Otherside

by Robert L. Shelby

  He woke up to a sound, similar to that of modest-size airplanes that would often take off from the nearby small airport, across the field and the highway from where he lived. He looked up and saw, not a plane, but some sort of flying object hovering above. It took him a second to embrace the sight and size of the object, but before long another one appeared out of thin air, followed by two smaller ones. The sunlight took away some of the glow, but it was still noticeable; a slightly greenish colored glow. He took shelter in the bush next to him, right where the park would begin, if he had been home. From this newfound cover he observed the objects in the sky and, while still under the influence of surprise, realized there were many more floating around in the distance. There was a pattern to them, he noted; they where in groups. In fact, not only were they in groups, but they seemed to be “parked” almost exactly above the same areas were cities and towns stood in his world. The flying objects, small and large, paid no attention to him and he started walking again. He reached a lake some twenty minutes later, sooner than he expected it – it was where the lake was supposed to be, only this one was much bigger, more than twice the size, if not more. There was a strong smell of sulfur coming from the water, and he decided against refreshing, no matter how tempting the lake presented itself with its orange color of the rocks, contrasting with clear blue water.

  The day turned to late afternoon and the first lights became visible from the distant ships. Does the term ship still apply here, he wondered; if not, how do they call them, and who are they anyway? He also wondered what, if anything, did old man Moore know about this world – was there more to his sad apartment than just old books about the lands and the stars? As darkness approached, more and more lights came to life, making it impossible to see the night skies above. For him, at least; the ones up there must have quite a view. They. How would they look like? Would they be anything like the films, and if so, which kind of films – the ones with the nice aliens, or the ones that conquer and kill us all? What if they look like us? Those were some of the questions floating around in his head.

  As nightfall settled onto the land, there were no more sounds to be heard from above, instead, his surroundings began to wake. The trees appeared to produce a low humming noise, comparable to our electrical sound found at power-plants; and he could hear a type of howling rising up from across the lake. Some thing woke up. He did not want to be tonight’s meal of whatever creature roamed these parts, but he also had nowhere to hide. The safety of his house, or any house for that matter, was unavailable and unlikely.

  Jason decided that moving was better than being stationary, even it if was difficult to walk, not only for the lower level of oxygen, but also a sense of stronger gravity and an overall feeling of walking into nowhere was not a moral booster either. He went back to where he came from, even without street lights and roads he still recognized his hometown.

  It was well dark when Jason returned to where his building would normally stand. He was tired, out of breath and hungry. The howling returned and he had the impression of being followed – what an easy prey he turned out to be. All those survival talks with friends, for all the zombie apocalypses and alien invasions, all of them included a strong sense of survival and overcoming the elements. But now, it all fell apart. The howling turned into growling and he knew the animal was close. But what kind of animal? Carnivore for sure, that was obvious, but the size was still a question. The question would, at least for now, remain unanswered because in his darkest hour he saw the light. That nice, deep blue light, coming from inside his pocket, creating warmth that spread all over his right leg. He took out the watch and the nature around him bloomed in a beautiful shade of blue. It also revealed two sets of eyes, carefully watching from a safe distance, their sounds now becoming silent. The way back home presented itself to him just in time and he hoped it would be as simple as pushing the button again.

  The very next second he felt a coldness on his back and a strong light blinded from the front. He needed a moment to see the light was the Sun’s reflection bouncing of the hood of a neighbor’s car, and the cold feeling was that of the building concrete on which he was leaning against. Lucky, he thought, as he remembered how Mr. Moore became one with the wall.

  Geography, a piece of the puzzle, it seemed...

  5: THE DAUGHTER

  He stumbled into the restaurant looking for Darren. The waiter gave him a glance, as if to point out the time of day. The boss was in his office, going through paper work and having the second coffee this morning. He blew cigarette smoke towards Jason as he walked in.

  ‘I got Tommy to drive today.’ , he said.

  ‘Don’t worry, you’re not fired, yet.’ , he added.

  Another bright and warm day was developing, while Jason’s brain was playing tricks on him, making it very hard from him to put together all the different times of day he’s been jumping through lately, from midnight to noon, to midnight and back to noon. He set out to see the old man’s daughter, one phone call later she agreed to meet him in front of the library.

  The conversation started off slow, he tiptoed through words, trying to get them nicely laid out to form a verbal path heading into a conversation about her father’s books and, more importantly, her father.

