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Alex pushes the old wooden door open to enter the building.
It’s a beautiful place with a park featuring twisted mystically looking paths that invite to explore them, loads of trees and flowers of all colours, as well as a pond. The sun shining brightly above everything. But however beautiful the place might be, Alex doesn’t know how he ended up here.
The thing he does know though, is that whatever brought him here is urging him to enter the only building in sight, a huge, old villa. The building has white walls with the large windows and huge door painted in a pastel purple-blue. The roof is relatively flat and of a grey colour.
Upon stepping over the threshold, it becomes evident to Alex that this isn’t just any random house. It is a library, filled from the wooden floor to the high ceilings with books. Despite the library being the most beautiful he’s ever seen - wooden shelves instead of metal racks, bright natural lighting instead of artificial lamps, reading nooks in front of the floor to ceiling windows, plants spread throughout the many rooms – Alex can’t help but notice the oddness of it all.
Instead of books of any genre you could think of, in all colours of the rainbow and every size imaginable, he only seems to see the same book over and over, no matter at which shelve he looks. Yes, some appear to have more pages than others, - even significantly so – but in the end they’re all the same. All having a pastel blue - bordering on purple – cover, with shades just slightly differing from section to section. All featuring shiny silver embellishments on the spine. All being the same hight.
Alex walks through different rooms of the library for a bit, noticing how the books’ colour turns gradually darker the farther he gets, but not really understanding why he’s here. He stops in front of a shelve, ready to randomly pick one of the books up, being fed up with just looking at them and not understanding what is going on. Taking a closer look at the book he’s seen hundreds of versions of in his few minutes of being here seems like the right solution. But just as his hand reaches out, a voice suddenly appears from behind him. Despite the voice being calm and oddly familiar, it startles Alex, and he turns around quickly. He somehow didn’t expect anybody else would be here.
It’s an old man who’s talking to him, at least eighty years old, if not even older, but body still holding up quite well. He’s slightly smaller than Alex, but not by much, and his hair is completely white. Once again, Alex has to notice an odd sense of familiarity, but can’t quite place it.
“What can I help you with?” The man repeats his question, not being bothered by Alex’s shocked reaction.
“I – What is this place? Where am I?” Alex asks in return.
The man however, doesn’t answer, he just turns around and walks back towards where Alex thinks the entrance was, he’s already lost his orientation in the endless rows of bookshelves. At a lack of better options, Alex follows him.
The stranger only slows down his steps when they reach the first set of shelves in the library, not continuing to walk away from Alex, but instead going up a ladder. He picks up a book that appears to be the very first at the top left corner of the shelve before coming back down and showing it to Alex.
Unlike the other books, this one isn’t coloured, it’s just plain white. Alex notices how it looks pretty much untouched. No marks of usage at all. (Not that any of the other books he looked at without touching them had some, it’s just that it stands out more if it’s right in front of you.)
“This book, Alex, is the book that tells the story of your life. It started being written the moment you were born and features all moments that had an effect on you and your later life.” He hands the book to Alex, who hasn’t really processed what is going on yet, but still looks at it in complete awe, holding it gently and lightly tracing the patterns and words on its cover with his fingers.
Alex is just about to ask a question, when the man – is he the librarian? – starts moving again, once again leading Alex through the rooms of the library.
“All these other books, they started each time when you made an important decision and tell the story of how your life would’ve went if you had decided the opposite of what you actually ended up deciding.” In telling him this the librarian – Alex has just decided he’ll name him that now – waves at the books around them. It completely changes Alex’s perception of them. They’re now no longer odd items, but instead create the urging feeling in Alex that he needs to touch and read all of them to find out more. He reaches out to brush his fingers over the other books in passing, but the librarian stops him from doing so without even bothering to look to Alex walking behind him. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
The comment does what it aims to do, Alex guesses, as he’s now scared of reaching out again, he just doesn’t know why.
“So, as I was saying, all of these other books start at the point that you made another decision, and go to the current moment, so this library features thousands of versions of a 24-year-old you. The differences in colour are for every year of your life, that’s why the first one is white, your personality hadn’t begun to form yet, so it wasn’t pick a colour for your books accordingly.”
