Skyblue Pink with Striped Polka Dots 14, Milk Bottle 11, Folly 17

[starphotographs]

Name: starphotographs
Story: Universe B
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (Milk Bottle, Summer Carnival), Mural, Fingerpainting
Characters: Frankie (POV), Scissors, Satchel, some supporting characters.
Colors: Skyblue Pink with Striped Polka Dots 14 (“From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere.”), Milk Bottle 11 (Hall of mirrors), Folly 17 (I’m invincible!)
Word Count: 12,947
Rating: PG-13 (I think?)
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: Frankie wakes up in a strange, new world. Or does he?
Note: AHA NOW THAT THIS IS POSTED I CAN FINALLY GET OTHER THINGS DONE. Seriously, this thing was a massive time-suck, and if I don’t meet the deadline, I blame it. But, it was enjoyable to write. Is it enjoyable to read? I dunno. You tell me. :P Also, this is a long read, so feel free to turn on this quirky 90s mix I compiled. All songs guaranteed to have been heard at least once during the writing process! (All soda-related B-movie deaths inspired by Slimebeast. Read his stuff, he’s funny. :D)


Frankie’s Other Life

“You getting any food? Just beer today? I mean, you don’t need to get anything, if nothing sounds good. I just wanted to hang out.”

This man is tall, and loud, and funny, and smart. He’s everything my brother is. If I didn’t know better, I couldn’t tell the difference.

But, this man is not my brother.

“I dunno yet. I need to think.”

“Fine by me, Frankfurter.”

He even makes up different dumb names for me, just like my brother always did, but he’s still not my brother.

I mean, he is, but he’s not the right brother. Because this isn’t the right world. I’m not even the right me. I’m just a stranger, wearing an ill-fitting Other-Me-Suit, fooling everyone but myself. Or maybe I’m not fooling them, and they’re just too polite to tell me that they know they’ve been talking to the wrong me.

I’m just trying to figure out what really happened.

It’s been a weird couple of days.

*****

Technically, it was Satchel who went to the hospital to collect me, but Scissors came with him. Who even knows why, because they can’t get along under stress.

…Well, maybe they can, but it would have to be stress that I didn’t cause. If it has to do with me, they argue until it doesn’t, and sometimes don’t speak for days. This time, the issue was whether or not to get me something if Satchel drives through somewhere, and instead of asking me, they were arguing over it with each other. Actually, that’s probably just because they assumed I was asleep. Which was, apparently, another contentious issue.

“Look, I think he should at least try, okay?”

I could hear that gritty tone in Satchel’s voice, the one that means everything’s about to go sideways. Which isn’t always getting into it with Scissors. It can also come before he asks to see the manager, or starts shouting at a cop, while I stand around somewhere watching him, too dumb and flimsy to intervene. And too convinced that he’s probably right, because what the heck do I know?

“Satchel… Just let him fucking sleep. He’s tired.”

As for Scissors, I could hear those bitten-off syllables, the ones he talks in when Satchel is getting on his nerves, or someone fucked up his food, or I did something that he didn’t think made good sense. Generally, he doesn’t lapse into Angry Voice as often as my brother, so I took it more seriously.

“He also didn’t eat the whole time he was at the hospital!”

“Well, what do you expect? God, lay off him. He‘ll eat tomorrow, when he‘s awake.”

This went on for a while, and they dissected the subject from more angles than I thought it even had. Was there even enough actual food at my house? Couldn’t I just go to sleep later? Did the people at the hospital push hard enough, would I get worse and need to go back if I didn’t have enough rest, what my lifestyle was like when I was sick last week, medication side effects and if they might be relevant. A protracted discussion about whether or not I was skinnier than usual, which got so specific that it made me uncomfortable. I wasn’t nuts about the idea that people were looking at me in that much detail. And then, same as always, it started getting personal.

“He doesn’t get sick because he doesn’t eat enough, he gets sick because he’s fucking sick!”

“I realize that. But it can’t help.”

“Jesus Christ, stop trying to fix him! You can’t. I know you don‘t fuckin‘ like hearing it, but you just… Can‘t!”

I could hear my brother gritting his teeth.

“Yeah, well, you don’t give a shit about him.”

“…Bull! Who’s the one going to his goddamn house every other day while you go to fuck off in the woods for the rest of your life!?”

“You go over there, you hang out for a few hours, I always have to intervene when he’s going downhill!”

Now he was using his shout-at-cops voice, which is normally only used for, well, actually shouting at an actual cop.

“I’m the one who always has to call you!”

“Just… Shut up.”

“Yeah, well-”

“Shut. Up.”

The truth was, I did want to sleep, but it wasn’t easy with the two of them sniping at each other.

“Guys… Don’t bother. I’m carsick.”

It wasn’t exactly true, but I could get carsick. I get carsick all the time. And if I ate, I might get carsick for real, so I was probably doing the smart thing. Unfortunately, it made Scissors feel vindicated, which only made everything worse.

“…See, he’s carsick.”

“Shut up.”

In the end, they didn’t even get any food for themselves. Just drove me home, dropped me off on the porch, and told me to call one of them if anything went wrong. Satchel said he’d call when he got home, then looked at me like it was the last time. But, he always did that. I never wanted to bother with telling him that it upset me, and this was no exception. Heck, I was almost too worn-out to even say goodbye.

But, I did. Then I went inside and collapsed on the couch.

*****

I guess I “woke up” about two hours later, but figuring out if I technically woke up at all depends on whether or not I’d been sleeping, and I couldn’t tell. My breathing was too weird to let me sleep all the way, so I just kind of laid there, half-conscious, listening to the television and trying to tune into the sound of a guy on the next block mowing his yard so it could relax me. But, all I could hear was some kind of horrifying infomercial and a bronchial cast slapping against my insides. I think both of those things gave me nightmares, even though I wasn’t really asleep, however the hell that would work.

Anyway, when I “woke up,” or whatever I did, I didn’t feel much better. Actually, I didn’t really feel much better than I did before I went into the hospital. I wasn’t sure if I should have expected that, really. They did a bunch of things, but nothing that seemed like it would do much in real life. I could still feel something flopping around in my left lung, waiting to come out. And then I’d probably feel better, but my lung would just make another one, and I’d be back to where I started, and then a few days later, I’d have to lie in the back seat and listen to people having a Sleep vs. Food argument right over my head.

I remembered I should probably check my phone, so I could tell Satchel I hadn’t died in my half-sleep.

Of course, he hadn’t called. Him and Scissors were too busy slamming around their homes and thinking about how much they hate each other to remember why they were fighting in the first place. And that it was, um, me. I didn’t know which was worse, having to listen to them arguing about me like I’m not there, or having to listen as the fight has progressively less and less to do with me. Sometimes, I felt like I was just an acceptable outlet for any personality clashes that they didn’t want spilling over into the rest of their lives. I mean, it isn’t like they don’t care about me. They do. I actually think the problem is that they get over-invested. I don’t even care about me that much. All I can ever think to do for myself is to just go to sleep and maybe not wake up in pain, but that hasn’t happened since I tried to lift that box a few years ago. In fact, the stuff wrong with me just kept piling up ever since then. Maybe the problem is that I broke some important cords in my spine or something, and now nothing knows what it’s supposed to do.

