Giseisha
Part 3 of 3: Jens.
She was still moving forward but her mind had stopped.
There was her, herself: Jennifer Lynn, Jen. The woman Bonk was holding was her.
She wore Jen’s clothes. Her little diamond stud earrings winked in the Sun, the same ones she was wearing now. The top corner of that regrettable tattoo peeked out from behind her own white t-shirt.
Jen was standing in front of them, screaming. She meant to be saying words, asking questions, but she was only making sounds like a large angry animal.
Bonk, as he sometimes did, looked completely blank. His mouth was hanging open slightly.
It was the look on her own face, the other her across from her, that finally snapped some kind of human speech out of Jen.
It was extremely difficult to think of what to say. After a moment, Jen grabbed her opposite self by the neck of their shirt and pulled it down until the full Japanese tattoo could be seen.
“What does that mean?” Jen demanded of herself.
She wasn’t sure what she was hoping to get from the answer. Jen just wanted to challenge the situation in some way. The other Jen didn’t flinch. She gave a brief, matter of fact answer.
“It was supposed to mean ‘survivor’ but it really means more like ‘victim’. The meaning depends on the context. Also, one of the characters is drawn backwards.”
That was the whole embarrassing explanation, just as they had received it from the supposedly well-meaning Japanese lady, and just as Jen herself always recites it in her head. The thing was, other than that oh-so-helpful Japanese, no one else knew, not even Bonk.
Taking advantage of the pause, the other Jen continued.
“I’ve got a lot to tell you and no time to do it in, “ she said. “So shut up.”
She stepped back from Bonk, but kept hold of his hand. She raised it up and spoke to Jen.
“I know this pisses you off, but I need to borrow him for a few minutes. You still have your Bonk, but I lost mine.”
“There’s a lot of weird-science-shit going on, so pay attention. I know you’ve heard that whenever you make a choice another universe is born where you make the opposite choice.”
“It’s true but those other universes are really small. I’m from one of those.”
She held up a hand to stop Jen’s forming question.
“They call us parasite realities because we feed off your “Prime” world for energy. We also share most of the people and stuff.
“Most things don’t need to change just because in my world Bonk decided to tell me right away that he had seen his ex. While in this one, he waited until today.”
“Three days ago, things started changing around the house, things I had done changed back or suddenly became completely different, friends ignored me like I wasn’t there. Then these… ‘science guys’ showed up and explained: we aren’t the real world and our little world was going away.”
“They hop from one tiny universe to the next, helping us off-shoot people. They helped me send those emails to bring you here. They explained that, eventually, the pull of the prime universe brings the copies in and we die. We get turned into energy in this universe, or some shit like that. Yesterday morning, I watched my Bonk, … disintegrate? I don’t know what to call it. He was just gone in a few moments- back into this universe as energy.”
She paused but she didn’t look up.
“You took Bridget to mom’s, didn’t you.”
Tears started pouring out of the other Jen. She sobbed and her knees shook.
Prime Jen’s face collapsed. She took a step forward, awkwardly putting her hands out, but the other Jen stepped back. She put her hand up, and drew a small black box out of her pocket. She looked at a little display on the box.
“No,” she said. “No, no, don’t, I don’t have time. Just tell me that she’s happy.”
“She is,” Prime Jen said. “Especially this morning, she’s been bright and bubbly and very happy.”
Other Jen let out another sob and screamed.
“God dammit! They told me. They said that we are like a, like a… fucking cloud on you all, the ‘originals’, and that when we die you all feel better cause we’re not parasiting off you any more. Well, fuck you. The last nine months were the happiest of my life, until three days ago.”
She staggered and grit her teeth. She breathed so hard that spit flew from her mouth. She slashed the air with her hand. She pointed the little black box at Prime Jen and shook it.
“We don’t have time. This. This is the only thing keeping me from falling apart like, like they did. And, if you still want proof, look at the fucking car. Come here.”
She waved them over to the opposite side of the vehicle.
