Carlos & the Bridge Between Worlds

How I beat the odds at a poker game and won a prize that defies imagination.

Luck comes and goes in streaks, defying the odds. Cardsharps focus more on the players than the math. The power to read minds and transform outcomes is every gambler’s dream.

Opposite me sits Carlos, a pink-faced, overweight, gray-haired late entry. He looks exhausted, as if he’s gotten everything he’s ever wanted in life — and then some.

“Where you from?” I ask, the chair creaking beneath his bulk as he cashes in, not bothering to count his chips. “Argentina,” he says with a sing-song, Italian-Spanish accent.

None of us have ever seen him before. Sucker or hustler? Anyone’s bet.

Hours later we still don’t know, even as the best players have dropped out. His style is erratic and unpredictable, detached yet effective. Nothing seems to faze Carlos as the stacks rise and fall around him.

Eventually only the two of us are left. The time has come to make my move.

I’m on the button and dealt King-Jack, suited. Carlos bets and I call. The three shared cards are 7–10-Queen — all spades — giving me a King-high flush on the flop with a straight flush draw.

I try to read his inscrutable face, then do the math. Carlos stares at me, raises an eyebrow. He bets. I raise. He calls. Coming up on fourth street is the Queen of Hearts. Carlos’ sleepy eyes are now wide awake.

“What is your wish, Jorge?” My name is George, I let it slide. He bets big.

An Ace of Spades in pocket could draw to a higher flush, but that same card on fifth street would give me the nut, an unlikely but unbeatable Royal Flush. I sense he has something strong, but not that Ace — and I already have the King-high flush…

“I’m all in,” I say, pushing my chips into the pot.

“I call,” Carlos says without hesitation.

We compare our chip stacks, mine nearly double in value. “Let me make it worth your while,” he says, removing a small silk pouch from his jacket, “and mine.” He places it next to his stacks and leans back.

A spontaneous buy-in like that breaks the tournament rules, but we’re at end game and the dealer nods, leaving it up to me.

“What’s that?” I ask. “You mind?”

Carlos nods. “Help yourself.”

His fuzzy little purple bag has unrecognizable symbols embroidered into it and is velvety-sheen to the touch. I untie the gold felt string.

Reaching inside, I feel a marble-sized, perfectly round sphere, so slippery smooth that my fingers slide right off it. Unable to get a grip, I wrap my interlocking fingers around and under the frictionless thing to nestle it out.

Warm to the touch and light as a feather to the point it feels massless, I turn it over and open my palm to get a good look: Imagine an eyeball with no whites, only a jet black pupil with rainbow-ringed iris. The center hosts the deepest most impenetrable darkness I’ve ever seen, while the slowly rotating concentric circles of color from bright indigo and blue out to orange and deep red scintillate and are almost blindingly bright.

The effect is hypnotic. How can such a thing absorb all that energy while releasing so much warmth and light? I can’t stop gazing into it. I feel dizzy and thrilled, afraid this mysterious sphere will slip out of my hands, roll off the table, and vanish forever.

That triggers the ravenous desire to possess whatever this artifact is, so I instinctively visualize the one and only card left in the deck that will get me there…

Time slows down and speeds up as the room becomes claustrophobically tiny and breathtakingly large. Past, present, and future collapse into an eternal yet simultaneous now, and I’m everywhere and nowhere at once.

The vertigo is nearly overwhelming as I hear Carlos break the spell from the other side of the galaxy and right across the table. “I bought it at a street fair in Buenos Aires,” he taunts as I snap out of it and drop the hot crazy black rainbow marble back into its pouch.

Nobody else at the table seems to have noticed or cared what just happened, as if it never actually did. “Very rare. Do you like it?”

“OK,” I say. “Sudden death, winner takes all. Bring it!”

Both of us all-in, we show our hands before the fifth shared river card is revealed. Carlos has pocket Queens that give him Four-of-a-Kind and several gasps from the gawking players. I show my Jack-King suited, and Carlos winks. He’s the mathematical favorite as things get even more interesting. Only a straight flush will beat him.

