TO ANOTHER UNIVERSE, AND BEYOND...

Things actually might be what they look like....

Time became a dreadful winged warrior as Morton stared at the ceiling where his projector-clock took him to another Universe. For instead of the time reading 22.55, meaning five minutes to eleven, it read 55.22, meaning something completely different.

It meant that somehow he'd drifted, through a light doze, into another universe where time and its parameters were completely different. And he wanted a piss.

But there's a yawning gap between pressure in the bladder and the certain knowledge that the toilet is where it's always been. Right, it had been down the corridor in his own home, but where was he now? What dimension was he treading if 55.22 could be the time?

Brenda snored next to him.

So at least both she and her snore were still here. That was a comfort. Whatever had launched him through hyperspace and into the vast unknown had taken her with it and she was snoring like the angel he knew she was, oblivious to the nightmare that was unfolding in front of his mind. The time was all wrong. Here, in England, there was no such thing as 55.22 in the world of clocks. Here, on Earth, there was no such time either.

“Brenda!” he hissed.

“Shurrup and let me sleep,” came the loving reply.

Sleep through this epic adventure? How could he? Any moment now the door might be pushed open from outside and nobody knows what monstrosity might walk through into their bedroom. And nobody knows where from.

“I mean,” he thought to himself, “there might be mountains out there, and a sky of any imaginable hue, and rivers running uphill … we can have no idea, us mere mortals on little Earth, of the vast array of different universes there might be, all with different rules of their own, different frequencies of light, different gravity … why, if I wasn't lying on this bed I might find myself squashed flat by my own weight in this strange and savage dimension … or I might float into the air and drift like gossamer silk through the window and … and where? Into a nightmare of hell or a dream of heaven?

“Brenda” he hissed. “We're lost! Time's gone all daft on us. It doesn't make sense any more, and I want a piss!”

She snored. “Shurrup,” she repeated. “It's been one hell of a day, and I'm dead beat!”

“But the clock!” he squawked. “The time! On the ceiling! It's gone all wrong! We've been shot trough a wormhole into another dimension! There's no such thing a 55.22 in our own sphere! There might be a monster lurking outside that door �" and I want a piss!”

“Then go and have one and leave me in peace!”

“The toilet might be gone! There might be something else where it's meant to be! Maybe a forest, or a cave … and there might be aliens there, real live aliens, only we're in their dimension so really we're the aliens...”

“For goodness' sake, srrup! There's nothing wrong, not here and not anywhere!” she grumped, and turned over.

“All right. But if everything's normal why's the clock all wrong?” he demanded, indicating in the darkness the red glow of the projected time on the ceiling.

He could almost hear her eyes open and he could definitely hear the way she clicked her teeth in a sort of cluck.

“And I really want a piss,” he added.

“Huh. I must have nudged it when I was dusting this morning,” she muttered. “The numbers have turned round, that's all. It's five to eleven and I want some sleep, look, 22.55 and all's well!”

“Oh,” he sighed, seeing in a moment what she meant and suddenly feeling really foolish. “Then I'm off for a piss.”

“Good riddance!” she mumbled. “And be quiet!”

A dragged himself out of bed and through the door, and that, really was that.

A green-eyed something, a dreadful winged warrior with too much malevolence and not enough generosity of spirit was standing in the way, and beyond it Morton could just about make out the flickering embers of an inverted volcano, and smell the bitter and acrid smoke of a new born world.

“Damn me,” he whispered... “Brenda!!!” he shouted.

© Peter Rogerson 03.01.15