\nHank had no idea that the steak he was grilling had become quantumly entangled. Hank didn\u2019t even know that quantum entanglement was a thing. He had bigger problems, such as his depression, which had become so deep that he had given up on his own happiness altogether. He was living vicariously through his one-eyed tomcat Boots, whom he was unknowingly about to poison.\n<\/p>\n
\nHank stood squinting on the sunny patio, chilly and naked except for sandals, grilling a filet mignon to perfection-\u2014for Boots. His beloved cat perched with its black and gray tail lifted on the patio railing, sniffing at his dinner. Hank stroked Boots\u2019 black and gray fur and then turned the steak over with a spatula. He sprinkled more catnip over it. He worked it into the meat with his palm.\n<\/p>\n
\nThanks to Animal Planet, Hank knew that cat hierarchy revolved around the amount of meat each cat has eaten. They can tell by smelling their respective urine. Boots could use the help. After all, a fisher attack had left him blind in one eye, and he had a bad habit of licking patches of fur right off of himself. Boots was not pretty to look at. But he would have the best smelling urine in town, if Hank had anything to do with it.\n<\/p>\n
\nIn the cat world, it\u2019s not how you look. It\u2019s how much your urine smells like meat.\n<\/p>\n
\nBoots ate half of his chopped-up filet mignon, and then trotted up the street to find neighborhood felines, no doubt. In the three months that Hank had been feeding Boots top quality meats he\u2019d not once seen another cat. He\u2019d expected to hear female cats in heat caterwauling at all hours, clinging to the window screens and scaling the siding to get in. Instead, Boots was gone for hours at a time. For all Hank knew Boots was squandering the best years of his life. Following Boots would be no good\u2014-Hank just didn\u2019t have the endurance to be trailing a cat all over.\n<\/p>\n
\nHank had packed on 30 pounds in the year since his wife and baby had died in labor. A former high school English teacher, Hank\u2019s four days of bereavement leave had blurred into a year. He had blown through all 90 sick days he\u2019d accumulated and not even the almighty teachers\u2019 union could save his job after that.\n<\/p>\n
\nSometimes he awoke late at night, the words \u201cclot buster\u201d on his lips.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe surgeon had remarked to Hank afterward, \u201cYou know, if we\u2019d been able to reach you, and administered the clot buster in time, we might have actually saved her.\u201d But they hadn\u2019t administered it, because deploying a clot buster is risky, and Hank was not there to authorize it. Kathleen, six months pregnant, had suffered a massive stroke while shopping. Hank\u2019s goddamned phone hadn\u2019t had service. He\u2019d missed the call from the nurse. By the time he reached the hospital she was a vegetable, the left hemisphere of her lovely brain wiped out by an ischemic stroke-\u2014a blood clot that had dislodged from her precious, malformed heart and blocked her brain\u2019s blood supply. That night, when the emergency C-section was performed, she hemorrhaged and died, and so did the baby.\n<\/p>\n
\nShe had been Hank\u2019s favorite paradox, and he loved paradoxes. That was one of the reasons he became a teacher. Take Macbeth. \u201cFair is foul, foul is fair.\u201d What? How could it be both? Well, let\u2019s talk about it. He taught Macbeth every year, and relished it. He had relished the paradox that was his lovely Irish wife. Fair-skinned and delicate looking, she would sometimes stop the car just to get a look at a puppy, but she\u2019d once knocked a drunk man clean out after he had slapped his girlfriend in a bar. She was fair, yet foul-mouthed. Her temperament and strength were his personal proof that Vikings had indeed invaded and settled in Ireland.\n<\/p>\n
\nIt took a strong woman to love a man like him despite his morbid fantasies and dark desires. He\u2019d ended more than one marriage before he tied the knot himself, screwing married women. But Kat, she put up with none of it-\u2014she had saved him from himself.\n<\/p>\n
\nNow his only remaining paradox was Kat\u2019s cat, Boots. That cat had to be an absolute stud based on his meat ingestion-\u2014yet there was no evidence of virility. Why? Hank thought and thought, and finally came to a solution. His tiny digital camera. It was a portable, tiny little thing he\u2019d bought to strap around the neck of his newborn\u2019s stuffed animal, so even if he was at work, he\u2019d be able to turn on his iPad and see his little one.\n<\/p>\n
