Nothing but the Best

What if you could meet the person you might have become? Charles Mead has found a way. Through a device of his own invention, he slips between parallel worlds, each one branching from a different choice, a different turn, a different life. On the other side, he finds Chuck Mead - his counterpart, shaped by the roads not taken. The two men face each other across the divide of possibility. They both loved the same woman, Estelle, but arrived at her through different lives. As they trade stories of marriages, careers, and the small surrenders that accumulate into a life, each man begins to wonder: is the other happier? This is Cogan's quiet, probing 1950s take on the multiverse - less about flashy science and more about the ache of wondering whether we settled. The novella builds toward a conclusion that feels almost radical for its era: not a dramatic escape to a better world, but a tentative peace with the one you already have. For anyone who has ever lain in bed thinking "what if I had chosen differently?" - this is your story.