Hypothetical Marriage

Sara hid in the bedroom closet of her boyfriend, Trevor, wearing his sunglasses, hoodie and sweatpants. He lied face down on his mattress, wearing only a t-shirt and boxers. Sara watched from the slight opening of the closet door as he wiggled his cute little tush in Sara’s direction. He played the innocent coed studying for final exams, while she played the creepy stranger out to have her way with him. 

But just before she pounced on her prey like a lion on an antelope, smoke burst in the middle of the room. When it dissipated, there stood Agatha, Trevor’s mother. 

“Mom?” cried Trevor, covering his waist with a pillow. “What are you doing here?”

“Protecting you from yourself,” she said. The ruffle hem of her violet dress waved from aggressive winds that infiltrated the room. Pages of books in his room ripped from the spine and twisted about their heads. 

“What are you talki—” Before he could finish, Agatha lifted a wand over her head, pointing it down at him. In an instant he was encased in a glowing green bubble that quickly dissolved his body. 

“Don’t think I haven’t been watching you. Watching the way you let that creature of a woman violate you. How you take immense pleasure in barbaric sexual rituals. Have you forgotten that my gaze in inescapable, Trevor Allen Olbrecht?”

Sara shoved the closet door open. “What the hell is going on? Who are you?”

“A mother looking after her child,” said Agatha. “And if you would like to keep your ears and your arms where they currently rest on your person then I suggest you flee from here and forget what you saw.”

 “Okay, okay…” said Sara. Slowly she approached the older woman, her palms facing outward. “If you really are Trevor’s mom, then let’s talk about this.” Agatha remained motionless, staring at Sara with sunken, zombified eyes that exaggerated her age. “Trevor never mentioned his mom or his dad the whole six months we’ve been dating. Maybe it has something to do with you being a witch, maybe not. I don’t know. And I’m not judging. I think witches are dope. But based on the way you’re acting right now, I can see why he would be a bit embarrassed to mention you.”

“Oh, shut it, you twat!” cried Agatha. She thrusted her wand at Sara, causing a green flash of light to shoot from its tip. Sara ducked out of its way and lunged at her. Agatha flicked her wand to the side before Sara could reach her, yanking the young woman midair into the large, green bubble Trevor was lost in.

Sara found herself floating in a sea of images, the current turning her in every direction. Random clips, mostly of herself and Trevor, separated in pockets of suspended time. She couldn’t focus on one image—she was so disoriented with all the lights and sounds rattling into each other. With no control over her own body, she drifted into one of the infinite possibilities only Trevor was meant to see.

Gradually she lifted herself from a sidewalk as if she was abruptly woken up from a nap. She couldn’t tell what time of day it was supposed to be, for the sky above was as violet as Agatha’s dress. As she stood, she noticed Trevor strolling side-by-side with a doppelganger of herself through a suburban neighborhood. They stared into each other’s eyes with cheesy grins like characters in a lame love story. Worse than that, Trevor held a baby in his arms. A tiny ball of flesh with wide eyes, puffy cheeks, and a drool-covered chin so adorable in its cocoon of a blanky that the real Sara had to resist the urge to run over and gush over it.

Because the fantasy couple didn’t look where they stepped, Trevor tripped over a little plastic ball, presumably left by a neighborhood kid. As he lost his balance, his body flung forward, his arms flung upward, and the baby launched into the air. It felt like slow motion the way the infant descended several feet away from the couple. Fake Sara’s terrified scream seemingly dragged on and on, until the baby went splat on the concrete.

A flash of white light. Sara stood to witness the short scene replay itself, from the affectionate stroll to the overly dramatic stumble. When the baby was flung in the air again, Sara rushed to where it was falling and caught it. She cradled it as close to her chest as possible, like an NFL player catching a football. She noticed the child looked just like her. Her heart swelled.

“Bro, thank you,” said Trevor, rushing over to her. “Thank. You. Oh my God, I am forever in your debt, my guy.”

“Trevor, it’s me, Sara. And none of this is real.”

“Huh?”

A flash of white light again. This time it lingered for a couple of seconds longer than before. When it subsided, Sara found herself in a wooden cabin. The wooden flooring was littered by a disheveled carpet and shards of a broken vase mixed with scattered geraniums. Fake Sara pushed against the cabin door, which banged repeatedly from the other side.

