Blurred

A short story just a half vibration off reality

 

“BLURRED”

 

by Dax

 

 

It was late, but I live that schedule and it usually just doesn’t affect me. This time it did. I was driving home down 16 miles of unbelievable Alaska two-lane roads. My eyelids drooped a little and the road kept kind of splitting into two roads. Focus. Focus! I knew I should have pulled over for a nap or at least a break. I had no reason to force myself to get home except that I’m an idiot and it seemed important. I needed more than a nap by the side of the road, I needed to go to bed. I want my bed. Screw it, I’ll make it.

The road became double again, with my head actually nodding at times. This is not good. I rolled down my window and stuck my face out into the wind like a dog to feel the rush of air in my face. It seemed to help.

Another few miles. The road split again. This time when the two roads appeared they separated widely, like when I’m drunk. My eyes just wouldn’t come back into control. The two roads stayed wide apart and seemed to stay in focus on both sides. I couldn’t get the two roads to come back together again. My eyes wouldn’t focus. It seemed the right road curved a bit differently. I concentrated to understand the double vision to stay on the road but I just couldn’t focus. Finally I covered one eye to help me focus. Both roads stayed there. I hit the brakes. It took a few seconds to stop, but I managed.

The car was almost in the ditch, but at least it was standing still. I noticed I was sweating. I reached over to the glove box and pulled out a McDonald’s napkin to wipe my forehead. Something was wrong. The word “McDonald’s” and the logo were both printed in soft orange. I know that’s not normal. Aren’t they red? Whew, I must be more tired than I thought. I laid my head back on the headrest and I think I passed out. It was dark when I woke. That’s not that strange most places, but in Alaska in June it just doesn’t get dark. I got out of the car and looked at the sky. It was a nice night, about 55 or so, no wind… and a clear, black sky. I couldn’t make out cloud cover that it would take to make it dark out, but it was. Dark as coal, and no moon and – holy s**t! No stars. Hmmm. Had to be clouds. I just couldn’t make them out. It must be a low, even layer of clouds that hid the sky from me but it sure didn’t seem that way.

I drove the rest of the way home in the dark, glancing up at the sky for any uneven light, any spreading of the clouds, some hint of a horizon where the sun would be coming up by now. Nothing. The road looked right, but somehow not normal. The weeds didn’t look right. The fireweed wasn’t red. It seemed more like purple. Must be the headlights or something.

I was relieved when I entered the driveway onto my property. A pink and green truck was parked in front of my house. Ugly paint job, obviously a hippie car. In Homer, Alaska (believe it or not) a pink and green paint job just isn’t that uncommon on an old truck. It also isn’t that uncommon to come home and discover someone in my house who had come to visit. When I’m not home it would be pretty natural for friends to just walk in and get comfortable while they wait for me. I have digital satellite TV so sometimes people just come over to watch it – whether I’m home or not. I don’t mind. It’s an Alaska thing. Still, I’d never seen the truck and I had no idea who this could be. Hmmm.

I got out of the truck and headed up the four steps in front of my cabin. As I reached for the door it opened, and a (gorgeous) woman stood there, stark naked. This is good. Strange, but good. I had no idea who she was. Never saw her before. Still good.

“Hi, Dax.” She said, as if we’d been friends for years.

“Um, hi.” I entered the cabin and lobbed my hat over to the hatrack, (well, the designated hat nail in the wall). It hit right, circled once, and hung there. (I’ve practiced the shot many times.)

“Ooo, nice toss.” She said. I looked at her a little closer, trying not to gawk or anything, but she was delicious! She just stood there in her nakedness. She seemed to be vibrating. I wrinkled my eyebrows in a kind of comedic way, but continued to look at her. My eyes wouldn’t quite focus. She seemed, blurred. That’s the only way I could put it. She seemed to kind of - glow. I rubbed my eyes to get out the ‘sleep’ in the corners from my earlier nap by the road, and looked back at her. She still wouldn’t focus, but now she was smiling at me. Again, this is good.

“What’s amatter?” she asked, kind of giggling.

