I think many people know or have at least heard about the famous philosophical paradox - Schrödinger's cat. Essentially, this thought experiment allows for the existence of parallel Universes (remember, Schrödinger's cat is both alive and dead at the same time - until the observer opens the box). That is, both probabilities are equal and can exist simultaneously. Effinger based his story on the fact that several parallel worlds exist simultaneously. So, the beginning of the 20th century, and before us is the story of the Muslim girl Yehan Fatima Ashufi. When she was 12 years old, she began to have strange visions, and the most terrible of them was the following: one early morning in one of the deserted alleys she would be raped by an unknown teenager. And we see several equivalent options for the future of Yehan Fatima. Which one is real? Yes, they are all equally real...