I laid there going over all that for a while, waiting for Satchel to call. He never did. Then it started to get dark around me, but I was too busy, in a weird way, to really care. All I could do was think about was how claustrophobic my entire life was getting. I could never get a deep breath, and I was stuck inside for days at a time. Then when I finally got to leave, everything seemed too huge and weird, and that was somehow just as constricting. I was probably going to lose my mind. And I was probably going to need surgery again some time, and they were going to put that creepy mask on my face and make me lose time, just like what happened when I was twenty and got abducted by aliens. That was probably going to happen again, because I’m pretty sure they inserted some kind of tracer. Surgery or aliens, whichever, I was probably going to just die on the table either way. I can hardly even walk three blocks, so I don‘t know how I‘d be able to withstand getting cut open again. And even if I lived, it wouldn’t do me much good. The only thing I wanted out of life these days was to lie down without anyone making me stand up. Standing up makes me fucking dizzy.

In the end, I decided not to bother with calling Satchel myself. I wasn’t in the mood to hear how he’d sound. Angry and preoccupied. Not in the kind of mood where I could ask him to drive over and stay with me.

He’s probably sick of this shit by now, anyway.

I couldn’t even respond to that thought with “no, that’s not true.” Because I didn’t know how he wouldn’t be. I mean, I sure was.

The next idea I had was stupid, but given all of the above, and a few of the things I’d heard said about my future while I was in the hospital, it didn’t seem that stupid. I’ve had stupider thoughts, and I acted on a good number of them, with arguably worse results. Hell, it was a stupid thought that ended up wrecking my lungs and getting me in this mess in the first place.

I went up to the bathroom, and, for a few minutes, I thought the stairs had done the job themselves. I laid down in the hall for a while, just to see what would happen, but nothing did. Well, I stopped seeing all those little black spots, but that was about it. I stood up, leaned against the wall until the spots went away again, made my way to the bathroom, and opened the cabinet.

Just like I thought, I still had one of my old prescriptions, from when the plastic bronchitis first set in. They gave me some pills so I wouldn’t wake myself up coughing. But they made me sleep too long, and I felt like I was losing time again, which made me panicky, so I stopped taking them. Until now, I guess. I took one, and stood around waiting for a while. Then I remembered that pills don’t start to do anything until they have time to melt or whatever, so I came to my senses. I took the rest of what was left in the bottle, sat on the edge of the tub, and waited to start feeling tired. I figured that, when I started feeling it, I would drag myself down the hall, crawl into bed, and relax.

What I wouldn’t have given for a pack of cigarettes right then. I could have smoked as much as I wanted while I waited, completely without repercussions.

In the end, I never started feeling tired. I just started feeling sick, which I hadn’t really expected. Even though I probably should have, because just taking my normal medications makes me queasy a lot of the time. It always goes away after a while, though, and I can usually sleep once it does. Maybe I just had to wait for this to pass.

I held out as long as I could.

It wasn’t passing.

Then it got so bad that I just went ahead and assumed that the pills were melted enough, so I could be done with it. Figuring that I didn’t particularly want to die feeling like I was about to puke, I leaned into the toilet. God, I needed a haircut. At least I realized my hair was touching the water before I actually started. I dug my hands into my scalp, raked back my hair, and heaved. Like I’d never heaved before. Not even when I lived in that experimental community with my brother, and assumed the food there was upsetting my stomach because I didn’t know my gallbladder was dead. Or before that, when I thought I upchucked because looking at a dead shark grossed me out, but it was actually my body trying to throw up my appendix before it exploded. Or before that, when I was a little kid and even more carsick than I am now. And it was true that I hadn’t really eaten in the hospital, so I didn’t even know what I had to throw up, besides a bunch of half-melted pills and my stomach. I remember thinking I was so, so stupid. This wasn’t how I’d planned at all.

I was supposed to die because I stopped breathing in my sleep, not because my insides became my outsides and fell in a dirty toilet.

The world was weaving in and out of my mind, and tilting at odd angles. There were moments when I thought, oh shit, I’m sleeping, how am I sleeping, because I’d catch myself dreaming and puking at the same time. My head was spinning. I felt like I’d cracked a few ribs. Eventually, nothing was coming out. I waited to see if my stomach would find anything else, then pushed myself out of the toilet bowl. This was harder than I thought, because I could barely control my hands. Everything felt like it had weights strapped to it, even though Satchel was right about me losing a bunch of weight when I was sick. I wished I was as light as I looked. But, I was a weary load, hurtling towards the ground, like I might fall clean through the to the kitchen. Or whatever the hell is under the bathroom. I grabbed at the toilet tank, the flusher, the sink, the tub, anything to get enough leverage to push myself to the floor. “Drowning in a pukey toilet” was another way to die I hadn’t expected, but honestly, I felt so shitty I would have accepted it.

I didn’t need to accept it, though, because I eventually managed to slide down onto the cold tiles.

God, that floor was cold. I was freezing my ass off, wondering why I had to throw out that bathmat I’d bled on last year. Shivering, and still dizzy, and already feeling nauseated again, I curled up and told myself that it was almost over. That I would go to sleep, and I wouldn’t still feel like this when I woke up.

How could I, when I wasn’t waking up at all?

*****

And I, honestly and genuinely, wasn’t expecting to wake up. But, I did.

It was a lot like what happened when I expected or didn’t expect anything, really. It’s the thing I’m not counting on that always happens. And I hadn’t counted on waking up, so of course, that’s just what I did. The bathroom light was still on, which made my eyeballs feel like they had a headache. My left arm had no feeling, from being pinned between the floor and the rest of me. And my back was so tense that the pain was running up and down between my neck and legs. Parts of my lungs that got mostly cleared out in the hospital were starting to feel blocked again. I waited until the light didn’t make my eyelids snap shut, sat up against the tub, laid my limp arm across my legs, and looked at my watch.

I’d only been out for a few hours. That didn’t seem quite right. I squinted at my watch for a while longer. Then I finally noticed the date.

It hadn’t been a few hours. Well, I mean, it had, but it had also been a lot of hours on top of that. A day and a half worth of hours, total. Which was probably long enough that my arm was completely dead and would need to be amputated. I’d have to explain that I slept on my arm so long I actually managed to squish it, and everyone would laugh at me. Maybe I could just hide it until it fell off on its own. But, just when I started working out the logistics of living without my dominant hand, it started burning and snapping like a bag of popcorn in a microwave. This was disconcerting, but at least my arm probably wasn’t going to fall off.

Now all I had to do was figure out how to stand without breaking in half. Every time I tried, the knife in my spine twisted, and my legs came out from under me. What eventually worked was reminding myself that I wouldn’t feel like this forever. Or, technically, that I would, but only if I didn’t go downstairs and get my painkillers and muscle relaxants off the kitchen counter. A few joints popped, and I was finally on my feet. I looked down at the tiles. It occurred to me that I wasn’t dead, but I couldn’t really find it in me to be disappointed. I tried, and it hadn’t worked, just like a million other things hadn’t worked. And since I took all the pills and wasted them throwing up, I was fresh out, so there was no trying again. I decided to go lie on the couch and watch some TV.

Then I noticed something.

The toilet water was clear.

I knew damn well that was impossible, because I’d tossed back everything I’d eaten in my entire life, and passed out before I could clean up after myself. This bothered me, but I figured I probably just dreamed the whole thing. It’s not like I’d never had vomit nightmares before. They usually meant I was going to wake up with the kind of migraine that involves more than just weird lights, which didn’t happen often, but wasn’t that huge a deal. And didn’t seem like the case now, but I’d also gotten those dreams from food poisoning or starting to fall asleep in the car, so they probably just meant I was going to puke in real life for any old reason.