All eyes turn to the board. The deciding hand of the night will now be decided as the dealer flips the last card:

It’s the Ace of Spades.

Everyone stares transfixed by my Royal Flush. Rare enough to excite even a roomful of veteran gamblers and jaded cynics, the ultimate poker hand draws an enthusiastic response.

“Vegas action!”

“Quads bow to the nut flush.”

“Haven’t seen one of those in a while.”

“When a gargantuan raise hits an unstoppable hand!”

“If I played that hand a million times I’d play it that same way.”

“Just the kind of bad beat I’d want to be beaten by.”

“Classy way to end a tournament.”

“Somebody take a picture.”

“What were the odds?”

“Congratulations!” says Carlos, rubbing his hands. He slides his chip stack and little silk pouch over to me, as if relieved of an immense burden. “I could never have let all this go without you having taken it away from me.”

The losing players are already blasting me with their usual blend of admiration and contempt reserved for each night’s winner — except Carlos. He looks ten years younger and ten pounds lighter.

I’ve never seen a happier loser.

I cash out my chips, slip the bills and silk pouch into my pocket, and turn to go. I impulsively look back at Carlos, who’s immersed in conversation with several stragglers. I feel compelled to ask him a question, but don’t know or can’t remember what. I’ve had deja vu before but never this intense.

Carlos nods at me, raises a glass, and mouths “Cheers.”

Why does he seem so close yet so far away?

The probability of getting a Royal Flush in Texas Hold ’em poker is about one in thirty-one thousand, an event akin to winning the lottery. The unbeatable “nuts,” a hand like that bestows a feeling of invincibility.

Usually after owning such a tournament I get full of myself, my reckless and irresponsible lifestyle instantly redeemed by a thick wallet and contempt for everyone I’ve beaten. That lasts for about as long as my bankroll starts to shrink again and I have to claw my way back to the tables, yet another round of thrills and spills.

I’m addicted to the non-stop adrenaline highs and devastating lows, the lonely and self-indulgent lifestyle, and could never imagine living my life any differently.

But tonight I squint through the Uber windows at neighborhood Manhattan streets that pass by as if I see them for the first time. Nothing has changed yet everything seems different. Despite being tonight’s champion my victory rings hollow, as if I didn’t have anything to do with it.

My biggest win of the season, and I feel like a loser.

Back home I make myself a drink hoping to feel better, stand on my fortieth story balcony for some fresh air and view of the night sky and city, then go inside and count my bills. I won about five thousand dollars, mostly in twenties, and arrange them in five stacks of fifty on a side table.

Despite my take, the win is still unsatisfying. My attention is pulled back to Carlos’ little purple silk pouch. In principle I don’t play for non-cash bets and don’t like to bend the rules, but as you saw earlier things got weird. I’ve never experienced anything like that strange object, and suddenly find myself eager to experience it again.

I hesitate as I pull on the gold felt string. What the actual hell happened tonight? I’ve won some bizarre trinkets in my day, usually pawn shop garbage tossed into pots by losers after their money ran out. But this exotic orb, gem, or Argentinian whatever is different.

I’m convinced it has some real value that I’m only beginning to understand and figure out how to use. I can’t resist the feeling that it somehow changed the game we played. I know, that sounds crazy. Carlos wanted me to win it. And having held it I somehow helped make it so.

The black rainbow marble is again in my open palm, and its hypnotic energy transfixes all of my attention. When I first held it I had wanted it, and now I have it — so what am I going to do with it now?

I stare into the inky blackness at dead center, let myself plummet inside. The colors swirl around it and through us as my squinting eyes wander to the stacks of twenties on the table, and I reflexively wish for them to be stacks of hundreds…

The floor of my apartment suddenly seems to collapse while my mind rockets into space. Is my body infinitely stretched or has the universe shrunk to my usual height? I’ve just traveled an inconceivably vast distance but gone nowhere, and it took me forever but I got there instantly.

