Two Sides to a Story

           Cassie Maitland, the thirty-two-year-old loving wife of Luke, started her day off preparing breakfast for her two twin boys, Lance and Logan. The house was filled with the distinct aroma of bacon and eggs, her boys favorite.

           Luke was the last one to enter the kitchen, and to his dismay, the twins had already grabbed most of the bacon off the plate. He sneakily distracted Logan and snatched a crispy slice from his plate and took a big bite while smiling about his small victory.

           Luke had a seat at the table with the boys and moments later, Cassie set a plate down in front of him with a fresh batch of mouth-watering bacon and two over-easy eggs. She went to walk away, but he pulled her back and planted a forceful kiss upon her lips. The twins chanted out in harmony, “EWWW” at the sight of their parents kissing.

           Luke quickly finished his breakfast, kissed the kids and Cassie then headed off to work. He had just been offered a promotion at the sales and marketing firm where he had worked for the past three years. He had moved from calling customers to promote and sell products and services for various companies, to brainstorming with the marketing department, and now, after all his arduous work, he had received the recognition he deserved and was heading up the marketing department. It was an opportunity he had been hoping for since he started with the firm.

           A brief time later, Cassie had gotten Logan and Lance ready for school and hurried them off to the bus stop at the corner of their street. Once they were safely aboard the school bus, Cassie rushed to clean up the kitchen and got herself ready for work.

           Cassie left her career as a psychology teacher at the local high school after she had her twins and began working as a cashier part-time at Peacock Pharmacy. She thought that going back into teaching at the time would be too demanding with twin boys in the house, but now that they were seven years old, she considered applying back with the school board. She was growing tired of a job that had very few challenges. When she was teaching, every day had new challenges.

           Each day, she would have the same regular customers show up. Old man Harrison always wanted her to pick out the winning scratch ticket for him, which was rarely a winning ticket. Francine, the butcher’s wife came in smelling like she bathed in cheap perfume. Other customers within breathing distance would begin coughing and back away. Mister Smith would come in about every second day and buy a case of Red Bull energy drinks and large bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos. He was a very high-strung individual.

           As she was nearing the end of her shift, a tall, spindly gentleman approached her register. He wore thick, round glasses that gave the appearance that his eyes were at least twice their regular size. He had a large, curved, and protruding nose that resembled a ski slope. His hair was sparse and greying.

           The odd-looking man spoke in deep, almost incomprehensible voice which did not match his physical appearance. He asked Cassie for a pack of Marlboro Red cigarettes from the shelf behind her. As she turned back around to hand the cigarettes to the man, she was blinded by a white light. As she shaded her eyes, the light began to fade, but once her eyes were once again able to focus, she noticed that the man had left.

           She looked at the clock and saw her shift had ended, so she left the pharmacy and began to walk toward her car only to find that it was no longer where she parked it. She called the police and ten minutes later, an officer arrived. After taking her statement, the officer sat back inside his patrol car and began to punch her information into the laptop. He returned a few minutes later with a perplexed look upon his face and asked Cassie to repeat her description of the car and the license plate number. The officer double-checked his notes and informed her that that car was not registered to her, so they could not investigate its disappearance.

           After the words sunk in and the confusion wore off, Cassie became irate and demanded that the officer looks for her car, but he calmed her down and apologized before getting in his car and driving away. Cassie could not believe what she had just witnessed. Looking at her watch, however, she realized her boys would be home from school soon, so she called a taxi and had the driver drop her off at home.

           The bus was due to arrive, so she walked directly to the bus stop and waited. The bus pulled up on schedule, and one-by-one, the children started to depart the bus. When the last child exited the doors, she asked the driver if her boys were still on-board. He claimed that all the kids were off the bus, but she didn’t believe him and stepped up onto the bus. The driver began to stand and said that she needs to get off the bus, but she ignored him and searched one seat at a time, calling out the names of the twins. After reaching the back, she realized they were not there and left the bus quietly.

           She pulled out her phone and called the school to find out if they had missed the bus, but the school secretary claimed that she had no children on file by those names. Now distraught, Cassie ran back to her house to see if the boys had found another way home. When she went to use her key, it no longer fit. She ran around to try the back door, but as she rounded the corner, a large German Shepherd launch toward her and chased her back out of the yard.

           Unsure what else she could do, she called up her husband. She did not want to disturb him on his first day as Marketing Manager, but she considered it an urgent matter. Pulling out her cellular phone once again, she dialed Luke’s number and waited for him to answer. Instead, she got his voicemail with a computerized voice asking her to leave a message and the sound of the tone. She left him a voicemail describing what had happened with the boys, then she started searching the neighbourhood on foot in search of Lance and Logan.

           After combing the entire area, she returned to her house. A strange car was in the driveway when she approached. She thought that maybe one of the parents from the school drove the boys’ home, so she pushed open the front door of the house, now unlocked, and rushed inside. She was met by a group of people she did not know. They were gathered around the dining room table eating dinner. A middle-aged man stood up and demanded to know what she was doing barging into his house. Cassie argued that they were in her house and demanded to know what they did with her children. The woman at the table called the police and minutes later, two officers entered the house. The female officer subdued Cassie as the male officer stood between her and the family, trying to calm her down. After refusing to comply, Cassie was cuffed and taken into custody.

