Author : Thomas Gray

Luckily, I guess you might suggest, he came at a bit of a sticking point for Me in that I’d sorted the algorithm for maintaining which level of quantum field to generate, I just couldn’t get it to stay to that level for longer than a few nanoseconds.

“You had the partitioning for the molecular quantifier set up all wrong” He explained to me over eggs the morning after.

That should have been the first sign. I had always been allergic to eggs, and I know, KNOW you can’t make people “un-allergic” to things, it’s part of your DNA, you can’t change it.

“Some medical guys managed to change all that, man” Fuck, He sounded just like Me.

“So I guess I can have eggs, and you can’t? Sucks to be you!” He says with a harmless laugh, that same laugh I’ve laughed a million times over. I so, so want to believe Him.

His reason for coming, he told me, was to

“See life on the other side of the sub-cosmic fence” with My grin and My Eye and My Hair and My mind.

I should have remembered that he had My mind.

Because, you see, I’m not a completely nice person. I’ve tricked people for personal gain. I’ve lied to get high in the world. I’ve conned to make my money. After all, the equipment for a Dimensional Drift Barge doesn’t come cheap.

I should have remembered He thought like Me.

His visit was only scheduled to last two weeks, but He left after only a week and a half. I should have realised something was amiss, but I had spent two weeks feeling as if He could read My mind, know when to laugh or cry, understand every concept I could ever express. Hell, it felt like I’ve made the best friend in the world. I was truly saddened when He left.

She had been backpacking around Europe when He arrived. I had missed Her everyday, but the arrival of an exact copy of “the self” from another dimension tends to push things like “spouses on vacation with friends” out of your mind.

Once He had left, and I had got over the somewhat “overwhelming” shock (as I’m sure the reader can imagine) I started dropping her emails again. I was bemused to find Her mother replying to them.

She had disappeared the day before He headed for home.

I received an email about a month later. He had told Her that He was Me. That I (He) had perfected the drive for interstellar travel, and had convinced her to leave Her old life behind and join Me (Him) in a new world, full of possibilities.

In My world, we were married at 21, had two daughters, and the only thing in the universe greater than our love for them was our love for each other.

In His, she had died in a car crash 4 months prior to him concocting his plan.

To steal Her from Himself.

I still cry everyday, lose my breath in the night from crying so hard, sadness still grips Me like the sadness, not of being forgotten, but unable to forget.

It took Him 4 months to decide. I hope She’s happy. Truly.

The worst part?

It wouldn’t have taken Me 4 minutes.