Going home.

I am no longer sure why I am writing this blog. I don’t know who I’m writing it to, or who it’s for. It isn’t for me. I know that. I suppose it’s so that someone knows what happened, but that means nothing to me, either. Who are all of you, anyway? Who am I to you, or you to me? I have lost all perspective to say whether it matters or not.

My wife and I have been fighting nearly constantly in the past days. I’ve been sleeping on the couch. We’d fight about things I don’t even understand. She would talk of events and times that had no meaning to me. And when I tried to talk about better times, times I want things to be like again, she’d stare at me as though I was insane.

Then today I got several voicemails from Dan. His voice was raspy and strange and distant, as though the call was coming from far, far away. On the other side of the world, maybe. It was hard to tell what he was saying, and often it sounded like he was trying to keep his voice down. At the start of the first one it sounded like he was running, maybe running from something.

He told me he’d figured out what was going on. There were alternates nearly exactly like ours, he said, where things were happening alongside us at nearly the same pace. “When I wake up, the other Dan wakes up,” he hissed at me. “When I eat breakfast, the other Dan eats breakfast. When I make a machine, he makes a machine as well. And when I go through a door and cross over, he goes through and crosses over as well. Don’t you see the potential there? You could cross over and swap lives with someone and never know that you’re living another man’s life! You’d pass each other by and settle into the life the other one was living and never know it! It’s all up to chance! You… You could-” Then he swore loudly as though he’d been attacked by someone. There was the sound of scuffling and someone hung up.

I stood in silence for a long while. My breath came slow and labored. I knew I wanted to see Dan right away, but he had not told me how to contact him. So I went next door, took a breath, and opened the front door to his house.

The foyer was close and dark. All the lights were off, and when I stared into the rooms beyond they seemed to be miles away. There were sounds of footfalls from upstairs. Not of one person, but of many. Maybe dozens of people, walking back and forth. And every few seconds there was the slam of a door.

I wondered if I should call out his name. But I did not, and instead I slowly mounted the stairs.

What I found at the top is difficult to say. Reality did not work there anymore. But I thought I saw halls. Thousands of wooden halls, stretching off into infinity in limitless directions, and along each hall were rows upon rows of doors.

I remembered this sight. I had dreamed of it, or walked it once. I’d thought it unreal, but here it was. I had been there before.

And like before, there were figures passing among the halls. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. They were dark and faint as they hurried back and forth, striding through the doors as though they had business on their minds, and they did not pay attention to one another. Some looked terrified and worried, others furious. Sometimes I thought I saw Dan, but he did not seem to be himself, and so I said nothing.

And sometimes… Sometimes I thought I saw…

No. No, I can’t say it.

I did not stay in that place for long. Thinking that he would not be there, I left and went to the park. He said he stayed there to catch a breather.

The park seemed to be empty. I walked through it for some time, though. It felt nice to be among all the sidewalk paths. There seemed to be so many, splitting apart and joining back together again. After a while I didn’t even know where I was going.

While I was walking I got another call from Dan. Again, he seemed very far away. He could not hear me speaking. I said “hello” several times, but he did not respond. I eventually quieted to hear what he had to say.

“More of them are coming through now, Robert,” he whispered. “More of the alternates. I’ve been hiding in my house, in that maze upstairs, and I’ve been watching them. I’ve… I’ve seen myself. Over and over again, walking through the doors, looking for something. Sometimes I would be different, but other times it was like looking in a mirror.

 “And I’ve seen you,” he said softly. “You, Robert. Many times. I’ve seen you coming out of the doors. Sometimes walking out to the street, like you knew what you were doing. Other times you did not, and you just wandered.”

He swallowed. “You need to leave town. Get a cab and go out to the country, to some motel or something, and just hide out there. I’ll… I’ll call when things are safe. I’m on the verge of something, of some way to fix all this. I just need a bit more time.”

Then at the end he said, “If you see… Well. If you see Dan, tell him I’m sorry. Tell him I’m sorry about his wife. I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I’m not supposed to be here. I’m not supposed to be here at all.”

Then he hung up. I held the phone in my hand for some time. Then I jumped in my car and drove home.

I did not see anyone on the street when I pulled up. When I entered the house I found my wife was in tears, and she was packing a suitcase.

