Life Shift
Authors: Michelle Slee
| Life Shift |
| Michelle Slee |
| Amazon Digital Services, Inc. (2012) |
What do you do when a parallel universe calls?
Christine thought she was happy. She had wonderful friends and family, and was married to a loving husband. What was there not to be happy about? Of course life wasn't perfect. But what life is? Certainly there were things missing from her life and decisions that she regretted. But that's true of everyone, she told herself. So yes Christine thought she was happy. And maybe she was.
But one evening everything changes for Christine. Returning home from work, she opens her door and sees into another universe - a parallel life that she is living with a different man. And this parallel life – this parallel universe– seems to want Christine very much indeed.
Her brief visits to this other world start to increase in frequency. Soon when she is there she can't even remember her other life, so vibrant and real is her new life in this other universe. But when she returns she remembers everything – and the knowledge and memories both thrill and terrify her.
Fearing for her sanity Christine seeks the help of a university professor – a professor of quantum physics and multiverse theory. He understands what is happening but is still astounded. Christine is living proof of his theories – theories developed over years of research into the behaviour of electrons and particle physics. His hypothesis – now borne out by Christine's experiences – is that parallel worlds are created with every decision we make. They flow out from the options we don't take, the lives we don't live, and they create alternate realities and parallel worlds. This is proof of the multiverse. For some unknown reason Christine can see this multiverse and can live one of her alternate lives. And this is killing her.
Because you see there are people in her parallel life - people that are very important to Christine – her “other” husband Matt and her precious daughter Teresa. And as Christine remembers this life and the love she has for them, so she realises her parallel life has everything she ever wanted. And this means it is irresistable.
And as the pull of the parallel universe gets stronger so Christine's ties to her real life weaken, destroying her husband Damien as he sees this happening before his very eyes.
Damien doesn't understand what is happening. When he does understand he doesn't believe. It undermines everything he thinks he knows about reality. But one thing he can't deny is the pain it is causing him – and it is this that finally forces Christine's hand. She knows her dual life in the multiverse can't continue. It is destroying the very people she loves. And in fact - even more than this – it is destroying the very fabric of the universe.
Because you see no one is meant to see their other lives. And you're certainly not meant to cross over and live another life. Christine is breaking the laws of the multiverse and for that there is a price to be paid. A price that will cost her dearly.
Christine realises she has to decide. This will mean a sacrifice – a painful sacrifice. Can she do it?
Parallel Lives and Parallel Universes - and a love that cannot be denied
Life Shift is a sci fi romance with a difference. At its heart it's about love – a love for two men and two lives, and a mother's love for her daughter. Life Shift shows that sometimes we love when we shouldn't and sometimes we love who we shouldn't, but sometimes…just sometimes...our love rises above itself to be selfless and self-sacrificing. And that is the love that endures.
About the Author
Michelle Slee lives in Swansea. A former researcher into the 1st century church she now writes about a wide range of topics including her recent marathon row (hard!), her training for the London marathon in 2013 (also hard!) and a little known game called World of Warcraft! She is the author of Keep Azeroth Tidy.
CHAPTER ONE
It first happened on a Tuesday. Looking back Christine could not say whether that was significant or insignificant. It could go either way.
Like most of life really. That much she now knew. But back then she knew very little.
He had rung earlier in the day.
“Have you remembered my class tonight?”
“Yes,” she had lied.
“Are you going to stay in work until I finish? I can come and get you later.”
She had considered it. She had a stack of work to get through and the following day was filled with more meetings. She could do with the time to prepare. But the thought of the house to herself for two hours was irresistible.
“No I’m going to finish early for once,” she replied.
“Okay. I’ve made you some food. It’s in the fridge. Have you got money for the bus?”
“Yes I’ve got money.”
She realised her voice was stiff. She hated it when he treated her like a child. She felt the usual tightness in her chest. Talking to him brought that on these days. She couldn’t remember when that had started.
“Thanks for making me food,” she said.
“No problem. I need to know you’re eating.”
“I’m eating. I had a sandwich earlier.”
“A sandwich. That's not enough. Christine you're losing weight, you....”
“I know. I know,” she interrupted, “Look I’ve got to go. There’s someone at my desk.” Another lie. “I’ll see you later. Have a good class.”
“Ok. Take care getting the bus.”
“I will.”
She thought about the phone call on the bus ride home. When had it started getting so hard? Christine had met Damien when she was eighteen and he was twenty. They had been together ever since. For both of them it was the first serious relationship. First love. She’d had some boyfriends in school and university but nothing like the relationship with Damien. Within three months they were living together in a barely furnished house in a rough part of town - their parents refusing to speak to them. But all Christine remembered of those early years with Damien was how safe he made her feel. Even when they were at home freezing – no central heating and a coal fire that defiantly extinguished itself every night - he was her rock and her comfort. They loved each other and felt, like most new couples do, that it was them against the world.
