They say when you're 20 years old everyone is looking at you; when you're 30 they've stopped looking; and when you're 40 you realize that they were never looking at you in the first place. Brendan had heard this, and so was surprised when it didn't work out that way for him. When he turned 30 people still seemed to notice him, and ditto for when he turned 40.
Like most people, Brendan thought that he would make a difference somehow. His background was average -- he had a couple of years of college and had his own small shipping business, which consisted almost entirely of one Mack truck. But he enjoyed it; he liked driving, and he drove all over the United States and Canada. He only spent a total of about two months per year at home. He didn't know how he would make a difference, but he knew he wanted to do good, to make the world a better place. For most of us, such ideas fade as we realize that people aren't looking at us, that they don't see us as something special. Since people kept looking at Brendan, he thought he would have the opportunity to do something to help others.
So when he met a woman who told him she was a time-traveller, it reinforced his sense of destiny. Really, it would have been impossible for it not to. She had specifically travelled back in time to meet him and asked him if he'd be willing to fill out a questionnaire. When he asked why she wanted to meet him, she told him that lots of people want to. In fact, she told him there was a reason he thought people were always looking at him: they were. His whole life, time-travellers had been observing him.
"Then how come none of them have ever told me that they're time-travellers or asked me to fill out a questionnaire like you have?"
"Well," she said, "that's complicated. We cannot interfere with the timeline, and we knew that if you were made aware of your significance before you were 40 then it would have changed things. The calculations are ridiculously complex, and it's funny how small things can make big changes and big things can make no changes whatsoever. But now it won't alter anything to make you aware of us."
"Well, can you tell me why so many people want to observe me? What exactly do I do that warrants such attention?"
"That, unfortunately, we can't tell you yet. Not until you're 50. It would mess up the timeline if we told you now."
So Brendan filled out the questionnaire and answered all of her follow-up questions. He told her his overriding desire was to make a positive impact in the world and help others somehow. She nodded, told him she had to leave, pushed a few buttons on what looked like a wristwatch, and vanished.
But that was just the beginning. Every few days a new time-traveller would arrive and interview him or ask him to fill out another questionnaire. They were always very friendly and encouraging, although it was frustrating for Brendan to know that they knew what he would (someday) do that would warrant their attention, but that they couldn't tell him. Sometimes he had clues. Once a young female time-traveller was riding in his truck with him, she was a student she had said, and at one point she looked around the cab's interior and said, "I can't believe I'm actually in the truck!" He asked her what she meant, but she realized her slip and turned the conversation back to him.
But there came a time, not long after he turned 50, when a man suddenly appeared in his living room during a slow business period and started asking the usual gamut of questions. Brendan answered them as best he could, but when the man had finished he said, "Look, I was told that you couldn't tell me what I'm going to do someday until I turn 50. I'm 50 now, and I'd like to know what it is."
The man looked at him for a few moments, slightly surprised, and then said, "I'll send someone else back to tell you." He reached down to his belt, touched something, and disappeared. But before Brendan could even sigh, an older woman appeared.
"You want to know why we're focusing so much attention on you?"
"Uh ... yes, yes I do. But I just told him that a few seconds ago, how could you ..."
"We can arrive at any point in your life. The people who have been interviewing you did not come in the order that you observed them. The student you were speaking to a few moments ago returned to us a few days ago."
"Oh. Of course. Sorry, I hadn't really thought about that. It's kind of obvious now that you explain it to me."
"Let me ask you again: are you sure you want me to tell you why we're travelling to observe you? It will no longer have a significant impact on your future actions to know it, but it's not necessary for you to know. In fact, we advise against it."
Brendan was almost giddy. "No no, I really want to know."
She cocked her head to one side as she considered him for several seconds. Then she said, "Have you ever heard of the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector?"
"What? Uh, no, I don't think so. Is it from the Bible?"
"The gospel of Luke."
"Well I read the New Testament once a long time ago, but I don't remember very much from it. But what does that have to do with ..."
"A Pharisee and a tax collector went to a temple to pray. Pharisees were the holy men -- you understand? -- and the tax-collectors were sinners. The Pharisee thanked God that he wasn't a bad person. 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men -- robbers, evildoers, adulterers -- or even like this tax collector. I obey all of your laws.' The tax collector, however, would not even come close or raise his head, but beat his chest and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' The upshot is that it was the tax collector who went home justified before God, not the Pharisee."
