A Doubled Life
It all started on that long-ago August afternoon, where a decision split her life…
20260212
Written for Bradley Ramsey’s “Flash Fiction February Day 12”.
[This is a special microfiction - it has three endings. Whichever one you choose the resulting story exactly 1k words. Which do you like best?]
It all started when she made a wish on her thirtieth birthday cake. Well, no, where it truly started was the twelfth of August, the year she’d graduated sixth form. She’d been walking down the high street, clutching the internship offer from a travel website, when she ran into Tom. Sitting on a wall, watching the world go by. As much as it did, around here. He invited her to join him. She sat down for a moment.
Then he asked her out.
She remembered the moment vividly. The warmth of the bricks soaking through her shorts. The taste of lemoncello chapstick as she bit her lip in pleasant shock. The way his head was ducked, possibly against the glare of the late afternoon sun but definitely because he couldn’t quite face her while stammering out how much he enjoyed hanging out, and how she was funny and pretty and cool and…
How crushed he’d been when she stammered about the internship. How she was going to be spending a year in Australia, and possibly travelling further after that, and…
Apologies stumbled into silence. He blinked hard and swallowed and forced a smile. Told her that was awesome, and just like her, and he was happy she’d got this opportunity. Then, quieter and sadder, that he wasn’t after a long-distance relationship.
He hopped off the wall and hurried away. Leaving her sitting there, clutching that envelope, which minutes ago had seemed the greatest thing in the world and now weighed heavy in her hand.
She’d run after him, shouting for him to wait. Or… had she? Had she wiped her eyes and continued her walk to the post office, subdued but resolute? She couldn’t remember now which timeline she’d started in.
But it didn’t matter anymore. Not since she wished “to know how it would’ve gone” had she taken the other path, that heavy summer day, and blown out the candles on her birthday cake - and suddenly the other timeline was there. Real, and clear, and close enough to touch. So she had.
And in an instant she was sitting in a very different room, with a very different birthday cake in front of her, surrounded by a crowd of people she shouldn’t recognise but immediately knew. Her mind awash with memories of a life she was sure she hadn’t lived.
In one timeline, she was a photographer and expert travel reviewer. Crisscrossing the world, racking up adventures and scrapes and wild experiences.
In the other, she was happily married to Tom and a mother of two, Harry and Lily. Plus she had a dog and two cats, like she’d always wanted. And a little side business as a photographer - usually school portraits, never award-winning landscape shots. But deeply satisfying in its own way.
It was glorious. Perfect. Whenever being a parent in a sleepy little town started leaving her feeling hemmed in, she just closed her eyes and reached across and there she was in whatever exciting locale she was visiting. Whenever she got tired of constant travel or shaken up by a near-miss, she just closed her eyes and reached across and there she was, home.
But now, as her fortieth birthday approached, she found each stepping-across increasingly difficult. Like the gap was growing wider, like the space between was harder to push through.
At this rate she’d be stranded.
Was the universe saying she had to choose?
She wanted to cry and pound her fists and scream that it wasn’t fair. But she knew getting two decades in one like this was incredibly lucky. Maybe she shouldn’t have assumed it was going to last.
Staring out across the Nile, the most amazing cup of coffee she’d ever tasted cupped between her palms, she wondered what to do.
Both lives were wonderful. That was the thing. Perhaps rather than pick one, she should just keep changing as she pleased and accept wherever she ended up. It wasn’t like she had to worry about the people she left behind - every time she switched, she got the memories of what had happened, everything “she’d” done, since she last left that timeline. The world carried on without noticing.
Well… forty was about time to think about settling down, right? She could view picking the timeline with Tom as a form of retiring.
But… that would mean giving up a network of friends which spanned the world. Of never writing that autobiography. Or giving talks. Inspiring other people to chase their dreams.
