What if...

I stood, perplexed, at a forked end.
A sign that read,"The end of the world as you know it."
"This is a dream come true!", I thought.
A land of What ifs was all I sought.

This end forked to hundreds of new paths,
With hope that my wish come true, I wandered into one.
Delving further, I began to understand
That every path was an alternate,
And this one happened to be
"What if Einstein didn't discover energy?"

Stood before me were the beautiful towns of Hiroshima Nagasaki,
And Chernobyl and the Three Mile island were intact and ever.
Beautiful children, beautiful places, almost as if it was meant to be.
But when I looked at the bigger picture, it all lost its meaning.

In the world I knew, Japan fought too well against COVID19
But in this world, Japan was powerless
And it's greatest strength, it's discipline
Ceased out of existence. It was a docile country,
Fragile like a flower, broken and enslaved under bigger powers.
Anime never existed, cartoons were never on the face of Earth,
Japan and everything good about it had completely vanished.

I turned my back to this scary world,
Which lacked the much needed consequences of a disaster,
To find my way back to someplace sensible,
And I ended up in ,"what if there was equality?"

Initially, it was great!
No one ever fought,
Everyone had everything,
No one was unhappy.
No dire need to beat each other,
To win the pointless fast paced race to nowhere.

But oh, the horror!
Everyone looked the same,
Dressed the same!
Walked the same,
Talked the same!
Nothing was better, nothing was worse,
Nelson Mendela lost his worth,
There were no sports 'cause winning would disrupt
The order of this distressing world.
There was no comparison,
Everyone was paid the same!
Nothing was beautiful, nothing was ugly!
No one was miserable, but no one would ever be happy.

Again, I fled, for I couldn't take it,
A world of equality was a world wasted.
And I tumbled into a world of
"What if plastic was never invented?"

Certainly, global crisis was averted!
The Earth was healthy and happy.
There was nature and everyone valued it,
And a million species that never existed,
We're saved from extinction.
And more were born, all so special,
What could possibly go wrong with this world?

But suddenly it struck me,
No internet, no phones,
no computers, and no WdC!
No preserved food, no shelf life,
No water resistant items,
It was as scary as it could be.

So I ran away again and reached the sign board,
Where I once stood wondering if I'd ever find my perfect world.
But this time I knew exactly which direction to turn,
So I turned away, and walked back to my real world,
For I realized that in spite of the innumerable What ifs,
I was too adapted to this dear world.
It was perfect just the way it was,
Because perfection's merely a perspective,
And it is up to us to change it,
For better or for worse.

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