As soon as I got done thinking about it, I leaned over and threw up a little in the sink, which just confirmed my theory. I probably didn’t know what I was doing, and only took enough pills to both upset my stomach and make me fall asleep until I was mostly alright. Putting it out of my mind, I brushed my teeth, rinsed my mouth, spat, and coughed. Coughing kind of set off a chain reaction. Once I started, I couldn’t stop, and then I felt the cast that had been bothering me dislodge, which only made me start coughing harder, until it backed up into my mouth, and I felt queasy all over again. I pulled out one of the jars I kept in the bathroom cabinet, spat into it, took a break to retch unproductively over the sink a few times, then found the jug of alcohol solution, filled the jar, and held it up to examine what had come out of me.

It was mostly normal. A little on the bigger side, with a few pink bloody spots. I went to the cabinet again for the pen and roll of paper labels, and started filling one out.

Size: L (XL?)
Type: 2.5
Branch Structure: complex
Branch no. estimate: 1-5 _ 6-12 _ 13-20 X 20+ _
Blood: Y
Color:

Color… That was where things got a little odd. It had a yellow tinge that I’d never seen before. I wanted to blame it on the infection, but most of the lung-crud I’d been hacking up was greenish, and not even close to this. Worth noting, I thought. I finished the label with that in mind.

Size: L (XL?)
Type: 2.5
Branch Structure: complex
Branch no. estimate: 1-5 _ 6-12 _ 13-20 X 20+ _
Blood: Y
Color: Pale yellow (unusual, ???)
Notes: Recent bronchial infection and hospitalization, currently taking antibiotics. Color does not correspond to other material expectorated.

I peeled the label off the roll, stuck it on the jar, put the jar in the cabinet, then left to go watch television.

*****

It was right around dawn, so nothing all that interesting was on. There were a few infomercials I hadn’t seen before, so I stopped flipping and watched them out of curiosity. Now, four unfamiliar infomercials in one night seemed like a lot, but they’d probably cycled some older ones out while I was in the hospital and not paying attention. Which was a good thing, because I was getting pretty sick of some of them. Especially the goddamn trainwreck where that annoying Australian guy chops up a flip-flop in a blender. One of the new ones had someone wiping up an entire pot of spilled coffee with some kind of special towel, then throwing the bloated rag at a wall to prove it wouldn’t drip, which was hilarious, so I watched it twice on two different channels. Actually, I could have gone for a third viewing, but I found a movie I remembered liking, and decided to watch that instead.

Well, about twenty minutes in, I wasn’t even sure if it was the same movie. The same guy played the lead, and he went through a lot of the same scenarios, but he was wearing a different shirt, and a hat I didn’t remember at all. And he accidentally shot his sidekick in the face, when I was pretty sure the sidekick died from drinking a can of soda contaminated with some kind of alien bug pods. I thought that was actually kind of terrifying, even though Scissors always laughed his ass off at that part, and I was pretty sure the movie wanted me to find it just as funny as he did. Well, I didn’t. It always made me want to feel if my stomach was distended, just in case. Every time we watched that movie, Scissors spent the next few days making fun of me for constantly poking at myself.

Anyway, when it got to the Soda Can Scene, the guy who died was just some extra who bought a drink from a vending machine and then exploded like a grenade full of tapeworms right there in the parking lot. I remembered it happening in someone’s house, and a montage of the surviving characters cleaning him out of the carpet, but that never happened. And yeah, I have a history of getting stuff mixed up with other stuff, even stuff that happened to me, in real life, but I’d seen that movie several times, and was starting to get disoriented. It didn’t help that the commercial breaks were full of ads I’d never seen before in my life. Sometimes for products I’d never seen before in my life. I mean, I think I’d have noticed a brand of sour candy with packaging modeled after a spray paint can, that came with a vial of liquid that turns your tongue colors, nestled into a canister of fruity acid powder, if such a thing existed. Mostly because Scissors goes nuts for that kind of stuff, despite having as many years behind him as two members of the target demographic stuck together. Then again, I’d been in the hospital. I was out of touch. It was less than a week, but I guess that’s all it takes.

TV wasn’t really helping me feel better, and all the pills I’d taken to make my back stop screaming at me were making me woozy, so I let myself drift off. Everything would look normal after a good rest.

I woke up around noon, to a knock at the door. The sun was too bright, even with the blinds twisted shut and the curtains drawn, and my back was aching all over again. God, go away. Whoever was knocking kept at it, so I assumed they were trying to sell me something. And I’ve been known to open the door for salesmen just because I’m bored and need someone to talk to, but today, I wasn’t in the mood. I pulled the blanket up over my head and went on ignoring them, until they started knocking on the window and yelling through the glass.

“Franks? You alright in there?”

It was Scissors, who probably assumed I was dead. Part of me still wasn’t in the mood, but I figured seeing him looking like his regular old self would calm me down.

“Yeah. Coming.”

I creaked and groaned my way off the couch, shuffled to the door, and stepped out on the porch. Scissors was, indeed, his regular old self.

“Hey! Um, wow… Eurgh. You look like shit.”

What the heck does a person even say to that?

“Oh. I haven’t looked at myself yet.”

“Well… Don’t.”

“…I’ll take your word for it.”

“Right… Anyway, I was going to go grab some lunch, and thought I’d see if you were up to coming along.”

I realized it was high time for me to get hungry, right about when I also realized I still had Toilet Hair and smelled like vomit and Hospital.

“Um… Sure. I might need a shower, though.”

“’Might?’”

“…By ‘might,’ I mean really, really do. I’ll be right out.”

I ducked back inside, took more painkillers, had a minor back spasm on the way up the stairs, squatted in misery for a while, chucked my dirty clothes on the pile with the rest, hopped in the shower, hopped back out, found a different, mostly-clean set of clothes, and dragged myself back outside, dressed but still wet. Scissors looked bored, and was holding a fat stack of what was probably my mail.

“You all ready?”

“Yep.”

“Great! Let’s roll.”

And that was when I noticed that Scissors wasn’t his regular old self.

His van was clean. In all the time I’d known him, I don’t think he even washed it once. In theory, it was supposed to be dark green, but in practice, it was pale beige with road grime. Sometimes, it rained, and a few layers of sediment would melt away, but that was about the cleanest it got.

“You… Washed your car.”

“Yeah. It was pretty dirty, so I thought I’d hose it off.”

His van was always dirty, and he never seemed to care before.

“Oh… Looks nice?”

“Thanks! Anyway, let’s get goin’, alright?”

Against my better judgment, I crawled into the passenger seat. Who the hell knew where this sparkling abomination would take me?

*****

Scissors was talking like his old self, at least, but the whole clean-van situation was still making me jumpy. So much that I twitched whenever he changed topics. When he finally got around to what I was sure he’d been wanting to ask since he turned up on my porch, I practically fainted.

“So… Mind telling me why we didn’t hear from you for two friggin’ days?”

It seemed like a lot to explain, and I didn‘t really want to bother.

“I dunno, Skizz. I was just tired. Guess I passed out.”

“Ah, I see. All rested now?”

He clapped his hand on my shoulder, then grimaced, pulled away, and mumbled under his breath; “Jesus, Satchel wasn’t kidding.” Honestly, I was sick of that shit. Both things, I mean. All the focus on how much weight I’d lost made me feel the way I did when doctors at the teaching hospital would herd a bunch of interns into my room, and have them gather around the bed and stare down at me while an assistant off to the side pulls six vials of blood out of my left arm. Especially since I didn’t really look that different. As for Scissors flinching every single time he touched me in the entire history of our friendship, I never knew what exactly was up with that. Was it just me being gross? Because I know I’m kind of gross. But it’s not like Scissors isn’t pretty gross himself. I don’t think he’s ever washed that brown trenchcoat he wears from October clear through to April every year. His van looks like he dragged it out of a lake. We’re both fucking disgusting. Don’t be so dramatic, you freak.