The whiplash disorients me as the full spectrum of bright light blazes into my retinas and my palm heats up and starts to burn. The pain jars me back from this bizarre reverie and I drop the scorching orb or gem or whatever the hell it is back into the pouch and tie it quickly shut.

The illumination instantly returns to normal but my eyes take at least a minute or so to adjust.

I sit there exhausted and exhilarated. Yet again I have the feeling that my everyday surroundings are eerily transformed, that small differences are enormous and enormous ones inconsequential.

Everything has changed but nothing has. I double-check to see if I’ve missed anything. All is here as I left it and have come back to it from who knows where?

Nothing has happened — except I notice that the twenties are now hundreds.

Seriously? Yes, on the top bill Andrew Jackson has been swapped with Ben Franklin. I grab a whole stack and shuffle through it, Ben all the way to the bottom. WTF? How is this possible? Am I drugged?

If I’m awake and the evening actually happened then this black rainbow marble thing is some sort of Aladdin’s Lamp or Wishbringer Stone. Think a thought or make a wish while holding it and your desire is made manifest: Ace of Spades, twenties into hundreds, water into wine.

But what’s the catch? Isn’t there always a catch?

Bang, bang, bang! What the? Bang, bang, bang!

“Open up, Jorge!” shouts a harsh male voice from the other side of my front door. “We know you’re in there and have no place left to go.” Bang, bang, bang! “Open up and pay up!”

Jorge? My name is George last I checked, and these aren’t my hundred dollar bills.

I leap to my feet and shout back. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“He’s standing in the living room!” shouts another, equally unexpected and strange female voice from behind my closed bedroom door. “He’s got the money and guns — and I’ve got all the drugs!”

Before my brains have time to process my muscles instinctively react and drop the little pouch back into my pocket.

“He’s a maniac!” the voice from the bedroom screams. “Kill him!”

She says I have the money, check, got it — so where are the guns?

No time to look as the front door bursts open with a deafening crash and flying splinters. Two enormous armed men lunge at me.

I instinctively grab the stacks of hundreds and leap onto the balcony, slamming the sliding glass door shut behind.

They rush toward the glass and shatter it with the butt of their weapons. I leap to the far end of the balcony, dodge the shards, then lean against the railing holding the bills at arms length over the side.

“Stop right there!” I yell. “Or I’ll drop them.”

“Go ahead,” the bedroom voice shouts, now originating from arguably one of the most lovely and furious young women I’ve ever seen, standing and pointing from behind the two behemoths. “Didn’t I tell you that this would happen? When will you finally listen to me?”

Trying to regain my sanity, I turn away from the home invaders and gaze out over the cityscape. Maybe if I stop looking at these people they’ll cease to exist? Aside from them and the apartment they’ve just shattered, everything else seems as I left it before palming the magic marble and turning the twenties into hundreds.

How did I summon these crazy people, too? Oh, and what’s up with “Jorge”? Last I checked my name was George, or… All roads keep leading back to that strange orb and Carlos the card player who called me Jorge when I won it forever and five minutes ago. Seriously, what the hell is going on?

“Five seconds and we shoot,” shouts one of the goons. “Five, four, three, two…” counts down his partner.

I do some quick math: If I toss the money over the balcony they have no reason not to shoot me, because the bills will fall over the edge and be lost. And if I don’t toss the money over the balcony they still have no reason not to shoot me, because if they shoot me the bills will fall to the floor and be theirs. So me being alive or dead has no logical connection to them getting their money or not, and therefore they’re probably better off just getting it over with and shooting me.

“Don’t shoot him!” shouts the lovely furious young woman.

“Why not?” asks one of the lunks, apparently smarter than he looks.

“That’s a good question,” she smirks. “Maybe because I still like him.”

I wanted to ask her “Do I know you?” but then thought better of it given the circumstances.

“Give us the money back, Baby,” she pleads. “And they’ll go.”

