LODESTAR GAZETTE | LODESTAR PROMPT

Eight minutes to decide

Should I stay or should I go?

Non-medium members can read this freely here!

Prompted by this picture by C.J. Coop on The Lodestar Gazette.

When I bought the apartment, on the ninety-seventh floor, I never expected to hear traffic noise. Nor did I expect the neighbours to keep me awake.

At first, I thought I was dreaming; there was a humming noise, raising and lowering in intensity, just on the other side of my bedroom wall. It started at midnight and went on for ten minutes. Every night.

That was crazy, there was nothing except air beyond the bricks.

I asked around, but nobody else had heard anything. The apartment below me was empty. It went on every night and started to keep me awake. I pressed my ear to the wall, there was traffic on the other side. I could hear cars and people talking.

I decided that it must be an effect of the building, some sort of acoustic anomaly. The walls were reflecting the noise from the street below me. It was all it could be.

Over time, it started to get louder, as if the wall was thinning and letting more noise in. After a month, I was getting to the point where I couldn’t take it any more. It sounded like I lived in the middle of a city, not high up in the air.

That night, when I pressed my head to the wall, it went through.

I staggered forward, just about keeping my balance, half in and half out of what could only have been some sort of alternative dimension.

I gazed out at a sunlit city, one that I’d never seen before. It was summer. And the air was warm on my face, unlike the present mid-winter night my feet were in.

Huge buildings soared. Cars floated and whizzed past in both directions. They were not just close to the ground; they moved on multiple levels. Looking from side to side, I could see that my head and shoulders were emerging from a brick wall at the front of a building.

A child screamed, “Look, mummy, there’s a man in the wall.”

I’d been spotted. In haste, I scrambled back to the familiarity of my bedroom.

I sat on the bed and shook.

What was going on? I’d found a connection between my world and some other, one in what looked like the future, where they spoke English; what were the chances of that?

Cautiously, I went back to the wall. I confidently pushed my head through. Except that I didn’t.

Ouch!

I saw that it was eleven minutes past midnight. The noises had stopped.

There was no sleep for me that night, I went over and over it all in my head.

Should I go and explore, would I be able to get back? Did it matter, I had nothing to keep me here. I was in a dead-end job, without a family. All I had was the apartment and its monthly costs.

As midnight approached, I was ready to move into the world through my wall. Everything I valued was in a bag on my back.

Dead on time, the noises started up; I went to the wall, pushed my hand through, followed by the rest of me. I stood in the city.

It was a different season, the air felt colder and the damp streets shone in moonlight. The cars still moved about, they looked even more futuristic than I remembered from my brief glimpse yesterday.

I’d appeared in front of an old woman. She didn’t look surprised at all. She looked relieved. Around her were the signs of a camp, a sleeping bag, blankets and boxes.

“I’ve been living here, wondering if I’d ever see you again,” she said. “I was a child when you appeared through that wall. Nobody else saw it and nobody ever believed me, I’ve spent my life in therapy. I lost everything over my obsession, people said I was crazy. I live here now.”

“It was only yesterday,” I said.

She shook her head. “For you maybe, for me it’s been fifty years. Are you staying this time?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

I looked at my watch, I had eight minutes to decide.

I’m Richard Dee, and I write all sorts of stories. Find out more, join my mailing list and claim your free novella below.

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