“…Yeah. Still a little tired, though.”

“That’s fine… Think you’re up for eating something?”

I actually didn’t know, so I asked my stomach. It gurgled, whatever, but I wasn’t sure if it was growling or just churning. Or, possibly, bursting with alien tapeworms. And I swore I felt all those pills crunching together like gizzard stones, even though I knew it wasn’t likely, considering. Hell, I probably had more chance of it being the space worm thing. I slipped my hand up under my sweatshirt and pressed on my gut, just to check, trying to be kind of sneaky about it so Scissors wouldn’t get on my case.

“Probably?”

“…You kind of need to. Your brother will kick me to death with his gigantic shoes if you don’t.”

With that said, he pulled into the parking lot.

At least the inside of the diner looker normal. Except, no, it looked like they’d printed new menus. Which didn’t list the omelet I’d been getting every time I went there since I was a teenager. After everything else, this was enough to cause a complete shutdown. I froze in place. Then felt more exhausted than ever. I slumped over in my seat.

“…Franks?”

“Tired.”

“That’s fine.”

I don’t know how long I stayed like that, but it must have been a while, because when Scissors nudged my arm, there was food in front of us. Since I’d been too busy sitting with my forehead on the table to put in my order, he had to guess what I might actually eat. I decided that I would actually eat a grilled cheese, so he’d probably guessed right. Then I looked at his plate.

He’d gotten a goddamn cheeseburger.

Not that he doesn’t love cheeseburgers. But I’d never seen him get one at a diner. He was too obsessed with BLTs.

“That’s… A different order for you.”

He shrugged.

“I like burgers.”

Yes, I know, but… Explaining why this was weird would take the rest of the meal, so I left it alone. I ate a fry. It tasted different. They fucking changed the fucking fries. By now, I was actually getting kind of angry. I’d spent five days in the hospital, then I tried to off myself, then I returned to a world where nothing was the same, and this was apparently my life now. What’s worse, the fries hadn’t even changed for the better. I got started on my sandwich, and struggled to make conversation.

“Hey, did you know they stopped playing that infomercial with the crazy Australian guy?”

Scissors took a bite of his burger, then tilted his head.

“I don’t think I know the one you’re talking about.”

“You’ve seen it a million times! He’s selling this scary-powerful blender? And he yells all the time?”

He ate a fry, but didn’t seem to notice anything off.

“…Oh! Isn’t that guy British, though?”

“No, my brother said he’s Australian, and he hangs out with a couple Australian guys, so he should know.”

Scissors looked out the window, then shrugged.

“Well, I’ve never heard those guys, so I wouldn’t really know…” He looked at my plate. “…Somethin’ wrong with your fries, dude?”

“I dunno. It tastes like they changed the seasoning.”

He ate one, actually concentrating this time.

“…Maybe? Not sure. Your appetite might just be a little off still.”

I wasn’t sure why, but I really wanted him to be right.

“Yeah, that’s probably it.”

He pointed at my plate. Which kind of gave me that Teaching-Hospital Feeling again.

“You did a good job with your sandwich, though! Now your psycho brother might stop ridin’ my ass.”

“That’s why you brought me here?”

“Nah, not really. I was just bored. Didn’t want to come here alone and be more bored. Right?”

Being bored sounded like a pretty good time about now. I finished my sandwich, but I didn’t so much as touch another fry.

*****

When I got home, I sat down in my darkened living room, turned on the television, and did my goddamned best to have one normal experience.

Well, the TV experience wasn’t it. All just more unrecognizable bullshit. There was a locally-made commercial for a car dealership I’d never seen on the way to or from anywhere. Most of the shows were on at different times.

What was happening? Did they keep me in a medically-induced coma for a year and not bother to mention it?

No more TV for me. The internet would probably be a safer bet, if only because it’s about this unpredictable on a good day.

I sat down in my office, which is actually just a cheese-wedge-shaped closet under the stairs, that I also use to store extra jars and some other random shit. Then I decided the door was making me paranoid, so I closed it. The only light was coming from the computer, so my brain started thinking it was night, like when you put a tarp or whatever over a bird. Basically, it stopped screaming. I took a few deep breaths, or at least tried, then went to check the same few forums I always did. Most of them looked the way they had last week. Same old colors, same old members, same old topics.

Two of them had changed their color scheme. One of those changed its entire layout.

Neither mentioned anything about any updates.

Which made me realize:

That was the problem. It wasn’t that all this stuff got shuffled around.

It was that no one seemed to acknowledge this.

Maybe it wasn’t different for them. Maybe everything was how it had always been.

Maybe things hadn’t changed around me.

Maybe I’d just gone somewhere else.

Oh my god. That had to be it. I wasn’t dreaming. I really did vomit. A lot.

Then I laid down on the floor and curled up and died. Because I hadn’t really failed.

Well, okay, I did. I think I just proved that you can’t really succeed. All you can do is get stuck somewhere weird, where you’re always confused and nothing looks or acts the way it should.

I had, indeed, done something incredibly stupid. And I couldn’t fix it. I was trapped.

To say I didn’t know how to deal with this was an understatement. All I could think to do was sit in my squeaky chair, staring into space, the door shut tight, so the strange world outside couldn’t “get” me or something. I thought I was starting to have a panic attack, but no, I was actually just having trouble breathing because… I was having trouble breathing. Here we fucking go, I guess. I swiveled on my chair, grabbed one of the jars from the stack behind me, let out a few good coughs, spat, spun back around to get at the jug of alcohol under the desk, topped off the jar, and turned on the light.

The wrong color again.

Or the right color for here. Who even knows.

I went upstairs to make a label.

Size: S
Type: 4
Branch Structure: Simple
Branch no. estimate: 1-5 X 6-12 _ 13-20 _ 20+ _
Blood: Y
Color: Yellow/white (mottled)
Notes: Recent suicide attempt possibly successful, may have hopped realities. Discoloration might be normal in context, more data needed.

Now that I could, I took a deep breath. And tried to calm down.

It’s just a theory. You don’t know anything.

After all, I’d been wrong before. I probably shouldn’t jump to any conclusions just yet.

Still, I decided to keep an eye out for anything else that looked funny.

*****

I laid low for the rest of that day and most of the next, still convinced that my worn-out brain was messing with me, and that everything would be just fine after some rest. The TV kept being weird, and the sounds from outside made me think I might have a different set of neighbors, but everything was just fine. And when I waited too long and things still weren’t fine, I decided I actually needed air, not rest. So I went to sit on the porch, trying to ignore that someone down the street had gotten a new car. Or had a different car all along. I don’t even know anymore. Everything was getting too confusing. I collapsed under my own weight, slumped down on the front steps, and put my head in my hands. Then someone called me.

“…Frankie!”

I looked up. It was Gail, who lives kind of diagonally from me. She looked pretty normal, which made me feel pretty normal, so talking her probably couldn’t hurt.

“Oh. Hey!”

I stood up, crossed the street, and plopped down in one of her porch chairs. She handed me a cigarette and a lighter, just like she always did. Maybe what I actually needed was a smoke.

Technically, I quit a few years ago, when my kidneys got so stressed-out from all the tar that one of them got infected. Everyone always told me that wasn’t possible, but I thought it made perfect sense. Though, by now, they all pretty much dropped the issue, in favor of yelling at me for smoking at all. I mean, yeah, it probably isn’t smart, but the damage is done. And sometimes, I just need to calm the fuck down. Gail was the only person who seemed to get it, so I appreciated her. Especially today. I took a long drag, exhaled, and waited for the choking feeling to subside. She smiled at me.

