coeval

\koh-EE-vul\

adjective

: of the same or equal age, antiquity, or duration

i want to talk a little bit more about the Twilight Zone because i think it's pretty amazing. the show deals on several occasions with the issue of parallel or alternate universes presently existing on a COEVAL plane as ours. the episode that comes to mind is called "Mirror Image," about a woman in a bus station who, after several odd happenings, runs into herself, her parallel identity from another universe. and so it goes.

i am currently taking a literature course in which we are looking at the very beginnings of science fiction, scientific and literary texts mostly from the 16th and 17th centuries, COEVAL (for lack of a better term) with the scientific revolution. these texts are an often dramatic response to a world turned upside down, robbed of common sense and ancient authority. people are just beginning to conceptualize the vastness of universe, the possibility of life on other planets, the reality of earth's smallness in the grander scheme.

i don't know if it has gotten any easier. three hundred or so years later, rod serling shows us over and over that these questions are more than relevant in a post-modern world. the tension almost seems to be building toward something. in science fiction "fear of the other" seems to have transcended into "fear of ourselves." perhaps we may discover that our COEVAL identities, our parallel universes, are right here inside our heads.

good morning, long shot.