Opening the Door
- Secret Life
It’s a bit hard to sum up my life with Laura Jameson: she was quite a bit younger when I first met her a few years ago, a fairly tall young woman of 22, not quite skinny but certainly having curves in all the right places. I had always wondered what she would look like with glasses on, but that was something for my imagination, not reality. The places where my dream world developed most was the Eyescene messageboard and the related webpages on the internet - I was known as “Puffin” there - my wife Laura knew nothing about it. In reality she worked at one of those odd atomic testing labs, you know where they fire particle beams around in circles and race them against beams of light, or smash them together. All a bit crazy and silly to me, but it kept her happy while she was alive. I never dreamt where it would take me. Not Laura however, bless her: she’d died a couple of weeks ago in a car crash.
Two days after we’d laid her to rest, I sat down before my computer to look up the Eyescene website: on there was only the usual sort of thing, really. Then on impulse I checked my alternative, secret email address, and there it was, an email with the title “Hi Puffin”. I clicked on it and opened it. It said “Hi Puffin - glad I tracked you down. I bet you’re surprised to hear from me. It’s Laura. Please email me and perhaps we can meet up somewhere. Perhaps down by the front of the local superstore? Love, Laura. PS here’s my phone number.” It was almost my Laura’s mobile phone number, but the 3rd digit from the end was one figure different.
It took me a few hours to work up whatever I thought I needed to dial that number. It rang, and then a voice answered. My knees turned to jelly as I heard a voice - a very familiar voice that I thought I would never hear again. It was Laura! She said brightly, ‘hello, Puffin!’ I stood in silence for a strange moment, and then asked, ‘Is it you? Is it really you? But - how?’ ‘Yes of course it’s me. I know that voice, it’s my Puffin isn’t it?’ That floored me. How did Laura know my nickname? I’d concealed it so well, I thought, not telling a soul about my secret life. I collected myself and asked her, ‘This cannot be - you are dead. I… Buried you last Friday. I… Don’t understand.’ ‘Oh, sorry Puffin. I didn’t realise quite what had happened when I did this.’ ‘Did what?’ ‘Oh… We’d better meet up; I can’t tell you on the phone. Can you come to the superstore tonight, say six o’clock?’ ‘Yes, OK - see you then.’ I had to go and find out what was going on, for my sanity if nothing else.
At just before six that evening I strolled up to the local superstore near my flat, and stood around trying not to look as if I was loitering. The time ticked by; I checked my watch, then looked up - and there she was, walking toward me. She was wearing one of the outfits just like the one I really liked to see her in, that is my Laura: a snappy business suit in cream that did a lot for her curves. But this Laura was - different. A bit like a slightly inaccurate photocopy with the missed bits interpolated by educated guesswork, or perhaps a close female relative who just happened to share most of the same genes. I took in this “new” Laura in with a long look as she got closer: a touch taller, perhaps, and maybe a little curvier, the same blond hair and pretty face I’d thought I’d said goodbye to last week. But on that face was some both unexpected and extremely interesting to me: rounded gold metal glasses, with lenses both thick and plano fronted, pushing in that face in a way I had only fantasized about. The sinking sun sent sunbeams glinting all over the frames and lenses, and when she turned her head, the alluringly flat fronts to the lenses shone - it was like a dream, a lovely impossible dream, yet here it was, walking toward me wearing glasses that corrected minus 12 of myopia in each eye.
She turned to face me, smiled from a few feet away, and as she came up to me, said cheerily ‘Puffin? You are just as I remember you! Sorry I’m late, things don’t seem quite the same here.’ I had to drag my thoughts away from glasses for the moment. She smiled again, knowingly. Did she know about my preference for bespectacled women? And how could she know that? She said, ‘can we get a coffee in here? I’m dying for a cup!’ I nearly spluttered at that, but followed her to the coffee bar behind all the cash tills; we bought coffees and sat down near the window away from other ears. I watched her empty two packets of sugar into her coffee: I gawped at this. Despite my puzzlement, I commented, ‘you have a sweet tooth today.’ ‘No, this is what I normally have - oh, sorry, perhaps I should explain.’ ‘That would be helpful.’
