."

- True. But to find out what it is, we have to go a step further. I won't know if we stay together until after we take the plunge. And then maybe it will be too late...

"Interesting," said Horia. You just exemplified Heisenberg's uncertainty principle better than any physics textbook. You know what? I think I'll call you Heisenberg from now on!

"Then I'll have to keep spraying you!"

Horia took her in his arms and this time Onesa did not resist. Their second kiss was even sweeter than the first. The third continued the upward trend and only after the tenth did they manage to speak again.

- Horia... Do you think it's possible that, in a parallel world, another Onesa would refuse you?

- Not! he feigned indignation. Are there other worlds?

Earthquake has

- Earthquake!... Onesa woke up from sleep screaming.

The girl went out the gate. It was a cold and gloomy morning. People were chatting in horror in the street, and it was not difficult to guess the main topic. A few yards away, in a group of girls and boys, she saw Luminita, her best friend, startle. What were you looking for at home? Wasn't he in Bucharest? It can be seen that he had come after the earthquake, the girl thought to herself. She pulled her bun close to her chest and crossed.

They embraced and kissed each other; they had not seen each other for about two months.

- What are you doing, Onesa?

- I do not know…

"We're all a little confused," Luminita smiled at him.

— I fell asleep in the morning, and as I fell asleep, I dreamed again that there was an earthquake... and I woke up... and so on.

"Did it feel so bad here?"

- I was in the city, at the block... said Onesa, and only then did she really notice the broad-shouldered boy, nicely dressed, the type from Bucharest, who was smiling at the two of them.

— Onesa, allow me to introduce you to Horia, my college classmate.

"Oana," she blushed.

- I like it, Oana. I am Horia.

The girls talked for a few more minutes, Onesa learning that her friend and the young man had been together for several weeks, that he was from Bucharest and that many blocks had fallen there and thousands of people had died. Onesa, however, did not want to hear any more about the earthquake and misfortunes.

"You know what?" she asked. How about a boat ride, the three of us?

- It would be nice, Luminita smiled, but I promised Horia that I would show him the fortress, the Danube, maybe the island... Tomorrow morning we have to go back.

- Okay, sure. I felt good. Goodbye!

- Onesa, where?...

- My mother called me! said Onesa, already beyond.

"Maybe you should have stayed with her," Horia said. Maybe she needed to talk to her best friend, calm down a bit.

- True... But I can't be here with her all the time. Come on, she'll make another friend.

"I don't know what to say," Horia smiled sheepishly. I don't know if it's possible.

— Seriously?…

- Seriously. There are no other Worlds!