They move into the next room, the colour of the books turns a sliver darker and now that Alex knows why, he’s even more inclined to touch the books, instead he wraps his arms tightly around the white book – the story of his life, he thinks – not wanting to risk whatever he’d be risking.
“Why am I even here?” Alex asks when the librarian stays silent for a moment. He kind of gets the essence of this place by now, but why he’s here and why he can only touch one book is still a riddle to him.
“Nobody really knows why people come to their library. But everybody does once in their life-time, they just don’t remember. Most of the time it appears something they regret or think about a lot that leads people here, but not always.” Now, the old man has turned around to him, they’re standing between rows of shelves filled with books, sunlight streaming in through the window at the end of the corridor.
“Okay, but what am I supposed to do now? If everybody comes here, there must be something more than just looking at thousands of books from afar, right?”
“Yes, indeed. At their library, everybody gets the chance to reverse one decision.” Alex already has an idea what he’d like to reverse when he hears these words. He’s been thinking back to this moment ever since it happened, wondering how different everything would’ve been if only he made a different decision. “The book that tells the exact story of your life that I just gave you, is there as a sort of guidance. You can flip through, find which decision you’d like to reverse, if you haven’t gotten an idea already. Then, when you’ve decided, I’ll give you the according book you have chosen and you get to read it, get a feeling for what life would be like if you’d change that decision. In the end, you’ll walk out of this library with one book. Either the one you’re holding right now, or the one that belongs to the changed decision. The book you’ll take with you will be your life from then on. You won’t remember your different life before if you decide to change. Only a distant memory of a value you learned here might stay.”
“And why is it that I can only touch one book?” Alex finally gets to ask this question after what feels like ages already.
“The new world needs to be set up, if you want to call it that, while you’re deciding. If you touch multiple books or even try to take them out of here, you’d get stuck in between worlds because they’re either not ready, or the so-called system would be overwhelmed.” That makes surprisingly much sense, in the context of this already weird place at least.
“I’ll leave you alone now to give you time to look through the book a bit. I’ll be back when you’ve made the decision on which other book you’d like to have a look at.” The librarian leaves immediately after saying that. Alex only nods shortly, already too excited over the idea of finally opening one of the books and reading his story. He knows he’s already experienced it all, but still expects it to be interesting to read about it from a different perspective and remember things that have already slipped to the back of his mind.
Alex picks a window seat right in one of the corners of the building that looks out over the beautifully bright forest of the park, to sit down on. Opening the book feels magical, like Alex is entering a whole new world this way, even though he has experienced everything that’s described in the book already. The pages feel fresh under his fingers.
He flips through the first stages of the book randomly. Smiling at stories of days spent outside in the woods with his siblings, building forts and running around, and others of his time karting. He’d like to turn back to this time, but obviously that isn’t possible. No matter what he changes, he’ll end up being 24-year-old Alex in every of those possible worlds.
When he gets to the time when he basically took care of his younger siblings on his own, a sad expression shows up on his face for a moment. That really was a hard time. But in the end, they made it through it and now have one of the strongest family bonds imaginable.
Alex then gets to his F1 time, the part of his life that he probably remembers the best, and it doesn’t take long until he flips open the page about the moment he immediately thought he’d like to reverse.
The first race in Austria in 2020.
Yeah, he thinks, that will be what I’ll try and change. He still doesn’t stop flipping pages yet though, smiling brightly when he reaches the best moment of 2020. His first kiss with George. The beginning stages of their relationship and also just having George in his life in general are probably what got him through this year.
He really does love George.
It’s when Alex has finished reading about all his favourite moments with George this year, that the librarian reappears in front of Alex.
“Tell me, which choice would you like to see the consequences of changing it off?” He demands to know with a knowing smile on his face. Of course he knows already. He seems to know everything in this place.
“The first race of the 2020 season when I made that move on Lewis and subsequently lost a podium.” It couldn’t be any other moment because this, it’s what all the bad times in 2020 seem to come back to. Alex has sometimes found himself sitting in random hotel rooms after yet another not so great race and asking himself ‘what if’ questions.
What if he’d not made the move on Lewis? Would he have won the race?
What if he’d won the race? Would he have been more confident and have gotten better results?
What if his results following that first race would have been better? Would the team have supported him more?
