“Are you thinking that the other Alex is being conformed as a man?”
“I think everyone who changed realities is being conformed. It’s noticeable with you because you were the one who went through the biggest change when everyone was switched. If it takes another month or so, I’m willing to bet that your brother and the others will start showing signs of that too.”
Alex echoed with a slight laugh, “Another month? In another week, if even that long, there will be nothing left of my old identity.”
“In any case, I believe what is happening to you is most likely reality trying to correct itself, and I’m willing to bet that the other Alex’s mindset is also being conformed.”
“What you’re saying does make sense, and our talk helps. Thanks.”
Trudy smiled before saying, “I’m just glad I can help. Now what do you say about watching TV with me and getting your mind off of your situation?”
Alex grinned before saying, “I’ll watch TV with you, but I doubt I can get my mind off of this.”
“A good movie just might do it, and I know where there’s a good movie.”
Alex gave Trudy a curious look before asking, “Where is there a good movie?”
“Sarah has a huge video collection and she lets me borrow one anytime I want. She has one that is side splitting funny and if this movie doesn’t get your mind off your situation for at least a short time then I say nothing will.”
Alex gestured to the door before saying, “Go get it. I could use something other than the last two weeks of my life to laugh about.”
Trudy grinned before saying, “It’s good that you think of your situation as being funny.”
“Well, it’s either that or go nuts. So go get the movie.”
Trudy nodded before turning and walking away. As Trudy was walking out the door Alex sat down on the couch. Alex then picked up her soda and opened it.
During the early morning of Friday, November 5, Alex, Doug, Kenny, Brandy and Cindy attended their classes as usual. At the motel, Ben was working to put the remote together by Randy’s diagram. As he picked through the resisters to be soldered he had trouble determining the strength of one of the resisters. Ben glanced at Randy for a second and saw that he was busy writing on a flip chart while working through an equation. Ben then made a choice to which resister to use without asking Randy for help.
At 11:03 A.M., Alex drove to the motel and knocked on Randy’s door. When Randy opened the door, Alex spouted out, “I need you to tell me that the remote is about ready.”
“Good day to you too, Alex.” As Randy backed up he continued to say, “Will you please come in.”
As Alex walked in she said, “I’m having a bit of a crisis, so excuse me if I skip the pleasantries.” Once the door was shut behind Alex, she saw the remote pieces on a table in front of Ben with resisters around the pieces. “Please tell me that the remote will be ready today.”
“I could tell you that, but it wouldn’t be true.”
“So when will it be ready?!”
“With any luck, Sunday.” Randy saw a disgusted expression on Alex’s face before asking, “What kind of crisis are you having anyway?”
“If you don’t mind, I…” Alex saw the equation on the flip chart and stopped in mid-sentence. As she pointed to the flip chart she demanded to know, “What’s that?!”
“Oh, I’m just trying to figure out the best address to our home reality.”
Alex gasped before uttering, “Are you telling me that you don’t know the address of our home reality when I distinctly heard you telling Prof. Blumberg that all you have to do was use the same address?”
“Alex, that address wouldn’t be valid for this long.”
Randy heard the tone in Alex’s voice and saw in her body movements that she was controlling her rage as she asked, “And why isn’t it valid?”
“Alex, most likely our home reality, as well as this one, has multiplied itself by more than a hundred times during the past two weeks. So when we attempt to return to our reality, we will be jumping into one of those many versions of our reality that has also been crossed by our original jump.”
“Are you saying that we can’t get back to the reality that we came from?”
“Alex, I’m sure that you have stepped in-between two mirrors before that were facing each other, and I want you to imagine what you would see when you look into one of those mirrors.”
“Okay, I’ll imagine it.”
“You’re only one person standing in-between two mirrors, but you would see your mirror image too many times to count. Now pretend that each one of those images is a reality that mimics your life at the point that you looked into the mirror. You belong to each one of those realities and you can make a claim on anyone of them. When we had switched realities, the us in our mimic realities had also switched. Now since we have switched realities, not all, but some of our mimic realities have slightly diverged from each other. We still hold a claim on all of those realities though, and when we attempt to switch back, we will be attempting to switch back to one of those realities.”
“Okay, I think I understand what you’re telling me. Is there anyway that you and Ben can speed up with building the remote though?”
“We all want to get back to a version of our own reality, Alex,” Ben said. “For some reason though, you are in more of a hurry then us.”
“Ben, there’s a chance that when Sunday gets here, I won’t want to go home,” Alex said.
“What are you talking about?” Randy quickly asked.
“You asked me what my crisis was earlier. At the time I wasn’t going to tell you, but now I’m going to tell you anyway. I am quickly being taken over by this reality. I am already feeling the urge to stay and if it takes two more days for that remote to get done there’s a chance that I’ll be staying behind as everyone else goes home.”
“Alex, you have a fiancée whom you love. You asked me to be your best man.”
“I no longer care about that. I’m a woman in this reality and I’m having female urges. At first I was able to keep these urges in check, but now, I’m feeling myself wanting to give in to these urges.”