\nNow all I can do is use the iPad to spy on my cat\u2019s sex life. Talk about pathetic. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nThe following morning Boots came back. This time, Hank clipped the compact camera to Boots\u2019 collar. After eating half of a rare, catnip-infused, imported Kobe sirloin, Boots trotted off as always, up the street. Hank hurried inside, fetched an ice-cold bottle of Yoo-Hoo, and placed it on the only space available on the coffee table. The rest was cluttered with cellophane donut wrappers and empty Yoo-hoo bottles. He turned on his iPad and opened the Wireless Camera app. On the screen was a cat\u2019s-eye, or rather cat\u2019s-neck, live stream of his road. A close-up of a green bush filled the screen\u2014-he must be sniffing. He wound around the bush, and a black and brown robin stood pecking on the grass.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cDon\u2019t get distracted, Boots,\u201d muttered Hank.\n<\/p>\n \nThe camera rushed toward the bird, but the robin sprang into the air and chirped angrily as it flew toward the pines. After a few more minutes of sniffing, Boots continued across the lawn and up the street. There was the Nickersons\u2019 basketball hoop. Boots was almost to the top of the hill. But the camera turned left, down the driveway of the perpetually abandoned house at the top of the hill. Hank actually liked the house-\u2014it was bigger, with a spacious backyard. He had tried to convince Kat to buy that one rather than his current house. She had been right of course. It was about ready to collapse judging by the sagging roof.\n<\/p>\n \nBoots seemed to have a definite destination. He reached the back corner of the house, turned right\u2014-and the screen went black. Then the picture came back, and suddenly there was another cat standing before an open cellar window. Finally! Hank leaned forward and rubbed his hands together. The cat was black with gray legs, like Boots. And its right eye socket was pink, where its eye should have been. It looked exactly like boots, down to the pink and blue-studded collar. Was it a mirror? No\u2014-ice froze Hank\u2019s gut. Boots was looking at a replica of himself. The other cat\u2019s gray front legs filled the screen, and then the other cat turned and jumped through the open basement window.\n<\/p>\n \nThe screen shook as Boots also jumped down into a dimly lit room with a dirt floor. There were clothes on the floor, as well as a person.\n<\/p>\n \nA young woman: silver duct tape over her mouth, lying on her side on a thin mattress, arms bound behind her.\n<\/p>\n \nHank leapt up and sent the iPad clattering to the floor. Oh God. He knew her from her face. For the first time in a year Hank felt urgency. His mind catapulted into a frenzy of rapid thought, like a starved dog that was suddenly tossed meat. As he squeezed into a pair of too-tight jean shorts, his mind cast out a line and hooked on a reason. A reason his wife and son had been taken from him. Maybe, just maybe, there was a purpose.\n<\/p>\n \nMaybe he was meant to save this girl.\n<\/p>\n \nHank dialed 911, reported the girl\u2019s location, and hung up on the still-talking operator. There might be a captor with the girl and Hank needed a weapon. He opened his closet and grabbed a hammer from the tool bag. He did not bother with shoes or a shirt. It was April after all. He jumped into his Corolla, backed out and rocketed up the hill. In ten seconds he turned into the driveway of the vacant house.\n<\/p>\n \nHammer in hand, Hank ran down the driveway, sweating and breathless. At the back of the house was the cellar window, but it was closed. Did they know he was coming? Someone must have seen the camera on Boots\u2019 neck. Hank knelt in the dirt and shattered the cellar window with the hammer, and then cleared the jagged glass away by running the hammer around the edges. He laid on his stomach and looked in. The sunlight streaming in showed only a dirt floor. No mattress, no girl. No cat.\n<\/p>\n \nThe ipad\u2019s screen had turned black a moment\u2014-he must have missed something. The girl was deeper inside. Hank turned and crawled backward through the window, ignoring the burning pain from the broken glass cutting his chest and substantial belly. He let himself down onto the cool, damp dirt floor and then turned, hammer brandished. More filthy cellar windows emitted just enough sunlight to see by. Heart hiccupping, Hank advanced, and turned the corner to find another bare dirt floor.\n<\/p>\n \nThe air rippled, and Boots stepped out of nothing.\n<\/p>\n \nHank shook his head, and then leaned on the wall for support. Was something wrong with him? But wait-\u2014if Boots was here, the girl had to be too. Hank moved to the bottom of the stairs, and then ascended, stepping on the sides of each stair to decrease creaking. It was no use. In the silent house each creak might as well have been a gunshot.\n<\/p>\n \nAt the top of the stairs he turned the metal knob and shouldered the door open upon an empty kitchen. A dated yellow stove with its ancient refrigerator counterpart were the only inhabitants. A siren wailed in the distance and grew louder as Hank moved through the first floor of the empty house. Shit. They had to have brought her upstairs. Hank hesitated at the first stair\u2014-the police would be here any moment. But they wouldn\u2019t rob him of his chance to show his quality, to garner some jewel from the rubble of his life.\n<\/p>\n \nPerhaps they had her upstairs. Maybe they even had guns. But Hank\u2019s advantage was at once great and terrible. He didn\u2019t care if he died. Death was the only place where he had (an admittedly slim) chance of seeing his wife and unborn child. This, then, would be his legacy.\n<\/p>\n \nHank charged barefoot up the wood-plank stairs, crossed the hall and slammed the first door open. He ran screaming into the room, and then the second, and by the third, his scream had dwindled to a wheeze, abruptly dying out. Nothing. Nothing, but pounding on the door downstairs, and a man\u2019s voice shouting to open up.\n<\/p>\n \nHank plodded down the stairs, half-naked and bloody, hammer in hand, and opened the door. A police officer stood there, hand on his holstered gun.