Ubiquitous

Down the Virtual Rabbit Hole

Derek was tired of having nothing to do. Once or twice, he had logged into an online game. What is the use of a game with lousy animation and no music? he was thinking, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes scurried across and out past the left edge of his screen.

There was nothing so very remarkable in that; but because Derek was so intensely bored, he became curious. Swiping, he proceeded to follow the creature through the fantastic landscape forming around it and into a large rabbit hole under what appeared to be a hedge. That the experience might entail some kind of risk did not once cross his mind.

The tunnel first burrowed practically at level, then dipped so suddenly that before he knew it, Derek was hurtling down as if in a deep well. The shaft must have been leading way beyond the reach of imagination, for as he plummeted, he had plenty of time to consider what would happen next.

Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end? I wonder if I am falling right through the earth or into some gravitational vortex in a distant galaxy! It would be awesome to emerge in a parallel universe!  Down, down, down. He was dozing off when his phone buzzed madly and made a loud thump! He appeared to have landed upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves.

In this augmented POV mode, Derek was in full control of his virtual body; he could turn his head, direct his eyes, walk this way or that, kneel or grab an object from one place and lay it down delicately in another, as he would in the real world. He jumped to his feet when he sighted the White Rabbit hurrying down another long passage and turned a corner just in time to hear it mutter, “Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it’s getting!”

At the next bend the creature was no longer to be seen. The lengthy, low hall he was standing in was lined with locked doors on either side. He came upon a little three-legged table with nothing on it but a tiny golden key. Behind a low curtain was a door about fifteen inches high: he tried the key, and to his great delight it fitted in the lock! On all fours he peered into the loveliest miniature garden you could imagine. When he returned to the table, he noticed a little button with a label that read, “CLICK ME.”

Sentient Beans

Holding his breath, Derek clicked the button. Instantly, he found himself floating in a colorless ether, his phone magically suspended right before him. In every direction, his field of vision was occupied by an infinite geometric array of phones just like his own, their screens blank instead of showing the image of the lovely garden. It was like being inside the structure of a giant crystal. Soon, he determined that he could hover to any given point by leaning gently toward it; the further he leaned the faster he would move. To slow down, all he had to do was to straighten himself up.

As he stopped in front of a neighboring screen, a voice spoke out to him, “Hello, Derek. Where would you like to be?”

Open-ended questions can be tough, but he was up to it.  “Bring me to that coffee shop I went to last week!”

He was whisked away from his vantage point and seamlessly projected onto a seat along the back wall of the establishment. It was busy in the mornings and people were keeping to themselves. Nobody had noticed his sudden appearance. The smell of freshly roasted beans was tantalizing. He stepped up to order a macchiato with a cinnamon roll. After years of empty bank accounts and unpaid loans, having cash in hand was the clearest advantage of his recent conversion to serious professional activity. Not so serious that he couldn’t recognize fun when he saw it. What he was experiencing now was obviously more rewarding than any programming he could do in the next couple of hours, come what may.

The girl at the cash register smiled back, asked for his name, and thanked him for the tip he dropped into the paper cup on the counter. He noted the words “Sentient Beans” spelled out in fancy brown script lettering on her tee shirt and smirked at the clever name he could never remember.

This was better than any animation he had ever been exposed to. The sound of the espresso machines, the music and background noises of conversation and traffic added a finishing touch that made everything feel real. Everybody around him was behaving just as they would in the actual coffee shop, each one with individual features like a slightly crooked nose or a prominent chin a machine would never have come up with. As he waited at the end of the counter, he noticed the smell of chlorine, turned his head and sure enough there was a guy mopping the floor near the bathroom door. When he picked up his cup, a bit of hot liquid spilled from the lid and almost burned his fingers. The roll was warm, buttery and just delicious. Derek shifted toward a table and fetched a napkin to wipe away some crumbs and a sticky-looking stain before sitting down. His movements were so fluid he did not need to think about controlling them. This place, or whatever it was, was eerily like the real Sentient Beans.

