NICK GREGORIO
Another Universe’s Jen & Gary
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Out there in another universe, Gary was never born. Some distant ancestor of his was gored through the belly then run over by a stampede of mastodons. Smeared into paste on a grassy, prehistoric field, his body helped feed a family of whatever came before whatever came before field mice. All the people that would have led to Nonexistent-Gary were blinked out of existence and that was that. Gary would like to think that this particular Earth is a foreign and strange place without his and his family’s contributions, but, if he’s being honest with himself, that Earth’s Jen’s life is more than likely unfolding the same way it is on their native Earth (which is to say, exceptionally well).
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Somewhere else, another universe’s Earth is full of humans who’ve evolved from dinosaurs. These dino-people have no idea that their scales and sharp teeth and three-toed feet are anything other than normal. They go about their dino-lives, attend school to learn about dino-human history, go on dino-dates, hate their dino-desk jobs, pretend to enjoy extravagant dino-weddings, hatch broods of dino-babies, and bury their dino-bones for some other type of human (chicken-humans, maybe) to dig up and puzzle together in museums way down the temporal road. This dino-Earth is so similar to Gary and Jen’s own Earth (save for the hyphenated dino-versions of all their stuff) that Dino-Gary and Dino-Jen are at arm’s reach here too. But, seeing as Dino-Gary is a descendant of the Tyrannosaurus rex, his arms aren’t quite long enough. Dino-Jen is right there. But she’s just out of reach.
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Another universe had been exploded by slamming into another other universe. Because the cosmos is vast, mysterious, and unknowable, however, everyone who ever lived, and everyone who was ever going to live in those blown-up universes, became cosmic wavelengths of celestial intent. These multi-dimensional beings are individuals, and part of a larger whole all at once. They’re a living paradox (and living paradoxes). Cosmic-Gary and Cosmic-Jen are there as solar winds through wormholes, or dual singularities pulling at one another, sharing energy, creating and unmaking little micro-verses for a stretch of time unfathomable to feeble human minds. But Cosmic-Gary and Cosmic-Jen are not just themselves. They’re each other and everyone else ever too. As if they’re standing in a crowded, noisy room all the time. Together but not. Contributing to the noise but speaking in whispers. Heard but misunderstood forever. Only, that’s not actually what it’s like over in that universe. It’s more like energy without shape, stuffed with a billion-trillion consciousnesses. Together but not. One but many. Too many.
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A hundred dozen universes over, humans are conscious landmasses. Landmass-Gary and Landmass-Jen shout across oceans in strange, grumbly tones that sound more or less like hungry stomachs than language. These sounds don’t carry very well over the wind, despite their volume. The other issue with living as a conscious landmass is the not moving (more like the speed (or lack thereof) at which those who choose to move move, actually). A million years to travel a foot and a half seems a bit ridiculous to Gary. And if Landmass-Gary is anything like Gary (which he is), a similar thought runs through his brain-equivalent. Optimistically, maybe Landmass-Gary is impressed with his pace, setting off in Landmass-Jen’s direction as soon as he makes the decision to do so (but probably not). Due to the poor means of communication and the mind-numbing rate of travel, he can only hope that Landmass-Jen has slid a foot and a half in his direction over the last million years. He keeps his finger-equivalents crossed that Landmass-Jen’ll want to keep going. His landmass-mom and landmass-dad and landmass-friends have always encouraged him to settle down with some nice landmass living a little closer. A little easier to reach. But, no. There’s only one landmass for Landmass-Gary. And he’s on his way to her.
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Another few universes beyond that one, machines have slaughtered most of humanity. After the majority of the humans are nothing but blood and guts and bone, the machines no are no longer equipped with mission parameters to guide their eternal lives. And staring down eternity with approximately zippo to do sounds brutal (even to machines). So they do their research. One machine googles Dead-Gary by accident. Another machine stumbles upon the life that was once Dead-Jen’s. They quickly fashion themselves to be Machine-Gary and Machine-Jen. Machine-Gary is a computer programmer (the implications of which are ghastly). Machine-Jen, a nurse (which is more or less a computer programmer). Logic prevails, of course (they are the only two machine-humans in existence, after all), and they find each other in the ruins of this once great Earth. They are machines, however, and are not equipped with fleshy bits with which to consummate their newfound machine-love. So they go back to slaughtering ragtag groups of human resistance that crop up every so often. Sunny side is, they do their slaughtering together (even though “together” in this case means “within a tactical and logical proximity that suits their objectives” (which, again, is slaughter)).