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cGet on the floor!\u201d he commanded.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI thought\u2014-\u201d began Hank, gesticulating with the hammer, but he suddenly changed his mind about explaining what he thought.\n<\/p>\n \nA few minutes later Hank lay prostrate, arms cuffed behind him. He told what he knew, between gasps, to a different officer who was not listening. The other officer\u2019s footsteps echoed as the man ran downstairs, then upstairs, all while Hank lay staring at his mighty weapon, the rusted hammer, which had taken on a devious look now. A hammer is the weapon of a desperate man, he admitted to himself. But how had she not been here? He had been sure. Where was Boots? When did these shorts get so tight?\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWould you let me know if you see my cat?\u201d He yelled to the officer.\n<\/p>\n \nLater, as a friendly young EMT blotted the minor cuts on Hank\u2019s stomach, Hank took stock of the situation. There clearly had been no one in this house. No one but him. He had no evidence of seeing the girl, had not recorded the live stream from Boots. The police found him bloody, wielding a hammer, practically naked and alone. Things did not appear promising.\n<\/p>\n \nIn the subsequent police station interview, it became immediately clear that officers already knew him. In this small town the tragedy of his wife and child had become well-known, and as this was his third run-in with the police this year, a consensus hung like an albatross about him: grief had driven him over the edge.\n<\/p>\n \nThe first two run-ins were the natural result, he conceded, of a man who had ceased caring. In January, a police officer found him nude in the street, staring up into a sky of falling snow. He had only wanted to watch the flakes swirling down. His nudity was just a coincidence. He was always naked, well, almost, he told the grimacing detective who was interviewing him. And then of course he\u2019d been spotted retrieving his mail from the end of his driveway while naked. The children in the house across the street had seen him doing so many times, and so he was warned that indecent exposure charges could be brought.\n<\/p>\n \nThe problem was that it sometimes took Hank hours just to work up the ambition to get a Yoo-hoo from the fridge. He did not possess the fortitude required to dress anymore. He had to manage his dwindling ambition carefully. He could not be bothered with meaningless facades such as clothing.\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \nAt the police station, Hank tried to summon the will to care when the faceless social worker informed him that further frightening behavior could get him institutionalized, at least temporarily. But that sounded better to him than he cared to admit. After a warning that property damage charges would be brought by the homeowner, he was released later that same night (he could pick up his impounded car in the morning).\n<\/p>\n \nWhen the officer dropped Hank off, he found Boots waiting for him on the porch. So, Boots had made it back. But his dinner! Poor kitty. Hank microwaved the other half of the Kobe and served it to him with a side of cream. He was exhausted, but he knew sleep would elude him. He\u2019d probably watch the History channel and cry, as usual, because he couldn\u2019t work up the gusto to be interested in the fall of Rome or anything else anymore.\n<\/p>\n \nFinished with the Kobe, Boots yowled at the door. Hank checked the camera on his neck\u2014-thankfully it shut off automatically after an hour. He flicked it on and then let Boots outside.\n<\/p>\n \nHank turned on the iPad and fetched a cinnamon donut and a Yoo-hoo. Neither seemed to have much flavor.\n<\/p>\n \nEven my taste buds have left me, he thought. Can\u2019t blame them.\n<\/p>\n \nHank remembered to hit the \u201crecord\u201d button on his iPad this time. He stared at the black screen-\u2014had the battery died? Then bouncing pavement appeared on the screen, bathed in grainy light. The street light. Then it was dark again. Small lights appeared, and then a car rumbled by. Careful Boots! Darkness once more. But Boots was creeping up the street again.\n<\/p>\n \nHank sat transfixed by the darkness.\n<\/p>\n \nThe screen blacked out again, and a shiver prickled Hank. It wasn\u2019t buffering, but something else. It was what he saw before\u2014-a disturbance–a glimmering in the air. Then the screen showed a bare light bulb. He was looking through the open basement window. Again, the screen blacked out for a moment as Boots jumped down.\n<\/p>\n \nThe girl lay there, this time with her knees drawn up to her chest. She wore nothing, save duct tape over her mouth, her rope-bound hands around her drawn up knees. Long blonde hair curtained her shoulders. That hair-\u2014those eyes. The checkout girl-\u2014that is where he recognized her from. The girl was looking at something out of camera shot and shaking her head. The view panned as Boots turned toward what the girl dreaded. A man. Shirtless, paunchy, sandy-haired, with glasses. The man was looking down at the cat, at the camera. A sense of recognition revolted Hank, and he leaned down toward the screen as if he might fall into it.\n<\/p>\n \nThe man on the screen was him.