The Boy in My Pocket

A very young boy is playing on the lawn.

In his pocket he has the universe.

This he had picked up a little while before.

Intrigued, he had a look at it. It was flimsy yet coherent. It had almost no substance and almost no weight. It was cold, very cold. Yet inside its blackness there were the faintest glittering of light.

“Was it reflecting this light or did the light come from inside it?” the boy wondered in a naive yet lucid small boy kind of way. It is an intelligent young boy.

Perplexed, he had put it in his pocket. It was something, that at the end of the day, he would show to his father, when he came home.

This boy is playing on the lawn. He is surrounded by his home, and trees, and the town that he lives in. Above him the sky shines bright blue. It is a sunny day.

Beyond the sky lies the universe – immeasurably vast, black and cold. It is flimsy yet coherent.

The universe is in the pocket of a very young boy, playing on the lawn.

This he had picked up a little while before.

Intrigued, he had a look at it. It was flimsy yet coherent. It had almost no substance and almost no weight. It was cold, very cold. Yet inside its blackness there were the faintest glittering of light.

Inside this universe, in the boy’s pocket, immeasurably small, there is a boy is playing on the lawn. He is surrounded by his home, and trees, and the town that he lives in. Above him the sky shines bright blue. It is a sunny day.

How many boys are there? Playing on the lawn?

A very young boy is playing on the lawn.

In his pocket he has the universe.

There is a young boy playing on the lawn. Immeasurably larger, millions of billions of trillions times larger, there is another young boy playing on the lawn.

How many boys are there?

Apart from the incalculable difference in scale, all these boys are identical in appearance. They look the same; they think exactly the same things at the same moment. The lawns that they are playing on look the same. The trees, their homes, and the sky they see; all look the same. Every molecule in each boy, every atom, every proton and electron are identical. It is all the same? Is it all sane?

A young boy plays on the lawn.

In his pocket he has the universe.

On a planet, revolving around a star in this universe there is a young boy playing on the lawn.

He wondered about the universe that he has in his pocket.

“Was it reflecting this light or did the light come from inside it?” the boy wondered in a naive yet lucid small boy kind of way. It is an intelligent young boy.

Apart from the incalculable difference in scale, these boys are identical in appearance.

The young boy has the universe in his pocket.

How many boys are there?

Apart from the incalculable difference in scale, there is only one boy.

Every molecule in each boy, every atom, every proton and electron are identical, in spite of the cosmic differences in scale. Therefore there can only be one boy.

There is no mystery about this, no contradiction.

There are in fact only two questions that concern us.

Why is this boy playing on the lawn?

Why is the universe in his pocket, and not everywhere as it is supposed to be?