“He still looks after me that's all,” she thought as she got off the bus, her bad mood fading. “Why am I so mean to him?”
It was already dark. She waited to cross the busy road. The cars sped by, frighteningly close. She shivered. She just wanted to be home, in the bath, warm. Spotting a gap in the traffic she started to run. She got across the road and took a breath. She hated that road. When she was at the house she realised her hands were freezing. She needed to start wearing gloves. She rummaged in her bag for the house keys. Her hands were tangled in her iPod wire. Eventually
she got herself untangled and found her keys. She inserted the key in the lock, opened the door and simply stared.
At first she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. She should have been seeing a dark wooden staircase and polished wooden floor. That was the hallway of her house. Had been ever since they'd moved out of that other house from the rough part of town. But they weren’t there now. What was there instead was a burgundy carpet and a white glossed staircase. She looked again at the front door. Was it her house? Yes there was her door. There was the crooked number six that neither of them had ever got round to straightening. There was the plant pot on the left with the dying remains of whatever Damien had planted back in the spring. She looked back through the doorway. Had Damien decorated today – put in new carpet, painted the staircase? But no – even that was impossible. Their usual staircase had straight wooden posts– twenty of them from the foot of the stairs to the top (she counted them as she walked – for some reason she counted everything). But here the white wood had been carved into swirls, swirls that followed no pattern, swirls that resisted counting, swirls that already left her head feeling dazed and confused.
“Would he have put in a new staircase?” she wondered aloud, amazed.
But no. Even that couldn’t be the case. Because she had just noticed something else. Where in her home there was a doorway into the living room, here there was an arch, an arch leading into a living room that even from this angle was clearly different from the living room she had left this morning.
Everything that was happening suddenly overwhelmed her - the swirl of the staircase, the curve of the arch, the living room that was not her own. She stumbled, nearly falling, just catching herself on the door in time. She felt sick. She looked around to see if everything else in the street looked the same. She even looked for cameras, neighbours, a TV crew all here to witness the outcome of an elaborate practical joke. But there was no one. The street was empty. The only movement was the fall of the rain, glistening in the street lights.
“What’s going on?” she wondered, but could think no more as a pain ripped through her head. She screamed. She couldn’t help herself. The pain was excruciating. And that was when she stumbled again and this time did fall as she mercifully blacked out.
She opened her eyes. She was cold and shivering. The rain had soaked her hair. Her arm hurt. She looked down and saw that it had started to bleed.
Terrified she stood up. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious. She looked around – the street was empty. She dared herself to look back into the house.
Relief swept over her. It was back - her wooden floor, the wooden staircase and the doorway exactly as it was meant to be. She walked in and touched the staircase. Yes it was really there.
She shut the front door and went into the living room. It was dark and cold. Damien hadn’t left any of the lights on as he usually did. She put on the lamp and switched on the heating. What was going on? What had happened out there?
“Have a bath. Relax. Think about it sensibly,” she said to herself as she walked up the stairs. She turned on the taps and noticed that her hands were trembling. She steadied herself as she opened the bath oil and poured in a generous amount. She went into the bedroom and started to undress. As she took her shirt off she noticed the blood on the sleeve. She examined her arm again. The cut was nasty, not deep but wide, and the blood was still pouring.
In the bathroom she dabbed at it with a wet cloth, getting the dirt out. Unbidden thoughts of the carpet and white staircase came into her mind. Had she really seen that?
The bath was full. Slowly she eased her aching body into the bubbles. She realised suddenly that she was scared to close her eyes, scared to close them in case something different awaited her when she opened them.
She lay back and looked instead at the ceiling. What had happened out there? Had she had a turn, as her mother would say? What would Damien say, more to the point? She couldn’t hide the arm from him. He would notice it tonight. And if she told him she had fainted he would worry and make her go to the doctors. And did she need to see the doctor? It wasn’t normal to come home and see something totally different from what you expected to see was it?
She sighed. She would have to lie to Damien. Otherwise he would make a fuss. He’d probably say she was overworking. And maybe she was. She had been doing long hours lately. Maybe it was stress. Or the onset of a migraine.
She closed her eyes and quickly opened them. The same bathroom light. She relaxed, relieved.
It’s tiredness and stress, she said again to herself, this time more firmly. She took a deep breath and stretched out. A good soak and good night’s sleep would sort her out.
CHAPTER TWO
As it turned out she didn't need to lie to him. By the time he came home from his class she was asleep on the sofa wearing an old long-sleeved nightshirt to hide the cut. If he found anything strange about the nightshirt he didn’t say anything. Instead he woke her – gently shaking her shoulder.
“Ready for bed or do you want a glass of wine?”
“A glass of wine would be great,” she said sleepily, knowing she should go to bed but wanting to spend at least a little time with him that evening.
Damien had been taking an accountancy course for the past couple of months. He had set up his own sports therapy business a few months ago but was struggling with the book-keeping.