I’ve tried writing this down a few times now. I keep getting hung up in the beginning, which isn’t like me. Finishing things is usually my problem. My particular specialty is leaving things hanging so the only thing one can do is call it an ending. Obviously, this story isn’t over yet so I suppose the only thing my subconscious can do is sabotage the beginning.
I say fuck my subconscious.
Try again.
I guess what’s bothering me is there’s no way to prove I’m not just whistling Rachmaninoff out of my asshole. You’ll have to take my word for it that the flight of bumblebees issuing forth is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but one of many truths. The other option is my head is so far down my own navel I can see daylight when I open my mouth.
Do you begin to see my problem? This is so fucking crazy I sound defensive before I even get to anything one can call a beginning.
Try again.
There is something else bothering me as well. You, everyone you know, and billions upon billions (in my best Carl Sagan voice) more that you don’t and never will, you’re not special. Not even a little. Now don’t get me wrong, everyone is unique, but so is every grain of sand. While the beach may be gorgeous, no particular grain of sand stands out. You’re not special. No matter what you’ve done, big, small, or in between, is special.
I, on the other hand….
What the hell are you talking about?, I hear you say. You wouldn’t have a fondness for ketamine and cocaine by any chance? No and screw you. I don’t drink much either. Well, this Me, anyway. So that’s the other thing. Now that I’m going to have to distinguish between Me and not me, the observant among you will notice that I went ahead and claimed the capital M. I reserve the right to be the one to tell this particular version of what happened to Me.
And by extension, all of you.
Let me back up. Not all the way back, just to the part where I heard my doorbell ring.
It was a grey November day in the pacific northwest. They say the Inuit people that live in the Arctic have a hundred words for snow. It isn’t true but they say that. I’ve been trying to do justice to the many different kinds of rain here in Oregon and that particular morning the precipation was something I like to call a “drist.” Oregon drizzling mist isn’t precisely cold but it isn’t warm either. It’s like being wrapped in a cloudbank while the occasional water sprite tickles any exposed flesh. I live in a two bedroom 1924 craftsman I bought with the help of a small trust left to me by my grandparents. I’m twice divorced and teach high school science for another ten years until I can retire without worrying (much) about eating Alpo out of the can for the rest of my life. This should go far in explaining my liberal use of the word fuck. I didn’t grow up anywhere close to Oregon but I’ve lived here long enough to pass for moss on the tree. It was the first day of Thanksgiving break.
The doorbell rang.
It was late in the morning.
I shambled to the front door and opened it without bothering to look outside first. That was a mistake. Was it a politician? Jehovah’s Witness? A girl scout? I wish.
It was me. Not Me. But me.
Not surprisingly, he knew Me well enough to let Me sleep in.
I reacted, I like to think, well. I didn’t freak out. I did stand there simply gawking for a good second or ten. He gave me that lopsided smile I use right before I’m going to apologize for something and fluttered his fingertips at me, as you might to a small child. He said nothing, letting me get in a good hard stare. It didn’t take long for me to start looking for the gag, this having to be the mother of all practical jokes. Almost as soon as I entertained the thought, I knew it wasn’t candid camera. Speaking of mothers, at no point did I think he was a twin I never knew. The idea that my mother would or could keep that kind of information to herself is beyond imagining.
It was me.
It was clearly me. Where mine is almost military short and parted on the left, his hair was long, about shoulder height, parted down the middle and swept at the sides. Like me, his sideburns were short and he was clean shaven. He was starting to go grey like me, at the crown with a dusting at the temples. He wore jeans, a pair of black leather shoes styled like sneakers, and a grey v-necked sweater under a plain black jacket. He looked like a middle aged roadie on a reunion tour with some 70’s soft rock band. One of those named after a city or state. Kansas. Boston maybe. There were no visible logos or brand names on anything he wore. Other than perhaps the jeans, I didn’t own any of those clothes.
“Want me to show you our appendectomy scar?” He asked.
What can I tell you about how one reacts when they find themselves on the other side of their own door? Well for one thing, I can tell you it was much easier for me to look at him than it was to hear him speak. You know the feeling. Remember the first time you heard your own voice played back to you in a recording? For some, I know this happened to you so young that you can’t. But for the rest of us, it has that uncanny valley quality of almost, but not quite, right. Intensify that feeling by an order of magnitude. He recognized the look on my face and gave a low throat chuckle I give to students who show up at the end of the day to turn in an assignment they forgot.
That was when I opened the door and let him in.
He patted me on the shoulder as he passed and waited as I closed the door behind us. Yes, I had a half hundred questions, but I found myself instead ruling things out in my head. He wasn’t a spooky similar cousin. He was my age, or close enough not to matter, so it wasn’t a younger version of myself, or if he was, not far from the past, or the future for that matter. See? Fucking crazy. But I read and go to the movies, so this is the sort of shit you reach for When You Find Yourself Standing On The Other Side Of Your Own Door. wyfysotosoyod. Hmmm. Needs work.
I didn’t offer to take his jacket and he didn’t take it off so I gave him that awkward gesture you make to a relative that comes visiting unexpectedly for the first time -this way, if you will – I think is the best translation for it. I led him into my living room that was spacious by 1924 standards and he ambled over to my bookshelves. It’s something I find myself doing whenever I’m in someone’s home for the first time. I think I’m slightly above average in the looks department but that isn’t why I couldn’t keep my eyes off the guy; it was as if I was watching a shaky street magician and if I paid close enough attention, I’d catch him palming a card.
I still hadn’t spoken a word to him.
“Coffee?” I asked. He pulled a book from my shelf and turned to me. “Please.” He replied. As I went over to the pantry I caught the title, it was my 1995 reprinting of The Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia by David Crystal. It sits right next to The American Heritage Dictionary of Science in my library. For a fleeting moment I thought I caught a whiff of Rod Serling’s cigarette lingering in my pantry as I opened the door. The Twilight Zone was one explanation. My doppleganger’s book choice made me think it was something else.
I kept my silence as I stalked around the kitchen. My house is not what you would call expansive. It was originally built by people with different sensibilities, which is why I’d knocked out the wall between the kitchen and the dining room soon after I moved into the place and put a small countertop island where it once stood. He carred the encyclopedia to the island and sat down in one of the two seats, facing into the kitchen. I filled the water reservoir for the coffee maker from the tap, poured grounds into the wire mesh basket, dug out a clean spoon and hunted for two clean mugs. During that time, I kept a careful eye on my guest, who seemed entrenched in my encyclopedia. He was interested in the A’s for a bit, and then the E’s. He noticed me watching him and smiled again. Part of me assumed he was just trying to put me at ease but all that smiling was making me uneasy.
“You’re taking this remarkably well. Have it figured out do we?” He said.
“Coffee first, if you don’t mind.” It came out harsher than I intended.
“Fair enough. I know how it is.” He grinned and went back to the encyclopedia.
I poured out two measures, not quite the way I like it, and slid one over to him. My mug was the last remaining of a set of four, the other three having met tragic fates over the years. I gave him one that read “Rise and Shine Bitches!” I sipped at mine, eyeballing him over the edge of my mug. He took his cup without looking at me and put his lips to the rim. He was in the M’s. He took another drink and looked up at me from the book. Then he stood and walked over to my faded blue tupperware sugar bowl on the counter behind me, poured a healthy amount into his cup, added a similar amount to my own, and then ambled back to his seat across the island from me.
“Last test.” I said. “Tell me about the sugar bowl.”
“Same one we had growing up. Recognized it immediately when I saw it on the counter.”
“Ok. I concede that you and I are in fact the same person. At least up to a point.” I waited to see if that last sentence made an impact. He nodded. “Who are you expecting to see in that encyclopedia that you don’t? Or is it the other way around?” I asked.
“Doing pretty well so far.” He said.
“Do you have a ship? Or is it something else?” I asked.
“A ship? Where would I be traveling from?”
“You tell me.”
“But you’re doing so well. I’m really interested to see if you’ve noodled it out. The encyclopedia is telling but not definitive. Same holds for my knowledge of mid sixties tupperware.”
“You could be trying to see if people from history you’re familiar with are represented, either at all, or in the way you remember. That would imply you’re a time traveler. But that’s not it is it? I have an idea but I want you to confirm it. Not only where you’re from but why you’re here. It only makes sense the two are connected. But I could be wrong. I’m half expecting you to sprout tentacles from your fingertips and eat my brain.” I said.
He laughed, not the fake one I use with the vice principal. “Is that why you tucked that knife into your waistband when you were reaching for the mugs? You thought I wasn’t watching you just as closely? Don’t worry. I’m not a brain eating alien. And I’m not a time traveler. I’m you. A you from another universe.” He took another sip from his mug. I made a ‘go on’ gesture with mine.
“The many-worlds hypothesis that posits a multiverse, each one a consequence of whether Schroedinger’s cat is alive or dead – do you know it?” He asked me.
“You’re proof that it’s true.”
“I am.” He said.
“Where do our paths divurge?”
“Earlier than you’d think, it looks like. What’s your last name?”
“Hall. What’s your’s?” I asked.
“Savage.” He replied.
“Mom’s maiden name. I assume you’re David as well?”
“Dave.” He answered.
I put my coffee down, reached across the island and held out my hand. “It’s weird to meet you Dave.”
He put his coffee down and held out his own. He looked sad as we shook. “Weird? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
I should have stabbed him in the neck.
Because that’s when the bastard killed me.