But then there was a girl. We'll skip the discussion of the hole that formed in his heart, and how his automatons could never fill it; there is no reason to try and count the countless sheets scabbed over with mind-bending maths Professor Morgenstern's mathematical mind compiled to try and solve the riddle of love. The specifics are not important. The riddle solved itself without equations, the hole in his heart, though still present, knew what it wanted. There was a girl.
Cliche dictates that here will follow Professor Morgenstern's clumsy attempts to woo the lady with his dorky charms, but nothing of the sort happened. They clicked along fabulously, Professor Morgenstern and the girl. He wanted her, and she wanted him. But that's not to say there weren't problems to solve.
"Morgenstern," she said one day. "The world is against us. I am moving to a different city, and we cannot be together."
Professor Morgenstern needed only the time one needs to snap his fingers - what with the Time Machine he had - to build a set of spider-legs onto his science lab and crawl it to a block down from her new house.
"Morgenstern," she said another day. "My mother does not approve of you, and so we cannot be together."
Undaunted, Professor Morgenstern built a curious teleportation machine which let him be with his beloved whenever either of them so desired. It was quiet and subtle, and her mother never found out. At first, Professor Morgenstern wanted to erase her mother's mind and make her think it was alright for them to be together, but the girl was rather against the idea.
"Morgenstern," she said once they rode into Professor Morgenstern's palace and stood alone in his beautifully decorated bed-chamber. "Morgenstern, I've made a mistake. I don't love you."
Professor Morgenstern became gravely inconvenienced at this turn of events. His fist, an object of a sufficient mass, travelled towards the girl at a sufficient speed. The shield reduced the girl to an unfortunate smear on the wall. The force of the explosion boiled the remains into the soft rugs hanging there.
Once again, we'll skip his inevitable realization of this horrific mistake. Professor Morgenstern always had a solution. Nothing is impossible, he said to himself as he stepped into his Time Machine.
"Morgenstern, I've made a mistake," she said, again and again and again and again. "I don't love you. I don't love you. I don't love you."
There was no favourable configuration of time-streams. There was no right sequence of events. There was no answer, but on he tried. "I don't love you." He tried and tried, but he grew weary. On whichever alternate timeline, on whatever attempt, he gave up and left her but a bloody mark in his bed-chamber.
"It's not right to say 'there was no answer'," Professor Morgenstern would correct me here. "The answer simply did not lay in the time-streams."
So he built cloning-machines. He made empty vessels of the girl, which he invaded and carnally explored. And it was good, but only for a while. So then he made an exact copy of the girl, but he made her in such a way so that she would worship him. It was good for a little longer this time. On his next attempt he made an exact replica of her, but manipulated her mind ever so subtly, just enough so that she loved him. And yet, this was still only a different person wearing the shell of his girl's body. He loved the real her, and the real her did not love him back.
For the first time in his life, Professor Morgenstern really did have no answer. So Professor Morgenstern forced a smile at the ever-gazing sun, tore off the shield-device from his arm, and leaped off his tallest tower to his death.
And in a slightly different universe, a slightly different Professor Morgenstern took a slightly different route. He waited patiently in line for Starbucks. He yelled profanity at the reckless driver, but wasted no time because he was yet to build his time machine. Just the same, though, disaster struck: "I don't love you," she said. He was still gravely inconvenienced, but he did not draw his arm for a strike. Instead, he wrote some whiny poetry, cried a bit in the corner.
Then he found another girl.
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