Behind the shelf

Grey shadows seemed to move at the edge of my vision, like something was watching me; something I would never be able to catch in the act. Like whispers just behind a curtain. 

I brought my attention back to the photograph in my hand. 

It was a vaguely familiar face; large, bright eyes of grey blue, framed by glasses that complimented the shape of her face; stark eyebrows against pale skin. A wide, easy smile. She was undeniably beautiful. And it was undeniably me that was next to her.  

The problem was, I had no clue who this woman was. There was an impression there. Like I could have known her, in another version of reality. 

The photograph couldn’t have been that long ago. I looked a similar age to now, maybe slightly younger. Mid-twenties? 

I didn’t recognize where the picture was taken. It was a restaurant. Half-finished beers sat in front of us on the mahogany table, the décor behind us was standard for a homey, pub-like eatery: eclectic, with some personal pictures and memorabilia of various sorts on the wall. It was the kind of place I preferred. It looked cozy. Why couldn’t I remember this place? Or this woman? We looked close. Very close. And happy. 

The edge of my vision blurred again with a flash of grey. My head snapped to the side, but nothing was there. Another shadow, but chasing it led to nothing once again. My skin prickled as a pit in my stomach rose to my throat. I glanced back at the photograph and couldn’t help but think this memory lapse could be related to the shadows I was not seeing. Even as I thought it, I knew it was paranoid and insane. 

I put it out of my mind and examined the photograph more closely. My cheeks were pink and there was a genuine smile on my face. My hair was around the length it stayed most of my life, just below my shoulders. I was wearing a t-shirt, as usual, though it was not one I recognized, which was odd. I was a creature of habit and kept shirts in heavy rotation for chunks of time. It seemed unlikely that I would forget it. 

Then there was the ring. A silver band on my left ring finger. 

A wedding band. 

I wasn’t married; never even close.  

I could feel a knot settling in between my shoulder blades. I glanced up to look around the library. It was quiet, the smell of books calming me as I breathed in deeply. Through a window I could just make out an old woman looking at me curiously. I looked away as quickly as I could. She looked like…it was impossible. I felt uneasy. Nauseous. 

It was as impossible as the photograph. But why would someone want to fabricate this? Who would go to the trouble? I don’t have enemies. And I don’t have friends who would do something like this for a laugh. I wasn’t laughing. 

I chanced a glance back at the woman. She was furtively glaring back. How was she here? 

She was dead. 

Or I had heard she died. She didn’t want to see me, even at the end. Her own daughter and she refused to see me because she was clinging so desperately to her antiquated beliefs that she couldn’t accept who I was. But why was she here now? And how?  She continued to stare at me without saying a word. Bile simmered in my gut. 

In the back of my mind, I knew I was missing something obvious. Trying to remember was draining me. 

The first thought I had was of the mountains of science fiction books and movies and shows that I’d consumed in my life; of alternate realities; parallel universes in which major details were different because of minor changes in decisions. Was that what was happening? Were those shadows actually creatures of some kind, weakening walls of reality. Or was I dreaming? I felt awake. Everything seemed real. I reached over to grab the book I had placed at the end of the table. It felt heavy in my hand; solid. I slowly flipped the pages, basking in the waft of book-smell that floated up; the soft sound of the pages rustling. It all seemed firmly in the waking reality. 

When I glanced back at the window, my mother was gone. I stared for some time, slowly slipping into memories. My childhood and the warmth of her; smiles, words, comfort. Then my teenage years, fraught with my own emotional turmoil and self-discovery. She was a wall; never wanting to hear what I had to say, turning off the tap of that warmth that I had come to rely on right when I needed it most. Cold and lonely. 

I tried to imagine a world in which I had a relationship with my mother. It was difficult, but not impossible. The idea of what it could have been was painful. 

Suddenly, I heard a voice, melodic and so familiar. It was from another room and wafted in, breaking the cloud of silence I had been in, bringing with it other noises I had been blocking out. I looked toward the doorway, but no one was there.

I glanced back down at the picture in my hand. That face.  

The barriers were fading; or long-since faded fixtures of reality were taking shape again?   

I could sense a recognizable feeling that those eyes elicited. It soothed the deep wound my mother left like a balm. It expanded my chest with hope and belonging. A future.  

Was I travelling inter-dimensionally? Is this how it happens? A simple meditative, focused process centered on a rouge object that found its way through the walls of our accepted reality? 

“Mom?” 

I looked up and there were those eyes. The same, but different. And I was home. 

—- 

“She’s doing okay today. She loves the library. She does seem to get agitated looking in the mirror though.” 

Anna nodded at the nurses words. Her mom was looking at her wide-eyed with a shocked expression on her face. 

“Is this you? I don’t remember this! It is you, isn’t it?” 

She held up a picture in her delicate hand, the skin of which became translucent as it was held closer to the ceiling lights. 

Anna stepped in the room and gently grabbed her mother's hand with one of her own. She lowered the picture slowly before taking it to examine. It was a photograph of her two mothers at Boatie’s. They were around the age that Anna was now, and she understood why her mother was confused. Anna was almost identical to her other mother, who had passed, with only slight differences. 

“Mom, this is you and Mama at your favorite restaurant, remember?” 

Green eyes gazed at her, questioningly; brows furrowed. They darted sideways and, as Anna followed her eye line, she thought she saw movement behind the bookshelf. She turned back to the sound of her mother’s voice. 

“This world seems nice. You seem nice. I think...I think you are someone I love. Do I like it here?” 

Anna’s chest ached at the searching look in her mother's eyes. She'd heard the alternate-reality lines before. Her mother had always gotten lost in fantasy and fiction, even more so since her memory had slipped. The doctor always said not to argue too much. 

“Yes. Yes I think you do.” She smiled gently. 

Her mother grinned back and, for a moment, she was with her again.