Lost

Write a story about a character who is experience glitches in their reality

I guess the first thing I noticed was the fire hydrants. One day they were red and the next day they were fluorescent yellow. I mean, they could have been painted but overnight? And it didn’t look like new paint, it was kind of peeling and a little rusty. It was odd, but I was in a hurry to get to work and, truthfully, fire hydrant colors didn’t have much effect on my life.

It was weirder when they changed back to red, and my neighbor’s car changed color a few days later. That one didn’t strike me until about half way through my shift in the computer room. I was waiting for a long job to run and chatting online with one of the professors I was friendly with when my subconscious said “Wait, that car is supposed to be yellow. Why was it dark blue?” I even typed it to the professor “I’d have sworn my neighbors car was yellow but today it was dark blue”

My friend, Jeremy, the professor of mathematics said “Huh, funny. Anything else weird?”

I said “Yeah, the fire hydrants have been changing color”

He said “Maybe you’re jumping timelines?” This was long before that movie, so nobody talked about “a glitch in the matrix”.

And I sent him a “lol”.

I laughed. Jesus.

Over the coming weeks I got used to things unexpectedly changing colors or not being where I put them. Nothing major, just little things or, one time, the couch moved from one wall to the other. If I was “jumping timelines” I was sticking pretty close to the one in my head. I was busy with full time school and full time work and being a full time single mother. I was just incredibly busy, and colors and furniture placement don’t have that much effect on me.

Jeremy would ask me if I’d jumped timelines recently and I would tell him about the change in color or furniture moving or whatever the small change had been and we’d laugh. I never noticed anything different when I was moving thru my day, but apparently I could jump time lines in my sleep. Jeremy started keeping track of them, he and William, his co-collaborator, were having little changes too.  

One night, I checked online for Jeremy and he wasn’t on the computer. He was ALWAYS on the computer at night, he had a contract with the DOD investigating quantum molecular resonance, and computer time was expensive. He always ran his programs on the mainframe during the cheap overnight shift and because I was on and had a federal security clearance I could multitask and fix his programs.  

I started my routine backups and other jobs and suddenly I got a message from someone named “Glenn”. Glenn? Who the hell is Glenn? He said “Any timeline jumps today?” Glenn? I said “Jeremy?” He said “ So that’s a yes. My parents were going to call me Jeremy but instead they named me for a friend who died.” I said “Mathematics, CalTech and MIT?” He said “yes”. I said “Just in case, is there any time you weren’t coming to teach at Michigan Tech?” He said “You mean Michigan College of Mines and Engineering?” I said, “Oh crap.” He said “Maybe you should start tracking this stuff.”  

That’s when I started writing things down. I had to experiment for a while, leaving changes in the computer didn’t work, the files would change. Apparently my brain was a better storage unit than the computer file. Writing a list and leaving it stuck to the refrigerator, that worked. All in all, it was pretty amusing, until one day I woke up in Japan.

I went to sleep, the single mother of a little blond daughter, the product of a very short relationship with the high school friend of my roommate when I’d been in the Navy, working in Upper Michigan at an engineering university as a computer operator, a civilian and a student of biology at a University, dating casually but no relationships because I had no time. All the time shifts had included those parts. Then it didn’t. I woke up married to a Marine, my previous roommate, on a base in Okinawa Japan.

Truthfully, I’d always loved him. But we were never completely together… we both dated other people and were friends with benefits off and on. Then he got a one night stand pregnant and he married her. No more benefits, but still friends.  After his wife was discharged, I moved in to help with costs because it’s always expensive to live near military bases. I was in the Navy, he was in the Marines. One weekend his high school friend came to visit and…well.. one thing led to another between us and I was pregnant. I got out of the Navy and moved back home. And had my beautiful, blond baby and started working at Michigan Tech. Then I started timeline jumping. And *poof* gone, my whole life.

 I woke up in Okinawa, with Alan leaning over me in his uniform, kissing me. He said “Here’s your coffee, sleepy head, you’d better get moving. Kids are up and fed and dressed and I’ll drop them off at school but you’re going to be late for work if you don’t get moving.” I said “Laurie’s crying.” He said “No she’s not, she’s getting her backpack.” I said, “Must have dreamed it.” I could still hear her crying for me. And I felt lost. I was on autopilot, which is not unusual for me when I wake up. I’m a get-moving-then-wake-up kind of person.  

I grabbed a shower, got dressed and was on my way out the door when my brain said “You’re lost. You’re not married to Alan, you’re not married. You’re a computer operator and a student at Michigan Tech, I mean Michigan College of Engineering or whatever it was called. And you have a little blond girl. And she’s crying. Because you’re lost.”

I stopped dead. How the hell was I going to get in touch with Jeremy? “Glenn, dammit”. Part of my brain said “You’re married, you’re on your way to work. Just go with it, you’re having a little nightmare.” I knew where I worked, at a DOD contractor on base doing computer programming. But I also knew I was a computer operator and a biology student at Michigan Tech, who had a part time job working for two professors on a DOD project programming, and I was the single mother of one child named Lauren Noelle after my grandmother.

I went to work. What else could I do? My senses told me my brain was wrong. I was obviously married, I obviously had 2 kids. I obviously worked on the Marine base in Japan.  

I walked into the building part of my brain insisted I worked at, and had been working at for 2 years. And there was Jeremy/Glenn. He said “Any jumps?” I just stared at him. A sudden thought “Are you causing these?” He said “Of course, although I don’t understand how yet. Did you change last night?”  

I said “Yes. Did you?”

He said "yes, and so did William.”

I said “I need coffee”

Sitting in the coffee room, we discussed the changes in our current lives and the “original timeline” as we were calling it.  

I took notes for the 3 of us. We’d all taken to writing long detailed notes and leaving them on the refrigerator. Yes, I know that sounds really low tech. That might be why it was working.  

Somehow, some way, the program we were writing about predicting quantum molecular resonance states was causing us to shift timelines. Both Jeremy (we were back to Jeremy) and Gary (who had stayed William until now) were miles deep in quantum theory. Me? I’m working on a biology degree and am a damned good COBOL, former Navy, programmer. I don’t do quantum theory.  

I had to trust that somehow, another “I” was jumping into my original life. Neither Jeremy or William-Gary were married or had children, they were all about the research, but I had a life outside of this program. And I wanted to get back to it. I had a bad feeling that in some timeline my little girl couldn’t find her mama. And in some part of my brain, I could hear her crying.

I kept hearing her crying.

Jeremy said “So we’re agreed? We need to keep running the program until we get home.”

I said “Tomorrow. We need to put the notes on the refrigerator. Also I think we should include our parents' phone numbers. At some point, we’re going to change and not end up in the same place. Let’s make copies of the group data and add it to the individual data. I’d like a copy of the draft of the paper and program too. If we shift and get lost, I want to be able to get back.”

“Good idea!”

10 shifts later we lost William and acquired Al (no not Einstein, Alden). 25 shifts after that I lost both of them. The phone numbers quit working. I was still married to Alan and we had various numbers of children. And Lauren Noelle’s cries were getting fainter. Then I lost Alan and all those children.  I wasn’t part of the project anymore, but they were still running the program, because I was still shifting every couple days.  

I’m pretty lost now. I want to go home…