Alex could continue on with those questions for hours. One leading to the next and then making him think that it’s with that one move that he’s destroyed all his career.
“Come on then,” the librarian says, already turning back around and walking away from Alex. He follows the man quickly trough more rooms full of books and then up some beautiful old stairs until they seem to be in the attic of the building. This attic isn’t really a typical attic. The ceiling, or in this case the roof, is still at the height of what would be a normal house’s ceiling height and the walls are just slightly leaning into the room as this building has a roof with four slightly tilted sides, connected by a flat space in the middle of the building, rather than only having two strongly tilted sides as a roof. A notable difference is that it’s darker here than in other parts of the library since there are less windows, but everything else, the shelves, the books, the vibe, that’s still the same.
“This is the last floor of this library, which features all of the books starting with choices you made at 24 years old.” The librarian says while already pushing over a small ladder to one of the shelves that’s perfectly build into the inside of the roof.
“And this,” he takes out one book towards the top of the shelve “is the book you were looking for.” He holds it out towards Alex to take it into his hands, who obediently follows and gently places the new book on top of the book that tells the story of his life.
Is this really going to happen now?
Is this really the moment in which he could change the rest of his future, and some of his past as well?
“I will leave you alone again to make your decision. We will meet again before you leave.” And with that, Alex is alone again with a huge decision before him.
He takes the two books to a huge, comfy looking armchair and settles in there. This will probably take a while because if he should change his life, he wants to be 100% certain it’s the right decision.
Just like when he opened the first book, opening this one fells magical. This time however not accompanied by familiarity, but with anxious expectation at the back of his head.
Alex slowly starts reading.
.
The race has just restarted and it’s ten laps to go. Lewis is driving in front of me and I think about overtaking him in the next corner. If I get past him soon enough, I might even win this race. A weird feeling in the back of my head is telling me to not do the overtake now, and I trust it. Back out of the move around the outside in the last second.
I instantly question if it was the right decision. I need to be aggressive and make moves if I want to win, I know that. My team seems to think the same, sending me the radio message to ‘keep pushing’ and ‘get that position’. But I push those thoughts to the back of my head. If I want to get any higher in the standings , focus is the way to go.
My chance to overtake Lewis comes the next round when he gets a bad exit out of turn three and I get ahead of him on the following straight. I can’t believe my luck that Lewis made a mistake at just the right moment for me to be able to pounce on it. And excitement rushes trough my veins. Now it’s only Bottas ahead of me, 0.8 seconds as my engineer tells me.
I’m catching quickly on him though and by lap 67, it’s me who’s in the lead. There’s a broad grin on my face, hidden behind my visor and excitement is rushing trough my blood. I am about to win this race.
“Stay focused Alex, then we’ll win this.” My engineer tells me, and I try to follow his instructions by just pretending it’s another win in karts. Great, but nothing too special anymore. It’s maybe a weird state of mind to be in as you’re driving your first laps in the lead of a Formula One GP, but it helps me to keep my head down until I cross the finish line of the last lap of this race.
The team is at the pit wall, accompanying me over the line with jubilant screams and congratulatory waves, while my engineer is screaming into my ears.
“You did it, Alex! You won your first race! Congrats!” It’s in that moment, when I start my cool down lap and feel the happiness of the team vibrate through the air, that I let it sink in.
I have just won my first F1 race.
Just like that.
In the first race of my second season in F1.
I can’t help some happy tears rolling down my face when I express my happiness and gratitude over the radio.
.
Reading this makes Alex feel the happiness he – the him in a parallel universe, this is getting confusing – must’ve felt in this moment. He quickly turns the pages to read about the podium celebrations.
.
I’m standing on the top of a F1 podium. Admittedly, this isn’t the most beautiful podium, but still , i t feels incredibly awesome. I can sense that so many people around me are happy for me. And oh how happy I am. I’d dreamed of winning a F1 race since being a little kid . A nd now it’s actually happened. And while this race was really crazy, I wouldn’t say my win was solely due to that. I could’ve made it without all the chaos behind me, at least onto the podium.
The podium ceremony ends and I jump off the step to spray Lewis and Valtteri as well as my team with champagne. Standing here next to Lewis and Valtteri is another thing. I did overtake them. The driver that’s on the verge of breaking all records and the driver that tries to challenge him directly every week, and sometimes succeeds. Not the worst people to have on a podium with you.
