by R. L. Naquin
At the giant mushroom, I bent and knocked on the tiny door. Eight-inch tall Molly popped her head out an upstairs window. She craned her neck to look up at me. “Maurice! I forgot you were coming. I will be right down.”
She shut the window. While I waited for her to come out, the window opened again, and little Abby waved her chubby hand at me. I squatted so we’d be eye level. “Good afternoon, princess.” I bowed at the waist—awkward when one is already squatting.
She giggled and stuck her thumb in her mouth. “Silly.” The word was garbled around her hand.
Molly stepped out the front door, brushing wrinkles from her skirt. Hands on her hips, she squinted up at her daughter. “Close the window, please, Abby. It is still nap time!”
Abby ducked inside and disappeared. Molly shook her head, stifling a grin.
I placed the basket of quiches next to her. It was several times her size. “I brought you these for the bake sale. I hope they help.”
She peered inside, inhaling the smell of cheese and pastry. “This is very kind of you, Maurice. I am certain they will help a great deal.” She shook her head, her face sad. “So many losses in the Hidden community. So many lost and alone.”
I rose to my full height and shoved my hands in my pockets. “If I can do anything else, let me know. I’ll come by tomorrow to check on you.”
Molly smiled. Whenever she did that, all the tense muscles in my body relaxed.
“You do so much, Maurice. Maybe take some time to relax tomorrow.” She turned toward the house and stopped. “The world can take care of itself for one day.”
The world could do no such thing. I shuffled away, unhurried, until I was sure she couldn’t see me anymore. Molly and Zoey were close. If Molly thought I was up to something, she wouldn’t hesitate to bring it up to Zoey. Not because she’d rat me out, mind you. Molly simply wasn’t the sort of person who kept secrets, even if it was for a good reason.
I raced to our house, gathered a tin of mints, the lotion, and the hairspray. When I got back to the spot where I’d seen Nate earlier, I thought he was gone. That would’ve been great. It would mean he got over thinking he was a tree and went home.
Or that he was in full dryad mode and was a few yards away, dancing in his altogethers across the lawn.
The weird part was that he’d left his socks on.
Okay, maybe that wasn’t the only weird part. I scouted around for his clothes. They were everywhere. Dude must’ve flung them as he took them off.
One shoe lay in the dirt, the other in the crook of a tree. His shirt hung from a bush, and his jeans were in the neighbor’s yard.
For the life of me, I could not find the dude’s underwear.
I scratched my head. If I could get him dressed, he’d probably wonder why he was going commando, but probably wouldn’t suspect that somebody had taken them. That would be too bizarre. I decided it was safe enough for me to forget it.
For a tree-man, he was pretty strong. It took me fifteen minutes to wrestle him to the ground and get his clothes on him. He moaned like I was killing him when I tied his shoes.
“I can’t feel the earth!” He kicked, and his hard rubber sole connected with my jaw. “I’m suffocating!” His wailing hurt my head.
But I managed to get him dressed and half carried, half dragged him around the house to the bushes along our long driveway. Mindful of possibly needing the supplies again, I was more frugal this time.
First, a dab of calamine lotion on the back of his arm. Two strong mints went into his mouth. I gave him a small shove and, while he stumbled forward, I spritzed him with the hairspray.
Nate fell to his knees, landing on all fours. “Ow. What the hell?”
As his head came up to look around, I disappeared into the house.
Zoey’s first load of laundry was done, so I scooped it into a basket and transferred the second load into the dryer. I was cutting it close. I may have been able to move fast, but food cooked at the same speed as it always did, no matter how fast I put it together, and laundry always took the same amount of time to dry.
Physics.
While I waited for the dryer to finish, I tossed together some olive oil, soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, minced garlic, and my secret seasonings and stuck the steaks in to marinade for a bit. I’d have preferred to leave them overnight, but Silas had kind of sprung it on me last minute.
I whizzed around the kitchen throwing ingredients together, whipping fresh cream into stiff peaks, rolling potatoes in rock salt, shelling peas, and slicing strawberries. When Zoey was home, she liked to watch me cook, so I had to move slower. Nobody watched tonight, so I went at a quicker pace.
