I blinked
and rubbed at the screen, but I hadn’t misread.
I answered.
“H-Hello?”
“What?”
“Pizza. You
know, a pie. New York, Chicago. Home delivery.”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Thank God.
The last five had no idea what pizza was.”
“Who is
this?”
“You
haven’t figured it out? I’m you. Well, sort of.”
“How. . .
?”
“Sympathetic
dimensional vibrations, and a bunch of stuff even I don’t understand. Listen, I
hate to rush this, but I’m kinda on a schedule. Do you have chocolate there?”
“Yes.”
“Reality
television?”
“Yes.”
“Damn.
Well, we can’t have ‘em all. Okay. Make sure you’re not standing in the living
room. Duck behind the kitchen counter.”
“Excuse
me?”
“No
excuses, just do it. I don’t’ want you getting lacerated.”
“Lacerated?”
“Chop chop.
The world over here is about to end.”
I moved
into the kitchen without thinking. “It’s going to end?”
“Yeah. Just
get your ass to the kitchen, now.”
Before I
could tell him I had, glowing lines formed in my living room that neatly cut my
coffee table in two. Four lines in total formed a parallelogram seven feet high
and five wide. The inner portion of the parallelogram changed from ordinary air
into something that looked like smoky glass, then it began to bubble. First
tiny bubbles across its length, then they stacked up and unified. It swelled
out of the parallelogram in a giant, geometric bubble.
I started
to crouch down, anticipating it bursting. I didn’t want to be on the receiving
end of that.
Cracks
appeared in the bubble, spider-webbing throughout the entire thing. I ducked
down and covered my head. I didn’t hear anything, especially not like a pop,
which I expected. Instead I saw chunks of that smoky glass embed into my fridge
and cabinets.
“Lucy, I’m
home.” I heard my voice say, but I didn’t say it.
I looked
over to see a version of myself with black hair and a woman holding his hand.
They wore normal clothing, but the other me wore some kind of gauntlet on his
left hand.
“Hey there,
Kyle. This is my wife Wendy. Listen, can you order a pizza? And some beers?”
“Did you
ask about them?” Wendy said to the other Kyle.
“Oh, shit.
I forgot. Listen, you have beer? We could really use some beers.”
I nodded
dumbly, and opened the fridge.