"OK. That's interesting. I mean, I don't really see anything wrong with thanking God for not being a bad person."
"The reason why the Pharisee is not justified before God is because he thought he was a good person while other people were not. He thought that since his actions were good, he was therefore a good person. He thought that since he didn't sin he wasn't a sinner."
"Well, that kind of makes sense."
"Except that 'sinner' is not a label of one's actions but of one's essence. The Pharisee thought that he was defined by his actions. But there's more to who we are than what we do."
"OK, whatever. What does any of this have to with why I'm of interest to time-travellers?"
"Because the first thing to tell you is that we're not time-travellers."
"Wait, what?"
"We're not time-travellers. That is, we're not from your future. It's impossible to travel backward in time in one's own universe. We are from other universes."
"That's ... that's ... I don't know what that is. But then why did everyone tell me they were time-travellers?"
"Because it's close to the truth: we are from futures of universes that are similar to this one. I am from the year 2661 and my universe numbers years the same as this one. So, in a qualified sense, we do travel in time. However, we could not tell you all of this before now because it would have interrupted this universe's timeline if you had known it before you were 50."
"That's so weird. Why?"
"We have no idea. I'm sure you've been told that small changes can have enormous impacts while enormous changes can have no impact at all. We have artificial intelligences which can calculate the details, but it's beyond the ken of sentient biological organisms."
"OK. But now, why do you want to travel to another universe just to observe me? What do I do here that affects your universe?"
"Well, technically it doesn't. Universes can't influence each other. That's why it was so important that we not tell you any of this until it would not have an impact on your future actions."
"OK, I got that, but my question is still why would you travel to another universe to observe me?"
"Because you exist in other universes as well. Or, to put it another way, other universes have versions of you. You existed in my universe's past, or a version of you did. We cannot travel back in time in our own universes, but we can travel to other universes to observe you."
"That's just ... that's beyond comprehension. So you're travelling to all the other universes to interview different versions of me?"
"No, only to this one."
Brendan furrowed his brow as he tried to make sense of this. After several seconds of thought, he said, "I don't understand. If this universe has no influence on your universes, then nothing I do here should be of interest to you. It's only if what I do here is similar to what I do in other universes that it could possibly be important for you to know. But you're not travelling to the other universes, only to this one." He paused again and took a deep breath, but before he could ask another question, she answered it.
"We travel to this universe to observe you because it is unique; not because of what you do but because of what you don't do."
"What? What do I do in all the other universes that I don't do here?"
"In all of the other universes you are the most prolific serial killer in human history."
"What! No! I've never even hurt anyone! I could never kill someone!"
"That's why this universe is so interesting. It is nearly identical to universes where you rape, torture, and murder hundreds of people."
"Hundreds? How could it be possible for me to kill hundreds of people?"
"In most universes you start when you're 16 years old. By the time you're 17, you are killing someone approximately every two weeks. At least it averages out that way, but sometimes you kill several people all at once or go several weeks without killing anyone. In a few universes you don't start until you're in your early 20s, and in a very few others you're caught after about fifteen years. In most universes, however, you're never caught, you live a long life and die peacefully in your early 90s."
"That's impossible. A 90-year-old man couldn't kill someone every two weeks."
"Ah, yes that's true. You slow down when you're approximately 78 and only kill every three or four months after that. But you were in remarkably good condition for an old man, and were still able to kill right up until you died."
Brendan was silent. A person every two weeks would amount to 26 people per year. And if he was killing that many by the time he was 17 and continued until he was 78, that meant he killed 26 people per year ... for 61 years. That meant ...
She finished the thought for him. "In most universes you kill over 1,600 people."
"No. No. That wasn't me. I never killed anyone!"
"Of course you did."
"No I didn't! I'm not responsible for what other versions of me did in other universes! They're not me! Only I'm me!"
"But 'you' are not just who you are in this universe. 'You' are who you are in all universes. Your personal identity is not merely a matter of what you choose to do with the circumstances that are given to you -- the circumstances being outside of your control, after all. Your personal identity also involves what you would do in circumstances that you never experience. And when you are given a choice, you choose to wreak horror and evil on others. The fact that you were not presented with that choice in this universe does not change the fact that if you had been presented with it you would have made the same choice you made in all the other universes. It is who you are."
