like with like

I didn't belong there. I knew that pretty quickly. It's usually the case for me, but this felt very different. They looked human. I've taught myself to recognize humanity in everyone, but perhaps I needn't. This is a different world now from what it used to be. I don't remember passing through the portal, it could have happened at any time. Even on the same earth, we're living infinitely different realities. I know that's always been true, but this is much more than that. Not just differences in language, culture, color, resources, behavior, expression— it's not the surface, superficial differences that distinguish us, it's something more profound than that now. Which made it seem extra odd that I'd slip into this realm, a completely different reality to what I'd ever seen or experienced before.

They all knew what was up. They know how they celebrate their holidays and why. There's a shared history, everybody knows why all the streets are closed and the villagers are dressed in red or blue. Everyone knows what it means when the drumming starts to thunder— they're not afraid because they have a context in which to hold what's unfolding. I didn't have that. I don't know what they would do to me when they find out I'm not one of them. Kill me? Or worse? That's the fear I've been living with this whole time: when I moved my mouth along with their praise songs, not knowing the words. When I sat and watched the sports games, some kind of communal ritual with screaming and emotional outbursts, I still don't understand that. Or the politics they take so seriously, arguing to prove their intelligence and adult status. Clearly, it's just another game of red and blue. Maybe seeing through those performance rituals got me here. Now I don't know where I am, I have no sense of what games are being played. Where even am I?

On some kind of boardwalk, with that way it feels when people cluster at the edge of an ocean. Rarely are people cool about the land dissolving into the sea. They build casinos and expensive housing, encourage debauchery, what some call vacationing. I remember being in the water and I remember turning back toward the land and seeing it fill with thick black smoke. What if there is no going back now, no returning to where we came from?

I had the urgency still in me of a mother searching for her child, that level of intensity runs through me most of the time. Wading through the water, moving toward the fires instead of away from them, like "my baby!" Slowly, I realized that my baby is grown and gone. Motherhood was a different time. I don't have to throw my body into the flames anymore. There's no one's child that needs saving anymore because I'm in a place where all are protected and safe. Imagine that. The world is definitely still burning, I feel the smoke in my nose, my lungs, it stings my watering eyes. But somehow there's no need, right now, for me to sacrifice myself on behalf of another. It's a weird feeling to have that weight lifted from the shoulders. I guess I'm ok in these waters then, for now. It might be a good idea to get away from the smoke though.

There were first responders already responding, trained for crisis, comfortable with trauma, practiced with it. Stopping the bleeding, getting hearts started again. Just because I can do it, doesn't mean I have to. There are many well-trained practitioners in the world who have studied and practiced for years, making themselves available for this moment. Just because I can do something, doesn't mean I want to. Perhaps it's enough, for now, to just get myself to safety.

I noticed a larger exodus going on around me, many people moving away from crisis instead of fueling it. I made my way out of the water across the sand and down the boardwalk, passing stall after stall, each with their own character. Some had themes intended to attract those who come to the seaside to play at pirates and mermaids. Others welcomed people in to worship sea witches, still others set themselves out as wholesome and family-friendly with kids' menus and discounts for seniors. Every spot had its own vibe and attracted a different clientele. I wandered slowly, waiting to feel what pulled me in.

I figured it would be the music that did it, I always follow where music leads me. Sometimes it's just vibes, I can't say exactly what makes one place more attractive to me than another. The decor? The laughter? It could be anything. I went in one spot with a minimalist aesthetic. I'm not sure if it was a cafe or a home decor boutique. Everything neutral colors and fine lines. Almost stark. I didn't stay there long. I love the concept of clean and open, but that isn't how I live. My actual life is bags filled with possibility hidden in every opening. Behind the coats, under the sofa and chairs, anywhere it's possible to put anything, there's already a bag or box filled to overflowing. Only in dreams does living become clean design. 

It took awhile for me to realize that the boisterous crowds were actually accomplishing something, getting things done. People weren't just hanging out, they were crossing a boundary into another world. Everyone has to cross over now. I don't think there's an alternative. I tried to double back to where I'd come from, that burning lake, but the woods and buildings behind the lake had long since disappeared, consumed in flame. The smoke clouds, papers in the air, the smells of chaos— not sure why I headed back there, perhaps because it was more familiar than confusing. It made sense to me, I knew how to navigate it. That was my home. I raised my family there. I was a child there myself, in that world. What does it mean for me now that it's gone? Gone to never return, only existing in memory. Memory is completely unreliable. My short term memory is shot to shit. Writing things down is no good, my handwriting is illegible and I can't type into machines (also unreliable) to share what I know. So maybe it's just gone now. Really gone.