“Well, a couple things.” I began. “First, I’m sorry but I don’t remember meeting you.” Then I quickly added, “But that’s OK, I have no memory for – faces.” I knew how stupid that sounded because at that point I’m not even sure I’d even looked at her face. I mean, she was naked!

“I can explain that, Dax, You haven’t met me yet.”

“Huh?”

“You’ve never been here before. This is your first visit to my place.” She stated. “Come in, make yourself comfortable.”

I’ve got to start taking naps or something. These late-night drives home are affecting me in some way. Oh well, I’ve got a very friendly cutie standing in my house – her house – something, a little weird, but very cute. Still in all, this is a good thing in my opinion.

“What do you mean I’ve never been here before? I live here.”

“Actually, you’re right, Dax.”

Well of course I am, Honey, that’s my hat on that nail over there. I said nothing.

“You do live at this location,” she began, “but - how do I explain this to you – you don’t live at this frequency.”

I nodded my head like I understood the girl. I put two and two together. She’s driving a pink and green van, hippies drive pink and green vans; she’s hallucinating. Hippies hallucinate. Two plus two, she’s doped up. This is not so good.

Damn.

“I see you’re a little skeptical.” She understated. “Try to focus on my n****e.” (Wow, this chick was getting scary.) “You won’t be able to focus on it. Try it!”

I did. I couldn’t focus on it. It seemed a little blurry, and it might even have been glowing a little bit. What I did see was great! She had perfect little b***s, just like I like ‘em. Champaign glass full, no more. They’d be sensitive as hell. But they were attached to a hallucinating hippie chick and god knows where she’s been or who’s looking for her. And in Alaska people looking for their naked girlfriends often carry guns.

Score another not good. I still couldn’t focus on her damn n****e.

“You can’t.” she said flatly. “And I’m not just some doped-up hippie chick.”

“How did you do that?”

“Read your mind? I don’t have to. Everything you think kind of shows up on a billboard to me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s kind of like having your thoughts narrated by a third party as you think them. I know what you’re thinking but I can’t actually hear your thoughts.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked. (This game might be getting old.)

“I’m different from you. Well, actually in this situation it’s more precise to say that you are different from me.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“My name is Day. Welcome to my cabin. This is not your cabin. I know, it seems to be, but it’s not. I can prove it.”

“OK.” (NFW, baby, this is my place and you’re on drugs.)

“Look outside.” To humor her I moved over to the window and looked out. It was dark. Big deal. “Look closely. That’s not black darkness out there. In fact to me it’s quite bright. You just can’t see some things here.” There was a long pause. “It’s a slightly different universe.”

“I see.” (This is just not good. She’s outta here. But how do I get rid of a naked hippie chick in the middle of the night? And why? She was weird but she dodn’t seem threatening. Screw it, I’ll just go to bed. Either she’ll be gone in the morning or I’ll wake up from this dream. Wait a minute! If this is a dream - and it’s gotta be – I’ve got a naked babe in my cabin! This is a good dream, isn’t it? Sure, a lucid dream. I’d heard about these. Always wanted to find myself in a lucid dream. I could take this anywhere! Cool. Just sit back and let it happen.)

“Well, you’re not far from wrong.” She said. “Lucid dream works for me. In reality though, Dax, you’ve actually vibrated just a little outside your normal frequency, or your reality if you wish. Right at this moment you are vibrating at a slightly faster speed than you usually do. Kind of like your reality radio strayed from the station you’re used to listening to. The frequency shift is what keeps you from focusing on things that are different in this universe. Your eyes, your optic nerve, and the translators in your brain just can’t quite match this vibration, so much of your vision is slightly blurred.”

“Not true. I can see the cabin perfect. I can focus on the TV screen, it’s just your n*****s that I can’t quite get into focus.”

“Because those things are the same in our universes. The cabin. The TV. Same in both universes. N*****s? Not so same so they’re blurred to you. Me, I’m you in this place.”