Brendan was crying now. "It's not who I am! I didn't do it! I didn't do any of it!"
"Yes you did."
Brendan buried his face in his hands, sobbing. After a few moments he looked up and said, "What is it? What is the choice I don't make here that I make everywhere else? What's different here?"
"We can't tell. It's something minor. We think at some point in your early teens you were interrupted from following a train of thought that you were able to follow everywhere else, or vice-versa. But really that's just an educated guess. There's nothing particularly special about this universe in terms of your background. In all the other universes you experienced pretty much the same things and chose to become the most evil human being who has ever lived."
"Wait, you said I'm almost never caught. Then how do you know it was me? Maybe it's a case of mistaken identity ..."
"You're only discovered centuries later when we develop the ability to travel in other universes. You are observed committing all of your crimes. It wasn't someone else. It's you."
"But how could I do the same thing in all the other universes? Aren't there an infinite number of possibilities, an infinite number of ways I could turn out?"
"That's a common misunderstanding. There are, we think, an infinite number of universes. There are all kinds of variables, but there are also all kinds of constants. For example, you live in this house and drive that truck in every single universe we've observed. Theoretically you could live anywhere, but as a simple matter of fact, you always end up here. Just because there are an infinite number of possibilities doesn't mean that you ever act on them."
"This, this just can't be. I can't even imagine killing someone. How could I be a murderer in all of these other universes but not here?"
"That's why we're studying you. Human beings have an innate repulsion to killing another person. What we've discovered is that while this repulsion is very strong, it is also, in another sense, extremely delicate. Touch it in just the right way under just the right circumstances and it pops like a balloon."
"So, wait, other people are like this? It's not just me?"
"Well, all people would choose to do evil under some circumstances. Perhaps they would have to be brainwashed or threatened. So for other people there are conditions -- sometimes extreme conditions, but not usually -- that, when actualized, cause them to choose evil, even great evil. But I'm not here to tell you about other people, I'm here to tell you about you. At any rate, your situation is not one of extreme conditions. In every other universe that you exist in, you choose to commit horrific atrocities over and over again."
Brendan lowered his head. He tried to think of something to ask, but everything that came to his mind sounded trite. Finally, he whispered, "Was there any ... purpose to it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Was I trying to rid the world of people I thought were evil? Was I trying to eradicate those who I thought were making the world worse?"
"Oh no. You varied your methods and the type of person you targeted constantly in order to prevent others from even realizing that there was any connection between your victims. That's why you're able to go undiscovered in your time. The closest thing to a constant is that you tend to pick helpless people, people who can't fight back."
"Oh God, no."
"When you felt free to just kill anyone, you almost always killed children ..."
"Stop."
"... and after you killed them, you cannibalized their bodies. You ate them."
"STOP!"
The woman cocked her head again as she looked at him. "I asked you if you were sure you wanted to know why we study you. If it makes you feel any better, the children you murdered aren't murdered in this universe. They grow up. Many of them become people who do wonderful things, they make the world a better place for everyone. In the other universes, they suffer and die horribly, but here they do not. Of course you can't take credit for their accomplishments, but perhaps it can give you some comfort."
Brendan was sitting on the floor. He didn't remember how he got there. He was numb with shock. He barely heard the woman tell him she was leaving, he barely noticed her disappearing. All he could think of was her words: "'You' are not just who you are in this universe. 'You' are who you are in all universes. Your personal identity is not merely a matter of what you choose to do with the circumstances that are given to you -- the circumstances being outside of your control, after all. Your personal identity also involves what you would do in circumstances that you never experience. And when you are given a choice, you choose to wreak horror and evil on others. The fact that you were not presented with that choice in this universe does not change the fact that if you had been presented with it you would have made the same choice you made in all the other universes. It is who you are."
He was alone in his house, but the spectres of all his other selves were there with him. They looked exactly the same as him, acted exactly the same as him. He wanted them to look different, to look empty, with dead eyes, as if they had been overpowered by something beyond their control; but they didn't. He looked around at these reflections of himself, these incarnations of evil that he could not deny were himself.
As he continued looking at his reflections, and as they stared back at him, he wondered Who am I? And then, as he opened his mouth to say it aloud, all his reflections said it with him:
"Who am I?"
And he knew the answer. Weeping once more, he lowered his head, beat his chest, and cried out in utter despair, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner."