Saving Myself
My alternate universe self got laid a lot more than I did. But at night, in the dream space where the barriers separating the realities were less fixed, I caught glimpses of his sexcapades. Every night he slept with a different partner- some beautiful, some plain, some fat, some thin. I grew concerned. Who were these women that he brought home night after night? What about disease?
I had to help him. I read in a comic book that it was possible to run fast enough to alter your vibration so as to be in tune with the frequency of an alternate universe.
I went to the gym. I hopped on a treadmill. I ran as fast as I could. I wanted to stop but I knew that I was the only hope for the alternate me. I ran until I was so exhausted that I slipped and fell. I blacked out.
When I woke on the gym floor, a woman wearing gym shorts and leg warmers was helping me. She smelled good. She was nice.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
I said I was. I thanked her. I realized that I was probably in their alternate universe now. I realized that she was probably one of the women that my alternate self would take to bed. I decided to play along. I decided to act like my alternate self. I was more confident. I didn't talk as much.
“Yes,” I said. “Thanks to you. What is your name?”
“Rose.”
“That's beautiful.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Rose, can I take you to dinner?”
“I have a boyfriend.”
“He's a lucky man, Rose-- I hope he treats you like a queen. Because that's how I would treat you, Rose.”
“You're bleeding,” she said.
She was right. I had hit my head. Rose took me to the emergency room but didn't wait around with me for the doctor. Already I felt a new lightness knowing that things were different here. And I had saved myself from a potentially dangerous sex encounter with this gym woman; exotic name or not, a lot of nasty germs live in gymnasiums.
As I was checking out, I discovered that this alternate reality took my insurance card. I got a cab. They took my money too! And when I stumbled up to the alternate reality apartment, I was surprised to find my key worked in that door’s lock.
Once inside the apartment of the alternate me, I cautiously entered, expecting my doppleganger to be there. But the apartment was empty and I collapsed in my double’s bed, exhausted. I dreamed. I had a shocking realization that woke me immediately. Sitting straight up in bed, I shook with wild comprehension.
It was all too clear: my double had sensed my trespass into his sphere and had simultaneously entered into my world—his alternate universe. And while there he sought to usurp my place.