“Not! I’m a man. A heterosexual. You’re a woman. Big difference. Not just a slight vibration away. I can’t believe…”

“That you’re a woman in another universe? Get over it. I’m not exactly thrilled to be a homophobic man in your universe, either. You want another thing I’m not thrilled about? You wear clothes. How useless is that?”

OK, I’m confused. I thought lucid dreams were controlled by the dreamer. This is not how I wanted this dream to go. She should come into sharp focus, and shut up, and – I don’t know – bake something.

“I wear clothes. You don’t. Let’s start over. This is not going well. I want to be in charge here.” (Take control of the dream.)

“Oooh! Now you’re talking. Want a cup of hot chocolate?”

(Better, much better.)

“Sure.”

“Here, just the way I like it. You, too, probably.”

She handed me my second-favorite cup, (She had my favorite) filled half with instant hot chocolate, one quarter milk, one quarter canned whipped cream on top. Even a sprinkle of cinnamon.

“Perfect.” I had to admit.

“Wanna snuggle and watch TV?”

I’ve been living in Alaska for almost three years. In all that time I’ve never met a woman I was really attracted to. A few interesting possibilities, but I’m way too shy to go after that. Here sat, well, I guess the perfect woman. Hell, she could have been me in another universe! I still felt a little uncomfortable about that last part.

“Lighten up, Dax. Get over yourself. I’m not you any more than your brother is you, or your mother.” (Truth be told, I’m not wild about the prospect of cuddling with my brother or mother in front of a TV, either.) “You’re incorrigible.” She finally said. “I’m going into town. Be gone when I get back.”

“Wait a minute. This is MY dream. I’m in control.”

“You stupid b*****d. This is not some lucid dream. I’m going to try to explain this to you one more time. You have somehow crossed into another frequency. It’s a good thing. Unless I miss my guess, you’re a science fiction writer in your universe, aren’t you?”

“Yes, it’s no secret.”

“You write about other places. Your mind vibrates thoughts about other universes, other possibilities, other realities. That’s probably the reason you could vibrate yourself into this place. Believe me, this is a place different from your own – and it’s not your f*****g cabin. It’s mine. I’ll thank you for being a good guest and knowing when to leave.”

“Hold on. Let’s talk.” I found myself pleading. There was something about her.

“OK, right now, follow me outside.” She took my hand and pulled me out the front door. “Now look around. The colors are different, aren’t they? Not a far shift from your universe, but just slightly off. What your lower vibration sees as green plants looks a little blueish here, doesn’t it.” I looked around. She was right. “And red looks kind of orange, right?”

“Right again.”

“Everything here vibrates slightly faster so colors you see, shift. You are still vibrating at the same speed, but you’ve crossed into my universe so the colors change.

“I’m starting to see it.”

“Your gray truck shifts into my pretty little pink and green thing. I’m a girl, remember, vibrating a little faster than you. You see gray, I see green and pink.”

“Really.”

“And D, A, X shifts to D, A, Y. Get it?”

“A little vibration away.” I said. “I’m seeing a pattern here.”

“There’s another little difference.” She stated, a little grin crossed her face. “I’m not as good at the hat-nail shot.” She pointed below the nail on which my hat hung. A similar but more colorful hat lay on the floor. She’d missed the shot.

“Oh, and one other way to disprove your lucid dream theory.” She said, then turned and slapped me hard. I spun with the impact and nearly fell off my porch. Her porch. She laughed.

Finally it all came to me.

“I’m not dreaming this, am I?”

“Geez, finally.”

“I’m not at home, am I?”

“And”

“This is some parallel universe?”

“No, but that’s a good way to look at it. It’s the same universe, but you’re just seeing it from a slightly different – angle.”

“I thought you said it vibrated at a higher frequency.”

“A different frequency. Never mind all that. You’re here. You don’t have to understand where ‘here’ is if you’re already – there.”

I thought about that. This person, Day, was right. I’m here…

Wow.

There I stood on my, our, porch. With a, um, extrauniversal being. Cool word.

“You’re the extrauniversal one here, not me.” She reminded me. “My universe.”