Lost in thought, he stared blankly toward the entrance. The mist-covered glass door was opened from the outside, and he was surprised to behold Douglas walking in from the rain, soaked in a hoodie that Derek had bought him at a Faux Real gig. Their eyes met and Douglas came up to him with a mock scowl, “Well fancy meeting you here! I thought you were staying home today!” Home was on the opposite side of town. Douglas was right: Derek had told him he had a difficult deadline.

“Yeah, I changed my mind – I really liked this spot on Tuesday, I just wanted to come back and, well, hang out, you know.”

While Douglas headed toward the counter to place his order, Derek noticed he had loosened his grip on the here and now; his mind was wandering somewhere slightly removed. As he withdrew ever so slowly, instead of surrounding him, the scene before his eyes progressively receded and was projected onto a flat surface in front of him, shrinking in size until it reached the dimensions of an ordinary smartphone. He was now facing the device as the Sentient Beans experience continued to unravel before him, like a film: Douglas was waiting for his latte and smiled from the end of the counter.

Derek had returned to the infinite array of screens. At first, he could not detach his gaze from the coffee shop scene. Douglas had returned and Derek heard him asking him whether he had been to Paula’s party after all. They had discussed this: both had been invited and had been debating whether to go. Although the reply was straightforward, Derek was paralyzed by the awkwardness of the moment: where was he? Douglas was obviously expecting an answer, but would he hear Derek’s response? It was worth a try; Derek could sense the words forming in his mind at the very instant he heard his voice projecting them across to Douglas, “Yeah, I did go, and it was exactly like you predicted it would be; I still had fun and bumped into a few people but not you-know-who. Anyway, I told her you were under pressure, like you said, and she was disappointed, but I don’t think she resented it or anything.”

Douglas was apparently satisfied with the reply. Fascinated, Derek had heard his own words come out of the screen although he hadn’t actually moved his lips or uttered a sound. He was at Sentient Beans, and he was a spectator of his own presence there at the same time. He’d had this kind of out-of-body experience from time to time in dreams, but without any bearing on reality. Normally, you are in one location and that’s that. You could maybe wish you were somewhere else or think about what it would be like. This was different.

While this train of thought was forming, the dialogue with Douglas continued. Being a daydreamer, Derek was used to this sort of fuzzy state. His mind would often drift in and out of conversation; he was often amazed at how infrequently his absences were noticed. He had learned, over the years, to zoom back in and wait until he had some kind of credible hook to re-enter the exchange. And yes, on occasion he had been caught. His mother, especially, had been a sharp observer of his lapses of attention. At times, she would just stop mid-sentence and stare at him until he snapped back in. At least, he recollected, she would do it with a smile; others had been less forgiving. Betty would call him out, and boy would she get impatient. Toward the end, she got into the habit of telling him to “tune in, Derek, or ship out”  and her tone would be harsh. Then she gave up; she would just interrupt the conversation by making a phone call. A couple of times she had left the room. Was she being unfair? Maybe not, after all it was not too much to ask for a person to be where they were, so to speak. If you were always on your phone or somewhere else, in spirit at least, would that not be an indication that you were not satisfied where you were? And would that not mean you would rather be alone, or with somebody else?

In the coffee shop, though, the exchange moved briskly from lively to jocular, there was laughter, and they sang along with the Full Circle chorus when it came around on the playlist. Derek watched his own arms flailing to the music; he was there all right. Him, or his avatar. Before he knew it, Douglas was waving goodbye and was out the door. Still seated in Sentient Beans, Derek heard a loud ping. The text message from Paula was sobering. “When do you think you’ll be here? I’m wondering whether I should walk the dog now or wait for you.”