  She eventually opened up, saying that he kept diaries in the basement; that were now lost in the rubble of concrete. She said it started when she was in high school, one day, just like that, she saw a change in her father’s eyes – he became different, he became distant. He lost interest in everyday life, the shop would be closed most times, his relationship with his wife, her mother, deteriorated to the point where she had to leave, taking Alice with her. Since then she would see her father only every once in a while. Whenever she did see him, he would talk mostly about the universe and other unearthly topics that, to her, were pure science fiction. He told her he was gathering evidence. He told her that one day he would prove them wrong, all of them. He told her history books would have to be re-written. Then he was diagnosed with cancer and his so-called evidence gathering was put on hold; he now ventured into healing and for a time the only thing he would speak of, were some flowers that, in his mind, had certain mending powers. By then they slowly gave up, both Alice and her mother. He started showing signs of dementia, sometimes forgetting about the cancer, the past, the family; so they just left him be in his own world, it seemed to be better than the one they all lived in.

  She paused to take a deep breath, and to hold back the tears wanting to see the light of day. Jason decided to end the conversation. He told her that, in his short talks with the old man, he would often speak of her with a smile upon his face and pride in his eyes. He told her that her father loved her, no matter how he lived his life, and that his love was true, even if nothing else was.

  She smiled and called him a very good liar. She thanked him and they hugged. Without a goodbye she turned around and left. It would be the last time their paths would cross.

  By the time Jason came home, his head had been filled with so many thoughts, ideas, questions and speculations that a single one could not be picked out to process, they were all flowing freely through his mind. One thing, however, dominated – he had to continue where Mr. Moore left off. Well, maybe not exactly continue, more like start from scratch, since he had no clue about the old man’s work, or any access to his files. All he had was what he could gather from memory about the old man and the place he occupied. He knew he would need a lot of free time, and money. Money – the ever present weight that pulls you back down to reality’s ground from whichever cloud you can find yourself floating on.

  The silver pocket watch shook him from those thoughts, he had to cover it up with an old T-shirt as the glow was too strong for the dark living room. He was tempted to push the button again, but reason won, telling him that his body was too tired for another possibly life threatening adventure. Jason crawled to his bed, ignoring the deep blue light from under the shirt and fell asleep as so
on as his head hit the cold pillow.

  6: THE EGO

  The following midnight Jason went back to the other side, taking with him a bicycle. He was not sure it would work, but then again he was not sure how any of this works, so he was happy when it did. Peddling proved to be slightly easier than walking, and he made his way into ‘town’. He went to where Mr. Moore’s building would be, but found no trace of any activity or evidence that someone was ever here. How the hell did the old man get back to the 8th floor from here, he wondered. The answer would not present itself no matter how long he stared into the nothingness in front of him. He went back to his workplace, where Mr. Moore once had his store. There he found what he was looking for – evidence of another human being. There was a small tent set up, reinforced with wooden pillars for protection and covered by a large sheet of military colors. A tool shed was on the right, a lounge chair on the left. Inside the tent there was a steel box with no lock on it – he opened it and found a stack of papers, clearly gathered and written over a longer period of time. It had different colored papers with different pen color writings, all seemingly placed in careful order, forming a book of sorts. He picked up the stack and randomly opened a page, which reminded him about a line from one of his favorite books – as one sometimes does with a book of which one knows that one will ultimately read and re-read. Somewhere in the third quarter of this compilation the old man wrote:

  Humanity, in its endless ego, always believed that a parallel world would mean a twin world to the one they live in. The undying romantic idea that maybe there is another ‘you’ out there, living his life like you, only maybe in a better way, or with another hairstyle. Humanity, in its endless ego, never thought that a parallel world could only be parallel as a world, a planet by itself, not by what we have created it to be. As our planet evolved, so did this twin world, but it grew into something else. The elements were, and are, slightly different. Nature turned out to be slightly different, and ‘we’ turned out to be slightly different. Perhaps not even ‘we’, but a far superior version of an intelligent species who, maybe, skipped the nonsense we went through in our history and went straight for the stars. A species which had as much time as we have, but used it, and the surrounding elements of their world, to gain greater knowledge and with it better understanding, ultimately leading to more advanced technology. Humanity, in its endless ego, ...

  There was a sound coming from somewhere above and away. He soon classified it as unimportant and returned to the book. He opened it closer to the beginning, then went one page back to find the start of the chapter. There, the words spoke to him with the sound of old man Moore’s voice. He read:

  The device seems to be powered by an internal source, though I am yet to find any point of entry or a kind of charger connectivity. I also believe the device is part of a larger component – I only base this upon my observance of the ships above, as they are able to travel at any time of day or night, which would mean every ship has its own portal on board. The ‘jumps’ always happen on a full hour, based on our perception of time, and I wonder if theirs is the same. I am also guessing there must be at least 23 other worlds they can travel to, given they follow the same 24-hour time frame as we do. If that is so, our world just happens to be set to midnight.