\n<\/p>\n \nHank stood up suddenly. What? No! He had truly lost it, now. Bile tickled his throat. He shook his head. This was real. He wasn\u2019t crazy. If he could prove it was real, then he could prove he was not crazy.\n<\/p>\n \nHank scarcely knew he was running naked outside. How did he get a screwdriver in his hand? His car was gone-\u2014stolen? Impounded, that\u2019s right. He wheezed as he jogged up the street. When did this hill get so steep? Headlights washed over him as a car passed, slowed down, and then sped off. When he finally reached the driveway, he turned down it and ran to the back window, heaving.\n<\/p>\n \nThe window had been boarded up. No light emitted from it.\n<\/p>\n \nHank shook his head. He walked around to the other basement window at the back of the house. There was nothing but darkness within. Suddenly the driveway-\u2014mere yards from him-\u2014was awash in red and blue lights and there was the crunch of tires on dirt. Hank turned and skulked into the woods behind the house and slowly, painfully, bumped and cursed his way back to his property, through prickers and muck. When he got to his back door, he didn\u2019t even bother picking the myriad thorns from his body before he collapsed face-down on the couch.\n<\/p>\n \nMe. There was no mistaking it, but even fatter somehow. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nBlessed sleep ambushed him. A persistent pounding noise as of someone knocking on a door invaded his dreams, but it stopped eventually.\n<\/p>\n \nIn the morning Hank took an Uber to the police station to pick up his Corolla. Then, for the first time in weeks, Hank pulled into the parking lot of a store. He was not there to shop. He still had at least thirty cases of Yoo-Hoo left, and plenty of donuts and canned soup, which were all he ate. He wanted to see if the checkout girl was there, if she was OK. There would be no mistaking her na\u00efve blue eyes-\u2014she seemed to be in perpetual surprise. He had always suspected there was something wrong with her. She was 18 or 19, probably, seemed to be the kind of girl who would go along with anything. She\u2019d always flirted with him when he came in. He\u2019d thought of her at times in ways he\u2019d never admit to anyone.\n<\/p>\n \nShe was the first person he saw when he walked in. So, she is safe. <\/em>She was staring at nothing, seemingly, standing before her register. God, she\u2019s strange. <\/em> He picked up the first thing he found, an Easter basket filled with candy, wrapped in cellophane. He rounded the corner, entered her lane and laid the basket on the black conveyor belt. She was still staring straight ahead, but then she turned her head so that her wide-open blue eyes fixed on Hank.\n<\/p>\n \nShe shook her head, saying, \u201cGawd, isn\u2019t that cute?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHm?\u201d said Hank.\n<\/p>\n \nShe shook her head again, pointed. \u201cThe picture, dummy!\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHank looked at where she\u2019d been pointing. On the wall behind the courtesy desk hung a poster featuring an orange and white kitten in the palm of someone\u2019s hand. \u201cTake Care!\u201d admonished the poster.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYeah,\u201d said Hank. \u201cSay, are you doing ok?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cFine, thank you,\u201d she said, smiling and looking down. She tucked a strand of blond hair behind her ear.\n<\/p>\n \nShe thinks I\u2019m flirting. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat about you?\u201d she said, looking up. \u201cHow are you<\/em> doing, mister?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cFine, fine,\u201d he lied.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIn the mood for something sweet?\u201d she asked.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat? Why?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nShe stared down at the Easter basket emphatically.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cOh yeah,\u201d he said. \u201cGetting ready for Easter.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cEaster was last weekend, you goose.\u201d She laughed. She picked up the brightly colored basket. \u201cThis is on clearance.\u201d She looked at him, twisted back and forth childishly, in a way that simultaneously revolted and excited him. \u201cI do so love sweet things.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWho doesn\u2019t, who doesn\u2019t,\u201d said Hank, blushing. \u201cSay, do you have an older sister?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cNo . . . there\u2019s just little ol\u2019 me. Why? You think I\u2019m too young?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cNo, no, you\u2019re . . . fine. You\u2019re just right.\u201d Hank fumbled for his debit card. He put the card into the machine, and then stared at the little screen while waiting for it to register. He scrawled a rapid signature and left.\n<\/p>\n \nHe took exaggerated strides as he hustled out of the store. He was opening his car door when she arrived behind him, breathless.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou forgot this, sweetie,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou-\u2014geez, thanks,\u201d he said, accepting the basket.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cGuess I\u2019ll see ya, sometime,\u201d she said, biting her thumbnail.