She began slowly, explaining for me, a bit of a nuclear physics dummy, ‘you know I work with the physicists at that nuclear accelerator ring - well I found a new use for it. It took me ages to work it out: when we bash the atoms apart there, a tiny percentage of the bits seemed to be vanishing without trace. It never really bothered anyone, but I worked out what was happening: they were being translated into an alternative, parallel universe. Later, I worked out how to estimate neutrino patterns in this universe - you must understand what I was doing - I’d stumbled on a way to jump between universes and how to find specific things in it.’ She stopped, seeing my facial expression: I looked quite amazed, and with due cause; but I also felt a little sad. I’d just realised what she was saying: this wasn’t my Laura Jameson. It was another Laura Jameson. My Laura still lay dead and buried six feet under in a nearby cemetery. She seemed pretty much like her, though, apart from the the glasses. For a moment I thought - maybe she looks better this way? A big improvement! I squashed that thought firmly.
I asked, ‘so what you are saying is that you made some sort of interdimensional doorway and came though to this universe?’ ‘Yes - that is exactly it.’ ‘Why?’ ‘To see you again. You look just like how I thought you might now, sort of cute…’ She smiled gently, persuasively. My mind raced - what did she mean? Then it came to me. I asked, ‘don’t tell me. I am dead in your universe.’ Her face fell, and then softly she said, ‘yes… Two years ago… When I discovered the doorway, I had to try it. Puffin, I’m so happy to see you again, you are just like you were in my universe. Don’t you remember? No, of course not.’ She touched my wrist with her fingers, and we fell silent for a moment in mutual but separate contemplation of this strange situation.
- Perfect match
I then asked ‘How do you know about my secret email address?’ ‘It’s not a secret to me. You told me about it in my universe six years ago, when we first “met” via Eyescene’ My brain rang with “OMG’s”. Gently she said ‘I take it… I hope this is true… You like girls in glasses here too?’ I nodded, and replied, ‘yes, but I keep that firmly under wraps. As do I keep my interest in Eyescene, and certainly my secret email address.’ She looked delighted. Softly she exclaimed, ’then everything will be fine - I have found you again, and you can gaze at my bespectacled face and feel my lenses just like the way you did before. It’s all going to plan.'
I tried to tell her that such desires were simply dreams that I’d had for years, dreams squashed by long unfulfillment, but the words would not come out. I was captured by the beauty of the woman sitting across the table from me: Laura Jameson. I had to stop myself thinking “new improved version 2”: that would have been insulting to my Laura. Curious, I asked, ‘what do you plan to do now?’ She answered firmly, ‘persuade you to come to my universe.’
She instantly made a great start on that by crossing her shapely legs and caressing the side of her left lens, which stuck out back and forth from its frame. She said simply, ‘Puffin, you and I are like soulmates - we have lost each other in our respective universes. This way we can put both things right. You like girls with glasses, here I am, a bespectacled girl ready to get…. Well you know, friendly with you. Come on, lets give it a try, eh?’ I wasn’t convinced. I stammered out something, ‘but… My Laura… Didn’t…’ ‘Didn’t what?’ ‘Wear glasses.’ Her face took on a new look of understanding. Then briskly, just like my Laura, she said, ‘Oh, well, don’t worry about it - like I said, here I am, another Laura, this time with glasses, just what you always wanted.’
I had to admit to myself that what she said was true. The thought of having my Laura, or just as good as, restored to me with the added bonus of thick, interesting glasses really appealed to me. Curious again, I asked, ‘why your universe? Why can’t we live here?’ ‘Well, we could, but I am well known here and there. If I am dead here, then I had better not pop up again. I hope this is true of you here, but in my universe, you were not really known to anyone except me. I think we have a better chance of not having the truth discovered if you come with me.’ ‘Oh…. OK. What’s it like there?’ ‘Oh, pretty much like here. A few things are spelt differently, I’ve noticed.’ She pulled out one of her business cards to show me: it was identical to the pack I’d found in the remains of my Laura’s car - except that when I looked at this Laura’s name, printed in blue on it, the “J” in “Jameson” was printed backwards.
