Fractured Reality

Amnesia. That was the first word that came to Billy Jones’ mind as he searched for a logical explanation for his situation. A memory lapse would explain the missing hour since the accident, but not the absence of dents in the steel of the lamppost he’d slammed into at forty miles per hour, nor the missing baby-blue car Vivian had loved so much. And where was the horribly disfigured woman he thought he had seen? He could still remember the car’s rear end knocking her to the ground.

But there was no sign of her.

Not even tire marks on the asphalt hinted at the fateful collision. So he asked himself: Had the accident even happened? Or had he just imagined the whole thing?

Billy retraced the twisted paths of possibilities over and over, always arriving at the same conclusion: during the crash, a portal to another dimension must have opened, swallowed him whole, and spit him out into this parallel world, where the accident never occurred.

What a load of nonsense.

But then, how could he explain the fact that there was no evidence of the incident with the woman, except in his own memory?

As if evidence could somehow materialize out of thin air, he checked the same spots again, scanning the road for debris, for bloodstains, and constantly looking for the disfigured woman. But then the loud, rhythmic thundering of a passing train hit him with the bitter force of a slap in the face: There were no clues, no traces, and therefore no accident.

Not far from the abandoned train tracks, two elegantly curved xenon headlights flickered in the distance, glaring out of the darkness like the evil eyes of a predator. The vehicle came from the direction of the solar panel factory at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, creeping up the hidden side road, moving strangely slow for a 25 zone. The low beams blinded Billy, forcing him to shield his eyes with the back of his hand and peer through his fingers. The vehicle turned out to be a matte black SUV with off-road tires so tall that it had side steps just to climb in. The SUV slowed to a crawl before coming to a stop right in front of Billy.

A moment later, the passenger window slid down, and a cloud of cigarette smoke wafted out into the night air. The driver remained a shadowy silhouette in the darkness. Only the glow of his cigarette as he took a drag cast a faint light on his face, just enough for Billy to recognize who was behind the wheel.

"Nice ride, Buzz. Why didn’t you tell me you hit the lottery?"

The interior light flicked on in the car.

"Well, I’ll be damned. Am I famous now or somethin'? How you know who I am, kiddo?"

"It’s me, Billy."

Buzz squinted at him through the cigarette smoke, thinking hard, or at least pretending to. After a while, he shook his head. "Never seen that baby face screwed onto those scrawny shoulders of yours before," he said. "I’d remember a joker like you."

Billy let out a joyless laugh. Judging by Buzz’s behavior, the whole parallel universe idea didn’t seem so crazy anymore.

The man, who definitely looked like Buzz, slid over to the passenger seat and leaned out of the open window. He shook his head again. "Nope, not ringing any bells, pal."

"I just had a car accident, Buzz."

"Oh, shoot, kiddo. Why didn’t you say so right off the bat? Where’d it happen?"

"It happened right here." Billy pointed dramatically at his feet with both hands.

The wind carried an eerie silence.

There was a pause as Buzz stuck his head out the window, looking left, then right.

"Uh-huh, and where’s the car?" Buzz asked.

"It’s gone! Just like the woman I hit!"

"What woman?"

"I don’t know who she was! She ran out into the street, and I couldn’t stop in time. She should’ve... she should’ve been dead." Billy took a step closer to the SUV, catching a whiff of sweet alcohol on Buzz’s breath. He gripped the bottom of the window frame, stood on tiptoe, and stuck his head into the car. "But neither she nor my car are here anymore," he whispered.

The gatekeeper from the solar panel factory didn’t seem impressed. He slid back into the driver’s seat and placed a hand on the wheel. "My mama always told me never to trust strangers at night. I should’ve kept driving. Should’ve known you were a nutcase from the start." With that, he rolled up the window, forcing Billy to yank his hands away. The interior light went out, and the headlights flared on.

"Buzz, seriously?"

The SUV pulled away without a sound. Billy stared after it like it was the Pope’s car. The taillights faded in the distance before disappearing completely as the vehicle rounded a corner.

All that remained was another question.

Another shard in the already shattered mess of his life.

Why the hell didn’t Buzz recognize me?

The storm whipped half-rotten autumn leaves off the street, sending them spinning through the air like dancers. Never stop moving! Billy thought. There's always a solution, and there's an explanation for everything!

If one path doesn’t lead to the goal, another one will. Even if that means paving the way yourself. Billy Jones thought so hard that wrinkles furrowed his forehead. He stood perfectly still in the middle of the street, the only movement the steam of his breath swirling in the freezing December air, wrapping around his face like smoke from an old factory. If he were sitting in a comfy armchair with a hot cup of tea, reading the story of his own life by the warmth of a fireplace, he’d probably shake his head at his own blindness, because the next step was so obvious that he should’ve seen it immediately.

But in his current situation, even the simplest thought was hard to grasp. He felt dazed. Like he’d been struck by the hammer of reality, he fumbled through his pockets for his phone, finally finding it inside his jacket and pulling it out so quickly it almost fell into a puddle.

Thank God my phone hasn’t disappeared too!

He flipped it open in one smooth motion and saw the wallpaper he had hoped for: the shimmering mountains of the Himalayas under a starry night sky—the background he’d chosen just a few weeks ago. Seeing something familiar felt like a small piece of salvation in the twisted moment. It gave him hope that not everything was going wrong.

