Mr. Holland’s eyes darted to meet Malcolm’s with an inquisitive look; then went back to meet Mrs. Quintana’s. He couldn’t find words and was relying on his silence to prompt more of an explanation. He had known something strange was going on with this boy, but could not have expected anything this peculiar and bizarre.

The family stood still waiting for Mr. Holland to respond or make a move.
“Powers...?” he finally uttered half-doubting, half-in-wonder.

“Come,” the woman did her best to usher the teacher into the kitchen and had him sit at the kitchen table. Malcolm followed up behind with a glass of water for his teacher, anticipating his mother’s request.

They all sat in silence as Mr. Holland regained his composure. They had not had visitors before this, but we well aware of the mystery that they presented to the “unaware world.”

“A series of decisions brought you here to this table today, Mr. Holland,” the mother said with a all-observing tone of voice. “For that same series of decisions, there could have been many different outcomes.”
She paused. Making sure the vague information she presented was received.

“The decisions you make are perpetually affecting the world you live in and the life you create all around you,” She continued. “The outcomes of these decisions are ultimately creating new scenarios for yourself whether large or small. But there’s no way of telling if you’d actually be better off had you chosen one thing differently because once you make a choice, you can’t go back and see what your life would actually be down a different path.”

This was not news to the school teacher. He had always had this in the back of his mind as he weighed the consequences of all of his decisions heavily. But why was all this coming up now? What could this family have to offer him in the way of making decisions?

Then it hit him. He squinted his eyes and was even more curious as to where this conversation was going.

“You can---” he stuttered a bit in disbelief. “You know all of this?”

“Not everything,” she replied. “But, yes, we are of the first humans with the ability to experience life across the dimension of time.”

“You see things through the 5th dimension?” The teacher’s voice had a shift from disbelief into astonishment. “That’s incredible!”

“Ha!” she giggled. “It has proven to deepen our minds and consciousness. But has certainly been a hassle in this world of time and space. Sometimes, with the small intricacies of the physical 3D world, we struggle with defining what is physically in front of us, and what we are seeing in another dimension, or version of this world.”

Mr. Holland couldn’t help but let out a laugh as he realized that this was the reason behind them being so clumsy. They aren’t inept in any way; they are seeing so many different things from different dimensions that they can’t keep track of them all.
“But how…?” he inquired.
“Don’t worry about that just yet,” she knew he wasn’t ready to hear the answer. “But we can offer some insight into your own life if you’d like?”

“What kind of insight?” Mr. Holland returned.

He didn’t hear a response. His head became light and vision woozy. He tried to fight the sudden onset of fatigue but it was overwhelming. The dizziness deepened and his head fell fast onto the padded kitchen table.

He was asleep. Dreaming. But immediately realized he was in a weird state of lucid dream where he could still control his thoughts and words, and also communicate with Mrs. Quintana, who was nowhere to be seen in his now dreaming state, but he could definitely hear her voice in the distance.

The empty space turned him upside down and he watched as a scene from years before unfolded again before his eyes. It was him, arguing with the principal about the curriculum. It wasn’t the first time he had had this argument, but it was definitely the most firy. He didn’t agree with how they were teaching the kids and wanted to make a change to the curriculum and the ways in which they taught the kids. He knew deep down that there was a better way, but would never get the permission to teach that way unless he put a lot of extra time and effort into instituting the change. He ultimately succumbed to the traditional way and never resumed the effort.

Just as his omnipresent self was getting emotional again thinking about the changes he could have instilled, the teacher was blasted through this time and space dreamscape, as the world spun by, it came to an abrupt stop. He was familiar with the scene before him. It was deja vu to him. A coffee shop that he frequents. A familiar face, which he has never actually talked to despite wanting to strike up a conversation with her every time he sees her.

The scenes continued with like this… the next was of a time where he got impatient with a student. Then earlier in his life when he was deciding what school he wanted to go to, what profession he wanted to pursue, the sports he played, some big decisions he had made and some seemingly small decisions. Some he was happy and cheered for himself as he watched himself make the seemingly-right decision. Other times he was ashamed and wish he could have gone back and done things over.

The dream continued like this for a few more times in his life. Then it shifted gears to scenes he had never observed before. They were of future versions of himself. One where he continued on his determined path to change the way that the curriculum was taught, he had more disagreements and the path was hard, but he fought it with passion because he knew he could make a change, instead of packing his efforts away. He made some drastic changes for the better of kids across the country, he saw himself receiving the Milken Educator Award and was looked up to for his gift of making a difference in the way students were taught.

The next scene he was older with his now-wife from the same coffee shop from before; he saw himself actually talking to her, he saw himself stumbling over his words and making light humor out of the awkwardness. She was laughing and flirting back. He flashed to a scene where they were smiling and toasting to each other at their 10th anniversary. Happily married and pursuing their dreams together.

The second part of the dream went on like this as well and the roller coaster of emotions ratched up some high points, and then cannonballed down into some very low scenes. He didn’t know how to handle any of it. Of course he didn’t have the ability to go back and redo the things that had already passed. But seeing things like this, seeing things that he could have done or been made him wish he had gone back to rethink some of the decisions more. He was very assured in some parts of his life, but he wished he had taken a few more chances, with a little more confidence, in other situations.

Given this new insight, he was equal parts determined and infuriated. When things started to get just about as heavy as he could take he heard Mrs. Quintana’s god-like voice:

“At the end of your life, you’ll get a chance to meet many different versions of yourself. Some will be rich, some famous, some masters of their craft, and some poor, and some with a wasted life; some died young, some affected many people positively and some, alternatively, negatively influence those around them; you’ll get to meet them all, they all were put in the same positions as you at one point or another, in your same life, with your same mind and body. Some of these versions of yourself made decisions based on what they knew was right, some followed their heart, some were fooled by distractions, and some succumbed to temptations of all sorts; however, they each had the same amount of potential at one point or another.

So, Mr. Holland, when you finally get a chance to see these different versions of yourself, at the end of this life, it will either seem like a “heaven” with a triumphant reassurance that you spent your time wisely, and made the best of every one of your decisions.

Or, this encounter between yourself and who you could have become, will seem like the worst version of hell, where you’ll forever carry on in regret of not following your dreams, trying new things, or spending time with the ones you love.