I thought a long moment - this woman in her mid-twenties was all I’d ever dreamt of: a bespectacled Laura. I made up my mind. ‘OK. I’ll come. Do I have time to pack?’ ‘Why? I still have all of your stuff. With any luck it will be the same as here. If not, you can always pop back and get it.’ We went back to my flat and I gathered a few things I thought I would like to have with me. Then she said, ‘we must go back to the place where I arrived, where the accelerator ring in my universe is.’ I asked if it was the same place as the one I knew about, but no, it had been built somewhere else. We ended up getting into my car and driving a short distance into the countryside west of London, stopping next to an innocuous-looking field of barley. I could see a narrow path trampled into the field: obviously this was where the new Laura had emerged.
She led me into roughly the middle of the field and pulled out a device not unlike a TV remote control and said, ‘ready?’ I nodded, so she punched a button. There was a flash of light, causing me to blink, and we were done: standing inside the core of the accelerator. She opened the door so we could walk out, and that was that: interdimensional transfer easier than crossing the road! We got out of the place using Laura’s security pass, then she drove us to what was our old home. As we drove, this alternative London did not seem such a different place to the one I had recently left, but some of the street signs were different, and I soon picked up on the different spellings. Apparently we had lived in a pleasant flat in North London. Once inside I found that she had indeed kept most of my stuff. One or two things were missing, and there were a few things I didn’t recognise, but all in all it seemed perfectly livable. And of course, the presence of a lovely GWG with thick glasses who was mad about me, well that certainly helped! I remember sitting feeling the smooth fronts of her lenses with my fingertips that night, as I had always wished I could, and apparently the way her version of me used to do when he was alive here.
Life was blissful for a few weeks: I soon got along with the new London, got used to seeing and writing my “J"s the wrong way around. Some of my CD’s had slightly different music, although they were not unpleasant; I had to go back to my universe to pick up my versions of the same CD’s, and some other bits and pieces I missed. This time we left my car in my garage at home rather than stuck by a field of barley! As you can imagine, sex with the new Laura was amazing, once I got over the odd facts of the situation. After a few weeks I was contemplating getting a job of some sort.
- The Alternate Puffin
We sat one Saturday evening watching TV: I have to say Saturday evening TV here was no better than ours, but then I had the lovely bespectacled Laura with me and that was plenty good enough! I gently stroked her ear, feeling the way her earpiece went around the back of it, and was just about to make the inevitable progress along the earpiece to the side of her lens, when there was a knock at the door - and not just any knock. It was the same knock that Laura, both versions of them, tended to use! Something inside me said “oh my, now what?”
I sighed, and said ‘I’ll go.’ I got up, went to the door and opened it. It took me a long moment to take in the person standing before me: a tall, fairly skinny woman. She wore a dark blue t-shirt and a pair of Levis identical to a pair my Laura had bought a few months ago in my old universe. She was quite dark skinned, olive coloured like an Indian or Filipino perhaps: the effect was quite alluring, giving her an exotic beauty that certainly appealed to me. Looking at her face was quite bizarre: I blinked, and then I was sure: she looked amazingly like Laura, either copy of her. It was a little hard to be exactly sure because she wore glasses too! Something jumped inside me as all of this hit me: the glasses were quite large round black metal frames with the thickest pair of myodisk lenses I’d seen in a long time anywhere; they must have corrected something like 35-40 dioptres of myopia. Her glasses needed a strap running around the back of her head, pressing down on her long black hair in order to keep them in place. Surely her little dark eyes peeping out from behind these shimmering lenses could not see so well? Evidently not, given the way she squinted at me, and also that she held a folded up white stick in her right hand.
