Lost in thought by D.A.Sanford - HTML preview

There has been speculation that we are some sort of holographic program? Maybe a dreamer’s world. You ever get that deja vu feeling? Here is another twist, could we all just be a visual that the author is seeing as the author types?

Living in a parallel universe, maybe

I have the same dream every night. I walk looking for my wife. I search and the longer it takes the madder I get. You see she goes off like this sometimes for weeks. There are times that I wish I don’t find her.

I am searching room by room, field by field. There in another field way in the back is a group of couples. I see her with another couple. I’m mad, she is doing the same thing. Playing around like always. I yell

“There you are BITCH!”

The other couples cheer.

“You coming home to the children or are you going to just stay here with your bitches, bitch?”

I see the couples turning on me.

She just turns away from me and gives me the middle finger.

That is the point when I wake up. It is two A M and my mind is totally awake in this empty bed. There is no way I will go back to sleep. As usual, I get up. I no longer even watch the television, no radio. I just sit here and let my fingers type.

The divorce decree said that I was a threat to her by my actions. My actions, I just wanted her to come home. I was the one that was deserted. She was awarded the children which, many years after, I learned that the state took them for neglect. That figures. I never was contacted because of that divorce decree. Some court, not even knowing me, ruled I was also unfit.

My home is a used camper in a year round camp site. The people here are just being natural. These camp grounds get a bad reputation by the ones that haven’t even driven in to see. Trailer trash and that is it. The only thing stopping the town from shutting us down is the fact that the park is listed as a business. Higher property tax.

It was inevitable, those who looked down their up turned noses won. A group peddled the surrounding area as a site for an industrial park. The camp ground owner, an older widower, called us together and told us those sleezy two words.

“Emanant domain.”

He did not have the means of fighting it in court. We had one week to get out, the order said. Anything left would be carted away as trash. We offered to chip in to be able to fight this but he hung his head and said he was tired. The amount they are paying him is not actually what the land is worth. He will have to move in with a friend.

My camper is old and I figure that it will fall apart behind my pickup but it is now disconnected from the utilities and I say good bye to the remaining people. As I pull out, there is heavy equipment lined up with the good people of this town holding up signs basically saying “About time! Get out trash.”

What those good people did not realize, the majority of towns folk drive to the big box stores for what they need. The chain gas station convivence store in that town and dined at those restaurants in that town.

We trash were the ones that shopped local. We trash got our gas locally. We trash ate at the good places in town.

After we left, those places went out of business. That industrial park never got off the ground. Other areas had what their workers needed to live. The companies looked at the pitch the town gave but when they toured the town, they were turned away by those vacant buildings.

I did not care. I long since stopped caring. Nothing worse than having your family destroyed. Pulling off the road at a highway rest stop, those are now my home. I go into my camper and fall asleep.

The dream did not come that night so I got a really good sleep. When I was waking up, the bed felt strange, but vagally familiar. I don’t get a chance to clear my mind when my two young children come running in and jump on the bed. I hear a female voice that is my wife saying to them to be careful jumping.

She sounded sweet. That is not what I remember as her.

I slowly roll over and see her smiling face as she says “Good morning darling.”

My brain is both imploding and exploding. Believe me, I am inside this body, it is possible. She looks at me and asks me what is wrong. If this is a dream, I do not want to wake so I say to her, “Just the remnants of a bad dream.”

She and the children now snuggle and the children chant, “Away away bad dream.” They are waving their hands like it was part of the ritual. Then they hug us and say that it is all better. My wife tells them to go wash up and get dressed for the day.

“Just remember, today we leave for our vacation.”

They go off chanting, “Camping, camping”

She turns to me and asks about the dream. I don’t tell her about the divorce but about being thrown out of town as trailer trash and that I was all alone.

She hugs me and tells me that they are here for me. “You are not alone.”

We get up and I look around. This is almost like the house that we lived in but with slight differences. Looking out the window from the breakfast area, I see the street. This is almost the same table but now it is a booth like sitting arrangement. It should be facing the back yard.