The dryer buzzed as I pulled a lemon Bundt cake from the oven. The whipped cream and strawberries would go on it later, after the cake cooled.
I checked the time. Zoey would be home in a few minutes. More than anything, I wanted to spend the next few minutes folding laundry, but I couldn’t let myself have that pleasure. If I folded it, she’d notice. Shoving all those clean clothes into the basket with the rest made me cringe. Sure, they were finally clean, but now they were all wrinkled. I toyed with the idea of ironing them, but time wasn’t on my side. Besides, she might notice.
In her room, I replaced everything exactly as I’d found it on the floor. I folded my arms and stood back, concentrating. It didn’t look right. I pushed a pair of jeans over a bit with my toe. No. Still not right.
The bathroom! I’d forgotten her delicates. The bathroom was a forest of lace and silk—and a few of those horrible cotton things she wore that I wished I could throw away behind her back. I plucked everything from where it hung and placed it in the basket as if I were some sort of farmer in an unmentionables orchard. Once I dumped everything in her room where I’d found it, I stepped back and nodded.
Perfect. Nothing out of place.
I zipped outside and got the barbecue started, then came inside, turned on the television, and plopped on the couch as Zoey’s car pulled in.
“Hey, something smells good.” She dropped her purse on the table by the door, and placed her yellow beret on top of it. “What’s for dinner?”
I stretched. “I thought we’d grill tonight.”
“Awesome!” She smiled.
“Because we have company tonight.” I gave her my best sorry face. “Silas is here for a visit.”
Her smile faded. “Not so awesome.” Her steps were heavy as she clomped across the living room in her hot pink platform shoes. “I need to get changed. I spilled coffee on myself. Again.” She plucked at her pink polka dot shirt, then brushed the front of her yellow skirt. “And I think I got gum on me from the floor of the bank.”
My jaw twitched. Keeping an innocent expression was an effort. “Did you trip or something?”
She shook her head and her bouncy auburn curls went everywhere. “You won’t believe it when I tell you. I got caught in a bank robbery.”
“No!”
“Yes! Crazy day. I’ll be out in a few minutes.” She clomped into her room and shut the door. Not ten seconds later, the door flew open and she called down the hall. “Maurice, did you spray something in here when you made my bed?”
I tried to be honest. “No. I didn’t spray anything.”
She was quiet for a minute. “Huh. Well, it smells different in here. I don’t know. Never mind.” She shut the door.
By the time she came out in her comfy—and secretly fresh-washed—jeans and Star Wars T-shirt, I was out back turning the potatoes in the coals and getting ready to drop three steaks to sizzle.
Silas sat nearby in a folding canvas chair, swinging his feet and plowing through a bag of tortilla chips. At least outside his mess didn’t matter too much. The birds would clean it up in the morning. Still, I eyed the crumbs on the ground and wondered if I should at least sweep them into a pile so the birds could find them easier.
Zoey pulled a chair closer to the barbecue. “So, these two masked guys walked into the bank today and pu
lled guns on us. I’m surprised you didn’t see it on the news.”
I poked a stake with my long fork. “I was kind of busy today.”
Silas snorted and sprayed tortilla crumbs at me.
Zoey smiled. “The house looks really nice. Clean.”
I grinned back. “I got that stain out of the rug in the hallway.”
“Awesome.” She settled into her chair and eyed Silas with suspicion. “How’d we get so lucky to have you visit, Silas?”
He glanced at me poking at his steak, then to her while he decided whether to tell her after I’d asked him to keep quiet. The steak must’ve persuaded him.
He shrugged. “Do I need a reason?”
Her forehead wrinkled. “I guess not. Just—you know—try to keep your bad luck whammies to yourself.”
As I flipped the first steak, something rustled in the bushes. Dread knotted my stomach. I’d forgotten something, but I couldn’t think what.
A long, low moan from the bushes reminded me. Akhenaten—Gavin—burst into the open, dragging one leg and holding his arms in front of him as if he were in a Lon Chaney movie.