I craved one last look, but as I got closer to where I'd come from, the air grew thick with smoke, almost unbreathable, even through my mask. Black smoke for air. The last time I left here, I got directly out of the water, but approaching from the boardwalk I had to move through a number of chambers to access the old lake. Interconnected glass boxes that served as offices or holding cells, I don't know what they were, intermediary spaces like a series of air locks where pressure changed slowly enough to ease adjustment. Now I can feel how different air is. Expectations and understandings are different now. Maybe I don't need to try to explain myself so much. Languages and cultures are different. I don't have to argue about time and space, about dimensionality and shifting. How can everything change so suddenly? I don't know how or why, I just recognize it happening. This is what's happening right now. 

As I said, I tried to go back, but there were fewer and fewer people and the closer I got, the more I noticed that the people there were iterations of the same one person. Sometimes male, sometimes female, sometimes trans and even other visibly different expressions that I didn't have frameworks for: all the same person. They all took on the same role of enforcer— they held the line. They ensured that no one went back. There is no going back for the ones who've moved ahead and no moving forward for those who stayed behind. The rift is permanent now. 

I don't remember agreeing to this. Maybe I just clicked through and didn't read the terms and conditions. From the looks of that one repeating person– was it even a person? I can't be sure– whatever it was, it wasn't playing around. I did get the sense that they might end me if I challenged them, so I doubled back to where the stalls were– the shops and bars that lined the boardwalk. Much more pleasant up there anyway: music, dancing, sights and sounds. I could still hear the ocean waves, but on returning, I realized that each stall and storefront was also some kind of portal into yet another realm. This boardwalk area was a liminal zone, meant only for transitions. People were being sorted according to their entry point of choice, like with like. That made the decision of which stall to enter even more significant, added pressure. I don't want to choose wrong. I like mermaids and pirates, but I also like design. I like sea witches, but I also like kids and elders. How can I pick just one? 

The people (if they were people) who had been bringing up the back of the line were advancing. I had a really strong sense that the choice here was go or die, so I had to decide quickly. We're still on a boardwalk though, and there was a kind of contest element to everything as well. Games of chance, but not quite like shooting hoops or ring toss. This test of skill was needed to advance through open doors into the worlds that lay beyond the storefronts. Aren't all these games rigged? I don't think I've ever won anything at them, not once. Never the big teddy bear, never even schlocky plastic toys, nothing. And now my life depends on my ability to win at one of these games? 

I'd walked up and down the length of the boardwalk a couple times by now trying to find a place that would best suit me, where I might fit in and be good at whatever's being asked of me. Some of them required physical feats, others computational ability, personal charm, a good singing voice. I don't have any of that. Can't I just go around the side? Can I swim across? Do I really have to go through one of these storefronts to make it to the other side? The crowds were thinning out, not too many people left, just the rowdy drunks at the end of the night who stay until close and the iterating person advancing from behind. I decided to try the one I thought I had the best chance of succeeding at— all that was required was walking in a straight line. I can usually do that. Take a certain number of steps across a balance beam and not fall into the water. I'm pretty good at balance.

I talked to a few people and it let me know in my core that I really had no idea what was actually going on here. They told me plainly that I wasn't from the same world, that it was weird that I was participating in their ritual. No judgement, just curiosity. Sometimes not even curiosity, just plain indifference. On the other side, I found myself in something like a gift shop. Not a cool one like at museums, but like a hospital gift shop, or one at a bus terminal. Browsing not with wonder, but desperation— too much time to kill or trying to distract from the fear of a bad prognosis.

There were these really cool stamps that they had though, metal imprints that could be pressed into the flesh of a finger that conveyed a feeling in the body of the essence of the being the stamp portrayed. It was like visiting the tooth fairy archive or akashic records or something— the essence of the life could be communicated, shared, felt. There were so many to choose from too, so many beautiful lives, such kind hearts full of generosity and compassion. They offered me one of the favorites— can't even say who it was now, I forgot— and I felt that lightness of spirit flowing through the whole body. Not just the body, the whole system. Not just my system, the larger, complex system of all life. Activating that memory, that imprint, plucked the string that sounded throughout all of heaven and earth (for those who still believe in those things). I experienced it in this body, in this fingertip. Amazing! And there were so many wondrous lives and experiences to choose from, known and unknown. Maybe I don't belong here, maybe this isn't my home, in this sliver moon world, but this is where I find myself. I'm here now, so what are we doing? Now what?