Reality Shift (eBook)

Geof Johnson (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
270 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-4003-9 (ISBN)

Infos

Calvin Duffy thought his life was normal until it was not. The abnormalities begin as minor things suddenly changing- the color of a familiar wall, a highway exit he has driven past a hundred times, the names of children in his neighborhood - but none of these changes seem to register with anyone else. To them, things are the way they've always been. The abnormalities gradually get worse. Someone from his office building vanishes as if he'd been erased from the world and no one notices or cares. But Calvin does. A woman shows up on his doorstep, claiming to be a family member, and she is, somehow, though she never existed before that day, before that moment. Calvin is worried and realizes that he can't continue to ignore the problems but has no idea what's causing them or how to make them stop. Turbo, Calvin's mentally ill homeless friend, says they are happening because Calvin is shifting into new realities, one after the other, each slightly different from the one before it, in one long chain of parallel universes. The differences between these realities are small at first but grow larger with each new one that he enters, and he struggles to adapt but never really has time to before he's thrown into another. When the situation becomes so bad that people close to him are threatened, Calvin knows he has to do something soon, and if he doesn't, he could end up in a reality where he loses everything.

Textauszug

Chapter 1

 

 

Calvin Duffy had never given much thought to fate. Unlike some people, he didn’t believe that every step and every occurrence of his life had been mapped out long in advance, not the biggest events nor the smallest ones, the abundance of day-to-day episodes that make up our existence and shape us and define us. He was fairly certain that things just happened with no plan or purpose behind them.

His self-assurance was about to be shattered, however. Fate was going to knock him senseless and reeling and wondering why, and it all started on a seemingly normal afternoon.

 

 

Calvin exploded from Oscar’s couch with his arms raised overhead, and he roared triumphantly along with his friends, who were exploding, too, like rockets launching toward the stars, powered by the fuel of exhilaration. “Gators!” Calvin turned and slapped a high five with Wesley, who was next to him, congratulating each other as if they’d played a vital part in the glorious victory, even though all they’d done was watch it on television.

“Wow,” Spencer said with an extra-large breath. “That was a nail biter.”

“It was definitely too close for comfort,” Wesley said. “But it was a great game. Best one this season, so far.”

Calvin checked his watch. “I need to go. It’s after five, and it’ll take me almost thirty minutes to get home because of all the road construction.”

“Calvin,” Oscar said, looking at his phone, “Emma just texted me to remind you that today is Sandra’s birthday.”

“I knew that.” Sort of. He didn’t want to say the qualifier aloud, and he pretended he hadn’t thought it, either.

“What did you get her? Emma’s going to want to know.”

Calvin opened his mouth, but no words came out because he couldn’t think of any.

“You forgot, didn’t you?”

“I just haven’t gone to the store yet.”

Oscar snorted a laugh. “You’re kidding?”

“I can pick something up on the way home.”

“Good luck with that. You’re not going to pass any good shopping centers. You’ll have to go all the way back to your part of town, and a lot of places might be closed by the time you get there.”

“I have to get her something.”

“Better hurry. She’s going to be upset if you show up without a gift. She’s expecting one.”

 

 

Calvin sat in his car and did a quick search on his phone for shopping along the route to his home but didn’t find anything promising, so he started the engine of his Camry, hoping that luck would shine its benevolent light on him, and he’d come across a promising little store that the Internet didn’t know about.

Unfortunately, Oscar’s house, where they’d gathered to watch the football game, was in a new subdivision out in the sticks, and there was very little commercial development in the area except for a small grocery store, and next to that, an Ace Hardware. Calvin didn’t think Sandra would like a power tool for her birthday. Here, honey. I got you a new cordless drill! Even Calvin was perceptive enough to know that was a bad idea.

That meant that he had a problem. He couldn’t go home empty handed. He had to walk through the front door with a present for his wife, and he wanted to kick himself for waiting until the last minute to search for one.

But the game! Oscar paid for the premium cable package and had access to just about every sporting event that was broadcast anywhere in the US, which was good because the football games of the Florida Gators weren’t shown in the Pacific Northwest on standard cable very often, and today’s game had been a thriller.

They also chose Oscar’s house to have their viewing party because he had the biggest TV and a huge sectional sofa that easily held Calvin and his three friends, but now Calvin had a long drive home and very little time to make it if he was going to pick up a present for his wife.

Calvin steered his car out of Oscar’s subdivision and turned south on the highway and pressed the accelerator pedal. The wild countryside flew by, and he kept an eye out for a store that Sandra would like, but there were almost no businesses to be seen except for a couple of gas stations.

