“I still don't know why he picked you.”
My mother's voice echoed in my head as I navigated the hills and turns leading to my apartment. I kept an anxious ear out for any sign of distress from the baby – my brother's baby – in the backseat, but she sounded like she was sleeping. I tried to sneak a glance using the rear view mirror, but couldn't see, so I craned my neck around my seat. Irritatingly, I had chosen to seat her directly behind me – something I need to learn not to do – so I couldn't see. I craned my neck a bit farther, and caught a glimpse of the infant happily sleeping. I turned around to face the road again, just in time to watch myself veer into the opposite lane. Jesus. I wrenched the wheel around and drove back into the proper lane. This was going to take some getting used to.
My brother and his wife had died two months ago in a skydiving accident. Since both he and his wife were in the military, he'd left instructions as to what would happen to his property if he died unexpectedly. His monetary assets were split evenly among his parents and siblings, his property was given to his parents, and any children he might have went to me. Yeah, me, his kid brother, just a few years out of college. As my mother had wondered, why had he chosen me? We hadn't been very close while he was still at home, and we'd only grown more distant once he went to the academy.
It was a shock to everybody when I had been named as the guardian of any children he might have. Most had assumed it would be one of the grandparents, but instead it was me. There wasn't any reason why I couldn't take Elizabeth, so the executor of the will had decided it would be best to honor his request, odd as it was. So, here I was, on the last leg of my trip back home with a new responsibility that I wasn't fully sure I was ready for.
I took a deep breath as I flicked my turn signal on and drove into the apartment complexes parking lot. I parked my car, got out, didn't lock the keys inside, and removed the still sleeping baby from her car seat. I held her against my shoulder with my left arm, and got inside without incident. I closed the door gently behind me, and walked through the short hall into the main room of the apartment I shared with my two roommates.
Jim, an engineer I'd roomed with at school, was sitting on the couch watching football. Angie, the punk rocker girl who had answered our ad for a roommate, was at the counter baking something. She looked up when I came in, and broke out in a grin. “Hey,” she said too loudly. “How's she doing.”
“She's asleep,” I admonished, smiling at Angie's exuberance despite myself. One of the teams on the television scored a touchdown and roars filled the room, pumped through Jim's sound system. She started to fuss in my arms. “Well, she was,” I said, rolling my eyes.
Angie stopped halfway across the room and put her hands on her hips. “You're just going to take that?”
I blinked. “Take what?”
She pointed at Jim. “He's not even paying attention, probably didn't even notice you come in. You're not going to tell him to shut the game off and come say hi to our new roommate?”
I shrugged. “Why? He can say hi after the game, and it's his right to be able to watch it on the TV.”
She rolled her eyes. “Good thing there's a woman in this house, no use leaving you guys alone with an innocent child.” She walked over to him and thumped his shoulder, hard. “Hey, you! Turn that game down, Eric just got back and the baby's sleeping.”
“Too late,” I said, bouncing her in a likely futile attempt to keep her from crying. Jim muted the TV and turned around.
“Oh, I didn't even see you come in!”
“What did I tell you?” Angie interjected.
He ignored her and walked around the couch. “Can I hold her?”
“Don't drop her,” I said protectively.
“I won't,” he said, feigning hurt. “What do you take me for?”
“A clumsy oaf,” Angie muttered to herself, grinning, as I passed over the baby. She couldn't contain herself. “Aww, she's so cute. Just look at that cute little nose, those tiny fingers, her lit-ack!” Those tiny little fingers had just grabbed Angie's decidedly not cute little nose, and Elizabeth giggled at the resultant noise.
“Hey look,” Jim said, laughing. “She loves you already.”
Angie extracted her nose, and rolled her eyes at Jim. “The kid's got spunk, I'll give her that. Though she has to start directing that at the system, not at her friends. Damn, ow.” She rubbed her nose, and walked away back to her baking.
“What are you cooking?” I asked.
“Chocolate cake,” she responded. “It'll be done in a few hours.”
“Chocolate cake?” Jim said excitedly, passing Elizabeth back to me. “I want chocolate cake!”
“I said in a few hours,” she said forcefully. “It needs to cook, cool, and get iced first. I said no!” She grabbed a wooden spoon and bopped him on the head. “Get away! No cake for you!”
I laughed at my friend's mock battle, and walked into my bedroom. A crib had been set up for Elizabeth, but I set her down on my bed instead, sitting down beside her. I looked at her, then around the room. Maybe this could work. It wouldn't be easy, and I'd have to change my career plans to something in-home since I don't have a girlfriend, but it was doable. We could do it together.
SS: Parallel Reasoning
It was a summer day just like any other. London, gripped in a late-summer heatwave, baked while its inhabitants went about their daily business. On leave from Oxford for the season, I sat in my usual spot on the stone bench, trying to see past reality.