Us the money back? They’ll go? Whose side is she on, anyway, and how do I know her?

Having calculated that it makes the most sense for them to shoot me regardless of outcome, I acquiesce. Lifting both hands above my head, I walk toward them waving the bills.

The smaller of the two enormous goons grabs the stacks out of my hands while the larger of the two enormous goons grabs me by the feet and throws me over the balcony railing, still holding on.

My head smacks the side of the building, nearly knocking me out. Upside down the blood rushes to my head, the cityscape inverted and bobbing around me.

“What are you doing?” asks the lovely furious young woman.

“I’m not shooting him,” responds the smart lunk.

“That’s true,” she agrees. “But maybe if we…”

They have the money and presumably the guns now, and she’s got the drugs. So as a reminder killing me probably makes the most sense, which explains why the large one still holding my feet lets them go.

Falling forty flights isn’t nearly far enough to hit terminal velocity, so as I instantly accelerate I come to the realization that hitting the ground will be my next and final chance for regaining some stability in my life.

Since that’s far from ideal, I panic, then carefully remove the little purple silk pouch from my pants pocket from which it thankfully hasn’t fallen out of yet.

My velocity increasing in direct proportion to my panic, I reach inside and wrap my fingers around the Wishbringer. With the wind violently blowing in my face and the ground approaching rapidly my mind blanks for a moment, and all I can think about is asking Carlos the card player for an explanation, maybe some sort of a “How To” guide…

Time slows down and speeds up as my plummet down the side of the building becomes heart-stoppingly short and breathtakingly long. Past, present, and future collapse into an eternal yet simultaneous now, and I’m everywhere and nowhere at once.

The vertigo is nearly overwhelming as I hear Carlos break the spell from the other side of the galaxy and right across the table where I first met him.

“Congratulations!” he says, rubbing his hands after my win. He slides his chip stack and little silk pouch over to me, as if relieved of an immense burden. “I could never have let all this go without you having taken it away from me.”

The losing players are again blasting me with their usual blend of admiration and contempt reserved for each night’s winner — except Carlos. He looks ten years younger and ten pounds lighter.

I’ve never seen a happier loser.

Now I know why. Or at least beginning to have an idea.

I cash out my chips, slip the bills and silk pouch into my pocket, and turn to go. I impulsively look back at Carlos, who’s immersed in conversation with several stragglers. I feel compelled to ask him a question, and this time know exactly what. I’ve had deja vu before but never, ever this intense.

Carlos nods at me, raises a glass, and mouths “Cheers.”

So I wander slowly back and sit down next to him. He makes more chit-chat with the others but eventually turns to me, raising an eyebrow, nodding, leaning in close, his voice subdued.

“How did you enjoy your test drive?” he asks.

“How did you know I took one?” I say, surprised.

“You have the look of a man who survived his own death.”

“Indeed I do,” I say, feeling better that I haven’t gone insane, but now insanely curious as to what this man knows and has experienced.

I lean closer and look him in his watery eyes. “Carlos.”

“Yes?”

“Tell me: What the hell is going on?”

“Promise me you will keep it, or at least keep me free of it,” he insists. “I am through with it. Basta! Enough!”

“I promise. Tell me… How does it grant my wishes?”

Carlos leans back, takes a sip of his drink. The other card players have wandered off to lick their wounds. The two of us huddle close, speaking barely above whispers.

“I call it El Puente, The Bridge, but every keeper gives it their own name. It does not grant wishes.”

“But when I hold it and imagine something, that thing that I imagine becomes real!”

“No, it doesn’t become real. That thing that you imagine was, is, and always will be real,” says Carlos without a hint of sarcasm. “El Puente is literally a bridge to another world where whatever you imagine is already physically manifest.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Which description of Reality is easier to comprehend?” asks Carlos. “A Reality that has boundaries, or a Reality that doesn’t have boundaries?”