“No, no, no, no, no!” I darted off to stop him, but the damage was done before I’d moved. He was already in our yard, moaning and being theatrical.
Zoey caught up with me in seconds. “I didn’t know mummies were a real thing.” She held out her hand to shake. “I’m Zoey. Welcome!”
It was my turn to moan. “What are you doing here? I just fixed you!”
Gavin let out a high-pitched wail. “Wife won’t let me in. She locked all the doorsss.”
Great. This was perfect. His patient wife chose now to stop being patient.
Zoey patted him on the arm. “I’m so sorry. We have plenty of room for you here, and we’ll do everything we can to help you work things out with Mrs. Mummy.”
I sighed. “Zoey, it’s not what you think.”
Silas snickered. “Understatement.” He belched.
“Just…everybody wait right here.” I zipped into the house and came back with my supplies. This required a little thought. Gavin’s situation was a little different from that of the earlier infected humans. His wife had been putting up with it for weeks.
I shook my head. There was nothing I could do to erase his behavior from his wife’s mind. Best I could do was make sure he didn’t see me and add a monster sighting to his messed-up-psyche list. He was about to think he needed mental help as it was.
Gavin groaned as I swiveled him by the elbows to face Zoey. “Akhenaten, take Zoey’s hands. Don’t look away from Zoey. Okay?”
He nodded. “Yesss.”
Zoey gave me a questioning look, then took the bandaged hands.
I stepped behind Akhenaten/Gavin and dug around in the gauze until I found the end. As I unwrapped his face, Zoey gasped when she recognized our neighbor.
Silas laughed and tossed the empty chip bag in the fire. “This’ll be great.”
I dabbed Gavin’s cheek with the calamine lotion, popped two mints into his mouth, then spritzed the back of his head with hairspray. He inhaled sharply, then moved his head to look around. Zoey touched his face to stop him as I ducked behind the tent.
“Zoey,” he said. “Hi.” She dropped her hand and let him look around to get his bearings. “What am I doing over here?”
Zoey’s voice was soft and calming. She was good at that—even when she had no idea what was going on. “We’re not really sure, Gavin. But I think your wife is waiting for you. You should head home.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I should go home.” The confusion in his voice made me think of white rooms and padded cells. I felt bad for his wife.
The minute he was gone, Zoey swung around to face me. I didn’t give her a chance to say anything. “I’ll get the plates!” I ran into the house.
Zoey followed behind. I poured her a glass of wine and met her at the steps.
She frowned. “Maurice, what are you not telling me? What happened around here today?”
“Nothing special. Drink this.” I shoved the glass of wine in her hand.
She took a sip. “I don’t believe you. Not for a second. Something happened today.”
A gust of wind blew over us and from somewhere above—the gutter maybe—Nate Saunders’s missing underwear shook loose from where it had been hiding. It flapped through the air and landed on top of Zoey’s glass.
I snatched the offending garment away and hid it behind my back, smiling. “Nothing, Zoey. Nothing that doesn’t happen any other day of the week.”
“Cosmic Lasagna”
I think I love using alternate dimensions as much as I love closet monsters in my stories. This story was originally published in the Fall 2010 Returning Contributors issue of the Seahorse Rodeo Folk Review. They asked me for a new story, and this is what I wrote for them.
Last week I walked in on myself in the bathroom. I have to admit, he looked as surprised as I felt. He was reaching to flush the toilet when I barged in. I froze. He froze. Does my mouth really gape that way, like a zombie on valium?
He had blond hair, and his part ran down the middle of his head instead of on the left the way my dark hair does. Blond does not suit me. Like an idiot, I started to tell him so. Not, “who are you?” or, “what are you doing here?” or even, “what the hell is happening?” No, my reaction was to tell my double that blond hair makes him look washed out.
I have to believe it was the shock of it. It doesn’t much matter. We only stood like that for a few seconds before he began to fade and pop in and out in erratic flashes. When he seemed to be gone for good, I realized the urge to pee, which had brought me into the bathroom in the first place, had departed. Also, it would be best if I changed out of my soaked pants.