This is very strange. There is a lap top on the table. I open it as my wife comes in and comments, “Looking for more of those weird stories? I know that you get some of your stories from them. I hope there is some good ones but I do need you to shy away from those political ones. They are too far out.”

She kiss’s me and leaves my breakfast. I look at a few of those “What if” stories they have as I slowly eat. One catches my eye. This one is “What if we could travel to other parallel universes?” She comes back with her breakfast. Seeing me engrossed in what I was reading.

“Find one that is interesting?”

Before I could answer, we hear yelling coming from next door. The car door slam and the screech of the tires burning out as a man is yelling “Bitch come back here.”

My wife just says, “I wish they would go to a parallel universe.”

I feel fuzzy and now I am in a car speeding away. I need to get away from here and her female friends who threatened me with bodily harm if I ever came back. They meant it. Then it hit me. “What the fuck is happening to me?”

I remember it all. Roadside rest stop, to loving home and now to running away for my life. Then I remember the article. How is this happening? I am being sucked through those universes. What is this? Some sick cosmic joke and I am the butt of it?

Now this life’s memories are here. This has happened more than once. This time is the worse and I have taken the warning seriously. I drive to the bank and close out our accounts. I almost drained the banks cash reserve. I wanted cash because they cannot electronically reverse the transaction. They will find that she no longer is their sugar momma.

I knew that they were only in it for the lavish gifts they received from that wife of mine.

Now in another state in the opposite direction from that vacation home she insisted we needed. Actually, she needed. That is where she spent those, I need to be alone, weeks. Always with those who chased me out.

I need to gather my thoughts so I pull into a rest stop and park by a dilapidated camper.

I wake to the sound of a car pulling in next to me. I do not want to look out but I need to. There next to me is my car and I am just looking out the windshield. I do see myself slowly looking at me looking at me. The car me gets out and opens the camper door.

We both say, at the same time, “What the hell is going on?” the two of me now remember some of those science fiction shows that said that touching would cause the world to explode, we made sure that we did not touch.

I tell the car me about my being thrown out of the campgrounds. Suddenly he is relating the fact that he was able to bring my wife back but she did not change her way. The trailer me now has that memory. We both grab our heads and moan.

“At least you had the sense to drain the accounts.” I said to the car me. “Yah,” that me said, “Instead of living on the road, I can at least get a new place.” But we both knew that something is terribly wrong. We came to and agreement that we must never come in contact with the only one of us that is not in trouble. The one that is with his wife and children.

I do say that we each now know of that one. “I think that you need to go back to your car. I will drive to the south and you to the west. That one of us is driving east. You, the car me, jumped back to the camper me only because you parked next to me. Hopefully we can stop this jumping by not meeting again.

The car me goes back to the car. I make it a point to drop two bundles of fifties at my camper door and that one drives away. I am tempted to find the happy me but deep down I don’t want to mess that one up.

I drive south.

Driving, I pass signs that say “Do not pick up hitch hikers. State Prison is in this area.” Without even the light head, I am now in one of those cells. That inmate across from me is crying as a few guards and a man that I know is the warden are going to escort him on the long walk. I know that I am next to take that walk. I was convicted of murdering my wife and her two lovers in a premeditated way. She had served me the divorce papers and the two woman tried to chase me out with knives. It really was self defense for those two but I did shoot her and just sat in the front yard. I plead guilty and received the death penalty.”

All of a sudden, I felt my lives vanishing. The camper me, the car me, the prison me. All of us just vanished.

My wife comes in and tells me to get ready. “The children are already in the car and bouncing.”

I look at her and agree. She sees me hit the don’t save button on the word program. I look at her and tell her that the parallel universe was turning out to be too complex. “I like the idea but it will need to be thought out a little better. I started out with our two neighbors.”

I grab the laptop and start for the car. Why do I feel like I am fading. No it is more like I am being saved.