A rush of guilt overcame Derek as he checked the time. 11:30 a.m.! He had promised to be at her apartment by eleven to try and fix her bike. Without a second thought, he typed “Sorry, Paula, I’m literally a block away. Be there in a minute.” Part lie, part wager.

Paula lived within walking distance from Derek’s, twenty minutes or so he guessed as he glided toward the next screen – meaning it was more than half-an-hour’s drive from Sentient Beans. He was relieved to hear the prompt from the phone as he came to a halt. “Hello, Derek. Where would you like to be?” Before the message was over, he had already formed the answer in his mind, and he was being drawn into the scene taking shape around him until he could feel his feet touching the ground. By the time Paula appeared at her doorstep with Pretzel pulling at the leash, he was standing at her door. As the enthusiastic dog licked his extended hand, somewhere in the back of his mind he could still visualize the coffee shop as he rose from his seat, wiped his fingers in the napkin and headed out.

Walking the Dog

Paula was in good spirits, and Pretzel was great company, tugging at the lead in this direction and that, wagging his tail madly, chasing a squirrel, sniffing at a fire hydrant, turning back toward Paula with his head cocked expectantly. It was simply wonderful to be here, Derek heard himself say. Paula beamed at him, her smile a shade warmer than usual. They were old pals. Never had romance interfered. It was more like having a chosen sibling. Still, they had both known since their teenage years there was something incomplete, something tempting that could shatter their friendship. Each of them had been too busy exploring on their own and sharing each other’s stories, no holds barred in a rare girl-boy intimacy they treasured more than any of their romantic endeavors. Where do we go from here? wondered Derek as he observed Paula’s complexion brighten in the dying drizzle. Would she be entertaining similar notions?

For now, they were both happy to have carved out this moment together. Time was a problem that got worse as they moved on in their lives. Was it the constraints imposed by clients and employers? The layered obligations of autonomous, single, urban lifestyles? Days kept on getting shorter, weeks would zoom by, seasons would change and sleep deprivation was not an option, Derek had discovered the hard way during his college years. But what if he truly could flatten time?

Paula was speaking to him. He locked eyes with her and smiled, trying to reconstruct the words dropping from her lips, confident he could respond in the most generic manner without revealing his divergent state of consciousness. “Whatever, I’m fine, and I have plenty of time, for once.” Before the sentence was over, he realized what a gamble it was to offer up his schedule like that.

“Well, get a load of that!” she teased. “Big spender, eh? OK, then let’s go for the extended version, Patterson Park around the pond and back. Pretzel will love you forever. I’ll make you a sandwich once we get back, while you take a look at my bike. It’s probably not a big deal.”

Autumn leaves still clung to the trees. Whisps of fog concealed the Observatory’s top level. Derek said they should do this more often. Slowly, the wet alley, the pond to their right, Pretzel clawing at the fragrant earth and Paula’s smile with the slightest hint of a wrinkle at the corner of her eye, in short everything around him began to fade toward a corner of his mind. It was all there, and yet something was drawing him away, back to the real him or another him, whichever it was – the Derek in the crystal hall, gazing at one among an endless network of possibilities.

To his left, he monitored himself boarding a taxi in front of Sentient Beans and knew he would be heading home. In front of him, Paula was facing him with one quizzical eyebrow raised. He had been on the verge of telling her about his encounter with Douglas, but as far as she was concerned, it was inconceivable. She would not have believed him. Instead, he came up with a diversion, “Sorry, I have this job I am trying to finish, and it is keeping my mind in a bit of a buzz.”  Offloading some stress with a listener as good as Paula was a relief. And it helped to cover up for his deeper preoccupations.

So much had happened in the past couple of hours that he was entertaining doubts about the reality of his perceptions. Whatever was going on, he was eager to continue exploring, in spite of the unshakable dizziness. It was a dream come true.

This time, Derek chose to move backwards one notch. From there, he observed himself riding home in the taxi and holding up a stick for Pretzel to jump at.

