In 1987, the physicist Hugh Everett, proposed the theory called "The many worlds interpretation". In this theory, he hypothesizes about the existence of parallel universes, where decisions not taken in one life are materialized in another. Perhaps, somewhere in the universe there is a Francis who, like me, writes this article, but in a strange and unknown language . Maybe, in another universe, I read this same article, but written by someone else. And maybe in another I don't even write at all. This is because for Everett, the possibilities are infinite, just like the issue of parallel universes and versions of ourselves.

Similarly, literature, despite moving away from the field of quantum physics, has been the medium for the exploration of possibilities, because opening a book is tantamount to the exploration of a parallel world. However, what about the authors? Just as there are writers of different stories, are there not also different versions of the same author? This leads us to think that our human personality, more than unitary, is multiple, just like Everett's multiple universes. An example of this is Pessoa, a great writer, who created 72 heteronyms. Each one with its own history, style and horoscope was a reflection of the Pessoa composed of so many, and at the same time, unable to be identified with only one.

Another great example is that belonging to the beloved German poet, Hölderlin. It is said that Hölderlin died twice. One death was natural and the other, prior to this, was symbolic. Thus, faced with the fall of his values, love disillusions and beliefs, a poor Hölderlin understood that the truth, which he sought so much in poetry, was not to be found in it. The words and lines of a poem simply could not change the world. Because of this, Hölderlin ceased to be someone to become nobody, but that "nobody" came with his own name: Scardanelli. While Hölderlin died among impossible dreams, the other, Scardanelli, was born. Hölderlin, as we knew him, stopped writing. Now, the one who signed the poems was "the new one".

Between the Scardanelli born of the late Hölderlin, and the multiplicities of our being, I imagine Borges saying that among the many that we are, we are all and none. In his short story The Other, Borges sits on a bench with a young version of himself. ¨In remembering himself,¨ says the older Borges, ¨there is no person who does not find himself. That is what is happening now, except that there are two of us¨, later he adds ¨the man of yesterday is not the man of today¨. Borges sample tells us that we are an incessant movement and we are in constant change. In the face of this incessant movement, what is it that warns us that a person continues to be who he is? This reminds us of what the Greek naturalists once asked: If a tree grows, if a river flows and advances, what is it that resists change?

In the previous example, Borges encounters a past "I", in the case of Hölderlin an "I" coexists with another, but at the same time it overlaps and eliminates it. This idea, in turn, brings me to report (fateful and Borgesian report) a fragment belonging to the novel Sostiene Pereira, written by Tabucchi. In one of the scenes, the doctor Cordero explains to the main character, Pereira, about the theory called ¨the confederation of souls¨:

What we call the rule, or our being, or normality, is only a result, not a premise, and depends on the control of a hegemonic self that has imposed itself on the confederation of our souls.

Thus, among the many that exist within us, one imposes itself, but what happens to the previous one? Returning to the Borgesian reference letter , the writer in the story Borges and I, reflects: ¨To the other, to Borges, is the one to whom things happen¨ and later adds, ¨I live, I let myself live, so that Borges can plot his literature and that literature justifies me¨. Borges coexists with this other Borges; however, the other begins to take his place abandoning that Borges, almost nonexistent, who narrates the story: ¨Thus my life is a flight and I lose everything and everything is oblivion, or of the other¨. We change, just like the Borges who meets his youth and is aware that he is no longer the same. We change, also in the present tense, because we do not need a difference of years to recognize that we have changed or are changing skin. Sometimes it only takes a month, a few days, perhaps even hours, to look in the mirror and understand that what we are looking at is no longer what we know. It is another, new -perhaps even better- but, after all, it is still another (and, at the same time, the same).

Having said this, and apologizing for my imprudence, I ask Mr. Everett, what do parallel worlds matter if the real existential problem is that they are already in the lived reality? We are thousands, we will be thousands, and we have been many others that we have perhaps even forgotten. The unknown persists: where do those others that we have been go? Where did Hölderlin and the other Borges (or the original Borges if such a thing exists) go? In the face of the silent answer, I will continue to insist:

When Scardanelli murdered Hölderlin, where did his body end up?

Bibliography:

Tabucchi, A. Sostiene Pereira. Barcelona: Salvat, 2001.

Borges, J. (1981). El libro de arena. Madrid: Alianza

Borges, J. (1983). El Aleph. Seix Barral.