.
The happiness continues on the next pages. And it makes Alex feel content and kind of sad at the same time. Even if he decides to live this reality, he’ll never be able to actually experience these moments described in the book.
He skips ahead in the book, wanting to focus on how this decision would change his F1 season in 2020, rather than fixating on that one moment starting everything. He stumbles upon some races, which at first glance don’t seem to be too bad, but is so anxious to find out the result of his whole season to stop there. What halts Alex in his search for a post season interview that recaps everything – or something of that sort – is that he stumbles upon the words ‘contract negotiation’ in a section of the book that belongs to some point in September. He needs to know the outcome of that. It might well be a good hint of how his 2020 season is going.
.
I’m kind of scared when I enter the office with Christian and Helmut in it for this year’s contract negotiations. What if my results still weren’t good enough? I tell myself off immediately. For starters, I need to look confident. And they also didn’t critique my performances once. I did good. Easily sitting fourth in the standings right now. Besides, who’d they want to put into my seat? There isn’t really anyone fitting that position in the junior ranks.
“Hello Alex, sit down.” Helmut says in his typically cold tone of voice and I follow instantaneously, sitting stiffly on a chair opposite both of them. Letting Helmut talk about my season, the good and the not so good things. Christian cuts him short after some time.
“Don’t look so worried Alex, we have every intention of renewing your contract for the next season.” I let out a relived sigh at that, letting my body relax for a moment, but then take up a straighter position again . Now I only need to negotiated the details of my contract with them and it’ll be done
.
While reading this part, Alex notices himself following some of the postures of book Alex, he can only smile at that and is glad that book Alex got to sign a contract so soon, and even at all. He wishes he could say the same about himself. Being reserve driver isn’t really a great prospect.
After another few minutes of flicking trough pages Alex finally finds what he was looking for, an introspect on book Alex’s 2020 season.
.
After the last race of the season is done, I just drop down on my bed when finally getting back to my hotel room . I feel pretty much dead, it was an exhausting season. So many races crammed into such a short time span, and travelling certainly doesn’t get more relaxing with a world-wide pandemic around. I was constantly scared of catching Covid or not being allowed to attend races due to travel restrictions all the time.
But while my 2020 season was exhausting, and there definitely were difficult moments in which I doubted my talent, it also was really great.
At the beginning of the year, I’d feared that I might end up like Pierre, not being able to perform next to Max and then out of RedBull faster than I could blink, but it had somehow worked out for me . Of course I didn’t outperform Max, but I got so much closer to him. Qualifying within 0.2 seconds of him most of the time and even starting ahead of Max in Tuscany and Bahrain. It ’d felt so awesome to beat someone that’s praised as one of the best of our generation on pure pace and in the same car, I hope to get more of that next year.
And well, the races weren’t too bad either, starting with my first win in the first race of the season. Given, it was my only win up to date and I’m still due to stand on a proper podium, not the thing they stood up on the grid in Austria , but Max also only got two wins, so I really can’t complain that much. And I did get loads of podiums and P4s, so that’s that.
Finishing P4 in the driver’s championship was expected of me after everybody realised that this years Ferrari was shit, but doing so still feels great. I actually feel quite confident for being able to replicate that next season, in a season that doesn’t look much more relaxing than this year’s, but will hopefully give me the opportunity for even more good results, and even more support from the teams in my weaker areas. One thing I especially want to replicate is winning. I miss that winning feeling.
.
Reading this kind of makes Alex feel relieved because that reality there, it’s what he had hoped for. More confidence. Being closer to Max. Getting more support from the team. Better results. His career in that book sounds pretty perfect. Evidently not entirely perfect, that would be winning the championship, but this there, it’s realistically perfect. What he’d always dreamed of having this year when he went back to his room after yet another shitty race weekend.
In those moments when Alex hit his lowest, George would always be by his side, either in the room with him or over the phone, and it would make Alex feel better, but never took away the feeling of wanting more, wanting to be better. Especially after the 2020 season ended, it got harder, because while Alex has pretty much lost his chance of driving in a top team in F1 ever again – if he’ll even get back into F1 – everybody is talking about how George will be driving for Mercedes in 2022, at the latest.
