What follows is like an episode of the twilight zone, as a woman drifts between different realities. This is an old saw in a way, seemingly inspired by "Its a Wonderful Life," and stories of that ilk. I do love those stories, the question of "what if" being a source of never-ending speculation.  But this isn't just about the “what if,” because there is the additional twist of which reality would you choose?  If you had the chance to pick, would you go for the more comfortable, happier reality; or would something else trump the basic hedonistic prerogative and lead to taking "the road less traveled."  This is also an exploration of the forces, duties and sentiments that pull a woman apart at the seams. What will it take to put our lead character back together again? Finally, there is the larger philosophical question of what living in a "multiverse" means for the daily choices we make, and how we prioritize our daily lives.

And as, on waking from stupor, we are conscious of our perceptions, we must have had perceptions immediately before we awoke, although we were not at all conscious of them; for one perception can in a natural way come only from another perception, as a motion can in a natural way come only from a motion. (Theod. 401-403.) Gottfried Leibnitz

Chapter 1

3 am is too early to get up just to watch an eclipse. I know I promised the kids I'd wake them up to see it, but seriously... I can't do this." Her husband, still asleep, didn't respond to her complaining. After swishing off the alarm app, she replaced her glowing phone by the lamp on the bedside table and did the middle age midnight waddle in the dark to the bathroom.  As usual, the pre-dawn regret monster attacked enroute, and by the time she was seated on the toilet she was fully into ruminating about the way she scolded Sammy over his report card last night.  "Why did I have to tell him he's pathetic kid? I can think it, but why did I have to say it to him? He's going to turn into Norman Bates if I keep this up. He'll abuse women just to get back at me and all the terrible things I said to him."  She coughed and shuffled her aching feet back across the wood floor of the attic towards the bed. The womb-like room was the small house's best feature. Covered in wood paneling with recessed bookshelves and drawers hidden in the eaves, it was a cozy space. She crawled back into the warm bed and snuggled under the fleece blanket. To chase away the regret monster she reached for her phone and earbuds to listen to a random chapter of a classic on spotify. Tom Hardy came on, followed by a chapter from Siddhartha. She stopped hearing the book and settled into the soft vacuum of sleep.

Her mind was just beginning to rise back to consciousness when she felt a strange sense of motion. "why is the earth slowing down?" It was the opposite of the drunken sensation of the spinning bed, instead the world was coming to a stop.  She could feel the gradual slowing in her stomach and diaphragm, pulling her back and down in a sensation she recognized from the end of a wildly spinning ride at Six Flags. "Hold on," she thought "if the world stops, what will happen to gravity?" She waited to start floating as gravity released, but it didn't happen. Suddenly she realized it must be the blood moon! Could an eclipse cause the world to stop? She shook her head realizing that she must be dreaming and popped abruptly into consciousness.

She pulled off her ear buds and reached for her phone, now tucked under her pillow. "Maybe somebody on Facebook knows what's going on," she touched the button on the right side to open the screen. "whaaat the ..." her fingers and hand sizzled as an electric shock ran from her phone down her arm, followed immediately by a high frequency vibration that didn't hurt but surprised her and she dropped the phone. She picked it up again, to check the "vibration" setting, wondering if she just missed a really important call...  this time the sizzle flowed the other way, from her hand to the phone. Maybe that's what happened the first time, but it was too fast to notice. The phone flashed a bright blue light that arced above her hand. 

"Seydou! Seydou!" she called out, hoping her husband could figure out what was going on. "The eclipse... we stopped rotating and my phone has gone berserk..."  Seydou!  Wake up."   He reached up and pulled her down to him, cuddling her head under his chin and hugging her to him in his half-awake state.  She noticed that a fluffy grey cat was startled and jumped off the bed. "Where did that come from," she thought vaguely. "When did we get a cat?" she also noticed that the blanket felt oddly nubby instead of soft and fuzzy. She was about to ask Seydou about the cat when she remembered the eclipse of the blood moon.  She had promised to wake up the kids to see it and she was late, they might miss it f she didn't hurry.  Blood moons were rare, and an eclipse on top of that- it would be memorable for them. She wiggled out of his embrace.

She climbed out of bed and decided that the earth had not, in fact, stopped rotating based on the reassuring tug of gravity keeping her grounded to the floor. "Thank God for gravity."  She mumbled, while also realizing that she had probably never felt thankful for gravity before.  In fact she had struggled against gravity for most of her life, wanting to fly or float or soar, and more recently, just missing the youthful bounce of her body parts. "I guess gravity does have its advantages."  She headed for the stairs to get the kids up. Something felt strange about the floor she thought as she went down the steps, noticing the broken edges of the concrete on each riser, this floor is really worn, cold, and dry.  She stepped on to a worn outdoor carpet runner covering part of the wide staircase.  She didn't recognize the way to the kid’s rooms, as she turned the corner and saw a broad plate glass window looking out on a busy urban street. She finally found a door and pushed it open, finding herself standing on wet pavement in her bare feet, this was not right. She should be on the grass in the front yard. The moon loomed large, she could see it through a screen of buildings and power lines. A large dark crescent swath of the moon as missing from the right side as the earths' shadow ate it up. It reminded her of a back-lit chicken egg, with the blurred shadow of a baby chicken in the red depths.   "Nothing is right about this." She began to feel anxious panic rising from her gut, and she quickly went back into the building to find the kids.