A Break From It All

Within seconds, Derek was also perched above a semiarid valley, holding the wobbly railing wrapped around the eminence he was standing on. The morning sun had not yet taken the chill out of the air. He had not accounted for time zones. He turned to the domes behind him for confirmation. Mt Wilson it was.

With Betty that one time, there had been no time for a real hike. Derek was convinced she would love being close to nature and disconnecting from the rhythm of city life despite her lack of experience. After the winding drive up Mt Wilson though, she had been content with strolling along the paved road from the visitors’ parking lot to the observatories and beyond that, on the path to this very viewpoint poised on an outcrop of jagged rock. Within less than one hour, they had started driving back down the mountain road. Then and there, Derek had sworn to himself he would be back, and he had known that it would probably be without Betty.

Since that day, he had more than once found inner peace and counsel reminiscing. Today, the early morning landscape was staggering in its majesty, remarkably wild although it was so close to the beating heart of Los Angeles. He could make out a couple of footpaths winding down the slopes, but his feet would be injured in no time flat due to the light shoes he was wearing. And besides that, he had no water. He pulled back mentally. The vast scenery around him began to shrink and flatten at the same time until it took on the appearance of a back issue of National Geographic, like those piled up in the attic in New Jersey.

He hadn’t visited his parents in a couple of months, he noted as he stared blankly at the mountainscape. They were so emotionally dependent on their relationship with him. Maybe… no, it was a crazy idea. They had become set in their ways; at least a week’s notice would be necessary before dropping in on them.

Yet it was dawning on him. This thing, whatever it was, would allow him to experience parallel destinies. The potential was endless. Until now, it had only been trial and error. While the quiet valley beneath Mt Wilson remained motionless, on the first screen he observed himself climbing out of the taxi and entering his building. Meanwhile, Pretzel was barking at him as he tried to test the front brake on Paula’s bike. It was lunchtime in Baltimore, while the morning had only just begun in LA.

There was no time to waste, for who could tell when this miracle would end? He resolved to make the most of it – and to avoid some of the risks involved in materializing at various points in space-time. There were plenty of coordinates you would prefer not to be dropped at, such as the top of Mt Wilson at the wrong time of day, he shuddered, thinking that it could have been raining for all he knew, or even snowing at this time of year. And he had to be precise in what he wished for. Two feet ahead of where he was standing, he would have dropped at least one hundred feet to certain death. He was not interested, for now, in learning whether that meant real death or just one death of one avatar, or what. He would just make sure he didn’t land in the middle of an Interstate highway, a toxic waste site or a training camp for angry survivalists, for instance.

The image from atop Mt Wilson began swaying. He was walking toward the parking lot and fumbling for car keys in his pockets. There were none, naturally. He would have to figure something out, hitch a ride, make up a plausible explanation for his presence and get to a shop where he could buy hiking equipment. It was worth a try. Moreover, he had no choice until he figured out how to interrupt the scenarios he had set in motion. All in due course.

Until such time, he would have to trust each of his incarnations to make the right decisions wherever they were, until he could catch up with them. He simply could not maintain full control from his vantage point, as evidenced by his limited grasp on the three stories he had already unleashed. Encouragingly, he noted that he was sitting down at his desk and starting up his laptop, which meant he intended to get down to business – a reasonable course of action, necessary in fact. Paula had regained control of Pretzel by bribing him with dog biscuits, so that Derek was now able to engage in the maddening process of tightening the brakes. In his eagerness, he could detect an urge not just to help but also to impress. Did he have time for games of seduction? Priorities could be elusive.

It was then he remembered a plan, no, not a plan yet, an idea that had emerged during the past weeks. He had had to leave it on the back burner, but now it seemed that forgoing precious days of paid activities would not be required to think the project through and implement it. His perpetual longing for extra time appeared to be dissolving in the vast expanse of uncharted opportunities. It was worth taking the risk. For a couple of minutes, he considered everything that would have to come together. When he opened his eyes, he was wearing a broad grin. This could actually work, he reflected.

