When I was little my grandmother caught my mother beating me and took me away with her. I lived with her from then on and she took care of me. She’d give my mother a little money here and there to keep her away, and a part of me knew it was because she was her daughter. I knew that I was the same. I couldn’t hate her, but I never quite forgave her.
When I got a little older and started getting bullied, my grandmother took me to the mall to get my nails and hair done one day. As we sat there in silence, her because she was flipping through a magazine and me because I was unsure of what to do or say, she turned to me and smiled.
“Sakiko. People will try to bully their way through life to get what they want. You can’t flinch. You flinch and you let them win. It’s all a game of chicken. You gotta stand your ground and be willing to face your fears. If you can do that, I promise you that you’ll find your way. Understand?” And I nodded quietly as she went back to flipping through her magazine.
Years later, after she challenged me to reach further than I ever thought I could, after she sent me through college and watched me graduate, she passed away and left me with all her assets. She’d lived a humble life. Had a simple house and didn’t wear anything too expensive or frivolous, so when I sat down to sign the will, I was surprised to see that she had left me with millions. She had skipped over my mother and had signed it all away to me. When my mother came demanding to be added in, I never flinched, and eventually, she learned that she would be happy with what I gave her, or have nothing at all. I wasn’t cruel or petty. I bought her a nice house, a nice reliable car, and gave her a yearly allowance that she was able to do what she wanted with it, and understood that it was her responsibility if she used it all up too fast. If she wanted more, she could work.
For myself, I lived much like my grandmother. I had a simple condo on the side of the beach. That sounds fancy, but it was a one-bedroom space with the kitchen and living room combined. I biked instead of driving a car, and I cooked at home most days. And despite receiving enough money to probably never need to work again, I taught art at a nearby community center on weekends and did translation work at home. My life wasn’t extravagant, but I was happy.
Then she came. That day it had been pouring, yet I pulled on my poncho and rode my bike all the same. I splurged a bit when I bought my backpack and so I wasn’t worried about the rain getting to my drawing pad, but I pedaled quickly not wanting to get completely soaked myself. I was maybe five minutes out from the community center. Just a quick ride down the street and around the corner and I would’ve made it. I wonder what I’d be doing now if I had.
She came stepping through the air, wavering into existence before me, and shocked, I stared dumbly as I went colliding into the curb. The handlebars wobbled from my grip, and I fell in a heap on my bike. She watched me calmly the entire time, staying still as I gawked at her. Then she made her way to me. Somehow, despite the pouring rain, she remained dry. Her brown hair stayed smooth and silky, her white tee and jeans waving slightly as if she were standing in a calm summer breeze.
“Your…”
“You?” She smiled gently, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She reached out a hand to me, and I hesitated before I took it. As she helped me to my feet, I studied her face. It was so much like mine, but her eyes were a pale blue, deep-set and round. Her face was a bit more narrow and sharp.
“But not.” I noted.
“Yes, well I guess I’m half Japanese in this reality. Older too, I see.” She circled around me and nodded as if she were satisfied with what she saw. “Mom?”
“My mom?”
“Yes. Yours. Is she alive.”
“Yeah.”
“Is she happy?”
“As happy as she can be, I guess…”
“You don’t know?” She frowned.
“Well, I mean we don’t really talk. I just give her enough to keep her busy, and she doesn’t bother me again until she needs more money.” I wiped the rain from my face and was reminded that she was still dry. “By the way, how are you not getting wet?”
“Hmm…. Cause I’m not really here, not in the possibility of this reality where it’s raining. More like I’m in another possibility where the rain didn’t fall today. I can bring you there if you’d like?”
“Wait, what? How is that even possible?” I asked the girl who had stepped into existence from out of nowhere. She put her hand on my shoulder, and suddenly the world around me started to vibrate. The day went in and out of focus, fighting between the street in front of me where it was pouring, and the street in front of me where it was a nice sunny day. Finally the sunny day overtook the rainy one, and things began to settle again. “So this is…?”
“Still in your reality, just one where it isn’t raining. Nothing else really changed. Maybe someone will live instead since the roads aren’t slicked with rain, maybe someone will die now because the weather is so nice, so they decided to go for a walk and was hit by a car. It doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter?”
“Either way, someone will die. It’s not like we can do anything about it.” She shrugged.
“But you can stop the rain?”
“No. I simply chose a possibility where it doesn't rain. No matter where I choose to go, someone will always have to die though. It’s unavoidable.” She stated matter of factly and then continued to walk on. I didn’t know what else to do but to follow. “So you give your mother money to leave you alone?”