I know that sounds funny, but let me try to explain. There's the plane of reality that we normally see, and that we exist on. All of our daily actions interact with this plane, and our five main senses observe it. Most people will only see this plane. Some will get glimpses of other planes – or dimensions, if you prefer – during waking existence, but most will never see the other realms that exist behind and around our own except in dreams.
Lucid dreaming – being able to recognize and control your own dreams – has long been practiced, but perfection has yet to be obtained. I believe that if I can induce a dream state in myself at midday, while I'm conscious, I will be able to project my consciousness into this parallel dream reality. That is, if the cops don't toss me in the looney bin before I make it.
Speaking of asylums, another aspect of reality that I've been thinking long and hard about is it's power to drive someone mad. Perhaps people aren't born mad, or predestined to go down that path, but they become so due to witnessing something they shouldn't. If you think about it, our entire existence is based on the assumption that our perception of the world accurately describes reality. But, if that assumption is false, everything you've built your life around will turn out to be a lie. Quite shocking, I'd imagine.
So, there's a chance I'll be driven mad, I'll accept that risk. I've spent the past three years of my life studying the philosophy and religion of the world, and I believe this is the secret to enlightenment. Maybe going the whole way isn't the best thing to do, but if I can just get a glimpse of the worlds behind the metaphorical curtain, that will be enough.
I was trying something new. Before, I'd been trying a variety of mental and chemical methods to put myself in a dream-like state, with no success. Today, the process I was trying involved looking through the world. In theory, it was similar to the 3-D picture tricks that are printed on postcards for children to play with. You know, the ones where you see only a psychadelic picture no matter how hard you look at it, but then you finally manage to look through it, and the picture snaps into your head. I hypothesized that the dream state was like that, where as you were sleeping you mentally snapped into the other world.
So, that was what I was doing that day. Sitting here on the hard stone bench, staring at the fountain in the middle of the square. I must have been a sight, sitting stone still, notebook in my lap to scribble my notes in, intently crossing and uncrossing my eyes all while staring at the center of the square. The hot sun beat down on me; I was beginning to regret wearing long pants and long sleeves today. It was shaping up to be another useless theory I'd had, I would have to go back to my room and formulate a new method.
As I bent my head to retrieve my bag from under the bench, I saw a flash of white out of the corner of my eye. I jerked my head up, and saw nothing. Cursing under my breath, I bent my head down again, concentrated, and slowly looked up again.
There was a caped figure walking across the opposite side of the square, hood pulled down so that their gender was indeterminate. They definitely hadn't been there before. I yanked my bag out from under the seat, slung it over my shoulder, and began to follow it.
They quickly left the square, and walked down the street. I wondered briefly if they could be dangerous, but thrust that notion aside quickly. Had any of the great men of the past stopped to wonder if the majestic event they were witnessing could be harmful? Of course not. I went down four streets – heading out of the nicer areas of town – then followed the person as they turned into a narrow alleyway. We emerged into a narrow street lined with old housing.
They walked up the stairs to a front door, and fumbled under their cloak for something, presumably their key. Realizing my only chance to make contact was draining away alarmingly quickly, I took a few hurried steps closer.
“Hey!” I said, perhaps too loudly, for they spun around abruptly with a cry.
The key narrowly missed me, landing a few feet away on the street. I bent down, picked it up, and offered it to the woman on the stairs – for it was definitely a woman, or more of a girl, now that I looked closer.
“Who are you?” she said. “What are you doing here?”
I blinked. I hadn't quite thought this part through. What do you say to the denizens of the alternate reality you've entered? 'Greetings, I come from Earth! Take me to your leader?' Only in bad science fiction stories. I guess I waited too long, because she snatched the key from my hand and ran back to the door.
As she fumbled with it in the lock, I tried again. “Wait,” I said. “I don't want to hurt you! I just want to understand-”
I was cut off by the door being opened from the inside. “Carol, what's going on? You look so flustered.”
With a squeak, the girl pushed past the woman standing in the doorway and dissapeared into the house. As she looked out to see what had caused the alarm, she inhaled sharply. “Who are you?” she demanded.
“Uh,” I said. “See, I'm just trying...I'm a student, at the university, I study philosophy and religion. It was an idea I had, to see what was...you know,” I babbled, off-put by the woman's demand.
She sighed, and walked out into the light. I could only stare. Her clothing was ordinary – a skirt and a blouse – but she had wings like an angel. She walked to an arm length away from me, then extended a single finger and touched me between the eyes. “You're dreaming,” she said smoothly. “It's a hot day, and you fell asleep, and dreamed. You should go home and drink some water.”
The day shimmered, and I must have blacked out. When I came to, I was laying on an unfamilar street, with the sun beating down on me. I should go home and get some water.
