Shadow of Worlds

2 THE DAY AFTER YESTERDAY

2 THE DAY AFTER YESTERDAY

I wake and remember that I slept last night in my bed. The old wolf naps on the throw rug beside the bed, having adopted me in years past, he guards me in this strange world. A local pack of wolves has found us interesting and is lounging in the sun at the grassy edge of the woods.

I need to go shopping for a few items today, and it would be nice to get a little socializing in at the same time. In the next few days, I need to do a fair amount of traveling, and I have an eight-cylinder 1966 Crimer Lance sitting in the garage that needs to be taken out for a road trip. I will drop it off at a little shop I know run by a guy named Elmo for a tune-up and wash. While he does that, I can buy a few things at the local Big Box and have some suds at the local watering hole.

“Come on, Big Dog! Let’s go to town.”

The wolf gets up and trots behind me as I head for the garage and the old gas-guzzler. When we get to the car, he hops into the passenger seat and sticks his head out of the window, ready to enjoy the travel breeze. I give his head a good rub, devoting close attention to the base of the ears. I start up the car’s engine, and we are off.

We head off down the road at a good clip, the engine growls in the background, and Lobo is lolling his tongue in a satisfied way. A small part of my mind starts to make small changes to the world about me, and the miles and changes merge into one. We pass a sign that says ’10 miles to Tuska’, and the Lance is now a 1966 Dodge Dart, my wallet is full of American Twenties, and we are in the right shadow, with but ten miles to go.

We pull up to Elmo’s Garage, and I slide out of the car, with Lobo at my heels. He knows that while he is my guardian in the wild places, I am his guardian in the world of Man. A few moments of negotiation with Mr. Elmo, and we are off to the Big Box. I am in need of several knives, a few handguns and a rifle, and a tad of ammunition. Another hour sees my shopping complete, and the weaponry safely stored in the trunk of the car. Elmo has finished checking over the car and replacing the plugs and points, and I am now ready for the social part of our little trip.

Lobo and I pull up to the Line Bar and Grill and spill into the Bar. Ellen is serving behind the bar, and she greets us with a sunny smile. “Hey, Rafe, what can I get you and Lobo?”

“I’ll have a Lone Star, and Lobo says he wants another of your famous grilled patties.”

Ellen shuffles off into that special Waitress universe which seems to manifest in the back of most eating and drinking establishments, and in a few moments, she reappears with a tall beer and a large beef patty in appropriate containers. She dispenses the grub to Lobo, and the beer to me, and smiles in satisfaction at the gusto with which we consume these items.

Ellen leans close and says in a conspiratorial tone, “Did you hear about Clifford and the boys? They claim they saw a group of flying saucers the other night.” She smirks a bit, attempting to insinuate that the lads might have been drinking a bit heavily when they saw the UFOs.

“That has been going around lately.” I have to bite my tongue to keep from telling Ellen that UFOs are real, and they are from world lines that are far ahead of ours, where they are the Descendants of our shadow selves. It is not a coincidence that all of the aliens seen by people are humanoids. The chance of a humanoid in our stellar neighborhood that is unrelated to us is vanishingly small.

It was some time ago that I first came upon the truth about the ‘real’ world around us. A few years ago, I was a University Student, rooting out factoids from the muck and mire of Academe. I had always had a problem with success in life, in that I never actually failed in my endeavors, but noticed that the outcome of my activities seemed supernaturally aimed at the border between getting what I wanted, and not getting it. If I wanted to be a millionaire, I would not go broke, but I would have to settle for being a hundredaire. If I wanted the pretty girl in the center, I would wind up with the ugly girl in the corner.

After years of self-observation, I noticed that what I continued to receive in life was uncannily close to what I expected in life, not wanted, just expected. It was so consistent; I started to ask that infernal question, how does it work? It was not until I took a course in quantum mechanics that I started to get a glimmer of an idea about how it worked.

It started with a couple of assumptions. If you notice a correspondence between mental activities and physical reality, perhaps there is a connection. If you notice that there is a consistent correlation of expectations to reality, you must conclude either that the mind finds patterns where none exists, or that the mind can alter reality in line with expectations, or that the mind can find what it expects somewhere in reality.

The problem with these three conclusions is that the first bears a striking resemblance to schizophrenia, and the second logical conclusion would be neutralized by the effects of other minds, with other expectations, in the neighborhood. However, what if the mind does not change the world by any magical power, it just has a laser-like ability to find what it expects. What if you could find what you expect? What if somewhere in the infinite possibilities of the many worlds that are the results of all those other roads not taken, by all of the people in all of the times of history, you could walk to what you expect?

After I had worked my way through that logical bog, I started to practice changing what I expected into being the same as what I wanted. A little self-hypnosis and some visually keyed meditation, and I started to notice big changes in the results of my projects. Getting the girl that I wanted was no longer a problem. Making that sale was a given. Life was suddenly easier and a lot more fun.

One day, I noticed that the world was profoundly different after a good meditation session than it was before it. The American Minister was Randolph Latimer when I started the meditation, but afterward, the head of state was someone named President Ronald Reagan. Everything else was different. I spent the next few days duplicating my meditative state, and each time I ended up with a different world than the one from which I had started. Practice makes perfect, and I soon gained control of my new skill.

Ellen is wiping down the bar, and she is talking as though her life depends on it. Lobo is comfortably lying at my feet, giving Ellen the same attention that he would give to an irritated pup. The conversational vein seems to have remained in the general parameters of equating seeing UFOs to heavy drinking. The fly in that particular ointment is that Ellen is a very heavy drinker, and she has never admitted to seeing a UFO.

A couple of hours of this have passed, and I conclude that it is finally time to go home. I reached a decision sometime during the one-sided conversation with Ellen. I will go to see the Watcher Group, my favorite social circle of shadow walkers. We need to talk about the Scourge and other things, and perhaps make some plans.

I say my farewells to Ellen, then Ellen says goodbye to Lobo with an enthusiastic petting assault about his head and ears, and we make our way to the Dart. In a matter of moments, we are motoring steadily back to the cabin.

A few hours see me at the end of another day, having fed the canine and myself, and having put the finishing touches on my planned expedition on the morrow, I lay me down to drown in the ocean of slumber. As the rain melts salt, so does the ocean of slumber melt the barriers between my Selves.