Stay in the travel timeline
She sat back and sipped at her coffee. Savouring the flavour. The gorgeous view. The way light reflected off the Nile. The many voices she could hear - and understand, having picked up various languages in her travels. Life covered the globe in a rich, endlessly varying tapestry.
The thought of giving up all except one, drab corner… no. She would remember Tom and Harry and Lily and Moppet and Marco and Polo fondly. She would be glad they had another her, that she hadn’t truly abandoned them. But a small-town mum just wasn’t who she was. It never had been.
Still. Turning forty. It was time to start thinking “what next”. Hmm. She’d buy a nice little flat somewhere - one with excellent travel connections, so she could take short trips across the globe. Set about writing that autobiography. Figure out what to do with her blog. And how you got a publisher and all that.
She’d look into doing more talks, too. Especially for schools - it was always delightful to see children light up with passion and possibility. To hand forward the encouragement and opportunities and guidance she’d gotten. Everything that led her here.
Well. Everything mundane. Though, if she could give them each a doubled decade like she’d been blessed with, she would. If only everyone could experience such! She’d always be grateful for it, both the memories she was left with and the clarity it’d given her.
For now… she’d look into property ownership in her favourite cities.
Settle in the Tom timeline
She downed the coffee in a gulp and closed her eyes, reaching across. It was a strain, like forcing a stuck door. But suddenly she was in their little kitchen, tiled in her favourite lemon yellow.
This coffee was instant, nowhere near as nice, but the mug had been painted by Harry in a ceramics class and his painstaking rendition of their pets always made her smile. And she could smell Tom’s lamb stew and rosemary bread, their traditional Saturday dinner.
From the living room came the catchy jangle of children’s cartoons. After lunch (leftovers, clearing out the fridge) the plan was to bundle up and go to the park. Enjoy the sunshine together. She’d take photos.
“I think I’m going to take up writing.”
Tom blinked and looked up from giving Moppet scritches. “Oh. Fair enough. Um, right now?”
“Not right now.” She scoffed with a fond eye-roll. “But, um, I think I’d like to try writing fiction. About travelling.”
“Ah.” Tom’s face fell. Guilty.
She leant over and kissed his cheek. “Don’t be like that, love. I have no regrets. I promise.”
Well, not having both. But that hardly counted.
“Well… alright.” He wrapped an arm around her. “We’ll book you time on the calendar. And make a budget.”
“For what? We have paper and pens.”
“Sure. But, I dunno, you always struck me as a typewriter gal.”
Ooh. She had always… but it didn’t suit a travelling lifestyle.
Tom chuckled knowingly, and she smiled. Home sweet home.
Let fate - or at least time - decide where she ends up
She looked down at her hazy, wobbly reflection frowning in the coffee, and sighed. “I was never good at choosing, was I? Maybe that’s why the universe gave me the chance to try both paths. But even with having a decade of each like this, I just can’t… I can’t just give one up. It’d mean losing half of who I am.”
A happily settled woman and a free-roaming citizen of the world. A wife and mother and an adventurous single looking for fun. Someone with deeps roots in her hometown and branches flung across dozens of hotel rooms.
No. She couldn’t choose. Maybe she wouldn’t have to; while stepping across was getting harder, plenty of things got harder with age while still being doable. And she wasn’t going to give this up without a fight.
Besides, even if she did end up trapped in one timeline, she’d be happy whichever one she found herself in. So there was no harm in trying to have both. At least as long as she could.
So she sat back and sipped at her coffee. She’d pop over and see the family - after lunch. The spread at this hotel was amazing. Then it’d be a sunny (but not sweltering) afternoon at the park, and Tom’s cooking for dinner. And finally back here in the evening for that cocktail party she’d been invited to review, as a special guest, renowned and respected for her experience and professionally honed taste.
The best of both timelines.
Prompt was “Write a story or poem where your protagonist has become aware of a parallel universe that exists alongside their own. They can travel freely between the two worlds, but the trip gets harder every time. Eventually, they’ll have to choose…”