She leant forward, squinting powerfully, and asked uncertainly, ‘are you….. Puffin?’ ‘Yes… And you are….?’ Of course, I knew what she was going to say. ‘I am Laura Yamsen.’ I thought, ‘yeah, right.’ I invited her in, being as I could think of no better thing to do.
I very gently guided her into the lounge where Laura no 2 was waiting for me. She asked, not without justification, who this was. I answered, ‘I think this is another version of Laura….’ Laura no 3 nodded, then squinted at Laura no 2 and smiled at her. She felt her way, rather uncertainly, to the sofa and sat down. Softly she began, ’thank you for allowing me to visit you.' Laura no 2 replied, looking puzzled, ‘oh… That’s ok.’ Laura no 3 then said to Laura no 2, ‘you sound just like me. That is uncanny.’ I shrugged and said, ‘uncanny is getting almost commonplace for me. Tell me, Laura, do you work at an experimental nuclear accelerator lab in some alternative universe?’
Laura no 3 looked surprised, and said, ‘yes, how do you know?’ ‘Because this Laura is not my original Laura. I am not from this universe either. She did something along the lines of what you appear to have done: jump between parallel universes.’ ‘Ahhh. I thought there was something odd about the neutrino flux here. That is partly why I was drawn here.’ ‘Why else were you drawn here?’ ‘Oh, sorry, let me explain. In my universe I found this website called “Lenzcen”, which is all about people who find people who wear glasses interesting and attractive. You, Puffin, posted on it once and I saw that you were a person who found glasses very attractive, but then you didn’t post any more. I’ve been wondering what happened to you, and when I discovered that it’s possible to open a door between universes, I found that there was something odd going on in this one, and as it concerned an alternative me, I came to check it out and here you are!’ She seemed delighted, triumphant.
Laura no 2 said drily, ‘so now what? What do you want?’ ‘Oh…. I would love to talk to Puffin if I could…. Puffin, you said you would like to write stories about girls with glasses, on Lenzcen?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘On Lenzcen you never did. I wish you had. Perhaps - you could come to my universe and write some for us?’ Laura no 2 did not look entirely delighted at that suggestion. She perhaps knew me too well, in both the incarnations she had met. But then she said, ‘well, it’s up to you, I suppose.’
I thought for a moment, and then said, ‘why not? It would not do any harm, would it? Just a short visit would do for now, no?’ Both Lauras agreed, thus we soon were piled into Laura no 2’s car. Laura no 3 commented wistfully ‘I wish I could see well enough to drive a car. My visual acuity is 20/400, you know. I can only see peoples faces clearly about a foot away, very annoying but I’ve got used to it. You get used to being ferried about in other people’s cars.’ Laura no 3 was not so hot on directions, so it was almost midnight by the time before we reached the abandoned factory in the middle of nowhere, that in her universe was the site of her nuclear acclerator. When we got out she unfurled her stick. I took her arm and led her: perhaps an unlikely arrangement, because I had no idea which bit of the factory was the right bit, and although she knew where it was, she couldn’t see anything.
She asked, ‘is there a fence there? With a gap in that I could crawl through?’ Despite having poor vision, she was obviously an intelligent woman with a good memory, so with a few clues we were through the fence and standing against a wall. She groped along it. I asked ‘Laura, what are you looking for now?’ Both Lauras looked at me. ‘I mean the high myope one…. Laura no 3.’ Laura no 3 shrugged and said, ‘There is a little drain pipe. I came here right next to it….’ ‘About a foot to your left.’
A few moments later we were bang in the right place. Laura no 3 hauled out her control box from her pocket, then pushed the button. Again, in a flash of light, we were transported to another dimension, again arriving inside another nuclear accelerator core. Once outside the exact details eluded me, but it seemed different from the one Laura no 2 had used: I quickly forgot about it. Laura no 3 took us from the lab, and got us on a bus, which she had to help us with: we found the destination difficult to read, with several unfamiliar letters in its spelling.
