Every object I touch unfolds like the tail of a peacock, a pamphlet of clones Siamese-linked through the air. Superimposed in space and burning where they overlap, the paradox-pressure of copresence rattling atoms; if I prolong my touch, they will ignite, and for moments I will wield an arc of discrete flames. I have experimented: an apple becomes six apples, red and vibrating, then one again when I drop it, bruised at the edges where it abutted its twins. A girl whose cheek I stroke becomes twelve girls, standing in a semi-circle, dark eyes blinking in confusion and pain, until I let go. Also bruised, possibly internally damaged. I cannot duplicate myself.
The power is focused by intent, and by examination; it requires gaze and manipulation. I do not think I belong to this universe; I have no memories of my origins, and I feel the air hissing away form me, repelled by my presence. I feel disjointed. Unmoored in this body and perhaps this mind, reacting against physics or reacted against by it.
I want to press my palm against the moon, and see the Earth half-circled by an arc of silver globes. Subsequently crumbling, crescent edges dissolved to ash; I want the withdrawal of my attention written across space, consequence incarnate in the sky as a ruined sphere. Am I powerful? I can make gods, arms duplicated, grant Shiva's spidery reach on an incandescent hinge. Short-lived creations, sustained for an instant by a flicker of my interest, just long enough for their minds to diverge, dying as I return them to their damaged source.
I play matter like an accordion; all things are springs, containing within them the energy of an unrealized manifold. Not one child, but ten. Not one book, not one church. Not one world; instead, the multiplication of possibilities, each object a dimension in the ever-expanding matrix. And yet, one self: I stand here, rigid, a stone above water. Everything that nature loves has multiplicity, and my wholeness is empty, the burden of a fixed point rejected by the orbiting cosmos.