A moment

I don’t know where I am until I see the huge Landcruiser hurtling towards me and I’m gripping the steering wheel. My throat’s ripping, the car’s getting closer, the number plate larger, I can see every detail of the front of the car. Covered in dead bugs and dirt. I’m going to be strewn all over that.

Everything in the world shatters as the Landcruiser’s front collides with my window and the glass splinters all over my face. I close my eyes.

The space is cold. I wait, and wait, there is no path yet … and then a heat starts. It burns, it’s too intense. I’m dying; it’s too hot.

The heat loosens my body and I float slowly, calm. I can feel something that at first is my heartbeat, but it’s coming from something else, something I don’t know.

I stay in the scalding hot for an age. Then I know it’s time to leave. I’m not dying, I’m going back.

The sun shining through the window momentarily blinds me when I open my eyes. The air around me is cold, and it’s jarring coming from that intense warmth. I’m lying in the middle of my bedroom floor, and I pull on the nearest jumper I can find. I’m exhausted from the heat, my bones are made of concrete and I feel like I can barely move. My eyes are burning.

I blink away tears and wipe them with the back of my hand. I wince when something digs into my skin. I draw my hand and it’s covered in blood and tiny scratches.

The crash, of course. The heat made me forget. Maybe that was the fixed point?

In the mirror, there are tiny cuts all over my face and my right arm. I test my arm but it’s not broken, everything moves the way it should. Only the window bits must have hit me, not the door or the steering wheel. I start to pick out the little pieces of glass in my skin and soon there are tiny pinpricks of blood chasing each other down my face. They don’t get far before drying, there isn’t enough volume to them.

I pull out the biggest piece of glass, the one that cut my hand, and flick it across the room. Which I’ll never find now, until I step on it, dammit.

In the mirror I can see another me, standing behind me. I don’t look at it directly, just concentrate on the glass in my face. It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be, not looking. The air is cold although I don’t really feel it as much anymore, not just because of the jumper, but there’s just something that lingers from the in-between, a left-over warmth.

I try not to look to the left, it’s moved and it keeps staring. From the parts I can see, it’s even more beat up than I am, and one arm hangs limply by its side. I turn my head to look at it, get a clearer picture, but then keep turning my head, not letting my eyes stay on any one point.

If I’m forced out of the universe again, it might be closer to the impact of the crash, or something worse. Being switched into the past could be highly problematic – there’s no shortage of near-death experiences.

Some of those near deaths would be real deaths for the other versions of me I realise, as I run a hand up my punctured arm, looking sideways at the limp arm of the doppelganger. One of me probably just died in the car crash. In that universe, I am dead. Dad doesn’t have a daughter and he lost me the same way he lost Mum.

How many other universes is he alone in?

When I turn around, the doppelganger is gone. The walls are painted a darker shade than the one I’m used to. It’s warmer, maybe a little more inviting.

I blink at the wall for a few seconds, then launch myself over. I place my hand flat where the tea should be. I lean in close, narrow my eyes. No, they’re still there. They’re faint, recently scrubbed off.

I wriggle my toes in the carpet, noticing it properly. It’s new. My whole room is cleaner, not a speck of dust anywhere. The paint around the window that was cracked has been redone.

The front of my watch is cracked. I’d almost forgotten it in the past few days, lost without Dad and Daisy and everything. I tap a fingernail on the glass and feel the steady tick-tock, tick-tock. How could I have forgotten about the watch? I’m not alone if it’s with me.

Now all I have to do is find home, if that crash is the fixed point.

I go downstairs to make myself a cup of tea. In the driveway there’s a car I don’t recognise. Dad must have a new one. We have a lot of new things here; Dad must have a different job.

No one’s in the kitchen or the lounge, but the newspaper is laid out on the table. The coffee beside it is warm, and too milky. I must’ve just missed him; he must have had the night shift and is asleep.

Once the tea is made, I go back upstairs and look for Slaughterhouse-Five. It’s not on my bedside or my bookshelf, so I pick up a random book on the shelf.

I get under the doona and wriggle around till I find the comfiest spot. Tea in one hand, book in the other, I sigh and lean into my pillows.

There’s a light knock on the door.

‘Come in,’ I say, not putting the book down.

The door opens. ‘Ida, did you want to come watch a movie with me?’

I stare because that is not Dad. That’s not my father.

That is my mother. She stands in the doorway, alive, well, a smile on her face.