The Other Place

Dear Diary,

Captain’s Log…

April 14, 2018:

I traveled again last night. I can’t put a number to the times it’s now happened. But last night was significant. Or, at least, significant enough that I feel it’s finally time to start putting it all down. Regardless of how I feel about traveling, it keeps happening and I can’t continue to ignore it any longer. 

And who knows how many details I’ve missed out on over the years from not writing it all down. I should have started journaling the first time it happened. 

Oh well...I can’t go back. I can only go forward. But going forward I have to start compiling as much information as possible.

Here’s what I have gathered over the years:

• I can’t control when it happens
• It doesn’t happen what I would consider often
• It happens often enough
• I’m fairly certain I’m traveling to a place (world? realm? dimension? planet?) different from Earth
• I’m also fairly certain that I’m traveling to the same “place”, only visiting different parts of it
• I have never seen another physical lifeform apart from the occasional animal in the wilderness
• I can drink the water from the streams and creeks in the wild, and not die
• I can eat the purple apples in the wild, and not die
• If I come across a town that has a market, I can drink the pale, pink drink from the glass bottle, and not die
• Always wear shoes to bed

I desperately wish there was some way to bring things through with me so I could carry a traveler’s notebook to sketch out the areas I’ve been to. Not that I have any type of cartography skills but it would be nice to try and make some kind of map. 

Of course it would also be super helpful if I could figure out how to return to the same damn place so that I could leave myself a traveling pack of sorts, equipped with trail mix and said map and then, I don’t know, build upon these experiences somehow. Maybe one day compile them all together and figure out my way around this “place”. 

It would also be nice to not have to constantly worry about if the thing I’m about to eat or drink is going to possibly kill me. Again, it would be nice to be able to notate all this while I'm there. Or maybe that would be too easy.

Each time I wake up from a trip I tell myself I’m not going to let it happen again. That when I wake up and I’m in the other place, I’m just going to lay right back down and go back to sleep and wake back up in my own bed. But each time, curiosity gets the better of me. 

• To leave the other place, all I have to do is go to sleep and I wake up at home

I haven’t named it yet, the other place. Over the years I’ve debated, at length, what I should call it. Planet Beta? Earth 2.0? But then, naming it feels too real. And while I know it’s real, while I know these experiences are real, naming it makes it feel more real somehow. I don’t know, make it make sense.

So then I of course find myself asking the question “why is this happening to me?”. But...fuck, I don’t even want to go down that train of thought anymore. I can't. I’ve ended up down way too many internet rabbit holes of astral projection to continue to philosophize. 

• Whatever this traveling is, I can’t seem to find anyone else who does it. And thanks to all my internet research, I am damn sure it isn’t astral projection. 

I do miss dreaming though. Real, honest to goodness dreams that had no rhyme or reason. The stress from not knowing whether or not I’m going to end up traveling has altered my dream state. I can’t even remember the last time I had a dream. Nowadays, if I’m not traveling I just black out. If I do dream/have dreamt, I don’t remember. I only remember traveling.

As stressful as the whole journey has been, I do enjoy it. Wherever the hell I’m going is a very lovely place. Would I count myself as lucky that I somehow have this ability? Depends on the day of the week I’d be asked.

Ok, back to my main point now. My hand is starting to cramp and I still have more to crank out.

Most of the time when I’m there I wind up hiking through the wilderness until I wear myself out. I’ve come across five towns in all the years I’ve been traveling. Only five. And of those five towns, I haven’t seen any form of life. They’ve all been ghost towns. Abandoned. But like...abruptly?

They weren’t in states of neglect or disrepair. They were just...empty. The gardens were neatly tended and the houses all had fresh coats of paint. It’s as if the inhabitants of these towns simply...vanished?

I haven’t ventured into a home yet. That seems too intrusive. Or too scary. What if there are inhabitants watching me stroll through their town, peeking out from behind closed curtains? 

I have ventured into markets and convenience stores, so I at least know that there is some kind of intelligent life and that they’re somewhat modern. I have yet to see cars or planes or any kind of mode of transportation. But what do I mean by modern? Well, for one thing they have markets and convenience stores. Thank god I haven’t traveled to a world that is still in it’s dark ages where I might possibly get burned at the stake for being a witch.

I’ve seen marketing ads and pictures hanging from walls in their stores. They do also have prints and publications on their shelves that I’ve thumbed through. I like flipping through their magazines and books while I’m in the shops. It does make me feel a bit like a child looking through picture books though, what with the obvious lack of being able to read their language.

They look like humans. Two eyes, two arms, two legs. Normal varying degrees of both skin and hair color. No lizard people with scales and tails from what I can tell. So then I try to rationalize to myself that I’m just in a different, strange part of Earth that I have yet to recognize from the travel channel. But, deep down I know that’s not true.

Anyway, I visited my sixth town last night. This is the significant part.

I wandered into town from the west. I found a market and went inside, for my pink drink. Whatever that shit is, it tastes good. And doesn’t kill me, which is the important part. Can you die in your dreams or is that getting too philosophical again? Anyway, the pink drink reminds me of turkey dressing from thanksgiving dinner. Suffice to say it was a mind fuck the first time I tried it. Oddly fulfilling though. 

The pink one is the only one I’ve been brave enough to try over the years. 

So I’m at the counter, sipping on thanksgiving dinner, and flipping through a magazine that looked to be the equivalent of our home and gardens when I heard the bell over the door tinkle. 

I finally understand what they mean when they say "my blood ran cold" because mine did. Upon looking up at the door, the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up and I took a step back. A man in a green trench coat stood in the doorway. He had on a faded ballcap and brown, mud stained boots that came up to his shins. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind that wasn’t focused on fight or flight I managed to feel slightly underdressed in my hoodie and sweatpants. 

We locked eyes and surveyed each other for what felt like hours. Neither of us moved. Time stood still. I don’t think either of us actually breathed. And then, as I was wondering which one of us was going to be the first to break the silence, he cleared his throat and said to me “what’s the odds you speak English?”.