“Doug has mentioned to me about how you are attracted to Miles, but I didn’t realize how serious it was,” Randy said.
“It’s more than attraction. I have strong feelings for Miles and those feelings are becoming more deeply rooted each day. Trudy thinks that what is happening to me is reality trying to correct itself, and what’s happening to me is happening to everyone, but in a lesser degree.”
“That’s interesting,” Ben said.
“Alex, I’ll see what I can do to speed things up,” Randy said.
“Thank you.”
Randy grinned before saying, “No problem.”
“Before I go back to campus do you need me to run an errand?”
“We’re good for now,” Randy said. “Thanks anyway.”
Alex nodded before saying, “Well, I’ll see you two later.”
“Later,” Randy and Ben said.
Alex waved ‘bye’ as she walked towards the door. She then opened the door and walked out.
Miles, while heading away from Harvard’s campus, was sitting in his van and was waiting for the traffic light to turn green.
One block away from Miles and traveling towards the intersection among the cross traffic was a fifty-year-old man driving a pick-up truck.
As the man was a half a block away from the intersection and approaching the yellow light he had a massive heart attack.
When Miles’ light turned green, he failed to see the approaching truck and started through the intersection. Miles was in the middle of the intersection when the truck, while traveling at thirty-five miles per hour, plowed into Mile’s van near the back tire. The airbags in both vehicles were deployed and the back end of Mile’s van was shoved sideways for a few feet.
Just as the two vehicles were coming to a rest an officer, approaching in his squad car
, saw the scene and turned on his lights. Other drivers came to a stop at the sight, and a small crowd of spectators began to form.
Miles jumped out from his van and rushed to the truck only to find the man slumped over in his seat.
“Oh God!” Miles uttered before turning towards the forming crowd. “Someone, call for an ambulance! The driver’s injured!” Miles then noticed the squad car pulling up.
“I just called nine-one-one!” a woman called out.
“Thanks,” Miles said before rushing towards the squad car. As the officer was getting out Miles was uttering, “Officer! Officer, the driver to the pickup truck is seriously injured!”
The officer gave Miles a nod before pressing the button on his radio to speak. As he was informing dispatch of the situation he ran towards the truck. Miles followed closely behind. The officer ended his transmission as he reached the truck. He then quickly checked the man’s pulse and when he couldn’t find it he said, “This man is dead.”
“Oh God!” Miles blurted out. “I can’t believe this is happening!”
The officer faced Miles before asking, “Who are you and how are you involved in this accident?”
“My name is Miles Appleby and I was driving the van. Officer, I swear the light was green and the man was nowhere in sight when I started through the intersection. I’m a good and safe driver. As a driver, I was never involved in an accident before.”
“Calm down, Mr. Appleby. I don’t know what caused this man’s death, but it wasn’t from this accident.”
“Are you saying that this man was dead when he plowed into me?”
“From what I see I believe it’s likely. I’ve seen this once before and the driver suffered a heart attack while driving. That is probably what happened here. Regardless of what happened we will find out more when the paramedics get here. But until then, I’ll need to see your driver’s license and insurance card.”
“Of course,” Miles said before pulling out his wallet and opening it up to get out the requested items.
A short distance from the motel, Alex had pulled behind five other vehicles in a drive through line at a fast food restaurant. It took Alex several minutes to go through the line and get her large size chicken meal. Just after getting back on the road towards Harvard, she began to leisurely eat her food. As the minutes slowly passed, the traffic became heavier as she got closer to the accident scene.
As Alex approached the intersection of the accident scene she still had more than half of her sandwich and most of her fries left. Alex took a bite of her sandwich, but hesitated to chew when she saw that Mile’s van was involved. Alex then saw the paramedics wheeling a body away on a gurney with a blanket covering the body. Alex quickly pulled her Jeep to the side of the road and as she was quickly getting out of her Jeep she swallowed the bite she had.
As Alex approached Miles’ van an officer blocked her way while saying, “Ma’am, get back in your vehicle and continue about your business.”
“I know the driver to the van.” Alex then demanded to know, “Was he the one on the gurney?!”
Before the officer was able to reply, Miles called out, “Alex!”
Alex quickly turned to face Miles and saw that he was walking towards her. While acting on impulse Alex rushed up to Miles and hugged him tight. As she hugged him she said, “When I saw your van and then the dead person on the gurney, I thought the worse.”
As Miles embraced the hug, he said, “As you can see, I’m fine.” When Alex and Miles ended the hug, Miles saw that Alex had tears in her eyes. “Alex, I’m okay. So why the tears?”
Alex wiped her eyes while saying, “I see that you are okay. It’s just that… I’m not over the thought of you being on that gurney.” Miles grinned and then gave Alex a passionate kiss. Alex allowed the kiss at first, but after a few seconds she pulled away. “Miles, this isn’t right.”
“Alex, you’re a woman. What’s not right about it?”
Alex thought for a second before saying, “I don’t know anymore. The reason now seems to be hollow to me.” Miles again gave Alex a passionate kiss. Alex never pulled away and the kiss ended after several seconds. “I can’t believe we just did that.”