He hopped over to the first screen, the one that had initially connected him to the coffee shop and briefly watched as he typed at his desk back home. He willed himself back to his apartment, and there got up from his desk, packed a light suitcase, changed into a suit and returned to the task at hand on his laptop. Aloud, he commanded, “No communications with the outside world. Just get this done as fast as possible and go for a run once it is over.” He picked up the suitcase and summoned himself to switch locations. As he drifted over to the next slot, he peeked at himself eating a sandwich in Paula’s kitchen.

His next destination was New York.

A Pleasure to do Business

He crossed the lobby of the Beacon hotel, straight to the reception, feeling confident in his business attire and adopting the lofty attitude befitting his role as a busy executive. The man at the counter took his credit card to confirm the booking for three nights. He was a pale, balding youngish type with a rocky Eastern European accent in sync with his name tag: Jan Novak, Deputy Manager. He frowned at his terminal. “Sir, I am dreadfully sorry, but it looks like there is a problem with your card – would you happen to have another one?”

“Really? What seems to be the problem?”

“Well, the bottom line is that you are going to have to call your bank to unblock the card.”

“That’s crazy, I used it less than an hour ago! Is there a number?”

The man called Jan Novak scribbled a number on a leaflet and handed it to Derek over the counter. “Do not worry, Sir, I will hold on to the booking while you clear this up.”

The woman at the other end of the line was helpful but powerless. “What happens sometimes is that the system will pick up an abnormal transaction, let me check what’s going on… OK, so what we have here is an alert which may indicate that your card data was stolen – this could happen if you made a purchase on internet. We’re going to have to ask you to log in to your personal account and go through a full identity check to unlock your payments. You see, what I have here is a payment made exactly 53 minutes ago in Baltimore and now a request for payment in Manhattan. I mean, even by helicopter…”

Derek did not insist. The last thing he wanted was to attract attention to his new circumstances. He completed the booking with his personal card, took the elevator up to his room and ordered a club sandwich. The implications of this glitch were dawning on him. He could use multiple cards but, he surmised, the clearing systems were bound to end up spotting the issue. The only solution would be for him to assume different identities – until he did, he would resort to cash as much as possible.

He would have to live with such frustrating petty technicalities. There was more to it, however. The price tag on the sandwich reminded him this would be an expensive lifestyle no matter where he decided to stay. Each of him would need accommodation and basics like food and clothes. Of course, he pondered, he might save on transportation… He chuckled as he peered down at the traffic gliding along Broadway, fifteen stories below him. People were going about their business, shopping, coming home from school, meeting friends or falling in love. He closed his eyes and pictured being among the crowd at street level. If he wished it hard enough, he could be both down there and up here observing himself mingling with the multitude. A knock at the door interrupted his reverie. He was starving.

His cell phone rang while he was enjoying the expensive sandwich. Douglas? Douglas never called. They would text, just short, practical exchanges to meet up and hang out. Derek was not ready for this. He wasn’t comfortable with the parameters of his new life yet; he felt certain he should keep everything secret. He was also positive he would betray himself if he did not manage communications carefully. What if Derek’s phone had also rung at his desk in his apartment? At Paula’s? and in the middle of nowhere in Southern California? When the voice message notification came, Derek was still not done with his fries. They were the greasy kind. The message would have to wait.

By the time he had washed his hands, he had rehearsed the call to Morgan Bradley. Morgan had ambled through computer science in college as if it were nothing more than a necessary evil. He was ostensibly from a New England family somewhere up north. His summers were spent in towns with complicated Native American names Derek couldn’t remember. He sailed, rode horses and played tennis. Unlike Derek, Morgan had moved on to an MBA after college. From there, he had secured a position where he could make a killing on Wall Street and had started up his own outfit soon thereafter.