\n<\/p>\n \nHank got in, slammed the door, dumped the basket on the passenger floor and backed out. She stood and watched him drive away, thumb still at her lips.\n<\/p>\n \nHank\u2019s pulse was still throbbing when he got home. He fetched his mail and as he walked he pulled out all of the bills, but one. He tossed most of the bills onto the pile of soggy mail on his front lawn. They were mostly from the credit cards he had been maxing out on Kobe Steak. When one was declined, he\u2019d just get a new one, for as long as that lasted. But he had saved the envelope from Kobe Industries, from where he purchased Boots\u2019 steak. That was one invoice he always paid ahead of time.\n<\/p>\n \nBoots was curled up in a furry ball on a faded green patio chair, one Kathleen had picked out. Hank had neglected to take it in over the winter, just as he\u2019d neglected himself and everything around him, save Boots.\n<\/p>\n \nHank caught his reflection in the back-door window; carrying the Easter basket, he looked like a man with a child, with a family, which he was not. He allowed himself a brief, tight-lipped smile.\n<\/p>\n \nInside, Hank flicked on the iPad once more, tore the cellophane from the basket and began stuffing marshmallow Peeps in his mouth. While the iPad was turning on, he opened the bill from Kobe Now!. <\/em>It was not a bill, but rather a recall. A refund check for the steak he\u2019d bought accompanied the letter which explained that, while there was probably no cause for alarm, a small number of Kobe Now! customers had reported hallucinations and dizziness after consuming recent shipments of steak, and the livestock may have drunk water tainted in the recent Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdown.\n<\/p>\n \nGreat\u2014I\u2019ve been poisoning Boots. Maybe I should eat the rest and get it over with. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nHank pulled out the iPad and found the recording of the previous night\u2019s escapade. In moments he had paused it on her duct-taped face. So, it was real. He was not crazy. And yet those cracked black bricks on the basement wall in the video told him he had the right place-\u2014what was going on? He pushed play and the camera panned up to the face that was his. His stomach sank. He pushed pause. There was no doubting it-\u2014but the glasses were different. That was his paunchy belly, if even bigger-\u2014but no scar! Where was his scar? Hank pulled off his pajama shirt, looked down-\u2014sure enough, a bright pink scar ran across his chest, from when he had tripped over Kathleen\u2019s bag a few years back and crashed through their glass coffee table.\n<\/p>\n \nHank had often wondered what might have become of him had he not met Kat. She had civilized him, urged him to quit washing dishes for a living and complete his teaching certificate. Even then he had hidden his dark side from her. He had used to contemplate suicide fairly often, before they had met. He had been so lonely, so depraved, he had even had lurid fantasies about kidnapping a girl. But Kat had believed in him, brought him to life, as surely as her death had killed him. He did not want to be this Hank, the Hank he was. It was only a matter of time before he became that Hank on the screen. Kat, his only antidote for himself, was gone forever.\n<\/p>\n \nHank abruptly vomited over the side of the couch. He\u2019d clean that up later.\n<\/p>\n \nHow could this other him exist? He\u2019d watched TED Talks on theoretical physics and had thought the theory that alternate dimensions may be spawning every second ridiculous. But now, not so. Could that be what\u2019s happening? Had he, or rather, meat-stuffed Boots, stumbled upon an alternate reality?\n<\/p>\n \nStrangely, Boots had seemed to be able to enter and exit this other dimension at will, though for Hank it did not appear. But wait-\u2014the steak. Could it be that this allegedly hallucinogenic meat had imbued Boots with dimension-crossing ability? Hank laughed abruptly, then sat up.\n<\/p>\n \nThat was exactly what had happened.\n<\/p>\n \nBoots, God bless you, you have shown me the way back to Kat, back to myself, the self I liked. The self that cared. And maybe If I can time it right, I will get to see you as a kitten again!\n<\/p>\n \nBut how did the meat work? Let\u2019s see. Boots eats the meat, crosses dimensions. But why that dimension?\n<\/p>\n \nThat other cat. Boots always sniffed his way to that house. Can cats smell across dimensions? God, what am I saying? But Boots wants to be in that house . . . because he smells himself. His other self, alternate-dimension self. So, the meat doesn\u2019t allow you to travel in space, only the same location in a mirror dimension, and perhaps at a different time. So, if I go to that hospital, and I want to go to another dimension, as badly as Boots wants to see himself . . . god, what a narcissistic cat.<\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nHank got dressed, grabbed a hunk of leftover Kobe, and jumped into the truck. He bit off a hunk of cold Kobe steak and chewed laboriously. This is not the way Kobe was meant to be eaten. But the cat nip does add a certain tang.<\/em> He bit off another hunk and accelerated through a red light. After all, no one was around. What was the point?\n<\/p>\n \nHank parked in a handicapped space at the hospital. He was at this point, he knew, essentially handicapped. At least emotionally. Didn\u2019t that count for something?