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The Midnight Library

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Matt Haig
Matt Haig

Matt Haig is a British novelist born in 1975. His works are known for their humor and profound emotional insight, enjoying great popularity among readers. Haig's writing spans a variety of genres, including science fiction, fantasy, and realism. more

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“I have met others like us,' Hugo said. 'You see, I have been in the in-between state for a long time. I have encountered a few other sliders. That's what I call them. Us. We are sliders. We have a root life in which we are lying somewhere, unconscious, suspended between life and death, and then we arrive in a place. And it is always something different. A library, a video store, an art gallery, a casino, a restaurant...What does that tell you?' Nora shrugged. And thought. Listening to the hum of the central heating. 'That it's all bullshit? That none of this is real?' 'No. Because the template is always the same. For instance: there is always someone else there — a guide. Only ever one person. They are always someone who has helped the person at a significant time in their life. The setting is always somewhere with emotional significance. And there is usually talk of root lives or branches.”

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“And there is always an infinite range of choices,' Hugo went on. 'An infinite number of video tapes, or books, or paintings, or meals...Now, I am a scientist. And I have lived many scientific lives. In my original root life, I have a degree in Biology. I have also, in another life, been a Nobel Prize-winning chemist. I have been a marine biologist trying to protect the Great Barrier Reef. But my weakness was always physics. At first I had no idea of how to find out what was happening to me. Until I met a woman in one life who was going through what we are going through, and in her root life she was a quantum physicist. Professor Dominique Bisset at Montpellier University. She explained it all to me. The many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics.”

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“Hugo held up a finger. A slightly annoying, wait-a-minute kind of finger. Nora resisted a strong urge to grab it and twist it. 'Erwin Schrödinger...' 'He of the cat.' 'Yes. The cat guy. He said that in quantum physics every alternative possibility happens simultaneously. All at once. In the same place. Quantum superposition. The cat in the box is both alive and dead. You could open the box and see that it was alive or dead, that's how it goes, but in one sense, even after the box is open, the cat is still both alive and dead.”

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“Every universe exists over every other universe. Like a million pictures on tracing paper, all with slight variations within the same frame. The many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics suggests there are an infinite number of divergent parallel universe. Every moment of your life you enter a new universe. With every decision you make. And traditionally it was thought that there could be no communication or transference between those worlds, even though they happen in the same space, even though they happen literally millimetres away from us. 'But what about us? We're doing that.' 'Exactly. I am here but I also know I am not here. I am also lying in a hospital in Paris, having an aneurysm. And I am also skydiving in Arizona. And travelling around southern India. And tasting wine in Lyon, and lying on a yacht off the Côte d'Azur.”

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“Science tells us that the "grey zone" between life and death is a mysterious place. There is a singular point at which we are not one thing or another. Or rather we are both. Alive and dead. And in that moment between the two binaries, sometimes, just sometimes, we turn ourselves into a Schrödinger's cat who may not only be alive or dead but may be every quantum possibility that exists in line with the universal wave function, including the possibility where we are chatting in a communal kitchen in Longyearbyen at one in the morning...”

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“It's crazy to think that there are other people who could be...what did you call us?' 'Sliders?' 'Yep. That.' 'Well, it's possible of course, but I think we're rare. One thing I've noticed is that the other people I've met — the dozen or so — have all been around our age. All thirties or forties or fifties. One was twenty-nine, en fait. All have had a deep desire to have done things differently. They had regrets. Some contemplated that they may be better off dead but also had a desire to live as another version of themselves.”

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