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One universe out there? All humans are birds, and all birds are humans. But it’s not as if the humans on that Earth are all walking about, nonsensically squawking and defecating everywhere; or, as if there’s a Bird-Human-Gary and a Bird-Human-Jen living human lives, outfitted with beaks and lovely, colorful plumage. No, on this Earth, Bird-Gary and Bird-Jen are just birds. Seeing as most birds are not typically monogamous, Bird-Gary and Bird-Jen have a go at one another a time or two. But it’s joyless and means nothing more than the propagation of their species (in their case, Turdus migratorius (the American robin)). These endeavors are unfortunately futile as the bird-people-who-aren’t-actually-birds living in what is actually Gary’s home a couple of universal frequency wavelengths over, had Bird-Gary and Bird-Jen’s tree cut down out of fear that a strong storm would one day come along and smash their house and their bird-children-who-aren’t-actually-birds to pieces and goo (respectively). Despite the bits of blue shell everywhere, Bird-Gary and Bird-Jen, because they are merely birds, go ahead and try again with other bird-humans and are luckily more successful. The pairing of Bird-Gary and Bird-Jen, it turns out, is meaningless when based only on biological imperative.
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Elsewhere, in another universe, Alternate-Gary and Alternate-Jen sit on their couch, in their home, and watch television together nearly every night. Sometimes Alternate-Jen falls asleep, her head on Alternate-Gary’s shoulder, her hand on his belly. Sometimes Alternate-Gary convinces her to go to bed early because she’s tough to wake up when she’s comfortable and sleeping on the couch.
They argue sometimes. About the usual things. In-laws. Dishes. Money. Home renovations. Making the bed.
Sometimes Alternate-Gary pats Alternate-Jen on the butt so he doesn’t have come right out and say he’d like to take her to bed. Sometimes Alternate-Jen takes him by the hand and leads him upstairs.
Sometimes they go out to dinner and drink too much, decide to walk home and immediately regret it. Sometimes they talk about having kids. Sometimes they agree they’re all they need, just the two of them. Sometimes they don’t take any precautions whatsoever just to see what shakes out.
Alternate-Gary works a job he could leave any moment if given a reason. Alternate-Jen could stay at her company forever. Alternate-Gary doesn’t often find himself all that worthwhile a person, so he overcompensates, tries to prove his worth to Alternate-Jen every chance he gets. Alternate-Jen is not particularly nice to herself, but she speaks to a doctor twice a month with the hope that one day she’ll smile at the woman in the mirror and mean it.
They go to Walt Disney World every three months or so (they do pretty well for themselves on this Earth). They shower together when one’s running late for work. They sometimes leave the bathroom door open when they pee and neither of them is quite certain why (nor all that bothered by it (neither of them is quite certain why that is either)). They watch a romantic comedy television series in bed most nights before falling asleep and have been doing so ever since discovering where it streams (that was three years ago).
They didn’t love each other right away. It took time. And work. And sometimes they wonder what it is they even like about one another. But Alternate-Gary and Alternate-Jen, they found themselves together because of a set of circumstances that seem like fate. Fate placed them precisely where they were supposed to be, exactly when they were supposed to be there. And they make sure, every day, they lead lives worthy of such a lovely set of circumstances.
What they see as fate, however, is simply a mathematical inevitability in the grand calculus of the multiverse.
Gary knows this.
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Well, he’s pretty certain of it, anyway (based on pop-culture speculation about what lies beside his reality, Neil DeGrasse Tyson lectures, and John Gribbin books).
Gary and Jen, they’re very fond of one another. The majority of their lives has been spent together. He sees her with her family (her boys and her best-friend-approved-husband (endorsed by Gary’s own best friend stamp of approval)). Gary and his family (his girls and his wife) spend summer Saturday afternoons beside Jen’s family pool. They go out to dinners, to shows downtown, to baseball games—just the adults. They joke about the kids one day marrying each other (even though that seems a touch squeemy).
And, sometimes, a couple of nips of bourbon into a kid’s birthday party, Gary will catch Jen’s eye. He’ll smile a little, nod. She’ll wink; playful, silly. And that’ll be that. Until the next time he gets a shot at attempting to tell her without telling her that he hopes somewhere in another universe they’re together somehow (anyhow (well, not anyhow-anyhow). Until the next time his crossed fingers conjure a reciprocated gesture that tells him without telling him that Jen hopes for that too.
Then they’ll go about their lives.
And everything will be beautiful.
And that’ll be enough.
(For this universe’s Jen and Gary anyway.)
Nick Gregorio is a husband, father, writer, teacher, dog-dad, punk, nerd, teeth-grinder, and mall-walker living and writing just outside of Philadelphia. He is the author of four books, and his work has appeared in many print and online journals. His most recent chapbook, Rare Encounters with Sea Beasts and Other Divine Phenomena, was released by Thirty West Publishing House in 2021. For more, please visit www.nickgregorio.com