“I give her money because despite her not deserving it, I don’t want to see her struggle. She chooses to leave me alone until she needs more.”
“And so?”
“So?”
“Who took care of you then? It doesn’t sound like she did.”
“My grandmother.”
“Is she alive?”
“No.” It was silent for a moment after that, as if she didn’t know quite what to say either.
“In my reality, my mother died. Because of what I can do, I get to see her in other possibilities, but sometimes I come across one like this, where she wasn’t that great of a person.”
“Sorry.”
“Oh, I’m grateful. Just sorry your mother wasn’t all that nice. But, I’ve gone to places where she was… worse.” She didn’t elaborate. Again, there was silence. Then we found ourselves in front of the community center, and I wasn’t sure what she planned to do from there. If she went in, would people realize that we were the same person?
“So…?”
“They can’t see it. That we are one and the same. Maybe mother would, but no one else. She seems to be tied to us in every reality whether we’re close to her or not.”
“But why are you here? Just to see the different mothers?”
“Ah, no. Trying to keep us all from dying. It’s been hunting me for months now. I don’t know how I’ve managed to evade it for so long, but Oblivion is catching up.”
“Oblivion?” I jolted at the mention of us dying.
“Yeah. It’s looking for me. All this shouldn’t be possible, being able to see and interact with different possibilities, but Murphy was right, and so despite the odds, I happened. Now Oblivion is trying to delete me out of reality so that everything will be set right again.”
“Delete? Well if it is just after you, then why are you here?”
“Cause if I’m erased, you’ll probably cease to exist too.”
“Oh.” I walked my bike to the bike rack and chained it. She continued to stand by the entrance looking at everything around her as if she were trying to memorize every last detail. I continued to fumble with the lock even though it was already locked to buy myself time before I stood and faced her again. “And if I die?”
“I could just tear myself from your reality and maybe survive, but the others would die too and then there’d be no point in just me existing. Maybe the butterfly effect might create several versions of myself from my actions, but even if that were so, I’d be too vulnerable to Oblivion long enough to probably be erased. But we’ll talk about that later. It’ll eventually come here, so we've got to go.”
“Go? Me? And if you’d never come here, to this reality?”
“Oh it never mattered. Just the possibility of me being here would’ve sent it coming. Maybe it wouldn’t have bothered you, knowing that I would try to separate myself from the others, and would’ve moved on to the next one, but I’d rather not risk it. Plus, with all of us together, I’m sure we could manage something.”
“Like what?”
She shrugged. “Who knows. I was ready to just be erased. Constantly running starts to get tiring, but I was told that maybe I should try to use this ability to save myself so I figured, if I couldn’t think of anything to do, maybe another me could. Maybe all of us together could figure out some sort of plan.”
“That’s real half-assed of you.” Again, she shrugged.
“By the way, what’s your name? I’m Stacy.”
“Sakiko.”
“Well Sakiko, unless you want to stay here with that,” She pointed to a darkness that seemed to come from nowhere. It looked like a vacuum of space that seemed to swallow the world around it. Whatever it passed by, that object simply disappeared, and then the world returned back to normal as if that thing had never existed as if it had been erased away. “...then I suggest we get going.”
I clung to her, my nails burying themselves into her arm as that thing grew closer. Oblivion she had called it. I could see why now. It was a massive void of nothingness that glided its way to us.
“So? Hurry up and get us out of here!” I screamed as it seemed to pick up pace. When I blinked, we were still in front of the community center, but the houses around it were different… more run down.
“Well, let’s go find the other us.”
And then that was about it. I don't know why she chose me? Guess she just randomly jumps from one place to the next. Maybe she plans to gather us all? But from what I understand, it'd be practically impossible to gather all the infinite versions of ourselves. After we found Sarah, the me of this world, she left me to keep the poor girl company while she went to go find a place where it would be difficult for Oblivion to find us. It's been over a week. The only comfort I have is that I still exist, so she must be alive still, but Oblivion isn't our only worry now. Sarah proved Stacy's theory right, that all of us were connected to all the mothers regardless of whether they were alive or not in our own world. Great, another damn glitch... and now we've got to worry about killer mothers and Oblivion erasing her too. I'm done. Stacy said we should all write our own little thing up here. Don't know where all this is going if we'll be jumping from one reality to the next, but I doubt I'll bother to write anything else. The way things are going, we'll probably all die soon.
Sakiko Lynn.
Submitted September 19, 2019 at 07:00AM by blaueink https://ift.tt/2V2Peex
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