           At the station, the officers questioned her about why she was in the house, and what was causing her to be so upset. After filling them in on everything that had occurred since she left work, the female officer took a digital copy of her fingerprints and ran them through the police database. She was shocked at what the officer had to say when she got the results.

           “Cassandra Louise Kitchener, age: thirty-two. Described as five-foot-four-inches tall with blonde hair and blue eyes. Weight: 110 pounds. Address: unavailable. Marital Status: single. No children.”

           Cassie yelled out to the officer that she had her facts wrong. She told them that she was married to Luke Maitland for going on nine years now. One of the officers made a note of Luke’s name to search later. The female officer continued.

           “Cassandra (Cassie) Kitchener has an extensive list of offenses ranging from disorderly conduct to assault and battery. There was a warrant for her arrest as well for failure to appear in criminal court.”

           Cassie began to cry hysterically, no longer able to comprehend what was happening to her. She couldn’t convince the police that it was a case of mistaken identity. Instead, she was thrown into a holding cell for the night while they followed up on the claim about Luke being her husband.

           Cassie stood by the bars of the cell for several moments hoping they would come back and say it was all a huge misunderstanding, but they did not return, so she found a spot on one of the benches on the side of the cell. There were eight other women in there with her, mostly for prostitution. She didn’t dare fall asleep, regardless of how exhausted she currently was.

           As the night progressed she found her head beginning to bob as her eyes grew heavier, and just as she was about to doze off, she heard a gate open down the hall. Seconds later, an officer walked past the holding cell with a tall, lanky man with a large, crooked nose and thick glasses. She immediately recognized him as the customer at the pharmacy. She called out to the officer and claimed that the man he was with could identify her, but the officer kept walking, ignoring her claims.

           The following day, Cassie was brought back up to one of the interrogation rooms and sat down across from her two arresting officers. They stated that they tracked down Luke Maitland at The Last Drop Bar & Grill where he was passed out at a table from drinking too much whiskey. Once he sobered up enough, they questioned him, and he claimed that he had never heard of Cassie. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. None of this made sense.

           She told the officers that there was someone else that could identify her, and he was being held in custody in the holding cells. She described the man and one of the officers went down to retrieve him for questioning.

           The man was brought into the room with Cassie and was asked if he had ever seen her before, but before he could answer, the man looked toward the ceiling, and a blinding light filled the room. Cassie tried to shield her eyes, but her hands were still handcuffed to the table. She squeezed her eyelids together as tightly as she could until the light disappeared.

           When she reopened her eyes, she was in an empty room with the strange-looking man with the big eyes. She was no longer handcuffed either. Cassie asked him what was going on and where they were. The man looked at her and smiled, claiming that what she had experienced was a different reality of her life. It was a parallel world to her own where another Cassie exists, but one who took a different path in life. He explained that Cassie had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time when the portal opened for him to travel through. She had inadvertently been pulled through while he entered.

           He assured Cassie that she would be returning to her own earth, he just wanted to explain what happened before she did. With that being said, the man looked toward the light fixture about him and once the light began to reflect off his glasses, the room filled with light once again.

           When the light faded, she found herself back in the pharmacy with the odd-looking man across the counter from her. He asked her for the cigarettes as if nothing ever happened, but when she handed him his Marlboros and took his money, the man gave her a wink and a smile and walked out.

           She looked at the clock and realized it was time to leave work, so she clocked out and headed to the parking lot, happy to see that her car was right where she left it. She drove home and pulled in her driveway, tried her house key, and it fit. She turned the key and walked inside to an empty house, just as she left it. She then walked to the bus stop and waited for the bus to arrive. The children all exited the bus, but once again, Lance and Logan were not there. She began to panic again. The bus driver asked her to calm down. She didn’t at first, but then complied.

           He asked who she was looking for, and the bus driver told her that he was informed by the school that her boys were asked to help one of the teachers briefly after school, and they missed the bus. The principal said that she would drop them off shortly. Relieved to hear the good news, Cassie hugged the driver and left the bus. By the time she reached the house, the principal had pulled up in front and got out with the boys. She apologized profusely for the twins missing the bus and assured Cassie that it would not happen again.

           The twins thanked their principal, and Cassie gave them both a bear hug. Lance spoke up and said they were only a few minutes later than usual and she didn’t need to go crazy with the hugs. She laughed and cried at the same time because she had never been happier to see them.

           They were almost in the house when Luke’s car pulled in the driveway. Cassie waited for him to get out of his car, and she ran to his arms.

           “Wow! That was quite the greeting,” he exclaimed. “My day just keeps getting better.”

           Cassie asked Luke about his day and how his new job was, but she wasn’t focused so much on his reply; she was still thinking of the horrors that her doppelganger from the parallel world had to face every day, and she felt blessed that her simple life was so perfect.