Coming into a large open room, she found herself standing in a modified industrial building, with exposed duct work and a few tall windows along one wall. It was surprisingly dark, considering the windows and she had the sense that it must be too early for the sun to come in. There was a ratty carpet remnant under a table and chairs, and an open galley-style kitchen with worn out appliances.  

Two small yippy dogs, chocolate toy poodles, came running up to her, and she petted them-and enjoyed their excited attention. "Adorable, but where did they come from?" she wondered. Her husband came around the corner from the steps and she finally remembered to ask him. "We have a cat and two dogs now?? When did that happen?" He didn't answer but turned around and headed back toward the steps. "No, wait." it suddenly dawned on her that she was not in Yakima, Washington anymore, and Seydou was hiding his tears.

But it must not be imagined, as has been done by some who have misunderstood my thought, that each soul has a quantity or portion of matter belonging exclusively to itself or attached to it forever, and that it consequently owns other inferior living beings, which are devoted for ever to its service. For all bodies are in a perpetual flux like rivers, and parts are entering into them and passing out of them continually.

It also follows from this that there never is absolute birth [generation] nor complete death, in the strict sense, consisting in the separation of the soul from the body. What we call births [generations] are developments and growths, while what we call deaths are envelopments and diminutions.

(Theod. 90, 124.) Gottfried Leibnitz

Chapter 2

She was unsure how to respond to Seydou's tears, for she didn't know what was causing them, and come to think of it, he never cries. She was startled by the sound of Sali her daughter, suddenly yelling "Mom, Mom, you're here!"  Sali ran to her and wrapped her arms around her waist and snuggled her face into her belly. Now she was starting to cry, surprised by Sali's desperate embrace. She held her tight without saying anything for a long time while Sali let her feelings go, and she also struggled to understand the sudden intense emotions of this morning.  Sali was practically her soul mate, even though she was her daughter. They understood each other in ways that went beyond the usual mother-daughter bond. She attributed this to Sali's extraordinary sensitivity for other people and her ability to turn her malaise around with a joke or unexpected observation. A clanging note rang in her head, as she saw that Sali's hair was braided. "Whoa Sali, who braided your hair, it looks so pretty this way!" Her hair was definitely not braided last night, and she refused to ever braid her hair, keeping it loose in a wild frizzy lion mane mess of hair that radiated her free spirit. Sali said she did it herself and gave her the wrinkled nose smile that may have meant she was making that up. She was never quite sure.  "So where is Sammy?" She asked Sali, suddenly feeling anxious again.

The memory of their last conversation overtook her thoughts. She tried to shake them from her, but they came back at her like knights in a jousting match. Her regret over her terrible words weighed on her heart. She couldn't help but smile though when he came into the room wearing bright fleece pajama pants that were six inches too short. He also wore his worn out T-shirt from camp which he attended about 3 years ago. He slowly wobbled over to her, still only half awake. He seemed to jump with a spark when he saw her though and started to bounce up and down and flap his arms with joy, "Mom you are here, you are really here!" He kept saying over and over. Sammy usually over did things this way, but still... He lunged toward her and piled on top of Salimata to wrap her in a huge bear hug. Sali didn't complain, but kept hanging on too.  Seydou came over and said "Mom sandwich!" and joined in the hugging fiasco. It felt amazing to be so affectionately wrapped up in the embrace of these people who mattered more to her than anything else in her life. She soaked in the warmth of their love, and did her best to hug them back just as enthusiastically.  She was now convinced that something very strange had happened and a billion questions flooded her mind. There were tears stinging her eyes, and she didn't know why. The kids were crying now too. "Now tell me, what did I do to deserve this? You know we are probably missing the eclipse." "Oh mom, you are better than an eclipse," said Sammy, and nobody answered her question, or moved very much.

As much as she enjoyed the hugs, she was starting to feel like the cat in the old "Pepe Le Peux" cartoon who had to peel herself out of Pepes' amorous embrace. Especially since she was starting feel dizzy with the enormity of the differences and the fact that she was definitely not "home" as she knew it. "Ok guys, this was a fabulous good morning moment, but now you have to tell me what is going on." What are we doing in this place, where did those animals come from and whose are they, and for that matter, where are we?" 

"Mom, are you all right?" Asked Sali in a reluctant way, as if the questions didn't make sense to her at all.  "You have been gone for a while, Mom." explained Sammy, "We have just missed you so much.  Dad said you would never come back. We didn't think we would see you ever again!" Sali exclaimed. "Oh my dear, you have no idea how much I have missed you." Seydou's head was bowed and he was overcome with emotion.

Something was terribly wrong. "What do you mean, I've been gone. I haven't been, I've been right with you."  "No, you haven't. It’s been two years since you left." Seydou began to explain, but she couldn't comprehend what he was saying. "That's just not true, why are you saying I left? Where did I go?"  Nobody spoke for a few moments, but Sali broke the silence. "You died mom.  Breast cancer took you away from us."  I sat down quickly in a conveniently appearing chair, thanks to Seydou.