“You win.” I said. I couldn’t stop myself and I smiled at her.

“You know,” she said as she stood close and snuggled, “We could make this pretty interesting.”

I liked the sound of that. I said “Talk to me.”

She lightly pushed me until I was leaning against the wall of the cabin. She retreated and sat (lookin’ good) on the log porch rail and began to speak.

“I’ve gone through what you are now going through. I’ve ‘shifted’ into another vibration universe. It happened just a few days ago. I’m just like you. This universe is just like yours. What happens there, happens – almost exactly the same – here. So you and I are both writers. We live in the same cabin in both universes, do the same stuff, just different. We might be kindred souls, or even variations of the same soul or spirit. Perhaps in a million years time we’ll meet and discover that we were always the same person, and there are billions of us. Billions of all the same person, in billions of universes vibrating just slightly differently. A river of realities.”

“Pretty big talk for a girl.” I joked.

“Something else I discovered in my other universe experience.”

“What?” I asked, now understanding that I was in the presence of an amazing, um, being(?), that was curiously identical to myself.

“In my other universe we were a man, too.”

“I’m a man again in that universe?”

“Well, I’m thinking that if the universes are real close together or even occupy the same space, maybe one oscillation of this frequency band changes male to female? Maybe we’re only half an oscillation off. We are at opposite points of the same wave.”

She went silent. Looked at me as if I had something to say.

“I’m still trying to wrap my brain around this situation. It seems…”

“Just accept it. It’s simple. Just accept it. I have a way better way to spend our time than explaining theories of the various universes.”

“More interesting than that?” I mocked.

“Dax, I’m you, but not your you. I explained that. I’m my you. We’re different people but our lives are almost identical.”

“Yes, and?”

“But in this one event, I have knowledge of what will happen and you do not. I’m one-half cycle ahead of you. I have already done it. You’re doing it now. Please let me guide you.”

She meant it. She wanted to tell me something. I could feel it. Hey! I could feel it. What she was feeling. I could actually detect it! Like it was on a billboard when she thought it! It was time to listen to her. I shrugged and smiled. She rose and reached for my hand, indicating that we were going for a walk in the yard. I love doing that.

We talked. She told me the vibration situation would right itself naturally in a few hours. She didn’t know or care how, it just would. She said things would start dividing again like the double road thing that got me here. I’d start to feel tired and a little nauseous, then I’d transition back into my universe. It would take about a minute, she said. To her it would look like I just slowly dissolved, and to me it would look like everything got out of focus and when the came into sharp image again I’d be in my own universe. She’d be gone. Well, I guess in this circumstance, I’d be the gone one, as I’d be leaving there to get to here. Anyway…

We walked and talked. She didn’t want to answer a bunch of my questions, kind of sliding by them when I started asking. She talked about some of her memories, like the night Billee Jean got up for karaoke and sang “You Ain’t Nothin’ But A Hound Dog.” In my universe it had been a guy named Willie Jay. It was amazing. We had both been there for every event in our lives, but when we talked about them they were just ever so slightly different. It was like talking with a best friend who had been there every day of my life – kind of. She was a very cool person. I liked her. If I designed a woman, she’d have been Day.

After a while walking in the dim light my eyes could see more colors. Everything was shaded differently - but it all somehow made sense. It was still very dark. I couldn’t see it at first, but now it was obvious. When I looked at Day she just barely glowed. Really. She caught me staring at her and a half smile showed. She leaned close, allowing her breath to reach my neck. We only had a few hours. I knew what she liked and she knew what I liked. I liked women that glowed.

We were lying side by side in the weeds when things blurred. I took her hand, she cuddled close. The scene divided. It was like looking thorugh binoculars with one lens. The sky slowly brightened. The sun was behind me, a few clouds. The weeds gradually morphed into a million colors around me while I lay there naked looking up. I could feel the weight of her head on my shoulder shift slightly, then she just evaporated.

For a week I wore a s**t-eatin grin on my face, but no one could focus on it. This is good.

 

Author's Note

thank you for your input