“So, where have you been all this time?”

When I tried to answer, nothing really came out. I needed to clear my throat and cough a few times before I could actually make sounds.

“I had to go to the hospital.”

Gail made a face.

“If you told me, I could have kept you out.”

I tried to inhale more smoke, but it made me feel like I was dying, so it would have to wait.

“Really? Because I tried not to go, but I got really bad and needed like, I don’t know, extra air and stuff.”

She shook her head and blew some smoke at me.

“Those places are very dangerous.”

I perked up a bit. That was always the impression I’d gotten, but everyone always told me I was overreacting.

“…Oh yeah? How so?”

“Well, they’re incredibly dirty. And it’s not the same kind of dirt you’d see in a house or a store. Frankie, think about what gets thrown out at a hospital. There is food waste, there’s all the organs and amputated limbs and who knows what else from the operating room, there’s dirty bandages and needles, urine and feces, everyone’s samples and cultures… And all of it gets thrown in the same bins, and taken out by the same people. Those people also clean the kitchen. And your room. Do you think all of them wash their hands, Frankie?”

Either that or lack of oxygen made me feel like I might faint.

“Um… I guess not?”

“Right. And you know what else? They clean up too much, and then don’t clean enough, so there are germs in a hospital you won’t find anywhere else. Now, I don’t know what happened, but do you want to hear my opinion?”

I flicked my butt on the ground, then crushed it out with my sock foot. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear anything else even vaguely connected to this topic.

“Um, I guess?”

Gail lit up again.

“I think you probably went in with a little shortness of breath, or a little fever, and then got really sick from something you picked up while you were there.”

I wasn’t sure if that could be right. From what I remember, I was hallucinating and sweating through my bathrobe, and Scissors rushed me to the ER when my lips started turning blue. But, then again, I might not be thinking of this same world, so she could be right. How would I know?

“…Is that something that happens?”

She nodded sagely. I felt like I could trust her.

“Oh yes. Do you know what happens? They use the same gurneys for cadavers and patients. And the entire plumbing and ventilation systems are connected, so who even knows what you were exposed to?”

By now, I was actually considering calling Scissors, and asking him what business he had taking me to a house of horrors like that. As for Gail, I didn’t quite know what to say to all this.

“Well… It smelled pretty clean?”

Gail passed me another cigarette, which I lit, even though my lungs were still feeling pretty thick from the last one.

“See? That’s part of the problem. Those cleaners they use? Incredibly toxic. That alone probably hurt your respiratory tract, and I know you already have those kinds of issues.”

That sounded like it could be true. I once used some spray I bought at a dollar store to clean off my windows, and what happened was I inhaled some, needed to sit down, and never cleaned my windows again.

“So like… What should I do? I don’t know if I can just deal with everything at home.”

“Well, you can try and see if you could prevent these things in the first place… Build up your immune system a little… Hold on, I’ll be right back.”

With that, Gail rose from her chair and swished off into the depths of her house. I sat alone, smoking and staring resentfully at the new car two blocks away. Then I looked back down at my hands and noticed something:

Gail was smoking a different brand.

By the time she came back outside, I’d made up my mind not to ask her about it. If it actually was a different brand, for this Gail, here, she’d probably say something. And that would be my proof that I hadn’t gone anywhere. But, she didn’t say anything about the cigarettes. Instead, she shoved a tall, skinny bottle of black fluid into my hands, and started going off about that.

“Is this…”

I was going to say “cigarette butt water?” but no, that couldn’t be it, so I let the sentence trail off and die.

“It’s just water with some special minerals. Makes you feel… Better. You should try some. Just keep that bottle.”

It still looked like cigarette water, and those associations were making it hard for me to accept. But, I unscrewed the cap and took a sip.

Well, at least Gail was right about it not being cigarette water, but what it was, I couldn’t be sure. It had a faint but decidedly unpleasant metallic flavor, which made me want to gag. The fact that it looked dirty only made me want to gag more.

“…Are you sure this is just water?”

“Yes. It takes a little getting used to, is all.”

I ended up drinking about half the bottle before determining that I wasn’t getting any more used to it than I was. Then something in me snapped. I had to go home.

“…Well, it’s been nice talking to you, but I’m pretty beat.”

“I understand. You go home and relax”

“Yeah… Hey? Can I have a few for the road?”

Gail smiled.

“Of course.”

She handed me two cigarettes, and I got the hell out of there.

Once I got inside, I headed straight for the bathroom. Listening to Gail’s thesis on hospital trash, having to drink that gross black water… I felt contaminated.

So I got in the shower, made the water as hot as I could stand it, and scrubbed myself until I thought my entire skin was going to come loose and peel off. Then the water got cold, and I had to get out. I didn’t even have the energy to get dressed, so I just found some sweats and my robe and called it a day.

My plan was to smoke and watch a few hours of Bizarro World TV, to see if I’d calm down. Then my phone started buzzing.

Satchel had finally contacted me.

Hey! Mind if we come over and hang out?

who’s “we”?

Me. Otto.

Otto was one of Satchel’s friends, but only really on the internet, and at his weird conferences. Once in a while, he’d come and visit, but that was a whole big event. Satchel would have said something.

But, maybe things were different here.

The whole thing was weirding me out, but maybe I just needed to talk to someone about something other than hospital trash.

fine with me, sure.

I stashed the cigarettes in my office so Satchel couldn’t find them and give me shit, then lied down on the couch to wait.

*****

The two of them showed up about an hour later, dragging a case of beer and a stack of pizzas. The pizzas, apparently, had reminded Satchel of a good story.

“…And then you know what he gave me for a tip? Big ol’ spool of bubble wrap. I swear, I got a peek at his house, and he had about twenty of the suckers. But, yeah, I don’t know why he thought that was a good tip, but I was like, what the hell, I’ll take it… Frankie! Um, is this a good time?”

He was probably asking because I still wasn’t wearing a shirt. Really, I didn’t see the point of digging one out just to sit around my own house, even if people were coming over. They could deal with me in my robe if they could deal with me in the first place.

“Um, yeah… I’m just hangin’ out. And what was up with that bubble wrap guy, anyway? I’d actually forgotten all about that until now.”

When we lived in our second apartment together, Satchel had a night job delivering pizzas, so all kinds of weird things happened to him. Like being gifted with a lifetime supply of bubble wrap, about a quarter of which we blew through ourselves by popping it out of boredom. Otto was shaking his head.

“…He’s been tellin’ these pizza stories for about forty minutes.”

Even though I wasn’t sure what he was doing in my brother’s regular life, I didn’t mind Otto. He had a mellow, droning voice, and a generally soft and compact look to him, which made him seem trustworthy. I knew too many tall people who spoke in shouting, and they sometimes made me feel like I was getting jostled around just by being in the room with them, so Otto could be kind of a relief. Maybe he’d be a relief tonight, too, even though he was out of place.

“Hey, Otto.”

Instead of a greeting, he leaned in and whispered conspiratorially.

“…Your brother’s crazy.”

Satchel was arranging pizzas on my coffee table.

“I heard that!”

“Oh, you know you’re crazy!” Satchel was about to reply, but Otto turned back to me. “…So, you’re like, okay? I heard there was some big emergency or whatever.”

If this was some other version of reality, at least that part of the story seemed consistent. Gail had me worried over nothing.

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t the end of the world. I just got a cold, and things kind of went south from there.”

“Right, you have that problem, that…”

He snapped his fingers a few times. Satchel cracked a beer, took a sip, and put him out of his misery.

