Usually the changes are inconsequential. In this one french fries, in the next one onion rings. You don’t even know you’ve gone anywhere. You just figure that your memory is fading or your mind playing tricks on you. According to the physicists I talked to, new branches form when you make momentous decisions, but the small stuff curls up like little threads all attached to the same branch. So, you don’t really notice you’ve traveled to another dimension unless you’ve entered a new branch of reality. The first time it happened was when I was twenty-four years old and I showed up at four am to pick my dad up for a fishing date.
“What are you doing ringing the bell at four in the morning, Tommy? Are you drunk?”
“Sorry, ma. I didn’t mean to wake you up. I’m taking dad fishing out at the lake.” I pointed at my bucket hat and waders to be helpful. My mom exhaled a puff of air as if I had punched her in the gut.
“That’s not funny, Tommy,” she said, trembling with tears welling; her mouth a jagged gash of pain. “Why would you say such a thing to your own mother? You need help.” She pointed outside. “You ripped my heart out, now leave!”
I slid into the seat of my Jeep Cherokee as I absorbed the implications. I was no genius at twenty-four, but I could figure out that my dad – my best friend – was dead in this dimension. Not only that, but I had caused my mother unnecessary pain, harming our relationship to a degree yet to be determined. And the day had started with such promise when I had woken up with a Jeep keyfob on my night table and this vehicle in place of the Dodge Ram I had left the night before. I remembered the year previously, trying to decide between the two vehicles which had the same price and financing.
I tried to fix it with ma the next day. She had been an English teacher and was a big Kurt Vonnegut fan, so I explained to her that I was unstuck in the multiverse in the same way that the main character in Slaughterhouse Five was unstuck in time. She nodded with patient wisdom and understanding.
“How awful that must be for you, Tommy. To be ripped away from a world where you enjoyed a close relationship with your father and plunged into another one where he’s dead.” She understood! “But that’s what’s happened to all of us, dear. The only dimension where he’s still alive is in our memories and in our hearts. Do you understand?”
I did. This dimension really sucked. The microdimensions, too. There was one version where I took meds and shuffled around like a zombie, but didn’t utter a word about multiple dimensions. Another where I didn’t take meds and talked about it incessantly, and this one where I pretend to take meds, say nothing, and write.
Literature in Small Doses 