After Image
Chapter 9

Viola spent the next two days after work practicing Images. It almost felt absurd that she had not been able to do this naturally just a few days previous. She no longer needed music to Image. In fact, it felt like breathing to her. Hold your breath too long and you needed to expel the air from your lungs. Hold back Imaging for too long and it felt like she was suffocating. No wonder she had spent so much of her time writing. The more she practiced Imaging, the more quickly she felt the energy build up inside her. By the end of Friday, she found herself subconsciously writing things with her finger on whatever surface was nearby. This did not go unnoticed by Eli.

“You seem to be doing that more and more lately,” Eli said gesturing towards Viola’s hand scrolling across the surface of the couch as they sat watching a Blu-ray.

“The more I practice, the easier it is to access the energy for Imaging. It’s either let my hand wander or Image something. It feels like breathing, Eli. It’s there all the time. I can’t stop it. And like everything else that is in my body, the more I use it, the stronger it becomes, and the more capacity I have.”

“There has to be a limit to it, though, right?”

Viola thought for a moment. “I assume so, but whatever that limit is, I haven’t reached it yet.” Viola glanced to the corner of the room and saw a package propped up against the wall. “Oh, when did that get here?” Viola suddenly asked, getting up and grabbing the package.

Eli glanced in her direction. “A little while ago while you were Imaging. I didn’t want to bother your practice. What is it?”

Viola sat back down beside Eli and started to tear off the packaging. “It’s the print I have been waiting for to come in of my family down in Florida.” She tossed the bits of paper that were clinging to the frame onto the floor and cleared off the glass of the frame with her sweater sleeve. When she was done she was staring at her large family all standing in front of the Spaceship Earth building at Epcot Disney.

“Here let me show you,” she put the picture half on Eli’s lap and started naming the people in the picture. “In the back row that is my sister, Haleigh, my dad, Louis, my mom, May, my other sister, Amy, me, of course, my grandmother, Alice, and my grandfather, Edward, my brother, Jason and his wife Miranda. In the second row is –“ She stopped interrupted by Eli.

“Alexandra, Olivia and Grace, your nieces,” he finished for her.

Viola looked at him in shock. “Weird. I didn’t think I told you all of their names before.”

“You didn’t have to Viola, because I know these people. The people in that picture are my family. I have this same picture in my house, except you aren’t in the photo. Where you are is where I am.”

“What? Wait, you remember? How is that - ? I don’t understand. What is going on here?” Viola stumbled over the sudden array of questions and thoughts going through her head.

Eli got up off the couch, pushing the picture back into Viola’s lap. He had tears in his eyes and was holding his face in his hands. “I remember everything. I wish I didn’t. I know why I forgot, Viola. I know exactly why I had amnesia. I didn’t want to remember.”

Viola put the picture aside and walked up behind Eli taking him in her embrace. “Why wouldn’t you want to remember your family?”

Eli turned toward Viola and pushed her slowly down into the wingback chair that was behind her. “I don’t think you are Imaging things from your imagination, Viola. I think, I think you are pulling things into this reality from other realities.”

“Like multiverse theory?” Viola asked. She pondered this for a moment. “Why would you think that?”

“Because, Viola, you didn’t imagine me into existence. I am you from an alternate reality. You are me if my parents would have had a girl instead of a boy. We are the same person. Exactly the same person just different genders.”

“Eli that’s absurd. There are not an endless array of universes out there all paralleling one another, that is just a theory, and a bizarre and unrealistic one at that.”

“Then how do you explain this? Is you magically pulling things from your own mind easier to believe than that you are instead pulling all those things from an alternate reality?”

“But what about that dream you recorded? Do you really think in an alternate reality there are dragons?” Viola asked incredulously.

“I’m going to tell you a story, Viola, and you tell me if you would imagine someone into existence with such a story. Just tell me that okay?” Eli took a deep breath and wiped the tears from his eyes.

“That picture that you have was the last picture that my family got as a complete unit. Two months after that picture was taken my sister, Haleigh, died from complications of brain surgery. When she died, my family was fractured, broken. My mom the most broken out of all of us, but we promised not only Haleigh, but ourselves, that we would have a reunion again the next year, on the date of her death to spread her ashes in her favorite place on earth. That next year, when planning the trip, due to work, I had to leave a day later than the rest of my family. That one day delay saved my life, but it cost me my entire family. The plane they were on crashed. There were no survivors. For months after that I couldn’t function. I went on a sabbatical at work and just never ever went back. I lost everything that made my life worth living and I just couldn’t cope. The day you pulled me into your world. That was the day I had decided to die. I just wanted so badly to forget everything and you somehow heard that plea and pulled me here and I was allowed to forget, even if it was just for a little while.” Eli looked up from the spot on the floor that he had been staring at while he was telling his story and saw Viola was crying.

“Eli,” She choked out between sobs. “I would never. I would never do that ever. I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”

Eli went over to Viola and wrapped her in a warm embrace. “There is nothing for you to be sorry about. You saved my life after all, by bringing me here.”

“I don’t know what I would do if they were all gone. You lost everyone. My entire family, just gone, in the blink of an eye.” Viola’s heart shattered at the thought of never seeing her family again. She had never experienced the loss of someone close to her. To lose everyone? The pain must be unbearable. She tightened her grip on Eli. “What can I do? What do you need me to do?”