The rest began with little things. Out of the corner of my eye, I’d see movement—turn my head and nothing would be there. I’d reach for my coffee cup and it would be gone, only to turn up a minute later right where I had left it. My shoes were often an Easter egg hunt, though I learned that if I took a breath and waited a few minutes, they’d be back in the closet where they belonged. It spooked me, sure. But only in the sense that I might be losing my mind.
The physical manifestations to my own body came a few weeks later.
I was standing in my living room when the whole world seemed to lurch sideways. I snapped my arm out and clutched the back of my recliner for balance. The air whooshed out of my lungs, and my stomach tightened like I’d been punched. The hard edges in the room lost definition and smeared like a child’s watercolor painting. The pressure in my ears felt as if all the windows in the house had been slammed shut simultaneously.
And then it stopped.
I stood like a fool, one hand clawing marks into the leather chair, the other braced against the unmoving wall. All was normal—colors, shapes, and edges were sharp and innocent of funny business. The light fixture above my head held steady—no swaying to give away tectonic activity. An earthquake would have been a relief.
Something was seriously wrong.
I considered going to see a doctor. What could he possibly say to me? Either I was losing my mind or was terribly ill. In either case, I couldn’t imagine what he could do about it. My faith in science has always been a bit weak, especially in the medical field. We think we know so much, but time and again, current theories are proven wrong. For all the new technology we’ve acquired, we might as well still be using leeches and waiting to sail off the edge of the earth.
There was also the possibility that I wasn’t the problem. Maybe something was happening, and we were all in a lot of trouble. But a doctor wasn’t likely to tell me that.
I admit, I’m no genius. Quantum physics is a little beyond my scope. I know they’ve been theorizing about alternate universes for some time, but that’s all it really is—theory. I have my own ideas. While they’re busy measuring waves and particles, I look for a simpler explanation. Something my non-scientific mind can comprehend.
According to
the Bible, God created the universe in seven days. What has He done since then to amuse Himself? I see no reason why He couldn’t be cranking out another universe every seven days, layering each one on top of the other like a vast, cosmic lasagna. The way I picture it, between each layer of universe-pasta, there is a barricade of ethereal cheese to keep them from sticking together and sharing space. When the cheese gets thin and the noodles touch, we get a sort of dimensional slippage.
I’ll be honest. I’m not particularly religious. I picture God doing all this because I have to believe someone is in charge of cooking all this up. Otherwise, I get a little claustrophobic, picturing the weight of a million universes crushing down, compressing us like sprigs of baby’s breath in the family Bible. In reality, I don’t think there’s anyone in the kitchen.
And the oven timer is about to go off.
At work, a few days after the bathroom incident, I found a redheaded version of myself sitting at my desk. He looked tired—much like I imagined I must have looked. I wondered if he’d encountered the blond as well. No. The blond was my cosmic neighbor. I wondered what version of us lived on the cosmic noodle two layers from me, on the other side of this tired, ginger me. Perhaps he was Asian or bald? How many of us were there?
There were framed pictures on the desk of a family I’ve never had. A pretty wife smiled at the camera, two pretty children in her arms. I stared at a snapshot of my brother and the other me. The photo seemed recent and showed the men in fishing gear with a river winding behind them. My brother died in a boating accident when he was sixteen. I dragged my focus to the other me, and he was staring back at me with weary eyes.
He wasn’t as substantial as I’d assumed. I could see the light from the computer monitor shining through him. He gave me a tired smile, and then he was gone. No flicker or fade, no theatrics. He was there, and then not.
Two days ago, I woke up with blond hair. The bed was much more comfortable than the one I’d gone to sleep in the night before. When I wandered into the unfamiliar kitchen, I stepped in the dog’s water bowl, sloshing it onto the elaborate mosaic tiles on the floor. I don’t have a dog. I have cheap linoleum floors. I tried to make coffee, but I couldn’t figure out the fancy, expensive-looking coffeemaker.