Drabble Wednesday: Shifting Reality

Today on Drabble Wednesday, what you see may not be as real as you think...

Seeing Things

“I swear things were there, and then they weren’t. One minute a big ass SUV was parked in my neighbour’s driveway, and the next, poof, it was a just a regular old car. And then the house turned pink. Pink, man! What kind of weird ass shit turns a house pink? It’s crazy.”

The police detective sighed. “You take any drugs tonight?”

“No way! I ain’t on nothing! I swear! I wish I was, man!”

“Wait here.” The detective leaves. His boss waits outside the interview room.

“Another parallel universe incident?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll send him for a memory wipe.”

~*~

Too Close

Edges slipping, the universal cracks widening, parallel atomic fault lines crashing. Rubbing together without sound or substance, still sliding open. Insignificant and yet infinite, waiting like a spider web. Or a trap.

I got too close.

I fell between.

Between worlds, between universes, co-existing and not. A human Schrödinger’s Cat. Alive and dead, one and two. One world breathing, the other bleeding. Straddling the line, pulled apart, put together, repeatedly.

Stuck in one moment on dual worlds for an eternity. And only for a second.

I close my eyes.

On one world I die.

On the other I wake up.

~*~

Walking off the World

They call it walking off the world. It’s when a space station worker loses his shit so bad he, or she, starts seeing things and hearing voices. Sometimes they crack up so hard they jettison themselves out an airlock.

Hence the nickname.

Hazards of the job the bosses tell everyone, sometimes the isolation cause metal instability.

But it isn’t true. Nobody on the station ever went crazy.

What they’re seeing, what they’re hearing, it is real. The station’s dead don’t leave. They stick around in whispers and visions.

I know.

I died, and I’m still here.

Care to join me?

© A. F. Stewart 2016 All Rights Reserved

Drabble Wednesday: Alternate Worlds

Today in Drabble Wednesday something a bit different. I bring you three stories, three settings, one person in three alternate world circumstances…

Anticipation

For the moment she is alone.

She looks in the mirror. The bright sun streams in the window, casting sparkles over her beaming reflection. She smiles. Everything is perfect. Just as she imagined. Outside the door she can hear the commotion of the day, the voices, the chatter.

Soon it will begin. She leave this room, this temporary respite from what was to come, these last few moments of simply her.

A knock echoes on her rumination. It is time. She picks up her bouquet, and opens the door. Her father stands there, waiting.

The wedding march begins to play.

~*~

Apprentice

For the moment she is alone.

She looks in the mirror. The fading sun streams in the small window, illuminating the faint scar on her cheek. She examines her appearance. Everything is perfect. Not a button out of place on her regalia. This day will happen just as she imagined.

Outside the door there is silence. All her fellow students and teachers will be assembled on the training grounds for the ceremony. Soon it will begin.

A knock sounds, and she opens the door.

An officer of the Royal Guard awaits her, ready to escort her to her induction ceremony.

~*~

Annihilation

For the moment she is alone.

She looks in the dusty mirror. The sun streams past the cracked window, casting shadows on her pale reflection. She wants to cry. Everything is ruined. Nothing has gone as she imagined.

Outside the door she hears commotion, roaring voices, the sound of shooting, screams. Here, in her temporary refuge, she wonders how it came to this. To war. To genocide.

She picks up her gun and stares at the cold metal. One bullet left.

As ferocious pounding slams against the door, she knows it’s too late. They’ve found her.

A gunshot rings out.

© A. F. Stewart 2016 All Rights Reserved