  This would take a while to get through, he thought, and went about ten pages forward. He started reading halfway down the page:

  ... and I feel no more fear of jumping between the worlds. My health situation might be improving – the doctor says not only has my cancer stopped spreading, it has remained stationary for some time now and, in his optimistic view, it might even be slowly regressing. I doubt its the drugs they give me and I plan on not taking them anymore, as they only make me nauseous and tired. The native plants of this world seem to be more helpful.

  All around Jason the day had been gradually turning into afternoon and evening, with the retreating Sun allowing the green-blue lights to become more visible with every full hour. The trees began emitting the electrical static noise again and for a moment his thoughts drifted back into childhood when he would go on long walks with his grandfather, passing a power-plant at the edge of a large landscape filled with fields and divided into gardens, crop fields and meadows.

  Back home he picked up and turned on his phone; only then he realized three days have passed since the last time he was available to anyone. There were notices of missed calls along with six text messages, one of which said his position at work had to be given to Tommy, on account of not showing up anymore without reason or warning. He got a hold of some cartography maps, like the ones Mr. Moore had, and one day, while going through them, he came onto the idea that he could rob a bank if he could only position himself in the right coordinates of the bank’s vault. That idea quickly graduated into research, measuring, calculating, etc. He even started studying architecture, of all things.

  Architecture, definitively another piece of the puzzle...

  He eventually decided to go through with it, the plan seemed perfect and highly conceivable. He felt a rise in his confidence level, like he found a way to cheat the system or get away with something you should not be able to get away with. On midnight Saturday he would go to the other side, coming into Saturday noon; he would go to the location of the bank, wait until midnight, go into Sunday noon within the bank, rob it, wait until midnight, go into Sunday noon on the other side, go back to his place, wait until midnight and come back home Monday noon. His base of operations on the other side would be set at Mr. Moore’s old watch shop, and his former workplace. The old man felt safe there, perhaps he could as well.

  As he closed his eyes for the night, his thoughts escaped back to Mr. Moore and one of the remaining mysteries – how did the old man transport back to the 8th floor without a counterpart on the other side?

  7: THE BANK

  The plan was foolproof, he thought, as he walked into the bank. It was a Monday morning, the Sun only just started warming up for another hot day. There had not been many people inside; two older ladies were paying their bills, a man was exchanging currencies and a newly appointed mother was sitting at the customers desk, talking to one of the managers about opening an account best suited to her new family situation. Jason stepped in line behind the man and when his turn came up, he explained to the teller that he was interested in the option of putting some of his grandfather’s valuables into their vault’s security deposit box. After four minutes of conversation, the lady teller behind the bulletproof glass signaled the direction to be followed as she made her way to the back and down the stairs to the basement level where the vault was. The lady – Barbara, as he came to know, showed him the available boxes, organized by size, and gave Jason a moment to inspect each of them before deciding on the most appropriate for him. On the way back up the stairs, he paused and kneeled down to tie his shoelace and, more importantly, to push a button on the GPS device in his side pocket. The device made a sound when a position had been saved, but Barbara paid no attention to it. He got up, they returned to the front of the bank, he thanked her for the service and announced his return within the week, when he would be bringing along the items to be stored in the vault box. They said goodbye, she smiled and he left.

  He returned on Wednesday morning, but Barbara was not there; she was working the afternoon shift, the guy explained. Jason identified himself, the guy typed on his keyboard for a short time and, after confirming a match, took Jason downstairs into the vault room. He was then given some personal time and space. As soon as the guy, whose name Jason did not bother to remember, left he took from his bag the items to be stored inside the box – a set of power-tools and regular tools, carefully chosen to be most helpful in breaking into other boxes. At least one of them has to contain something valuable, he thought, as he locked his box and glanced across the room before walking out. He paused again on the stairs to confirm the location saved in the GPS – it matched. He went back up, thanked the guy behind the bulletproof glass
and exited.

  The next few days were spent preparing everything, on both sides, which meant leaping from one place to another many times. On Saturday night he was all geared up, ready to go to the other side’s shelter. In his backpack there was a change of clothing along with food and water. Once at Mr. Moore’s tent, now his, he decided to read the old man’s diary again. Somewhere on the first few pages there was written something that caught his attention:

  .. and I wish we had more time together, there are still many questions I have – questions I think cannot be answered without him.

  Who did he mean, Jason wondered; another man from our side who passed the watch on to Moore, as he was forced to pass it on, or a man from this side? He searched the three pages before and after this one, but none contained any words explaining more about the unknown person.