I asked her what had happened. She said she didn’t want to speak to me, she didn’t want to even look at me, I was acting so erratic. I asked what had happened again and she said she didn’t know what was wrong with me, clearly something had gone wrong but she wasn’t going to get hurt by it.

In a panic, I began asking her questions. I sounded eerily like Dan had only a day or two ago, asking about the state of our lives, about what she knew of me and I of her. She asked if it would make me feel better if she answered my questions, and I said it would. She seemed to steel herself, and then began.

I found her answers terrifying. She did not seem to remember anything of our past together. She could not even remember where we’d been when 10/14 happened, and how could she not? How could she not know, when we had been so close that we could see the dust from Ground Zero?

Then she angrily said that she wasn’t sure why she was answering these questions. After all, she said, she’d answered them three times today.

I stared at her, stunned. Three times, I asked? She said yes, and then she looked at me, frightened. She asked what I had done with the shotgun.

What shotgun, I asked? The one I’d gotten out of the closet, she said. The shotgun I’d bought for skeet a year ago. She said I’d promised her to never bring live ammunition in the house, and yet not more than an hour ago I’d come in with shells and begun loading the thing on the bed and would not tell her what I was doing.

I asked her if she was certain about that. She said of course she was. She asked what I had done with it, and I had no answer for her. Furious, she drove off.

I think it was for the best, really.

I went to the bedroom, and turned on the light. There on the bed was a shotgun case, unlocked and opened and empty.

I have never bought a shotgun before.

I sat down and thought. I found a photo album on the beside table and flipped through it. I saw myself and my wife, but in places I cannot recall ever visiting. Places I have wanted to visit, but never have. Then, very irrationally, I went to this blog and looked at the previous posts. I’m not sure why. But what I saw didn’t surprise me.

I did not remember writing any of these posts. At least, any before the dream. And they talk about things I have never done or seen.

I began to wonder how easy it was to fall asleep in your life and wake up in someone else’s. I wondered who had been writing these posts to you, and where he was, and what business I have finishing this story or living this life.

After all, how can you ever be sure that what’s coming out is what you originally put in?

Thirty minutes later I heard the gunshots from next door. Three or four, deep throaty booms of what I assumed was a shotgun. I waited, not moving. Then there were two more. Another pause. Then one more. Then silence.

I waited for an hour in front of my computer, not moving. I did not hear sirens, nor did I hear any other shots. Then, slowly, I stood up and walked next door and pushed the gate open.

Dan was in the back yard. He was lying face down. His right leg had been hit and he’d been shot again in the middle of his back. He’d died with his nose bleeding. From the position it seemed he’d been executed on his knees, facing his shed.

I quietly wondered what questions his executioner had asked him. I felt I knew. He’d asked Dan how to stop it, or how to go home, and Dan had not known.

I swallowed, and then walked to the shed and opened the door.

Crumpled inside was the form of a man. A shotgun lay on the floor across his knees. From the looks of it, he’d tried to shoot the machine, but it had done no good. The machine was whole, but the card table was ripped and torn from the shot. Then he had turned the gun on himself.

I looked at the man. His injury made him unrecognizable. But I recognized the shirt, and the jeans, and the scar on his right hand. The patch of hair he could never shave clean under the angle of his jaw. The fingernails he constantly bit. He looked very worn, though, and somehow thin, but not skinny. It was like if he’d lasted any longer he’d turn clear. And it looked as though he’d been wandering for a long time.

He was wearing ostrich skin boots. I have never bought ostrich skin boots.

I looked out the shed window. I saw Dan’s yard, but in the window the grass was a darker green, and the sky had a bronze hue to it. And there were several bodies lying askew on the lawn. Not just Dan, but men and women I did not now, and one child. I walked out of the shed and found just Dan lying there again, and I wondered what was going on in all those other worlds, and if it were possible for any of the lost people to ever get home. And even if you got home, would you know it? If you found the world or the wife you left, would you even recognize them at all?

I left both the bodies, but took the shotgun. I found more shells on the man in the shed. I’ve packed myself a duffel, filled with what I think I’ll need to survive. Dried meat and tinned food and a first aid kit and a flashlight.

I’m not staying here any longer. I’m going to go over to the house next door and I’m going home. I don’t care how many doors I have to open, and I don’t care what comes through. I’ll open every single door if I need to.

But I’m going home. I’m going home, damn you all. I’m going home.