"Humanity is just getting over our obsession with skin color. Pardon me if, at a visceral level, horns and crab claws are a bridge too far," he snorts. "It doesn't help that he bursts into flame just to make a point."

He runs a hand through his hair and glances down at the collection of multiversal newspapers. "So, Schrodinger's cat can be dead and alive in parallel timelines? Or maybe ... maybe ... there's a divergent chain of events where I didn't say racist shit, had a better chance of making a good impression, and I took you out for drinks?"

It was inevitable that it would loop back to pickup lines. There's probably a law of physics to describe that.