\n<\/p>\n \nInside the hospital, Hank ignored the friendly looking receptionist\u2019s gaze and proceeded left down the corridor. He was nauseous and he didn\u2019t know if it was the Kobe or the memory of sprinting down this very corridor to find his beloved a living corpse, along with their stillborn baby.\n<\/p>\n \nHe walked down the stairs to the emergency level. It was a shabby affair with only white curtains separating patients. His wife had been in the last bed on the right. Hank strode up to the curtain and threw it aside. The hospital bed was empty. He drew the curtain back, opened it again. Nothing.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cCan I help you?\u201d asked a woman\u2019s voice from behind him.\n<\/p>\n \nHe turned to find a familiar face-\u2014the dark-haired, olive-skinned nurse who\u2019d cared for his wife over a year ago.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cJust looking for my wife, thanks,\u201d said Hank. He walked away from her bewildered expression.\n<\/p>\n \nBack in the stairwell he closed the door behind him, leaned against the wall and waited. He had to want it. He had to make it happen, somehow. He thought of Kat, lying as she had been the night she died. He opened the door, strode out onto the Emergency floor again, to the same bed, threw open the curtain, and closed it. He pulled it open, closed it once again.\n<\/p>\n \nThe double doors from the lobby opened, and a towering police officer emerged. He was bulky in his under-shirt protective armor, and a little big in the stomach. He approached Hank. \u201cSir, who are you here to see?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHank leaned to the left, in order to look around the officer and down the hall. From the doorway of an office, behind the policeman, the nurse he had recognized was poking out her head and watching.\n<\/p>\n \nHank stepped to the side so she could see him fully. \u201cI\u2019m not here to hurt anyone!\u201d he cried. \u201cYou remember my wife?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cOk, ok buddy,\u201d said the officer, taking Hank by the arm. \u201cYou\u2019ve just got people here a little nervous.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHank pulled free. \u201cHey, just a bit longer. My wife died. Now I just need to stay to see if the meat works.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThe officer arched an eyebrow. \u201cNo can do. You can wait outside. What\u2019s the harm?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHe reached for Hank again, but Hank shoved his hand away. \u201cLook, I\u2019m staying here. I won\u2019t hurt-\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThe officer grabbed Hank\u2019s arms and wrenched him sideways, pushed him to the floor. In a moment he was on his stomach, hands cuffed behind him. Even on the floor, Hank craned his neck, looked around for a change-\u2014it had to happen. Why hadn\u2019t it happened?\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI\u2019m gonna pick you up now,\u201d said the big officer, and he hauled Hank to his feet. He did not resist. Hank was beyond caring about pride or abuse. He was trading in this life for his wife and child, or nothingness.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cLook,\u201d said Hank. \u201cI\u2019ll be good. I will. But can you just tell me if you see anything\u2014anything strange?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cOh yeah,\u201d said the officer. \u201cI\u2019ll keep you posted. Say, you on any medication?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYeah,\u201d said Hank. \u201cAbout nine ounces of contaminated Kobe steak.\u201d He continued to look around.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou feel sick?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cOh yeah,\u201d said Hank, looking around. \u201cBut I don\u2019t care. Just trying to find something . . .\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cAll right. You know your pupils are about as wide as trash can lids. You\u2019re serious about that food poisoning, aren\u2019t you?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHank nodded. The officer sighed, guided Hank over to a glassed-in area, where nurses and doctors were watching.\n<\/p>\n \nThe officer\u2019s grip relaxed on Hank\u2019s arm slightly. He said, \u201cHeya, the perp here claims he has food poisoning. Can we get\u2014-\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHank made a break for it. He lurched away and put his head down, bulled head-first through the double doors. Head ringing and arms still bound behind him in cuffs, he turned left down the corridor, toward daylight: the emergency room entrance. The officer\u2019s big footsteps slapped the linoleum behind him as the automatic doors whooshed open.\n<\/p>\n \nWe\u2019ll be together soon, Kat. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nHe sprinted out into the parking lot and straight into a glimmering patch of air that looked like static rain.\n<\/p>\n \nSuddenly it was dark outside. The cool night air prickled his skin. He stumbled into a parked car and found his hands were no longer bound. He was wearing his old short sleeve polo shirt and khakis. Car keys dangled from his fingers.