Don’t get him wrong, Alex thinks George deserves all this. He’s such a great person and also so talented, but he still feels jealous of how great everything is going for his boyfriend from time to time.
Speaking of his boyfriend, Alex hasn’t read anything about him in this book which frankly, doesn’t make any sense, they’ve been together for – oh wait, does this mean that in changing his career for the better, Alex wouldn’t get together with George?
That wouldn’t be so great because while the changes in career would easily convince Alex to switch realities, not being with George would make that decision harder.
He flips trough the book again, this time paying more attention to the details, not only focusing on the bits about his career. And it turns out that it is true, in this reality Alex and George don’t get together, Alex doesn’t even realise his feelings for the other. And, even more shockingly, he doesn’t even seem to be spending loads of time with any of his friends anymore, focusing every part of himself on racing instead. It seems like book Alex has pushed all of them, and George at the forefront of that, away from him.
.
My phone pings with a new message right after arriving at my hotel room on Thursday.
‘Do you have time to talk?’ The message from George reads. And I’d love to say yes, but I can’t. Distractions on race weekends aren’t good. I gave in a few weeks ago and met with George on a Thursday and subsequentially, my race weekend was shit. Therefore I just can’t take the risk of it happening again. I need to perform at my best.
‘Nah, I need to go to bed early.’ I answer. I feel kind of bad for not talking to George, or any of my other friends, over the last weeks, and not reaching out myself when I do have time, but the results have proven me right.
George doesn’t respond to my message , and except for congratulatory messages after podiums George sends my way, that’s the last message in our chat for months to follow.
Maybe it’s better like this . This way, I don’t even get tempted to get distracted before a race weekend.
.
Alex’s stomach turns at reading this section. He just can’t understand the coldness that book Alex expresses towards his friends. The people that’ve always been there for him. Is this really what success would do to him?
After just reading about how his career would change, Alex had felt confident in deciding to switch into that reality. It had just all sounded so wonderful. 100% great.
But now, seeing how he would not only not be together with George anymore – which probably would’ve been enough already – but would also push all his other friends out of his life completely, that doesn’t sound like a good idea anymore.
Maybe his career would be good, but his social life would be horrible in return. Alex doesn’t think he could live like that for long. His friends have always been there to support him, in that reality they wouldn’t be anymore, although Alex would definitely need them and miss them sooner or later. RedBull is unpredictable and success is in no way guaranteed to him just because he had one good season. Not to speak about the far away future when Alex wouldn’t be in F1, or racing, anymore.
No.
As much as winning and getting podiums sounded and felt good.
Everything else doesn’t-
Alex couldn’t willingly live like that. No matter how much he loves being in F1.
Alex’s just about to get up out of his armchair and leave the building with the white book, when he hears steps coming up to the attic. And sure enough, just moments later the librarian appears next to him.
“And, what have you decided?” He asks Alex with a knowing smile.
“I’m going back to where I came from, I couldn’t leave my boyfriend and my friends aside just for some temporary success.”
“Mhm,” he gets in response “then put the other book down here, I’ll put it away once you’ve left.” Alex does as he’s told and then they’re going back down trough the library. He takes it all in, the beauty that lays in lies in the possibilities of all these books, even if he’ll never live them, the gorgeous view trough the sunlit windows, when a question comes to his mind.
“What will happen to this place once I leave?”
Unlike on their way up, the librarian is now not walking ahead, but next to Alex, he throws him a short look before answering.
“It will be closed and not added to with more works, just preserved in this stage, as you’ll not return here in your lifetime. But I’ll make sure that the place stays as beautiful as it is, so you can return when your time has come.” Alex hums in response, he doesn’t even know what he expected as a response, but he’s certainly not unhappy with this one. It would be a shame if the place would just be left to itself and not cared for.
They arrive on the ground floor and Alex is just about to walk towards the door and leave it with the white book tightly clutched in his hand, when the librarian, who has dropped back a bit, calls out to him. Alex turns around to listen closely to him.
“Alex, love is a beautiful and important thing. Make sure to always keep that in mind and to keep your loved ones close.”
“I will.” And with those words, Alex steps out of the library and back into his normal life. It isn’t perfect and there will still be struggles, but at least he is certain that he has love on his side.