We sat on the bus, and the Lauras talked about nuclear fission while I studied the small adverts on the walls of the bus. The writing was again a tangled and muddied imitation of English: one advert seemed to be advertising trips to London by bus, to see the London Eye, that great ferris wheel by the Thames; but here London was spelt “Lundun”. There was a small picture of a cityscape taken from the London Eye: it seemed to me certain details were missing, for instance there was no Nelson’s column. I saw a discarded newspaper lying on a seat across the aisle and picked it up. It was, again, very hard to read, and of course like any newspaper it would not give a full history of this universe, very far from it; but it gave me intriguing information, eg certain football teams that in my universe seemed to be doing much better here, but it appeared the rules were subtly different.
Some time later we arrived at Laura no 3’s flat. After turning the lights on, she was once more able to lead us around more effectively than before, this time directly to her computer. She turned it on, and a sort of round window shape appeared on screen, along with “Vindoes 2010” written below it, then the usual collection of icons. She reached out for the mouse, wiggled it, which caused the pointer to jump a little. She complained, ‘damn Rat. I need to clean it sometime.’ Evidently they called computer mice “Rats” here: but they still had dirt, just like everywhere else I’d been! Anyway, she managed to get connected to her version of the internet and into “Lenzcen” pretty quickly.
Then she sat peering at the monitor closely, as well she might, given her poor vision, and said, ‘well, do you have a story for me? I can pretend to be you: you dictate it, and I’ll type it in for you.’ I readily agreed: having looked at the peculiar layout of her keyboard, and the way everything seemed to be oddly misspelt here, I doubted anyone here could read my version of such, poor vision or not. I looked at Laura no 3, and asked, ‘do you know “The Painter”?’ She looked at me, and replied, ’no, I never read that one.'
I sat next to both Lauras and began. Laura no 2 simply listened: obviously her original version of me had never told her this story. Laura no 3 clicked on the “Poste Noo Mesaje” button on the site and typed in my name - “Pufin”, then she started typing as I dictated the story. It took about 15 minutes to do, then Laura no 3 clicked the “Poste” button, and that was that, my story was on “Lenzcen”. I then asked Laura no 3, ‘any chance of a coffee?’ She replied, puzzled, ‘what’s coffee?’ I was just about to answer when there was a knock at the door: I looked knowingly at Laura no 2. She said, ‘I’ll go.’ She got up and trotted downstairs. I heard the door open, and voices: Laura no 2, and another strange female voice: soft, slightly slurred and hard to catch.
- Multiplication
After a minute or two I heard two sets of footsteps coming upstairs: one was Laura no 2, the other our latest visitor. The door opened, and Laura no 2 came through, followed by the oddest looking woman I’d ever seen. Laura no 2 said, ’this is… Layhra, is it?' She seemed to hiss out something that sounded like “Laura”, with the ‘r’ rolling and catching hard in her throat, making it sound like ‘Lau-ghraa’. Laura no 3 squinted up at her, then got to her feet in order to have a closer look at our visitor. I simply sat there, gazing up in amazement!
This Laura, no 4, was quite different again! If you can imagine a sort of cross between a lizard and a human, you’ll get some sort of picture of what Laura no 4 was like: parts of her skin, particularly around her joints, was pale brown and slightly leathery looking, or had small brown and green scales. Where there was less need for flexibility, there were larger scales, for instance the long ones running down her legs, and the big one on her back; dark green and brown for camoflage, I assumed. Her head had a bony crest to it, from which straw-coloured hair sprouted and ran to halfway down her back, tied behind her neck. Her fingers had claws on, but looked clever and dexterous, as they held a control box not unlike those belonging to Lauras 2 and 3. Of course, you have must realised by now, she was entirely naked. Perhaps that wouldn’t have mattered if she were a lizard, but her semi-mammalness insisted that she have breasts: they stuck pertly through two holes in her breastplate. Despite her alien strangeness, she had quite a bit of beauty to her; in her mottled colouration and hair, and as for her face, despite being scaly in parts, was regularly formed and certainly not unattractive.
