In the other, in the real reality, he stands wearily in the door for a moment, and then lumbers to the sink and fills a glass with water. He glances over at me as it fills, and I fall dorkily out of my split, painfully on the ground, and look up at him with a weird kind of neediness. He sighs and helps me up, and turns off the music. He says that he�s not writing well enough, and as he says that the other Jon gives me a hug and says that he�s going to need some inspiration because his bookis fizzling a little. The other me is supportive and kind, and says that she�s sure he�ll get back on track. In the meantime, Jon gives me a long look like he�s firing small bullets into me with his eyes, and says that he better get back upstairs.
The two others go out to dinner and get really good, really cheap Mexican. I envy them briefly, and, shattered, I go to the porch and collapse on the sofa with a pair of blankets wrapped around me tight. I think about how Andrew died and I want this asshole to break out of prison to kill me too. I know he won�t, but I want it with such hardness that I think it�ll happen.
And I sit, frozen in my blankets, waiting for a man in a black raincoat.
I know he�s not coming.
I manage to fall asleep, somehow, and it�s disorientingly mid-afternoon. My gut contracts like I�m going to cry, and my throat gurks up in imitation, and then I shudder and swallow and spit like I�m crying, but here�s a little secret: I�m not.
When it�s suddenly and painfully over, I wipe my nose and mouth with my sleeve and look around the room. I feel embarrassed as all hell, and I�m worried someone�s seen me. I see something black out of the corner of my eye and panic, but it�s just a black feather, probably blown in the last time someone opened the door. It stands upright, beseechingly, on one of the wicker-seated chairs, the tip twined between the strands of hay (is that what wicker is made of?). I let it sit and walk back upstairs with the kind of walk that feels like crawling.
Jon is up there, in front of his computer, the new one, and his face is squished up in a manner that looks like it hurts. He isn�t crying, but just looks unhappy and angry. I walk over and it feels like I can�t even pretend to be upset anymore. Anything about what he did a few hours ago evaporates with that look on his face, that charming and depressing and sexy look.
He tilts his head up at me and says that he�s sorry, and then squares back to being Jon and says that it�s just because his book�s been stalling and he�s not been feeling too grand lately.
I flash to the other us, and they�re fighting in the back hall, near the door outside. The other me has a duffel bag and Jon is holding a knife. I feel ill and go back to the forgiveness we�ve got at hand. It�s enough for one pair of eyes, I think.
That was four hours ago. I�ve been thinking about that other us too much. Who are they? What do they have to do with us?
Jon and I were talking about alternate realities a few days ago while washing dishes: he thinks that for every choice he�s made, another universe springs up. I thought of it in a slightly more Eninsteinian manner: that there are an infinite number of universes and they are all expanding. Jon said, �Well, that�s the same as I said.� and I disagreed. If for every choice every person makes there is a new universe, then there are a finite number of universes. They can be counted, unlike the other option. Jon said not unless decisions that have not yet been made create universes as well, in which case there are an infinite amount, because there�s n infinite number of people to make those decisions (living, dead and unborn). I said that humanity is not infinite, because it�s not guaranteed that the human race will continue forever, or even for very long, and that if decisions which have not yet been made spawn universes than it�s impossible to think that each decision makes a new one, because all decisions are in the future at some point in time.
Jon stumped me then, saying, �Not God�s.� and I got on a mental bender trying to figure out if believing in God was worth an argument.
Then he called me a fatalist and flicked dish soap on me.
But I was right: we don�t know when the end of the universe we live in will come, so we can�t say humanity is infinite.
It�s been festering a little. Little things like this rankle; they stick in my throat like the bones of fishes or the crumbs of bread Jesus handed out.