Morgan accepted the invitation to an after-work drink. In the meantime, Derek had a full East Coast afternoon ahead of him; first, he withdrew all the cash he could at the headquarters of his bank. The teller packed the bills neatly into Derek’s attaché case with a carefully expressionless face. Clutching its handle firmly in the taxi, Derek slipped gently back to where he could embrace the full extent of his existence. The crystal hall was now the only space where all of him could be found. Here, he reflected, I am, so to speak, “all there.”

The Limits to Control

Pandemonium had noisily broken out in all directions. Yet there was a tingling sensation in the back of his neck, and he could almost feel the warmth of Paula’s body as she whispered into his ear, “Are you sure you want to do this?” He was very sure indeed, despite his knowing it was not a great idea, despite Pretzel barking fiercely and glaring at him with bared teeth from the kitchen floor.

In his apartment, meanwhile, he was on the phone. This, he knew, could not be good. Above Pretzel’s dismayed loudness however, he heard himself shouting into his cell phone. He appeared to be in front of an ATM in a swanky shopping mall. “Listen, I don’t care what your stupid machine is telling you! You and I both know you can make this happen! No, Ma’am, I am not threatening you – but you are not listening, are you? I need my card back and I need it now. I’m telling you I am stranded in deepest suburbia; I’m half starving to death and my battery is going to die in a minute.”

The security guard was approaching with a puzzled smirk. Fuzzy, scratchy noises were coming from the walkie-talkie strapped to his chest. In a panic, Derek rushed to the California screen and into the shopping mall; there, he immediately concluded the phone conversation. “Thank you so much, you’ve been so helpful, Ma’am. Have a lovely day. Thanks again!” turning then to the security guard with a broad smile, “I am so sorry, officer, you know how it is, sometimes you just have to show a bit of character to get things done. But all is well, now, problem solved. Sorry for any trouble, officer.”

As the security guard drew nearer, Derek registered the oddly familiar facial features. They were devoid of hostility. The name tag pinned to the chest of this tall, pale, balding, youngish man could now be deciphered: Jan Novak. Dumbfounded, Derek exchanged glances with him. There was a slight nod and the faintest glimmer twinkled in Jan’s eye, then they were turning away from each other and Derek pulled away from the mall.

“Keep moving, only three hours left before your meeting with Morgan. This is an important date!” he was urging himself. The California screen had gone quiet save the faint muzak and the click-clacking of an escalator crying for maintenance. All he could hear now were the sighs coming from the semidarkness in Paula’s room, which were making him horny and curious. “An important date, indeed!” he muttered. That situation would clearly take care of itself. He willed himself back to his apartment.

There, he was not surprised to come across another self lying on the couch playing around on his phone, unfazed, as if he had been expecting a clone of himself to appear in the living room any minute. Derek sat at his desk, logged back on to his computer, assessed the progress on his project and picked up where the Derek on the couch had left off. After a few minutes, though, Derek got up from the couch and came to peer over Derek’s shoulder at the screen. “Right, he commented, great, that will avoid looping right back to the beginning. Hey, coffee?” When Derek came back with a mug, he was also carrying the old laptop. It wasn’t as fast, but for this kind of task it was still a good work horse. He sat opposite himself and focused on another part of the program.

Things were moving quickly. Within an hour, Derek had bought five extra laptops from his usual dealer in Baltimore, and ten more from a similarly trustworthy establishment in Bangalore. There, he settled into a suite at the Mango Mist, a hotel off the beaten track with a good Wi-Fi connection. By the time he set off for the bar in midtown Manhattan, forty Dereks were coordinating across eight time zones, mostly staying put in their hotel rooms and pretending they were traveling as twins when pushed. At this rate and with proper internal management, team Derek could produce a beta-version in three days. Although cash was disappearing alarmingly fast, he did resolve to cover the drinks at Morgan’s favorite power bar.