“It felt right though.”
Alex grinned before saying, “It did feel right.”
Miles grinned before kissing Alex again. While they were kissing the original officer on the scene walked up to them and cleared his throat. They quickly ended the kiss and looked at the officer.
As Alex and Miles were holding hands, Miles said, “Officer, I have a ride.”
“Good. The tow truck will be here in a few minutes. You’ll need to stick around so you can tell the driver where to tow your van.”
“Yes, Officer.”
The officer turned and as he was walking away, Alex asked, “So what happened?”
“The driver of the pick-up had a heart attack and most likely died behind the wheel.”
“Oh my God! That’s awful!” Alex uttered. “I guess it was good that you were the one who got hit and not a pedestrian or even someone in a small car.”
Miles grinned before saying, “That’s an optimistic approach at looking at what happened.”
“What? I’m just saying…”
“Alex, you’re right. That’s a good way of looking at what had happened.”
Alex stared delightfully into Miles’ eyes for a moment before giving him another passionate kiss. When the kiss ended she said, “My Jeep is right over there. We can wait for the tow truck there.”
Miles nodded before saying, “Sounds good.”
“I can finish eating my chicken sandwich while we wait too.”
“I thought I tasted mayonnaise when we kissed.”
Alex defensively said, “Well, I didn’t know that we were going to…”
Miles took hold of Alex’s hand while interrupting with, “Alex, it’s fine. I really didn’t mind the mayonnaise.” Alex just grinned, and as she and Miles walked to her Jeep they held hands.
After Alex and Miles got into the Jeep, Alex held out the container full of fries for Miles while asking, “Do you want any fries?”
“That’s your lunch.”
“Well, I ordered a large combo when I shouldn’t have because there’s no way I’m going to eat all of these fries.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I’m about full on what I ate already.”
Miles looked at how much food she had left before saying, “You only ate half of your sandwich and maybe a few fries.”
“Well, I thought I was hungrier than this when I ordered the food. So do you want some fries or not?”
As Miles was taking some fries, he said, “Alex, I wasn’t meaning anything by what I said.”
As Alex was putting the fry container down, she said, “Oh, I know. With all the food I have been wasting for the past two weeks, I should know better by now than to order the same way I did in the other reality.”
“Since I have known about you, I have noticed that you do eat about the same amount as the other Alex would eat.”
“That’s good I guess.” Alex then picked up her sandwich and took a bite.
Alex and Miles waited ten minutes for the tow truck and once the tow truck driver got there the driver took a few minutes to hook up Miles’ van. After everything was set, Miles instructed the driver to tow the van to Harvard, and when the tow truck driver drove off, Alex followed behind him.
Several minutes later, Alex and Miles watched as the tow truck driver was putting the van in a far parking space in the Harvard’s parking lot. As the driver was unhooking the van, a Harvard security officer pulled up and got out of his car.
Miles and Alex saw the officer and when he stepped up, Miles told him, “The van won’t be here like that very long. The accident happened less than an hour ago and I need to locate a shop to have an estimate done and have it fixed.”
The officer looked closely at the van before saying, “If this van isn’t
out of here by Tuesday morning at the latest, you’ll be written up.”
“I’ll get right on searching for a shop to have it towed to,” Miles said.
The security officer nodded before walking away.
The driver of the tow truck stepped up before saying, “The tow is seventy-five bucks.”
Miles pulled out his wallet before saying, “My car insurance pays for the towing.” Miles pulled out his insurance card and handed it to the driver.
“I’ll be back with your card once I write down your information.”
“No problem.”
As the driver walked away, Alex nudged Miles while asking, “Speaking of your car insurance, did you report the accident?”
“I was getting off the phone with my insurance company when I saw you talking to the officer.”
“So all you have to do is find a shop and have an estimate done on it?”
“That’s right.” Miles then leaned in and gave Alex a kiss.
Doug was walking through the parking lot and saw Miles kissing Alex. Doug was bothered by the sight and rushed up to them. When the kiss ended Alex saw Doug rushing up and before she was able to acknowledge his presence, Doug grabbed Miles by his collar and reared back his fist.
Alex quickly grabbed his arm while demanding to know, “What the hell are you doing?!”
While holding onto Miles’ collar, Doug said, “I saw him kissing you.”
“And you were what?! Jealous?”
“No, I’m not jealous!”
“Well turn Miles loose and tell me what is going on.”
Doug turned Miles loose before saying, “I’m not going to let Miles take advantage of your vulnerability.”
Alex gave Doug a confused look before uttering, “What?!”
“You’re my sister, and I’m not going to let him take advantage of you.”
“Okay, first of all, Miles wasn’t taking advantage of me. Secondly, where did you get the idea that I need your protection?”
“Alex, you are not thinking clearly right now. You said it yourself.”
“By me being a woman and having female desires, you took that as I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
Doug said in a volume loud enough for the tow truck driver to hear, “You’re not a…”
A Crossed Reality Page 24