I’m just a compulsive gambler, so feel I owe this philosophical question some thought. “Well, if Reality is supposed to be Everything, then it’s actually easier to describe it without boundaries.”

“Good,” Carlos nods, squinting at me.

“Because if Reality actually had boundaries,” I continue, “then something would have to be on the other side of that boundary, and then Reality wouldn’t contain Everything, right?”

“Exactly so,” says Carlos, taking another sip. “In other words, wrapping your head around infinity is difficult, but describing all of existence as being finite is even more difficult, if not impossible.”

“That’s great,” I say, getting impatient. “But what does this have to do with The Bridge, or as I’ve come to call it, the dark rainbow marble?”

Carlos winces, probably hating my name for it. “Have you ever asked yourself, why is the Universe the way it is? Why is it this way, and not another?”

“God?” I respond instantly, without even thinking.

“God is an excuse, is a boundary!” Carlos snaps back. “For God to have created the Universe, the Universe must be distinct from God, something separate, yet another boundary. And what could possibly be outside the boundary that is God, if God is truly omniscient and omnipresent?”

“Fair enough. But you were telling me about The Bridge…”

“So we must avoid an easy but unsatisfying explanation, and forget about God. And if we try to describe the creation, evolution, and death of a Universe without God, we must then conclude that Reality never begins and never ends, and an infinite number of Universes must exist.”

“Wait a second,” I say, “that’s quite a leap you took there…”

“How could there be just one Universe? And why would it be this one, and not another?”

“Uh, sure. Go on…”

“Recognizing that we live in one of an infinite number of Universes also helps explain why in this particular Universe the physical laws and constants somehow enable matter and energy, space and time to arrange themselves into beings like us, capable of having this conversation.”

“And how is that?”

“By accepting that an infinite number of Universes exist, with infinitely varied physical laws and constants. Since every combination is not only possible but expressed, our Universe is not only necessary, but inevitable.”

I think about the Ace of Spades, the stacks of hundreds, and woman whom I must have known but never met…

“We exist not because our existence demands this kind of Universe,” Carlos exclaims loudly and defiantly, turning a few heads across the room. “But because an infinite number of Universes demands that we exist.”

“OK,” I shoosh him back down, gesturing my own version of basta. “Let’s say I somehow understand and buy all that. Then how does my imagination become reality when I hold the dark marble?”

“El Puente doesn’t grant you your wish, it instead literally takes your consciousness to one of those infinitely many other Universes where your wish happens to be real.”

“Wait a second,” I push back, some of this starting to sink in. “Are you telling me that I’ve physically left the Universe where I lived my whole life and first met you, and am now in some other, similar but completely distinct other Universe?”

“Yes. And your test drive was through several other Universes where each of your wishes were a part of their own reality.”

I must make a face, because he makes a face at my face. “How is this even possible?”

“Instead, ask how is this not possible?”

Carlos slowly raises his bulk and stands, leans against my shoulder, and whispers in my ear. “What is time? Where is space? Everything that has happened is happening and will happen, in every conceivable way, and all at once.”

He looks me squarely in the eyes. “That means that everything is possible and everything is real, and you, dear sir, are now both blessed and damned by being dealt a naked singularity in the palm of your hand that can actually make it all so.”

Carlos stands and I leap up to follow, still confused.

“Buenas noches!”

As I watch Carlos put on his hat and trudge out of the room, I reach into my pocket and touch the velvety-sheen of the little purple silk pouch. Inside is the ultimate genie’s lamp, a hot rod of space and time. It has exhausted Carlos and will likely wipe me out, too.

But until then I will have much to learn and even more to experience. I still don’t know what it can do and I’ve already dealt with some of its frightening effects and unintended consequences, but I’m already living the story that lies ahead, full of infinite possibilities realized one Universe at a time…

I remove the dark rainbow marble, Carlos’ Puente which is now my ticket to ride, and gaze deeply into its vastness. I ask myself: Who is that lovely furious young woman and how do we know each other?

Then I imagine us being together again…