“Help me, Trevor!” she yelled. 

“I’m sorry,” cried Trevor. “I should’ve ditched the fish when it started chasing us. I was greedy.” 

“Shut up and help me with the fucking door, Trevor!”

He hid behind a turned over coffee table alongside a little girl Sara assumed was formerly the baby from the suburban walk. The two clung to each other for dear life, with two huge salmons lying beside them. 

One monstrous slam broke the door hinges. Fake Sara screamed as she dashed across the room. The broken door fell to the floor, letting in a roaring grizzly bear. Sara rushed over to the coffee table and tossed one of the salmons as hard as she could at the beast. The bear stopped in its tracks. It sniffed the fish for a moment before retrieving it with its mouth, the rage it carried seemingly melting away. With its prize, it strutted out the cabin with its wobbly behind. With it gone, the violet sky provided a background for the serene woodland greenery. 

Sara crouched down to a still-whimpering Trevor and slapped him across the back of his head.

“Stop endangering our daughter,” she said.

He turned his head with caution to look at her, his cheeks wet with tears. “Who the hell are you?”

She sighed, realizing she looked like a guy wearing his hoodie and shades. She threw the sunglasses to the side and stripped off the hoodie, revealing a white tank top over a fit, curvy figure. 

“It’s me. Sara. Your girlfriend. She’s not real.” Sara pointed at Fake Sara. “We don’t have a kid together. None of this is real. Your mother is a witch. Help me break her spell.”

“Girlfriend?” said Fake Sara. “You’ve been cheating on me?”

Another flash of white light.

It was a cold night somewhere. Sara found herself shivering in an alley. Her teeth chattered louder than the blow of the bitter wind biting her exposed skin. She shook in place, but was otherwise frozen in her position. A few feet away from her, Trevor curled his body on the cold ground while a large man kicked his stomach and stomped his side. A shorter, skinnier man stood behind Fake Sara, holding a knife to her throat with one hand and cupping one of her breasts with the other. She audibly cried and begged the men to stop, but the two thugs laughed and spoke in French. 

Sara knew she needed to do something, but she wasn’t sporting winter wear like everyone else. The weather kept her in place. When the thugs were done bullying the couple, the skinny one threw down Fake Sara next to Trevor.

“We should have gone for pastries instead of croissants like I asked,” said Fake Sara.

“I’ll remember that on the next Paris trip,” said Trevor in between painful winces. 

The white light blinked over the world again, and with that the scene started over, Trevor taking a beating on the ground and Fake Sara being violated. By now it was obvious to Real Sara that the scene will repeat itself until she disrupted it. Mustering the fortitude to move through the chilling wind, she marched over to the big Frenchman and pushed him aside. 

“G-G-G-G-Get up, T-T-T-Trevor,” she said. For her troubles, she got pushed right back. The French brute’s giant arms were more than just for show, for Sara slid several feet away after that shove. The bullying and humiliation repeated itself, except this time she was included in their French laughter.

When everything started over, instead of approaching the big man, she approached the skinny man from behind and kicked him in the balls. He folded over, dropping the knife. The clanging of the knife against the concrete caught the attention of the big guy. Between the shove and the groin attack, the adrenaline allowed Sara to ignore the cold. She snagged the knife as quick as she could and pointed it at the brute. He knew better than to do anything else besides flee.

Fake Sara rushed to comfort Trevor. As she did so, she shot a dirty look at Real Sara. Real Sara got a good look at them both as well. They looked to be in their mid-forties. The daughter from before was nowhere in sight. Sara wondered if the girl was an adult now.

 “Thank you,” said Fake Sara, “but this doesn’t mean you can steal my husband, you doppelganger.”

“You’re the doppelganger,” cried Real Sara. “I don’t cry as much as you. You’re his mother’s bad impression of me. AAAAARGH, it’s so fucking cold!”