\n<\/p>\n \nIt worked! <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nExhilarated, Hank turned and strode toward the emergency room doors, which opened for him. He felt more awake. He patted his stomach\u2014-slim. Even his scruffy beard was gone. This was a different him. But which him was he?\n<\/p>\n \nHe walked past the night receptionist, an older woman he recognized. She glanced up at him, her face drawn with sympathy.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI\u2019m so sorry honey,\u201d she said. \u201cIs there anything else you need?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIs she-\u2014gone?\u201d he asked.\n<\/p>\n \nShe blinked. \u201cYes, honey-\u2014do you not remember? Dr. Sykes is still here, if-\u2014”\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cNo no,\u201d said Hank, waving her off.\n<\/p>\n \nI\u2019m so close\u2014but I had imagined her as she was already dying. What an idiot. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nHank walked back out into the night but the glimmering patch was gone. What had he done before? He had to will it. It\u2019s about intention.\n<\/p>\n \nThe shimmering appeared once more, but fainter. Was the Kobe wearing off?\n<\/p>\n \nHe braced himself, stepped into the field of faint sparkles.\n<\/p>\n \nSuddenly it was light out again. Hank stumbled, nearly tripped. He was breathing hard, his hands cuffed behind his back. Fifty yards ahead of him stood the big officer, a radio to his lips.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat the hell?\u201d the officer barked.\n<\/p>\n \nI forgot to imagine when I wanted to be! <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nHank ran for it, the officer in pursuit. Can\u2019t match his strides for long.<\/em> He ran over the lawn and out onto the pavement. This was where Hank had grown up; he had walked this way to school as a child. The officer\u2019s footfalls were getting louder behind him now. Intention! Must go back earlier! <\/em>The glimmering appeared just as he ran through.\n<\/p>\n \nIt was daytime, at least. But something was off-\u2014he felt shorter. On his narrow, hairless wrist was a Transformers watch-\u2014his prized watch! He hadn\u2019t seen that since he was ten. Good Lord. He also felt a backpack weighing him down. He turned. Behind him the air glimmered faintly. Beyond it, other boys walked along the road, on the way to school.\n<\/p>\n \nWhat if I stayed here? If this really was 1986, I could\u2026invent the Internet! Maybe. Or at least found Google. Maybe write The Joy Luck Club. Amy Tan would be pissed! I\u2019m sure I could think of something.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cCome on, Henry!\u201d said a blue-hatted boy, snapping gum. Geez, what was his name? Mark. Boy, did he turn out to be an asshole. But if I stayed, I\u2019d grow up a different person. I\u2019d have to manage to stay back in fifth grade again, nearly drop out of high school, then pull my head out of my ass in college just in time to meet Kat in that hiking class. I could do it.\n<\/p>\n \nBut I\u2019d be a different person.\n<\/p>\n \nAnd Kat, intuitive Kat\u2014she\u2019d sense it. She\u2019d fallen in love, somehow, with the finding myself, screwed up me. And she helped fix me. If I found her things would be different. They couldn\u2019t be what they were, and what they were is what I need. Even if I founded Google and Yahoo and wrote all the songs for the goddamned Backstreet Boys (Who couldn\u2019t?), it wouldn\u2019t be enough, because she wouldn\u2019t be Kat. My Kat.\n<\/p>\n \nGot to get back.<\/em> Hank raced once more into the fading portal, and emerged running, hands cuffed behind him. He sprinted as fast as he could. He knew, now, where he had to go.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHey!\u201d someone hollered behind him. The officer, no doubt. Hank looked back, saw him emerge from a backyard. He must be confused as hell.<\/em> Hank ran hard. He was wheezing when he reached the top of Pine Hill. Almost there.\n<\/p>\n \nHank ran, bent-back arms aching, slightly hunched. He was almost out of time. He wished he had that year of disuse back-\u2014before he lost Kat, he\u2019d been running a few miles a day. Now he gritted his teeth to hold back vomit. This sprint was killing him. So be it. One way or the other, he was cashing in this life. In the distance, a siren wailed.\n<\/p>\n \nHank ran blindly across Main Street and a pickup truck screeched to a halt, honking angrily. The siren grew louder as a police car rode up on the sidewalk next to him, blocking his route. Hank put his head down and plowed through a hedge to his right, stumbled, scratched but upright, into the parking lot of Zesty! the supermarket. The very place he\u2019d been when the hospital had called. Oh, to be back there and then–\n<\/p>\n \nAnd then suddenly he stopped. The siren went dead. The car before him disappeared, and a different car was suddenly driving toward him. It too stopped. His hands hung by his sides. What had happened?\n<\/p>\n \nA portal. So faint had the glimmer become, he\u2019d walked right through it unknowing. The shirt he was wearing was a blue polo, the same one from that awful night-\u2014only now it was the day. He plunged his hand into his pocket and found his smart phone. The car before him honked, but he paid it no mind. His smart phone had no service.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cFuck!