I lift my pen up from my journal and take a glance around the room to study the arbitrary figures lying within my proximity. A sophisticated woman to my right grasps a glass of Scotch, while a young man to my left is nudging onto a short and stocky regular at the bar. An older gentleman a few stools over is passed out cold, with no plans of returning to his consciousness any time soon, it seems.
I take a drag from my cigarette, then bury it into the ashtray lying in front of me. I swipe my peanut shells onto the floor and nod to the bartender while pushing the door open to 34th street.
Bright, flashing advertisements and neon-lit storefront titles flood my vision. While adjusting to the new scenery, I feel a nudge in my leg and my journal abruptly taken from my hands. I force my eyelids open, seizing my world to black sporadic stars.
When my sight returns, I notice a small man near my feet. He appears to be shorter than two feet tall and has a sour and austere look painted upon his face. The buttons on his vest are misplaced, his socks tattered and rent. My journal is, of course, confined within his small, prawny fingers.
“What the hell, man?”
“Come with me,” he hastily spits out.
He promptly stomps away in the opposite direction, and I am left feeling obliged to follow. I try to grab him by the shoulder, but he shoots me a cold look. My journal is locked beneath his shoulders, the ribbon spilling from it and bobbing along with his joints. This feels amateur — almost as if I’m chasing a toddler for candy.
He hesitates at a poorly lit alleyway before coming to an abrupt stop. He hands my journal back, the pages somehow still intact. The grimace he wore has since faded and is replaced with a warm smile.
“My name is Milo. I already know a great deal about you, I must say, but that isn’t very important as of late. Please, allow me to get a word in minus interruption.”
I stare at him, a blank.
“I’m positive you are fairly familiar with a friend of mi — well, I can’t exactly speak of her name for reasons that you are not aware of, but there is important news that I have come to inform you about.”
I grip my journal and make a 180.
“I haven’t any idea what is that you are going on about, but I really do have to get goi-”
“She killed herself, sir,” he says lowly, his fingers attempting to find placement on his vest amid his misplaced buttons.
I spin back around while my head skips to ten years earlier when I had a full sense of being and direction in life. I was in love with a woman who struggled intensely with mental health and was obsessed with other simulations — hypotheticals … or so I thought. She’d constantly suggest that our world simply cannot be the only life that’s out there — that there’s someone living the same, identical life like ours on a different timeline. She even went as far as to say that she’d kill herself to transport herself to one of those dimensions. We split paths but lately, she’s been the only thing running through my head.
Milo waves a hand in front of my face, attempting to regain my attention.
“I take it you are aware of who I am referring to, yes?” Milo asked with a low voice.
He takes my lack of response as a strong invitation to continue.
“Amethyst told me all about you, Charlie. I know you’ve been thinking about her, quite intrusively, yes? I take it you have been having the same thoughts as she did before she, well, you know what I mean,” Milo stammers.
“So what are you trying to say here, Milo? That I should off myself to be with Amethyst in a simulation that I don’t even know exists? I can’t do that,” I say, choking back a swell in my throat.
Milo’s locked eye contact breached the voice for both of us — the words we both couldn’t find to mutter out. It’s true, the thoughts have been so loud, but maybe they weren’t inherently suicidal. It had to have been communication from Amethyst — invitations to embark on this journey that we’ve rumbled about for so many years. I remember how giddy those moments were: wine drunk on her couch giggling about how freeing living another life would be. I need to do this. For Amethyst.
As if he were reading my mind, Milo grabs my hand and motions towards a train station down the road. Without a word, our feet slip across the paved concrete, my head somewhat spinning. It wasn’t long before the air felt thick and I was bumping into busy strangers, the world transforming into somewhat of a black and white movie, for there was a lack of color in this drab station. My sight grew fuzzy as I saw Milo’s hand still extended backward towards me, gripping my fingers with a comforting pressure — a weight that felt heavy, yet familiar. Tears swelled my eyes as I stared at the rust that corroded the tracks. As the wind picked up, a menacing horn pierced through the silent void I was held in, the tracks shaking with venom.
“It’s time, Charlie,” Milo whispered. “For Amethyst.”
The train coming at full speed forced my head into an abyss of thoughts about her. I took a deep breath, the air filling my lungs with the adrenaline and sorrow that encapsulated this station. I squeezed Milo’s hand before letting go and taking a step towards the vibrating tracks.
“For Amethyst,” I closed my eyes tight as the train struck me.
“For Amethyst?” the bartender asked me, throwing a towel over his shoulder and shaking his head.
I froze. I glanced over to my right, an empty glass of Scotch. I rubbed my eyes and looked over a few stools away: the older gentleman still passed out cold.
“You need to quit drinking, buddy. This is the third time this week you’ve gone through your drunken hallucinations. It’s been ten years. Let her go, or I’ll start charging double on your Whiskey!” the bartender chuckled out before taking his routine smoke break.