“…Plastic bronchitis.”

Otto smacked himself in the head.

“Yeah, that! But you’re all okay now?”

He didn’t seem to understand the nature of the problem, but I knew what he meant.

“As ever, I guess. Little tired, not dying.”

“Cool, cool.”

That said, Otto sat down on the floor. The guy has something against furniture. He knocked on the sofa arm a few times, then turned to face the TV. I remembered that Otto had never been to my house before. And yet, he didn’t ask one question about the couch.

I made that couch myself, by stacking up a bunch of old coffee cans. When uninitiated people sat down in my living room, the first thing they’d say would be some variation of “what’s with the couch?” Otto didn’t have a single word to say about it. And yeah, that’s kind of how he is, but I think even he would comment on it, especially because he generally likes weird stuff. Then again, maybe my couch didn’t qualify as “weird.” I thought about this for a while, but then Satchel tossed me a beer, so I had to be alert. More to avoid getting beaned in the head than out of any plan to actually catch it, a task at which I am pretty damn hopeless. The can landed next to me on the couch. I waited until I thought it wouldn’t fizz over, then took a good gulp of it before I realized that I could taste the can. Which I normally wouldn’t have minded, or even noticed, probably, but it reminded me too much of Gail’s black water. I quickly downed the rest of it, then refused any further offers of beer. The pizza, at least, was unremarkable.

As was the rest of the evening, really, until Otto burst out laughing at something on the TV. I was already starting to drift off, so he almost gave me a heart attack.

“Oh man, I love this commercial. Satch, watch this commercial!”

Satchel seemed mildly buzzed and more than a little indifferent, but whatever it was made him laugh, too. I turned over to see what they were looking at.

It was the goddamn spray paint candy commercial. I cleared my throat, to ask a question I wasn’t sure I really wanted answered.

“…You’ve seen this before?”

Otto had to swallow a mouthful of pizza before continuing. His glasses were sliding down his nose, but he didn’t bother to push them back where they belonged.

“Oh yeah, man. They play it like every other break.”

Be cool. Be normal.

“…Huh. I’ve only seen it once.”

I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling. Apparently, this commercial was normal. Otto just hanging around my house for no reason was normal.

And if all that was normal, nothing was.

*****

By the time they finally left, I was feeling somewhat revived from half-napping on the couch, Otto was blitzed off his ass, and Satchel was trying to drag him out the door and say goodbye at the same time. Basically, it was a lot of “nice seeing you, I’ll call, you call me, see you later,” punctuated with laughter, nonsensical statements, and a good deal of “…Otto, shut the fuck up.”

And then they were gone.

The whole situation had been a little strange, but it probably wasn’t enough to prove anything.

Was it?

Fuck it, I needed an outside opinion. I locked myself in my closet/office, lit one of Gail’s cigarettes, and began composing a forum post.

alright, i’m pretty sure something weird just happened to me. and i know i’m always saying weird things are happening to me.. but that’s just because they are, and if you only believe one wierd thing from me, believe this one, cause it’s pretty wild.

ok….

the other night, something happened to me [its a long story, but it doesn’t matter, and i wanna just get to the point here], and it probably should have been fatal, but i survived. and i know, i know, thats not weird, but what’s been going on since *really* has been, and i’d like some opinions on this.

see, ever since i didn’t die and woke up in my bathroom, things have been…. different?? not like *huge* different, but different enough for me to notice, and prolly for other people to notice to, but they don’t, and there just acting like everything is normal. the different things are like food tastes, tv commercials, etc. one of my neighbors have a different car, another smokes a different brand of cigarettes, shit like that… my brothers friend came over tonight, and they normally have kind of a longdistance thing.

what im thinking is that i might of actually died, but woke up in the next closest world where i lived. does that make any sense?? is it something people have thought was possible before, or am i making it up???

i don’t even know. anyone else ever have a problem like this??

Now all I had to do was wait. I ground my cigarette butt into the carpet, lit up the next one, played a game of solitaire, lost the game of solitaire, sat with my head on my desk and struggling to breathe for a while because I’d smoked too fast, played another game of solitaire, lost that one too, read through a few other posts on the forum, ground the second butt into the carpet next to the first one, and fell asleep in my chair for about five minutes. Then I figured, since enough time had passed for me to do all that, enough time had probably passed for someone to answer me.

Sure enough, three people had. One guy posted a link about some kind of physics thing, which I followed, and I actually did try to read the article, but I gave up because I didn’t understand it. Another guy had some useless “it happened to my friend” story, but no actual answer. Someone else had a long meandering yarn about a TV commercial they saw once and only once, then couldn’t find any acknowledgement that it ever existed, even on the internet.

Screw it, I was tired. I’d check again in the morning.

*****

For some reason that I couldn’t remember, mostly because I also didn’t remember where I went to sleep in the first place, I hadn’t bothered to go upstairs to bed, and ended up passing out on the couch again. And I’m usually fine on the couch for a night or two, but I hadn’t actually gone to bed since the hospital, so my back felt broken, like someone had been kicking it all night. I was ready to just roll over and declare the day cancelled, but then I remembered I probably had replies to read, so I lurched to my feet, shuffled to the kitchen, took a bunch of pills, and sat back down in my office. Let’s see what everyone has to say.

Just like last night, what everyone had to say pretty much amounted to “nothing fucking useful.” No one understood the point of the thread, which was to answer my fucking question. Overnight, it had devolved, from a general experience-sharing thread, to the same twenty people having thirty different conversations. People were discussing misspelled titles of childhood books, the correct location of Australia, string theory, things from five years ago they remembered and their friends didn’t, things their friends remembered that they didn’t, who was making what up, and, for some reason, ghosts. Because it’s always fucking ghosts. A few people told rambling anecdotes similar to mine, ending in similar questions, but they all got ignored.

By now, I was at the end of my rope. The world was all screwed-up, not the way I left it at all. And everyone is so unhelpful.

I sat there for a while, thinking about how much things sucked, and how stupid everyone was, until I started putting all of it together in my mind.

No one directly answered my question, but I probably had gotten enough information to confirm that, yes, this is a Thing that Happens.

And all signs pointed to it having Happened to me.

I remembered all signs pointed to things happening to me before, and I usually turned out to be wrong, but I wasn’t sure if it was ever this many signs at once. Either way, I needed to stop stressing about it, because that would probably just make me go crazy, which wouldn’t do me any good. I needed to…

…Well, right now, I needed to expel another cast, but after that, I needed to get the hell out of the house. I grabbed a jar and started hacking, spat something out, topped it off with solution, and held it up to the glowing computer so I could get a good look. Except, the monitor made everything kind of blue, so that didn’t tell me much. I kicked the closet door open.

Yellow again.

Size: M
Type: 1
Branch Structure: Intermediate
Branch no. estimate: 1-5 _ 6-12 X 13-20 _ 20+ _
Blood: Y
Color: Pale yellow, beige discoloration.
Notes: Color likely normal for present reality. (This is my life now.)

*****

I decided some coffee and a hotdog from the fuel station would set me right, even if it was a bit far for me to walk these days. Not really wanting to bother with actual clothes, I found a t-shirt, put my robe back over it, slipped on my shoes, and went on my merry way, dressed in what looked like a hobo‘s pajamas.

By the time I got there, I was so short of breath I was seeing stars, and I had to puke in the gutter before I went inside. Unfortunately, I was being watched.

“You alright, Frankie?”