As you might have guessed, this Laura also wore glasses! Sort of square-rounded things, hard to describe in shape, but the lenses were thick plus lenses, magnifying her eyes and brightening the area around them. The light from the room seemed to be stuck behind them as I met her alien but Laura-like gaze, which indicated a keen intelligence. Laura no 3 commented, after closely examining her, ‘Why, she seems to be some lizard-like being crossed with a mammal! Fascinating!’ Laura no 4 asked her, ‘yough arrr mammmalls?’ I answered for me and Lauras nos 2 & 3 ‘Yes, we are. Tell me, are you from some universe where dinosaurs survived and mammals did not?’ Laura no 4 looked quizzically at me and said, ’noooo, nooo, not entirghelyyyy. Weee arrrre dessscendeddd frommm bothhh typesss.’
She surveyed the other two Lauras with interest. Laura no 2 asked, curious, ‘do you have a website called “Eyescene” or “Lenzcen”?’ Laura no 4 looked puzzled, so Laura no 2 continued, ‘it concerns those who prefer glasses? On your internet?’ ‘Immmm sohrryyy - you speak Inglassh veryyy odddllyyy - dooo youuu meann “Spekssszonnnn?”’ ‘Yes, that sounds like it. This is my friend Puffin. He’s mad keen on glasses, you know. In both the incarnations I know of. He writes stories for “Eyescene”.’ Laura no 4’s already large eyes grew larger with recognition. “Theghrrrr isss aa mannn in myyy univergssse… Onnn Spekssszonnn, hee iss calledd “Hyberobe,” and another called “Ochkeee.”
I nearly fell over with the shock: “Ochki” was the alternative name for myself that I was thinking of using on “Eyescene” before I settled on “Puffin”. If you know your Russian, you’ll know that “Ochki” means “glasses”. Just as I was mentally getting off the floor, there was a bright flash behind the door: a very familiar flash, that which had occurred on both my previous trips between universes. Surely this wasn’t another visitor? Inanely I looked around the flat, wondering how many more Lauras we could fit in here.
Laura no 2 opened the door, and thus I saw the most amazing thing I’d ever seen. The life form I saw seemed like a human that had been hewn from semi-liquid rock: a female human being, too, judging by its vaguely feminine shape. It had a soft silvery sheen to its skin, which glittered as it turned to face me. It was pretty much human in form, but as for its composition, well I dared not guess! Some bizarre universe where life had evolved from silicates instead of carbon compounds? As you might have guessed, she was not just naked, but also bald, but that did not detract from the intriguing and beautiful image before me. It held a control box larger than any owned by Lauras 2-4. And, again, this being wore glasses: small, low powered ones. I was beginning to wonder, had I started out in the only universe where Laura had not worn glasses? She held out her control box, and out of it came words, spoken in harsh, metallic tones ‘I am Leera…. I have come from another universe.’ It appeared to be some form of translation and communications device.
At that there was another knock at the front door. I went down to see who it was, and soon came back upstairs with two more Lauras! None of them were quite as exotic as the last two Lauras: one was quite short and plump, wearing large brown plastic frames with minus six lenses, the other tall and slim, dressed in the same blue t shirt and jeans I’d seen on Laura 3, but these jarred badly with the green tinge to her skin and hair. She wore glasses with myodisks in, something like minus 15 or so. I barely got to the top of the stairs, said “excuse me” to Laura no 5, and lo, there was another flash of light from within the room - and then another from the street outside, then moments later Laura 2 told me, ’there’s at least six of them coming up the street there now. Whatever’s going on, it’s accelerating.’