Puttin’ on the Ritz

Nick’s Lounge & Cocktail Bar came across as unassuming until you noticed the doorman with the kid gloves. Despite the dim lighting, Derek immediately spotted his friend seated in a booth, fiddling with his phone – “Perfect timing,” he congratulated himself as he was greeted by his friend, “it is not a bad thing to be late for an important date – but just a bit.”

An hour later, Derek left the bar a bit tipsy and underwhelmed at how easy it had been. Morgan evidently placed considerable trust in Derek based on undoubtedly foggy memories of a string of student day parties. A meeting with a group of investors would be set up on the day after next, for which the team would whip up a presentation outlining concept, business plan and timeline in a matter of hours.

Persuading Morgan had required a fair number of outright lies and bold statements that could best be described as wishful thinking. Derek had intimated that he already had a market study; he had overstated progress on the ongoing development work and was clueless as to what a business model should look like. He had also conceded that he was not developing the project alone, which had evidently irked Morgan for confidentiality reasons. When Derek had brazenly expressed full trust in his team, an eyebrow was even raised. He didn’t know the codes of this kind of conversation. Trust had to be assumed, he realized, not stated – or there would be no conversation at all. Well, he couldn’t exactly get himself to sign forty identical NDAs, could he? Maybe one would be enough.

At the Beacon, Jan Novak was still on duty and handed him his key with a hint of warmth in his smile. “Your first key is with the other gentleman, Sir. You may find him in the bar if he is not in your room.” Derek had slipped up; he should have remembered there were two of him at the hotel, now. As he approached the elevator, he watched in slight disbelief as his alter ego leaned on the bar in deep conversation with an elegant woman – he rushed up to the room.

Derek had lost count and could no longer locate all the screens. How had Paula and he managed to overcome the awkwardness after so many years in the friend zone? At least he could address Douglas’ message now that he had a bit of time. He found, though, that it had already been read, minutes only after it had come in. Apprehensively, he played the message back.

“Dude, you’re not going to believe this, remember I told you about Paula’s friend Joy? Well, she said she had spotted you and Paula walking that dog of hers, whatever its name is, Cracker Jack or Pickle, whatever, I did the math and I told her it couldn’t possibly have been you over in Patterson Park because shortly before that, you were sitting with me across town, you know what I mean? Like ‘Beam me up, Scotty!’ She even hinted that you and Paula were looking really friendly. ‘Close’ was the term she used. I think you have a look-alike that’s got Paula’s attention. Is that weird or what? Talk to you soon.”

Bewildered, Derek checked his app and realized calls had been made from his number to both Douglas and Paula in the past couple of hours. Just then, there was a click at the door to his room, and he entered with his new woman friend from the bar downstairs. He cleared his throat, stared in his own eyes in disbelief, then turned to his elegant companion who appeared to be contemplating the potential of this unexpected development.

A nonsense of place

Lazily, Derek took a sip from his Daiquiri. Against a backdrop of dramatic sunset colors sprawled Kuta Beach, empty during the low season. An indolent Jan Novak arrived with a fresh order of peanuts. His evening shift, Derek observed casually. How quickly time goes by.

He reached for his alarm clock. It was still dark in Baltimore, but there was a lot he wanted to get done. Ever since Paula had left for Bali, he had been in charge of Pretzel. It was not a full-time job, the nervous dog just required structure. Joy and Douglas would be over to finalize the presentation for the new marketing plan. Lunch was in order.

Being from out of town, he would never get used to the cycling lanes in Amsterdam. Before crossing a street, he kept on checking for traffic in the wrong direction. Living with Jaap, though, had probably saved him quite a bit of trouble with the authorities. The guy was moody at times, to be sure. Derek could swear there was something unresolved in his life. Nevertheless, it was useful to be on the right side of an edgy cop in his circumstances, and for some reason Jaap couldn’t get enough of the tales from his times in Indonesia, most of which were made up.