I gagged one more time, spat, and looked up. It was Kelsey, holding a still-wrapped popsicle, headed for who-knows-where. But, I didn’t need to look to know it was her. She talks by tapping on her arm, and I’m not exactly sure how it works, but it gives her a distinctive voice.

“Yeah… I’m okay… I just…”

My lungs felt too heavy to move. I sat down on the sidewalk. Kelsey looked at me quizzically.

“You sure?”

That was when I realized something wasn’t quite right here. Kelsey doesn’t actually like me that much, and had never showed anything resembling concern for me before. Normally, she’s using her robot hand to project weird maps on the walls because she knows seeing the continents in the wrong places freaks me out. And other shit like that, but the maps are the worst.

“I’m sure. I’ve just been sick, and I guess this was… A little much for today.”

The tips of her hair were dyed purple. I’d only ever seen her dye them blue or green. But, oh well. What did I know? Different Kelsey, different rules. She shrugged.

“Okay, then. Bye.”

With that, she unwrapped the popsicle, shoved it in her mouth, and ambled off. Since I still couldn‘t breathe, I didn‘t say anything back. Just sat there, gasping for air, wondering if I needed to call someone, and how I would deal with the humiliation of having people find out I’d almost died because I wanted a fucking hotdog. I decided to give it a while, just to see if things would turn around. I lied down on the dirty concrete. After a few minutes, the feeling came back into my hands, and I felt like I could stand up again. I stood up. Then went inside.

The store, to my relief, looked mostly normal, until I saw a colorful cardboard display full of that goddamn spray-paint candy. I glared at it for a while, as if it could actually feel my contempt, then went completely limp.

Oh well. When in fucking Rome, I guess…

I grabbed a blue one, figuring the blue was always the best, even for weird alternate universe candy. Patting myself on the back for my A-plus assimilation efforts, I went to the hotdog case, picked the one that looked crispy from turning over and over under the lights the longest, filled up the biggest paper cup they had with the darkest, shittiest coffee, and went up to the counter to pay.

I plunked down on a bench at a bus stop, and sat my food next to me. First, I sprayed some of the candy “paint” into my mouth. It didn’t taste bad or anything, but eating something that turns your tongue blue without mirror access seemed a little pointless, so I saved the rest for later. The hotdog and coffee tasted just the way they always had, which almost made me want to cry. I sat and ate, near-tears, burning my tongue and watching people get on and off the bus. When I was finished, I folded up my trash, stuck it in my pockets, and took off, under the delusion that I might finally have my regular life back. I was two blocks away from my house, standing under the billboard I always passed on my way to and from downtown, when I realized I was wrong.

They changed the fucking billboard.

It used to advertise, of all things, a Chinese restaurant, which I always thought was bizarre. But didn’t particularly mind, because it made me hungry.

Now, it was some shark-eyed real estate lady, smiling down at me with her thousands of bleached, gnashing teeth.

I wanted to run home and lock the door, but I couldn’t run, and just walking was making it hard to breathe, so I did the next best thing and started walking very stiffly, staring straight ahead.

It was really starting to get ridiculous.

I couldn’t take any more of this shit.

By the time I was finally back on my block, or at least the block that looked like mine, it was getting dark, and Gail was smoking under her porch light. I went over to sit with her, and I think she thought she was having a conversation with me, but I didn’t say anything. She was probably telling me scary things, the way she always did, but I was too scattered to listen. I sat there like a lump, chain-smoking, coughing, wheezing, and staring into space.

This was a bad world. I didn’t like it.

*****

When I was finally home, the only thing I could think to do was go to sleep. I lied down, in my real bed, tried my best, and found it impossible. All the walking and smoking had stirred things up, and I didn’t feel like I was getting enough air. I’d start to drift off, then crash back into consciousness, gasping and hacking, clutching at my ribs. Then I’d lie back down, my brain too busy replaying the last few days to let me rest, until it finally started to quiet down, and I’d have to repeat the whole process over again. For a while, I thought the breathing issue would stop if I just waited patiently, and got so tired that I passed out before I could start worrying again, but then I started to get scared that my body was keeping me from dying in my sleep. Which, since I was so worked-up, probably wasn’t going to happen anyway. The sleeping part, I mean. Dying, who even knows?

I went to the bathroom, pulled out a container, and uncapped my pen, ready for anything. Then I sat down on the toilet lid, doubled over, curled myself around the jar, and got started.

Remember before, when I was throwing up and afraid of turning myself inside-out?

Well, this was the same kind of feeling. And when I finally felt something coming up, I almost didn’t want to open my mouth, because I was genuinely scared of spitting out my lungs. I mean, it’s not like they were doing their job, but even shitty plugged-up lungs are better than nothing. Then I started feeling sick from holding something slimy in my mouth for so long, so I had to let go. Even if the slimy thing in question was a lung. But, it wasn’t, so I guess I was worried or nothing.

With the cast out of me, I was suddenly feeling a lot better. Jesus, it’s a big one, too. Knowing I probably wouldn’t be able to do this tomorrow, I took a few good, deep breaths, and just sat with the feeling. Sometimes, I really missed air. I waited until it felt like I might have a little color in my face, then went on with the procedure.

Size: XL
Type: 3
Branch Structure: Complex
Branch no. estimate: 1-5 _ 6-12 _ 13-20 _ 20+ X_
Blood: Y (Excessive?)
Color: Beige/yellow
Notes: Similar discoloration to previous three casts; likely normal. Size and number of blood spots may be cause for concern.

I stuck it in the cabinet, next to the first one, then headed downstairs.

As exhausted as I was, I couldn’t sleep now. Not before I tried to make some sense out of all this. I grabbed a pad and pencil, turned on the television, and sat down on the couch. Let’s begin at the beginning…

Day 0:
-Initial overdose. (Not anomalous, important for context.)

Day 1-2:
-Nothing in particular; unconscious. (Not anomalous, important for context.)

Day 3:
-Woke up to clean toilet bowl, despite heavy vomiting on Day 1.
-Unusually-colored bronchial casts start here.
-Infomercials seemingly switched out.
-Commercials for unknown products, including a new candy. (important later)
-Watched a movie that had been viewed multiple times in the past, unfamiliar plot events.
-Scissors drives over, van is clean.
-Arrive at diner, new menu layout, missing item.
-Scissors orders a cheeseburger, not a BLT. Doesn’t seem to remember one of the missing infomercials.
-Different French fry seasoning.
-Commercial for unfamiliar car dealership; shows on at funny times.
-Website colors/layouts change.
-(Suspicions begin here.)
-Another cast expectorated, same odd color.

Day 4:
-More unfamiliar TV commercials.
-Ambient neighborhood sounds “off.”
-New car down the street.
-Gail’s cigarettes are a different brand than normal.
-Satchel visits with Otto, neither of them acknowledge this as unusual.
-Otto, who has never been in my house before, doesn’t ask about couch.
-Otto has apparently seen the candy commercial.
-Inquired on forum about possible reality shift.

Day 5:
-Forum userbase unhelpful, but provide enough information to draw a conclusion.
-Another cast, similar discoloration.
-Ran into Kelsey. Seemed friendlier; different hair color.
-New candy available at convenience store. (Sampled, taste unremarkable.)
-Evil billboard lady replaces Chinese food ad.

Day 5.5:
-Produced large cast, also strangely-colored.

That was how I spent the rest of the night. Hands shaking, pen scribbling, television blasting, writing down every little thing I did or didn’t remember, until my head spun and my vision blurred.

I finally fell asleep around dawn, too tired to exist.