\u201d he yelled. The car before him whined as it backed up, found another route out of the parking lot.\n<\/p>\n \nHank turned around and stopped-\u2014he nearly walked right through the same path that brought him here. He sidestepped several feet, just in case that glimmering patch was still there, and found his trusty old Corolla sitting there. He had to control his thoughts\u2014-thinking of jumping dimensions seemed to cause the portals to appear. He tried to focus only on what was before him. He climbed into his car, roared out of the parking lot, up Pine Hill, to the hospital. He left the car running right up against the emergency room doors.\n<\/p>\n \nHe rushed past the questioning receptionist, turned right and slammed the Emergency Room double doors open. In an office to the right stood the nurse from earlier, next to a white-coated man. Dr. Sykes.\n<\/p>\n \nThe doctor furrowed his brow at Hank.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cDr. Sykes\u2014my wife here?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou are her husband? Did you check in-\u2014”\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHere! Hank ripped his wallet from his back pocket, retrieved his driver\u2019s license and thrust it at the nurse next to the doctor. \u201cI\u2019m Hank Garner. Please-\u2014give her the clot buster.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThe doctor exchanged a surprised look with the nurse. \u201cWell yes, sir, your wife is here. She has suffered a stroke, though we\u2019re not sure what type\u2014 \u201c\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIschemic!\u201d said Hank. \u201cIt\u2019s Ischemic.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cPossibly-\u2014but sir, let\u2019s slow down. You need to listen. We\u2019re going to perform a CT scan to determine the type of stroke-\u2014”\n<\/p>\n \nHank stepped close to the doctor. \u201cYou fucking listen to me. It runs in the family. It\u2019s an Ischemic stroke. Her aunt died of one,\u201d he improvised. \u201cI do not give you my permission to CT scan my wife\u2019s brain. What you are going to do is administer a clot buster.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cMr. Garner, as your wife is on blood pressure medication, there would be significant risk-\u2014”\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cI know the risk. Do it. Do it, or I will sue you. You will be delivering fucking pizza this time next year.”\n<\/p>\n \nDr. Sykes looked at the nurse, shrugged, and nodded.\n<\/p>\n \nThe nurse turned and walked away with an eye roll.\n<\/p>\n \nThe doctor Looked at Hank. \u201cThere could be massive-\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nHank nodded. \u201cHemorrhaging, I know. Due to the blood thinner. I\u2019ll risk it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThe doctor nodded, and then looked at the floor.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cLook, I\u2019m sorry,\u201d said Hank. \u201cI\u2019m under a lot of\u2014-\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cStress,\u201d interjected the doctor. It\u2019s alright.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThe nurse returned holding a clipboard. She handed it to Dr. Sykes, which he glanced at and then passed to Hank. He scrawled approval to administer the clot buster-\u2014thrombolytic therapy, it was called.\n<\/p>\n \nHank turned and walked to the white curtain. He shoved it aside. There she lay: his deathly-pale beauty, in all her ivory-skinned, bump-bellied glory. Her fire-gold hair was tousled about the pillow like a wild halo. The thin blanket rose and fell. She lived-\u2014but for how long? He walked to the bedside and knelt. He laid one hand on her swollen belly, and then lifted her cool left hand to his face. He pushed her fingers against his lips and began to weep. Ah, her skin cream.<\/em> Even if she dies, if they all die, just smelling her again made it worth it.\n<\/p>\n Ron Kaiser has received a Silver Honorable Mention in the Writers of the Future contest, as well as two honorable mentions. He has been published more than twenty times in a variety of publications to include Chicken Soup for the Soul and New Hampshire Magazine. Ron holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University, where he also teaches writing. Ron is a high school English teacher living in the foothills of New Hampshire with his lovely wife and ten-year-old son.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hank had no idea that the steak he was grilling had become quantumly entangled. Hank didn\u2019t even know that quantum entanglement was a thing. He had bigger problems, such as his depression, which had become so deep that he had given up on his own happiness altogether. He was living vicariously through his one-eyed tomcat …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107670,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20090],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-40-summer-2021","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/107670"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138565"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138566,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138565\/revisions\/138566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=138565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=138565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}