Missy had been wearing Leibniz’s hat for quite some time.
She had found it several stops ago, which in Elsewhere could mean yesterday, seventeen years ago, or slightly before breakfast.
It was much too large.
This had not stopped her.
If anything, the fact that it kept falling over her eyes had made her more determined to wear it.
Leibniz had noticed the hat immediately.
He had been polite enough not to mention it.
Missy had been waiting for him to mention it.
Eventually, she could bear his restraint no longer.
She touched the brim.
“So.”
Leibniz poured more tea.
“So?”
“Your hat.”
“My hat.”
“I’ve been wearing it.”
“I can see that.”
“For quite a while.”
“So it would appear.”
Missy narrowed her eyes.
“And now you’re here.”
Leibniz looked at her over his teacup.
Missy leaned forward.
“Was wearing your hat a sufficient reason for you to arrive in Elsewhere?”
There was a pause.
A very Leibnizian pause.
“No.”
Missy looked disappointed.
“But,” he added, “it may have been part of the reason.”
She brightened.
“How much?”
“That would require considerably more information.”
“Of course it would.”
She pushed the hat back before it swallowed her eyebrows again.
Leibniz watched her.
“Why did you put it on?”
“I liked it.”
“Why?”
“It was there.”
“That is not sufficient.”
“It was sufficient for me.”
Leibniz sighed.
This was going to be a long conversation.
He poured more tea.
“There must be a sufficient reason for everything.”
Missy stopped.
“For everything?”
“For every fact, there must be a reason why it is so and not otherwise.”
This was the Principle of Sufficient Reason, one of the great pillars of Leibniz’s philosophy.
Nothing simply was.
Why this universe?
Why these laws?
Why this event rather than another?
Why this hat?
Why Missy?
Why Leibniz?
Why Elsewhere?
Push the question far enough and eventually one arrives at Leibniz’s enormous question:
Why is there something rather than nothing?
Missy became quiet.
Outside, a train passed without stopping.
She watched its illuminated windows disappear into the distance.
“Maybe nothing is difficult to maintain,” she said.
Leibniz looked at her.
“Perhaps the universe tried nothing first.”
He waited.
“It got bored.”
“That is not a sufficient reason.”
“It is a reason.”
“A poor one.”
“Poor reasons have caused quite a lot of history.”
Leibniz could not immediately object to this.
Missy smiled beneath his hat.
“Maybe that’s why I’m wearing this.”
“Why?”
“To understand your philosophy.”
“You are wearing it sideways.”
“I didn’t say how.”
Then he explained possible worlds.
Reality did not have to be exactly this way.
There were innumerable possible arrangements of existence, different sequences of events, different choices, different histories.
Things that never happened here might have happened elsewhere.
A letter could have been sent.
A train could have been missed.
Someone could have stayed.
Someone could have left.
A sentence spoken too late in one world might have arrived exactly on time in another.
Leibniz believed God comprehended all possible worlds and actualized the best possible one.
Missy slowly put down her cup.
“The best?”
“The best of all possible worlds.”
She looked around.
The porter had finally caught the suitcase.
Unfortunately, it was not his suitcase.
Somewhere down the platform, somebody screamed.
A bird flew into the waiting room and stole a biscuit.
Missy looked back at Leibniz.
“This one?”
“Yes.”
“Have you traveled much?”
Leibniz sighed.
Missy considered the possible worlds.
“Is there another world where I’m not wearing your hat?”
“Presumably.”
She looked genuinely troubled.
“Terrible place.”
“That is not what I meant by the best possible world.”
“I should hope not.”
She adjusted the hat again.
“In another possible world, are you wearing it?”
“Almost certainly.”
“Then perhaps we’ve simply exchanged worlds.”
Leibniz stared at her.
Book of Moments Reading Path
Read Before: Chapter Three: Leibniz, Passenger of Elsewhere
Read After: Chapter Five: Nothing, Something, Everything
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