“Look!” she said, but Bonk and Prime Jen were already transfixed by what they saw.
The entire front corner from the bumper to the wheel was gone. They could see the engine. The edge of the material glowed, popped, and vanished as they watched. The car was just going away.
Other Jen held up the black box and spoke.
“It’s not permanent protection. The car is going away first. I’ll go like that too, soon.”
Bonk grabbed Other Jen’s arm.
“No! No, call those guys, the fucking scientists or whatever. Call them,” Bonk said. “They gotta have a way to fix this, otherwise why the hell would they do anything?”
He broke down crying.
“I can have two. I can have two.”
She writhed and looked up at the sky as she spoke.
“They either won’t or can’t save us copies but–”
She grabbed Bonk’s hand and looked fiercely from Bonk to Jen.
“But, they can save some things.”
She let go of them and hurried to the rear door. The disintegration of the car was speeding up, it had already reached the windshield. Other Jen yanked the door open and pulled out a small gym bag.
“Here,” she said. “The stuff inside is protected, permanently, but the bag isn’t.”
She turned quickly to the car and leaned far into the back seat, fussing with something. Bonk opened the bag.
Inside was a folder of documents, a heavy yellow metal disk the size of a small dinner plate, and a thumb drive.
The car had now lost the windshield and most of the front door. Other Jen finished struggling in the car and slowly began backing out. She stood upright.
“These are ours,” she said.
Tears were streaming off her chin onto two little sleeping babies.
The car had disappeared all the way to the back seat and the outer fringes of Other Jen’s clothing were starting to glow and smolder too. She walked to Prime Jen and showed the babies to her.
“We thought we were too old to have more so easily and then..”
Other Jen hiccuped and laughed a wet, weak, laugh,
“..and then we forgave the hell out of Bonk.”
Other Jen pressed the babies against Prime Jen’s chest. Both of them looked like they might throw up.
“This one is Hugo and this is Rosalyn. Take them; if I fall apart holding them, they’ll drop. They won’t disappear. The science guys protected them. That’s what they do- they help people born in a parasite universe come to the prime one so they can survive. All the documents and info you need are in the packet along with a plan on how to explain it all. The thumb drive sets up the official computer stuff. And the disk is gold.”
Then, Other Jen cried out and whimpered. She contorted in pain.
“Jesus, this hurts.”
The dissipation had reached her body. The side of her thigh was glowing and breaking down into nothing. She gritted her teeth.
“Thank god they put them to sleep before this happened.”
She groaned, pressing forward against Prime Jen.
“Just take them, goddammit,” Other Jen said.
Prime Jen did.
Other Jen pulled the taser out of Prime’s hand and dropped her own mysterious black box.
“Make them happy,” she said. “If you can find a way, tell them something about me. Kiss Bridget and tell her mommy loves her. And forgive Bonk; it will seem like bullshit. You won’t want to, you’ll be pissed, but do it. You really don’t have time.”
Then, Other Jen placed the forks of the taser to her stomach and fired it. Her body jerked and fell, unconscious. The added energy seemed to speed up the disintegration process and in a moment she was completely gone.
Jen carried the babies. Bonk carried the stuff. They both cried quietly. Bonk left to buy a pair of car seats.
Jen sat down under the cherry tree with the twins. She thought about practical things. She wondered if she should text Bonk to pick up some formula too, but she knew he would. He always thought of things like that. He was a great dad.
The breeze shook loose some more blossoms and they scattered- some this way, some that way.
She had always believed, somehow, that she was prime: special, immune, that it would always be her and her family who survived, whatever the situation might be.
One day, apparently, that hadn’t been completely true. Without her knowing, things had been fixed, fucked on a deadline by the damn universe itself, and there wasn’t anything anyone could do.
She had been right at the end though: there really wasn’t time for bullshit, but that didn’t mean Bonk was off the hook so easily. Maybe the next world-splitting choice would be hers to make.
And he certainly wasn’t getting laid.
