This Is Not Really Happening

The room we entered had the same outdated paisley maroon wallpaper that plastered the hall. But the room shouldn’t exist, the dimensions didn’t add up, it would have cut through Henry’s old room and taken over the back yard.

Yet, here it was. On the far wall were two paintings inside ornate frames, one of which was an old man grinning, the other was a scene of a boat coasting along a canal. They were familiar, like they had once been part of our house, though I didn’t remember that until now. The Passengers and researchers tiptoed behind us into the room. Madeline circled around slowly, completely slack jawed.

Heather broke into tears. “It’s here. I’m back. Finally, I’m back!”

Barbara glided over to the back corner where an old-style computer monitor and clunky keyboard rested atop a familiar dining table, its rounded contours sparking a memory. On the old monitor typed in black screen text mode were the words: This is not really happening.

“What does it mean?” I asked.

Barbara grinned. “I don’t know.”

“You didn’t type this? I thought after spending thirty years in here…”

“I wasn’t in here for thirty years,” Barbara corrected me. “This place, it’s just a waiting room. There’s another door. See it?”

I looked over to the far wall between the two paintings and there it was, another door. My mind must have overlooked it.

“You didn’t overlook it,” Barbara said, as though she had read my thoughts. Heather gasped excitedly as she, too, suddenly recognized the other door’s existence. Barbara moved towards it.

“That night you girls and I entered this room. When the other door appeared, I opened it.”

“I remember it now!” Heather cried out. “You opened it, and the door where we entered began to close.”

It all came back. I suddenly recalled the creaking sound of the door to the hall slowly closing, a memory that could only exist here in this room. Barbara stood by the other door and urged us to follow her. I panicked, Heather was eager to follow, Barbara was intent on going through. The door to our reality was closing. Barbara waved us over, her smile so inviting, which I had always sought to elicit. I always wanted to please her. And in that moment I realized whatever I did would not be enough. As she passed through the threshold, Heather moved to join her. But then I grabbed Heather’s arm and jerked us back into the hallway.

I turned to Heather. I knew she remembered exactly what I just remembered, she knew my thoughts as I knew hers, and Barbara’s, Madeline’s, the Passengers, and the researchers. Something about this place made it that all of our thoughts were shared. I expected Heather to be angry with me. I had taken her away from something she had sought for the next three decades.

“I…I pulled you away.”

Heather nodded. “It’s okay. You didn’t want to lose me.

“And you had every reason to do that,” Barbara said. “The person that is Barbara––who I am back there is not what you deserved.”

“I don’t understand. You’re not really you on the other side?” Madeline asked, gesturing to the other door.

“Actually, I am not me over there,” Barbara answered, gesturing over to the open door leading back to the hall. “None of us are. In fact ‘I’ is such a strange concept.”

I bobbled my head. “Are you saying we have no self-awareness on the other side?”

“It’s more complicated. Here,” Barbara offered her understanding of consciousness. With all of our thoughts transparent to one another I began to lose which ones were my own.

Barbara focused her thoughts onto me. “Do you remember when you were a child, the time you looked into a mirror and you tried to see yourself from––not as Rhiannon, not as someone else either, but somehow being conscious without being tied to Rhiannon?”

I didn’t know how old I was, but I remember that moment peering into my own eyes in the bathroom, the dual fluorescent lights on either side of the mirror. For a moment, I felt I was not Rhiannon, but saw me from another perspective, my consciousness contained into the identity as Rhiannon. I remember pulling away terrified by the momentary loss of who I was.

“Is that what’s on the other side?” Madeline asked eagerly.

Barbara grinned. “Consciousness has dimensions. You touched on something beyond your singular dimension of self-awareness when you gazed into that mirror, Rhiannon.”

We all felt something suddenly.

“It’s time, isn’t it?” Heather informed us, though we all knew. The door was ready to be opened. Barbara walked over and opened it to let in a cacophony of light and sound. I couldn’t make sense of it.

“I wish you would join us, my sweet.” Barbara said as she gently brushed her long fingers across my cheek. An hour ago, I would have smacked her hand away, but now I didn’t mind her touch or her calling me “my sweet.”

I momentarily reasoned that I might as well jump in with them and leave it all behind, but then... “I can’t leave Henry and Daniel.”

“I know. And you’re right. As Barbara, I couldn’t be a good mother to either of you, but she always loved you and Henry as much as she could.”

She gave me a hug and I hugged her back. Barbara was flawed, a terrible mom, selfish, and pretentious. It was okay to still love her and be flawed myself.

She walked into the chaos of light and waved goodbye, her arm turning to an afterimage. The Passengers didn’t waste any time as they dove into the light, so too did Dr. Berkenstein and an assistant. I heard the door to our world creaking to slowly close.

Heather was next. She took my hands. “Thank you for being my best friend, Ravishing. You were my world.”

“And you, Heavenly, were my lifeline. I know we just reunited, but I’m going to miss you terribly. Text me over there if you can, okay?”

She chuckled through tears. “I’ll try.”

We hugged once more and she ran into the light, becoming an after image. The door back to the familiar hallway was closing and the other researchers made their way out. It was just Madeline and I now. I placed both hands around her cheeks, and kissed her forehead. “I don’t know how real I am, Honey, but there’s one thing I want you to know. If there is anything that is real, that is true of me, it’s my love for you. Don’t you ever forget that.”

Madeline nodded, unable to speak as she tried to hold back tears. I gave her one last hug, embracing every final moment with her. “I love you. I will always love you.” The creaking of the door to my world told me it was time to go and I broke from our embrace and headed for the door.

I struggled not to collapse with the knowledge that this was it. My girl, how could I ever let her go? The cacophony was becoming unbearable. I had to leave. I was right at the threshold when I felt a grip on my wrist. I turned around to find it was Madeline. Filled with conflict, grief, and love, she nodded and gripped onto my wrist tighter. I clasped back and pulled her through the threshold with me back just as the door to the hall closed.

We were huddled on the floor, the dim pre-dawn light cast into the hallway from the open door to Henry’s bedroom. I looked up to find the door to the waiting room was no longer there. The hall was quiet now. Lying next to me was Madeline who slowly stirred as if from a spell.

“Mom?” Madeline whispered.

“Yes, Hon?” I caressed her face and felt a rush of gratitude.

“Can we go to see Daniel?”