Some of the events unfolding in the endless hall of Derek-ness had naturally been less fortunate than others, he ruminated, as he polished Jan Novak’s black armored Mercedes. He couldn’t complain; driving the boss around Minsk had its perks with the girls – only with Jan’s permission, of course. The violence did disturb him. This run would likely end in a bloodbath. There were worse fates. Jan had told him about a gentleman “just like him,” who was serving life sentence in a prison near Diyarbakir. The poor man had been framed for a terrorist bombing – he had fallen madly in love with the sister of the real bomber, who later turned out to be a self-proclaimed freedom fighter herself, it was revealed when she found refuge in Minsk, thanks to one of Jan’s so-called “business ventures.”

Strings had been pulled, passports had been forged, identities had been faked. Many risks had been taken. Interpol was intrigued and secret service agencies around the world had shared lists of Dereks, all of them incomplete and padded with fake entries. There had been disappearances, documented deaths and other unpalatable situations such as begging in the streets of Mumbai, putting in 15-hour days in illegal cobalt mines in Zaire or trying to make a living selling life insurance in Morocco or as an author of fiction. For a significant share of Dereks, alcohol and drugs had been the only substitute to the exhilaration of the first couple of months.

None of these tragic destinies amounted to much in comparison with the misery of solitary life in Baltimore. For nine unforgettable weeks, Derek and Paula had fed on each other with more lust and affection than either of them had ever hoped for. Their love was all-encompassing, passionate, selfless, generous, radiant, a force of great beauty and yet down-to-earth. It was Pretzel who set off the alarm, Pretzel who had never fully accepted the strange competitor and potential threat to his beloved mistress. It was Pretzel again who could sense another Derek miles away and would behave skittishly when he did. Thus, only Pretzel could eventually trigger Paula’s wrath when he ran amok as she was walking him on Broadway one late night. Without Pretzel, she would not have noticed the scandalous trio formed by a pair of twin Dereks holding an elegant woman much too tightly from either side, the three of them laughing drunkenly as they rushed from a taxi into the Beacon hotel.

 “Be careful what you wish for!” Derek shouted to the pale green walls of the room in which he was confined. At times, confusion invaded his brain like a swarm of locusts. He had stopped caring about people ages ago. But the things he knew… It didn’t matter that nobody was paying attention. He had forgotten how to escape from this place anyway. If he screamed loud enough, the nurse would appear. Ultimately, he would have to take the pills. “Nurse, you know, don’t you? you know I am also elsewhere, many times over – right?”

Nurse Koskinen especially would hold him until his tears had dried, like tonight. “Kyllä, Herra Derek,” she comforted him, “we understand, yes, living more than one life is a terrible thing. You are safe here in Helsinki, with your friends.”

It’s no use, he would repeat to himself as he was falling asleep.

Ilma Koskinen had chosen her line of work because she loved people. Her robust religious upbringing had promoted tolerance, resilience, and low-paid care carried out mostly by single women. Still, she had to brace herself against the power of so many delusions of the human mind. “Poor man,” she was thinking to herself as tram 9 pulled up, right on time at 1:32 a.m. promising a welcome shelter from the cold wind and rain. “So distressed. How could it be true, though, dear God? Are not all Your children endowed with the grace of being unique?”

She crossed herself as she boarded the tram.

The familiar pale, balding youngish night conductor had nodded at her. Her heart fluttered. Was there a twinkle in his eye? A warmth such as a friend might convey, stemming from a bond beyond words? Her cheeks were burning as she slunk into her favorite seat, averting her eyes from the unusual man sitting across the aisle. At this hour, she was generally the only passenger. Reassuringly, she saw the oddly dressed White Rabbit dashing across her screen. Two stops later, the man crossed his legs, creating a diversion from the blessings and prayers she was directing at her dear patients. Ever so slowly, she fixed her gaze on the dark window. There, she could observe her fellow passenger’s reflection without appearing immodest. She recognized the man’s face immediately.