I know that sounds funny, but let me try to explain. There's the plane of reality that we normally see, and that we exist on. All of our daily actions interact with this plane, and our five main senses observe it. Most people will only see this plane. Some will get glimpses of other planes – or dimensions, if you prefer – during waking existence, but most will never see the other realms that exist behind and around our own except in dreams.
Lucid dreaming – being able to recognize and control your own dreams – has long been practiced, but perfection has yet to be obtained. I believe that if I can induce a dream state in myself at midday, while I'm conscious, I will be able to project my consciousness into this parallel dream reality. That is, if the cops don't toss me in the looney bin before I make it.
Speaking of asylums, another aspect of reality that I've been thinking long and hard about is it's power to drive someone mad. Perhaps people aren't born mad, or predestined to go down that path, but they become so due to witnessing something they shouldn't. If you think about it, our entire existence is based on the assumption that our perception of the world accurately describes reality. But, if that assumption is false, everything you've built your life around will turn out to be a lie. Quite shocking, I'd imagine.
So, there's a chance I'll be driven mad, I'll accept that risk. I've spent the past three years of my life studying the philosophy and religion of the world, and I believe this is the secret to enlightenment. Maybe going the whole way isn't the best thing to do, but if I can just get a glimpse of the worlds behind the metaphorical curtain, that will be enough.
I was trying something new. Before, I'd been trying a variety of mental and chemical methods to put myself in a dream-like state, with no success. Today, the process I was trying involved looking through the world. In theory, it was similar to the 3-D picture tricks that are printed on postcards for children to play with. You know, the ones where you see only a psychadelic picture no matter how hard you look at it, but then you finally manage to look through it, and the picture snaps into your head. I hypothesized that the dream state was like that, where as you were sleeping you mentally snapped into the other world.
So, that was what I was doing that day. Sitting here on the hard stone bench, staring at the fountain in the middle of the square. I must have been a sight, sitting stone still, notebook in my lap to scribble my notes in, intently crossing and uncrossing my eyes all while staring at the center of the square. The hot sun beat down on me; I was beginning to regret wearing long pants and long sleeves today. It was shaping up to be another useless theory I'd had, I would have to go back to my room and formulate a new method.
As I bent my head to retrieve my bag from under the bench, I saw a flash of white out of the corner of my eye. I jerked my head up, and saw nothing. Cursing under my breath, I bent my head down again, concentrated, and slowly looked up again.
There was a caped figure walking across the opposite side of the square, hood pulled down so that their gender was indeterminate. They definitely hadn't been there before. I yanked my bag out from under the seat, slung it over my shoulder, and began to follow it.
They quickly left the square, and walked down the street. I wondered briefly if they could be dangerous, but thrust that notion aside quickly. Had any of the great men of the past stopped to wonder if the majestic event they were witnessing could be harmful? Of course not. I went down four streets – heading out of the nicer areas of town – then followed the person as they turned into a narrow alleyway. We emerged into a narrow street lined with old housing.
They walked up the stairs to a front door, and fumbled under their cloak for something, presumably their key. Realizing my only chance to make contact was draining away alarmingly quickly, I took a few hurried steps closer.
“Hey!” I said, perhaps too loudly, for they spun around abruptly with a cry.
The key narrowly missed me, landing a few feet away on the street. I bent down, picked it up, and offered it to the woman on the stairs – for it was definitely a woman, or more of a girl, now that I looked closer.
“Who are you?” she said. “What are you doing here?”
I blinked. I hadn't quite thought this part through. What do you say to the denizens of the alternate reality you've entered? 'Greetings, I come from Earth! Take me to your leader?' Only in bad science fiction stories. I guess I waited too long, because she snatched the key from my hand and ran back to the door.
As she fumbled with it in the lock, I tried again. “Wait,” I said. “I don't want to hurt you! I just want to understand-”
I was cut off by the door being opened from the inside. “Carol, what's going on? You look so flustered.”
With a squeak, the girl pushed past the woman standing in the doorway and dissapeared into the house. As she looked out to see what had caused the alarm, she inhaled sharply. “Who are you?” she demanded.
“Uh,” I said. “See, I'm just trying...I'm a student, at the university, I study philosophy and religion. It was an idea I had, to see what was...you know,” I babbled, off-put by the woman's demand.
She sighed, and walked out into the light. I could only stare. Her clothing was ordinary – a skirt and a blouse – but she had wings like an angel. She walked to an arm length away from me, then extended a single finger and touched me between the eyes. “You're dreaming,” she said smoothly. “It's a hot day, and you fell asleep, and dreamed. You should go home and drink some water.”
The day shimmered, and I must have blacked out. When I came to, I was laying on an unfamilar street, with the sun beating down on me. I should go home and get some water.
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