*****

I woke up on the floor, my spine all twisted, surrounded by pencil shavings and covered in dusty grey streaks. Shit, I have lead poisoning. Then I remembered that everyone always told me pencils didn’t have real lead, and I didn’t need to worry. But I never quite trusted them. Especially because one of the people who told me was Satchel, and this was after I fell down the stairs and stabbed myself with a pencil when I was ten, so he was probably just trying to get me to stop crying.

My robe was contaminated, so I took it off. Then I started paging through my notes from the previous night, all five pages. Even the last two, which were pretty much illegible. Still, I tried to make sense of them, but they wouldn’t make any sense. Nothing would, anymore. I had to accept that now. So I closed the book and went to get the mail.

My electric bill was in a yellow envelope.

As long as I’d been living there, the envelope had been blue.

That was just too much to deal with. So I left the mail in the mailbox, retreated back inside, went upstairs, and drew myself a bath.

I didn’t know what I was going to do. Nothing was right anymore.

It was all my fault.

And even though it all felt too weird and confusing to live with, I didn’t have any other choice. If I died again, who knows where I’d end up? Nowhere more familiar than this. I wouldn’t get any peace. All I’d do was destroy everyone who gave a fuck about me in this world, just like I had back home.

I’d wanted to lie down and not have to stand up, but all I managed to do was screw over my brother, who invested so much in trying to make me okay.

So what fucking else is new?

I couldn’t take it back. Anything that seemed like undoing it would just do it all over again.

I was stuck.

There wasn’t anything left to do.

I lied there in a soup of my own filth, staring at the ceiling, for about two hours, too gutted to do anything else.

Then my phone started ringing, and I had to answer it, unless I wanted it to vibrate off the toilet and shatter.

It was Satchel. He wanted to go somewhere.

ok. sure. i just need to get dressed.

I wished I hadn’t agreed. All I could think about was the Satchel I left behind.

*****

And that’s how I ended up here, sitting in this dark bar, with this man who only looks like my brother.

Who thinks he really is.

I have no idea where my real brother is, or what he’s doing, or what I’ve done to him. I can’t go back and explain myself. All I can do is sit here and fake it. I order the same beer as Non-Satchel and pretend to get on with my life. Non-Satchel talks like he’s the real thing. Makes me miss the real thing.

“So, you’re looking better.”

I had no idea how that was even possible. Going on how I felt, I probably looked like hell.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah! And Scissors said you’ve been eating again.”

I wish I could have told him that whether I ate or not was the least of my problems.

“Yep.”

“Hey, that’s great… But don’t think you can eat any of my nachos… I’m just kidding. You can eat some of my nachos. Some.”

He laughed, took a sip of beer, then looked around the room, like he thought he’d find his nachos sitting on someone else’s table.

“…What’re you looking for?”

Non-Satchel shrugged, like the real thing would.

“The waiter. For whom I am waiting. Why don’t they call usThat got my attention. Maybe this guy was about to say something that would finally tie everything together. I scraped myself down off the ceiling, and tried to sound as calm as possible.

“I haven’t, actually. Did they stop playing it?”

“Must have! Last time I saw it, I was sitting with you in the hospital. And you were asleep, so I remember thinking it was kind of a bummer, because I know you hate that guy, and we could‘ve made fun of him. I kept trying to find it after that, but I never could.”

But that would mean… Just like before, I reminded myself that I shouldn’t jump to conclusions. I had to wait until I had all the information.

“Um… And this was while I was in the hospital?”

“Yeah. You were pretty out of it, so you probably don’t remember much. Well, anyway, I wanted to find it, because I figured you could use a good laugh… Gets things moving around at all. And then the next morning, I stopped at one of the old diners for breakfast, and I thought about taking you there when you got better, but then I saw they stopped serving your usual, so fuck that shit, man.”

He noticed something off about the diner, too. I was getting confused all over again. But, this time, I hoped with everything in me that my suspicions were correct.

“…While I was in the hospital?”

The nachos arrived, and Satchel was trying to demolish them and carry on a conversation at the same time.

“That’s what I said! Dork… I mean, yeah. I kept thinking of all these things that might make you happy, but the world kept fucking them up. So, I don’t know. Sorry none of it ended up working out.”

“Yeah… Um… Bummer.”

I felt dizzy. Everything seemed like it was supposed to, but it was too much of what it was supposed to be at once, so I needed to switch gears. Satchel, with any luck, the same Satchel I’d grown up with, reached over and patted me on the back.

I needed a few minutes to process all this, so I acted like I was really, really interested in my beer. It’s not like I could talk with my mouth full, after all. This looked normal. Probably.

“Jeeze. Are you like, dehydrated or something?”

Okay, so it didn’t look normal, but he was too impressed to care.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Want another?”

“Sure.”

Satchel ordered me another beer. I ate one of his nachos. Neither of us said anything for a while. I tried to let it all settle in.

That I’d been wrong. Again.

That this was my real brother. The one I’d almost left behind.

I could apologize to him if I wanted, but I wasn’t sure I wanted him to know. Telling him what I’d nearly done to him felt almost as bad as doing it in the first place. So I kept my big mouth shut. I ate his food and made conversation.

But, on the way to the truck, something finally slipped out.

“…I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

I didn’t want to start crying and make him think something was really wrong, so I just kind of sniffed and looked away. Tried to keep the shake out of my voice, but did a pretty shit job.

“For scaring you.”

“Frankie… It wasn’t your fault!”

Yes it was. I stared down at the pavement, doing my best to keep it together.

“…Are you sure?”

“I’m completely, one-hundred-percent sure! Listen… I know you’re sick. I know anything can happen. And that sometimes, things… Do. But even if they did, it wouldn’t be your fault… Shit happens, and… Well, fuck. I mean, I can’t pretend I know how it feels, but I know how hard it is to be you, and that it‘s a lot harder than… Franks, it’s okay! Look… Don’t… Don’t cry, alright?”

I’d been trying not to, but I couldn’t help it. Satchel walked us out of traffic, then put his arms around me, which was a pretty rare occurrence. He was the kind of person who would punch you in the arm, or clap you on the back, or kind of dope-slap you in the side of the head, but he wasn’t what anyone would call touchy-feely. He only did this sort of thing with me, and only when I was really upset.

It made me realize that I was, indeed, really upset.

“I’m sorry…”

“It’s okay! Just… Stop. I know that was pretty bad, but you got through it, and like… Better days ahead. It did scare me, but that’s all over with. Now I’m just glad you’re here.”

I’m just glad you’re here. I didn’t know if that made me feel better or worse, but as soon as he said it, I made up my mind: no matter how bad things got, I was never going to do something that stupid again. It just wasn’t worth all the stress.

“I’m glad you’re here, too.”

“Hey. I’m not going anywhere. Just… Just worry about yourself, okay? Actually, don’t even do that! I’ll worry about both of us.”

By now, there was no doubt in my mind that this was, in fact, the same Satchel I’d grown up with. The same Satchel who always watched over me, no matter how much of a dumbass I was. He had me, and he was holding on so tight I couldn’t slip away, and he wasn’t going to let go until he was sure I was alright.

Even if I never would be again.

He was just a stubborn asshole like that. He was strong and warm and familiar, and he was practically crushing the air out of me, but I didn‘t care.

Same old brother; same old life.

And I wasn’t leaving either of them again. Shitty as it is, this is the only world I know.

I’m just glad I’m here.

Comments

[novel_machinist]

Oh Frankie... :(

[kay_brooke]

Well, wherever Frankie ended up, at least he still has Satchel. :)

[bookblather]

This took me kind of a while to get through since suicide is a touchy subject but I actually... really like it? Like Frankie just desperately trying to reconcile himself and then realizing it really is home.