I barely had time to think: within about fifteen minutes we had gone from 5 Lauras to at least 60, all shapes, types and colours, all it seemed in different glasses! I tried to hide! Eventually Laura 2 and Laura 57 came over to me. Laura 57 was pretty much like my original Laura, except that she wore big clear plastic specs, with her right lens a minus 6 and her left about plus 4. She seemed to know what was going on, slightly more than Laura 2 and certainly more than I did. I had always dreamt of having a bespectacled Laura, but never, no way, nearly a hundred different versions, some so weird I couldn’t see how they could be Laura.
- Shutting the door
Laura 57 said, ’this is getting serious.' That was an understatement, for now Laura 3’s small flat was full of Lauras, and a small crowd of them was forming outside. ‘if we do not stop this, it will not end until the whole planet is full of Lauras, and maybe not then either.’ The thought of a planet stuffed full of bespectacled Lauras briefly excited me, but then it scared me. I asked hopefully, ‘yeah, but it’s only one universe.’ ‘Yes, but all this mass of the same but different matter will destabilise things here. It might collapse the entire multiverse. Every universe that exists will be wrecked. We MUST stop this. At this rate of increase, everything that exists here and in all parallel universes will collapse in, oh, about 10 hours.’ Laura 2 asked, while being dug in the ribs by Laura 104 as she pushed past, ‘How?’ ‘What started this?’ ‘When I went through my doorway into Puffin’s universe, and brought him into mine.’ ‘Then you must take him back, and return to your own.’
Laura 2 and I looked extremely downcast at that news. Laura 57 admonished us, ‘it is the only way.’ I sighed, and said ‘Comon, we have to. Find Laura no 3 and get her to send us back to your universe.’ I turned to Laura 57, and asked, ‘what will happen here?’ ‘With any luck no more Lauras will come once you are back in your universe. We can then start sending them all back. If you go now, then perhaps by morning all will be as it should be.’
We had to hunt around for Laura 3: she had become a bit scared, being as she was rather poor-sighted and with so many Lauras around. Eventually we got Lauras nos 16, 93 and 148 to help us; she was in the toilet! We said our goodbyes and got on another bus for her nuclear accelerator. Once there we got into the thing, then she hugged and kissed me goodbye, which was very touching. She said ‘I wish you could stay! We need more people like you here!’ Then she pushed the door shut, locked it, and in a flash of light, we were back in Laura 2’s universe. It was a quick job to get into her car, and be driven to her nuclear accelerator. Tearfully she said goodbye, and locked the door on me. Once again I was inside, except I was alone. A moment later I was standing in the field of barley. I went home, and got some much-needed sleep. The next morning the world was thankfully in one piece! Evidently Laura 57 had been right about it all, and had succeeded in stabilizing the cosmos. But there was no Laura, no Laura 2 nor any other Laura. I was, understandably, quite miserable.
About two months later I heard a familiar knock at the door: a chill ran through me, caused by the memories of all those similar knocks at the door I’d heard recently. Reluctantly I went and opened it; there stood Laura 2! She was dressed in mourning black. I cried out to her, ‘hey! You shouldn’t be here! You’ll wreck the universe! But I’m so glad to see you!’ ‘Same here!’ We embraced briefly. Then she explained, waving at the hearse behind her ‘I must be quick, but it can be done. Do you see? This is the remains of Puffin from my universe: it took me ages to get permission to get them exhumed. We can bury them here, then swap you over, and then with a bit of luck it all be OK. I’ve done the calculations. The entire cosmos might creak a little, but I think we can get away with it.’
So began the oddest experience of recent times, and that had some pretty stiff competition! We held a quiet service of remembrance for myself, and then I was buried next to my wife Laura in this universe. I pretended to be my long-lost twin brother: all completely bizarre! Then as quickly as we could, we set off for the field of barley again, dashed into the middle, whereupon Laura pressed the button on her control box and we were in her universe again. And so we lived our lives there, together forever at last. The universe did creak a little, but there were no unexpected visitors. And do you know? I didn’t want any more knocks at the door, so I installed a doorbell!