But then he saw what was on his screen.

No SIM card.

Of course, his phone had a SIM card! Vivian had just texted him right before the accident. His breath caught in his throat. He bit down on his lip, thinking, thinking—but every thought led to a dead end.

Maybe the SIM card got knocked loose in the crash. Or damaged. Or...

Billy checked. Yes, the nano-chip was still in its slot. He pulled it out, wiped his thumb across the golden contacts, and popped the tiny card back in.

Finally.

His phone accepted the SIM card, he entered his four-digit code, and searched for Vivian’s number.

Address book empty, no contacts found

"Damn it!" Billy hissed. His phone’s memory had been completely wiped. Billy was stumped. No personal data, no photos, nothing.

"You worthless piece of junk!" he shouted at the phone. Almost immediately, he felt ridiculous for yelling at an object. Embarrassed, he glanced around to see if anyone had witnessed his outburst. A quick 360-degree turn confirmed he got lucky, no one was around. But for some reason, he still felt like he was on some kind of stage. Life felt that surreal right now. Speaking of stages… Vivian’s play suddenly popped back into his mind. The show must be well into the second act by now.

Oh, great. It’s already 9:45. It’s probably in the last act by now.

Well, you wanted the divorce, and now you’re gonna get it, he thought. But this time, it wasn’t with the same satisfaction he might have felt before the accident. For the first time in a long while, he missed Vivian. He missed seeing a familiar face.

A row of thorny bushes stood frozen in the winter chill along a narrow strip of grass at the roadside. Torn plastic bags fluttered like flags on the bare branches. Billy sat down on the curb between rotting coffee cups and discarded wrappers, blowing warm air into his ice-cold hands. It couldn’t have been more than a few degrees above freezing. Reluctantly, Billy dialed the number of a taxi company. It wasn’t so much the company’s annoying, brainwashing ads that stuck with him, but more the memory of his last ride with them.

As he made the call, he glanced around. This was far from a safe area. The drab patch of green where he was sitting had turned into a mini-dump for passing cars and the stranded people who had set up tents between the shipping containers and warehouses.

Luckily, they hadn’t seemed to notice him yet.

The taxi arrived half an hour later, pulling up right in front of him thanks to the GPS coordinates. When Billy stood, he realized just how frozen he was. He got into the passenger seat and immediately noticed how suspiciously fresh and clean the driver’s seat looked, a sharp contrast to the worn-out one he’d just sunk into.

A hand-sized screen flickered on in the center console, and on it appeared a man about Billy’s age, just three or four times heavier. He wore glasses that had been taped at the sides, the thick lenses distorting his eyes. Death seemed to hide in the dark circles under them. Sparse black hairs sprouted from his double chin, and his belly was littered with crumbs from snacks he’d scarfed down between rides. New York cab drivers had so much work around Christmas that sometimes they didn’t leave their apartments for a whole week. Judging by the man’s pasty, bloated face staring into the camera, Billy was convinced this guy hadn’t stepped outside in months.

"Where to?" the driver asked.

Billy skipped the theater visit and gave the driver his home address right away. The taxi started moving shortly after. The obese man on the screen had his hands on a small USB steering wheel, which was clamped to a cheap laminate table. The taxi’s steering wheel next to Billy turned in sync with the toy-like wheel, like something out of a ghost story. He reached for the seatbelt behind him, buckled up, and tried to relax. At least it was warm inside, he thought. Really warm. The digital display read 93 degrees Fahrenheit. The heater’s dry air turned his throat into a desert with every breath, and his eyelids scraped against his drying eyes like sandpaper.

"Could you maybe turn the heat down a bit?" Billy asked.

"Sorry, it’s busted," the taxi driver said.

Billy cracked the window just enough to let the wind cool his bare scalp and clear his head, which was still spinning at full speed. Below, the muddy brown waters of the East River drew a sharp line between the drab industrial zone and the next borough across the way—Manhattan. The five-hundred-meter-high Thandros Tower stood tall right in its center, looming over Central Park behind the palisades. He couldn’t see it from here, but he could feel it.

"Busy night?" Billy asked.

"Eh, not bad," the driver replied. "Glad the Christmas season’s over though. That was a nightmare."

Billy nodded, his gaze drifting over the dark waters of the East River.

But then he froze.

What had the guy just said?

"Wait... You’re saying you’re glad Christmas is over?"

"Huh?"

Billy closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to cut the driver some slack. After all, working from home most of the time with these remote-controlled taxis, it’d be easy to lose track of the days.

"Christmas is in four days," Billy said. "This Friday, to be exact."

"That’s not what I’ve got," the driver said. "Take a look at the little screen above my ugly mug."

Billy furrowed his brows in confusion. He did as the driver suggested, only to freeze in shock as he read the date on the display.

This can’t be right. Is this some kind of joke?

He pulled out his phone to double-check, still thinking the driver was messing with him—like the whole deal with the broken heater. Probably one of those jokers, Billy thought, the kind who’s unhappy with their own life, so they find joy in torturing others in a hot, stuffy cab.

Billy flipped open his phone, and there it was—the exact same date as on the display.

It was Monday, December 27, 2050.

Exactly one week after the accident.