Eli just smiled. “Viola, you don’t need to do anything. I do want to thank you, though, for pulling me into this beautiful world where my whole family is still alive and well.”

“We could go visit them. I’m sure Jerome wouldn’t mind if we took a few days to go see them.” Viola was reaching for her phone.

Eli laughed. “That would be the best gift I could ever get. Thank you.”

“Oh, but we can’t leave until Sunday. I have people coming over tomorrow. Is that all right? I forgot to tell you about it. I have a board games day once a month with a few of my friends. Let me just call my mom and tell her I am heading down.” Viola got up from the couch and began to pace around the house waiting for the phone to ring. They are all alive. Eli thought. My family is safe and well. He sat in the chair, the weight on his heart easing a little. Even if they don’t know me I don’t care. They are alive and well and that is all that matters.

Viola came back into the living room about thirty minutes later grinning. “We will go down Sunday. I already told them about you. I hope you don’t mind that I told them you were our cousin. I didn’t really think that explaining the whole Imaging thing and you being from an alternate reality and that you were actually the male version of me would go over so well on the phone. In fact, I am not so sure it will go over really well in person either.”

“It’s fine, Vye. I’ll be glad to be your cousin. After all, cousins in our family are just like sisters and brothers.”

Viola smiled thinking of her three nieces and how they called themselves sister-cousins. Eli was right.

“You could always stay down there, you know. Live close by. You don’t have to stay with me. I’m sure they will be glad to have you around. There are more opportunities for work down there.”

“Let’s not think about that right now. I’m not sure I should leave you alone anyway. Remember our Imaging rule?”

“Yes, yes, I remember.” Viola waved her hand at Eli, dismissing his reminder. “But you said you were on sabbatical. What did you do for work?”

Eli tussled his hair and grinned. “I am a psychologist, actually.”

“Wait, your timeline seems a lot different than mine. It sounds like years went by after that picture was taken. That picture was just taken in March this year for me.”

“You are worried about time lines? Shouldn’t you be more worried about the fact that you can pull things from other universes?”

“Yeah about that. If you’re right, that means I stole some other me’s car and I also stole a Sonic Screwdriver from the Doctor. It also means that in some alternate reality he actually exists instead of just being a TV character. Well that is kind of cool. That means – “ Viola stopped suddenly and mimed with her hands, her mind exploding. “That means that dragons are real and that the stories I wrote are real in some time and space. This is so bizarre. It’s one thing to think I can imagine things into existence, it’s a completely different thing to know that they are all already out there existing in some alternate reality. But seriously, Eli, I stole a car. I. Stole. A. Car. I feel kind of gross right now.”

“It’s not like you did it on purpose. I am glad you feel bad about that though. It means you have morals.”

Viola looked at Eli and glared. “Do not give me the Spiderman speech, alright? I already know it by heart.” She paused and changed the subject. “Do you think if I can pull things into my reality that I can push them back into the reality they came from?” She walked over to the Sonic Screwdriver and placed it into her hand. She tried concentrating on it, feeling the reality of it in her hand, and imagined that it wasn’t there, but back where it came from. She felt the weight disappear from her hand and smiled. The smile turned to a frown as she looked at Eli. “It worked! I guess that means I should send the car back…”

“I’m sure her insurance already got her a new one,” Eli replied.

Viola shoved him hard as she headed for the door. “That isn’t the point.”

“Well it is yours. It’s not stolen. Just a different version of you has it now. Besides, what is she going to do with two cars; and if it just shows back up it could cause your other self a lot of problems with the insurance company. What if they thought she faked the whole thing to defraud them, she could end up in jail.”

Viola stopped at the door. “Thanks a lot, Eli, now I feel like crap no matter what I do.” She took her hand from the door and turned back to him. “It means I could probably send you home, if you want.”

Eli scoffed at the suggestion. “You do remember what I just told you, right? If you send me back there, it is as good as killing me. I don’t want to go back. There is nothing there for me. Besides, what if you sending it ‘back’ doesn’t send it back to where it came from, but just to another alternate reality?”

“I never thought of that.” She flung herself back onto the couch. “This is so much more complicated than I thought. I always imagined that if I got a super power I would just know everything about it and it would work perfect. Figuring everything out is fun but so confusing. Just when I think I understand what is happening to me, the rules change.”

“Well, you don’t have to blunder through it all alone. We’ll figure it out together. I know a lot about the mind after all,” Eli replied tapping Viola on the head. She looked up at him and smiled. He seemed a lot more mature than she felt. Feels like my older brother. But he’s not. He is me. We are the same person from different realities. Now I feel even weirder when I think about talking to myself. Viola looked at the clock, realizing it was crawling into the morning hours and yawned. She suddenly had a very long weekend in front of her. “Let’s talk about this more tomorrow when everyone leaves. I’m too tired to comprehend anything now.”

Mrs. Ironside tapped Will on the shoulder, signaling for him to pause the feed. The Sonic Screwdriver in Viola’s hand was in a transient phase, more an image than a solid object.

“That’s it. She has both aspects of the power. Get things organized. Ms. Lavallee will be in our custody soon.”