Once more did the light blind her. She let out a sigh of relief when she appeared in a house during much warmer weather. She didn’t recognize the home, yet it seemingly belongs to the elderly couple she saw in its living room, luminated by the violet light coming from the windows. Two recliners were positioned in front of a television with the volume turned low. An old man sat in one of the recliners, while his wife stood and fed him scoops of oatmeal with a steady hand. After several minutes, she shuffled into the kitchen with a partially finished bowl. An eerie feeling came over Sara when she Fake Sara’s weathered, wrinkly face (like looking into the future). Easily she realized that the old man was Trevor. They grew old together. She wonders what their lives were like together. Was it all bad? Maybe it was, and Trevor’s mother wanted to show him how miserable he’d make her if they stayed together.

“Deserves better…” mumbled Trevor to himself when Fake Sara was no longer in the living room. “She waisted her life on me. I’m better off dead. She’d cry if I die. God, how can I fix this?”

“Trevor?” Sara approached him, astonished by what she saw, how accurately old he and fake her looked.

“Oh,” said Trevor when he saw her. His head lifted, and he glowed with excitement at the sight of her. “Are you a guardian angel? You look just like my Sara.”

“Er…yes. Yes, I am an ange—”

“What? Speak up, woman.”

“Yes, I’m an angel,” said Sara in almost a shout.

“Please, take me away, so my wife doesn’t have to take care of me anymore. She’s so loyal, but I’ve brought so much misery in her life. Sometimes we had help from strangers. The times we didn’t were hard on us. I never was the strong man she deserved. I let down her and our daughter, Britni, so many times. I don’t want to be a burden anymore.”

For once, Real Sara wanted to shed a tear. His words showed how much he loved her, showed how wicked his mother was for fabricating a life for her own son with so much regret. Remorse, anger, and compassion swelled within her at the same time. Now, more than ever, she wanted to free him.

“You have no idea how much you mean to Sara,” said Sara. “No matter what has happened in the past, your love for her is what keeps her goin—”

“What? I’m sorry, I can’t hear a word you’re saying. Can you speak up, guardian angel.”

“Are you alright over there?” yelled Fake Sara from the kitchen.

“What?” yelled Trevor.

“I said, are you alright over there?”

“I don’t need another bite of anything.”

“Who are you taking to? I swear, Trevor, you always drive me crazy. I should have left you a long, long time ago.”

“Goddammit,” Real Sara mumbled, before proceeding to yet at Trevor to be heard. “If she didn’t love you, she would have dumped your ass decades ago. So be happy you have a beautiful family.”

“You know what?” said Trevor. “You got a point there, angel. I do have beautiful family. I’ll always have my girls.” He stared of into space, mouth twitching, eyes watery. Pride filling him up for the love he managed to keep up till his dying days.

There was an explosion of green aurora that blew Agatha against the wall. From that explosion, Sara and Trevor fell on the mattress of Trevor’s bedroom. Just the two of them. No fake versions of anyone, no hypothetical children. They looked at each other, recalling memories of an alternate timeline that was supposed to prove they were incompatible, yet achieved the opposite. Eyes locked, they interlaced their fingers as well.

“How?!” cried Agatha. “How did you break the spell? Oh, you little demon. By the time I’m done with you, your crown and your bottom will switch places. Your entrails will spew from your eyes. Your worst nightmares will—”

Sara paid no attention to Agatha’s threats. Instead, she calmly stood up, walked over to the witch, and struck her with a left hook across the face. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” yelled Trevor. “Are you crazy? That’s my mother!”

“She casted a spell on you that put you through a bunch of horrible shit,” said Sara. “How can you defend her? She’s literally a witch.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Trevor helped up Agatha, who caressed her aching cheekbone. “Why wouldn’t I know she’s a witch? She’s my M-O-T-H-E-R. You can’t assault her like that.”

“She tried to kill me with a beam thing from her wand.”

“I don’t care, Sara.”

“Why can’t you see what’s been going on? Doesn’t what we’ve just been through matter to you? Look, she’s even smirky right now.” As soon as Trevor glanced at his mom, Agatha’s expression turned from mischievous glee back to painful anguish. “Yeah, keep laughing, bitch!” she said to Agatha.

“Leave. NOW!” said Trevor.

“Fine! You can have someone else fist you every night from now on, asshole.” Sara marched out of his apartment, and out of Trevor and his crazy witch mom’s lives.