There was plenty of shopping available if he took a long detour to the mall, where stores would be open until eight or nine o’clock, but he’d get home even later if he did that. His best option was to hurry down the highway and hope that he would get lucky, which wasn’t a very good strategy, but it was the only one he had.

Something loomed up ahead on his right, a long, open-sided shed that was set off the road about fifty yards, with a gravel parking lot out front that had a handful of cars in it. He didn’t remember seeing it before. He slowed the Camry to a crawl and looked closer. Under the shed there appeared to be tables full of things, and then he saw the sign: Fantastic Finds Flea Market.

It seemed promising.

He pulled into the entrance and surveyed the location. The market was set up as one extended row of tables, practically end to end, with a small gap between the individual vendors. There were only a few people perusing the items for sale, but it was late in the day and most of the customers had probably gone home.

He decided to roll the dice and bet all of his available time on this shopping opportunity, such as it was, even though he loathed flea markets. He thought it was unseemly to buy other people’s discards, and shopping at a flea market was not much different from picking through trash piles at the side of the road like a homeless person.

But he was desperate.

If his father could see him now, he’d bury Calvin in scorn. “A flea market?” he’d say. “What are you going to do next? Go to a thrift store?” Calvin’s father thought thrift stores were for losers.

Calvin entered the shed, which was nothing more than a long, shingled roof supported by wooden posts, and directly in the middle was a vendor who was in charge of three plywood trestle tables. Merchandise was arranged atop them, and more was crammed on a couple of cheap shelves that stood on either side of him like bookends.

The vendor was a wiry, middle-aged man, apparently of Asian descent mixed with something else, like Native American. He wore a faded black tank top even though the air had become much cooler, as it often did in Spokane in late September, and he was sitting on a stool as if he’d been carved out of the same wood it was made from.

He was a painted human canvas, with tattoos starting on the backs of his hands and running all the way up his arms and neck to the bottom of his ears. His dark hair was held back in a long braid. His expression was somewhere between stoic and stern. He said nothing as Calvin approached his stall and he watched Calvin as if he’d been expecting him, but not eagerly.

Calvin scanned the items the man had to sell. On the left were a few old clocks, a stack of dusty CD players, a wooden rack full of watches, and trays of cheap jewelry. On the right were plates and bowls, and among them was a pair of matching ceramic vases, shaped so that they were narrower at their tops like traffic cones and glazed in a pale glossy green with a swirl of a darker, bluish-green mixed in like tendrils of smoke.

Calvin picked one up and hefted it. It felt substantial and well made. “My wife would like this. How much?”

“Twenty.”

“For the pair?”

“Yes.”

“How much for just one?”

“Twenty.”

“How about ten?”

“Twenty.”

“Why would I pay that much for one when I can get both of them for the same price?”

The man stared back impassively.

“How about fifteen for one?”

“Twenty.”

“You have a strange way of doing business.”

“Vases stay together.” He stated it as if he were a government official, reminding Calvin of a county ordinance.

“You don’t think you could sell the other one if I bought this?” He hefted the vase again. “You’d make more money in the long run.”

Again, the man said nothing.

Calvin picked up the second vase so that he held one in each hand, and he evaluated them as a potential birthday gift. “They do look nice together, and I have to make this quick, so I guess I’ll take the pair.” He set them down and pulled out his wallet. “You take credit cards?”

The man pointed at a hand-lettered sign that was tacked to an unpainted four-by-four post behind him that supported the roof of the shed. The sign said Cash Only. All Sales Final.

“All right. I think I’ve got enough.” Calvin dug into his wallet and took out a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to the man. Then he noticed the merchandise that was directly in front of him, a collection of remote controls. “Do any of these work? I could use one. Mine is starting to go bad. Overuse, I guess.” He chuckled weakly. The man remained still as a statue. He didn’t seem to need to blink.

Then he spoke by only moving his lips. “They all work.”

Calvin scratched his cheek and studied the offerings on the table. “But which one works with my TV? That’s the important question.”

The expressionless man leaned forward from his stool and gestured with a sweep of his hand at a cluster of the devices that were at the front. “These are best. Work with everything.”

“How do you know? I didn’t tell you what kind of TV I have.”

The man gestured at the remotes again and said firmly, “These. All best for you. You buy. Only...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 28.12.2023
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Science Fiction
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-4003-9 / 9798350940039