When you walk into my apartment, this is one of the first things you would see. This is an artifact from a parallel universe. Travel between universes must be difficult, hence the streak going through the heads of my other me's parents.
Because in that universe? My mom and dad got married. I wonder what that must have been like for that other me. It would have been interesting if they'd actually stayed the course. What happened on that Earth that didn't happen here?
I'm certain other me is completely different from me. He's probably a huge reader, like me. I'll bet he's a writer, too, but I'm thinking he's known for crime novels instead of horror. Not ugly stuff, like Strip, but something more along the lines of a detective series. And I think he's got a mistrust of authority, but it doesn't turn into disgust, like it does for me. I'm also pretty sure he's not nearly as fucked in the head as I am. I'll bet he grew up in a healthy fashion, at least mentally.
I don't think he's an alcoholic. He might even be a straight arrow. I wouldn't be surprised to find that he's a little athletic, and he's probably more of an outdoorsman than I am.
But he doesn't have my siblings. He probably has a set of his own, but they're not the same as mine. My siblings are all technically half-siblings, but we don't look at it that way. I love them all, but I'm worried that they may not even exist in that alternate reality.
And that right there is enough for me to abandon that fantasy. I've raged against reality all my life, but in general I'm satisfied with how I turned out. For all my mental issues and physical problems and the emotional rollercoaster that being me entails, I'm happy with who I am, darkness and all. Do I wish certain things about me were different? Sure. But I'm not going to demonstrate the uselessness of wishing in one hand, shitting into the other.
I find this to be an unusual artifact, nonetheless. Look at the date. Mom was just about to graduate high school, and Dad still had another year to go. I'd make my debut three years later, so I wasn't even a twinkle in their eyes.
When I was a kid I used to get angry all the time over how cheated I'd been by life because my parents had separated before I was born. I wanted to know what it was like to be raised by two parents at the same time. I knew that in that situation I wouldn't have gone through some of the horrors I did, the ones that robbed me of a healthier mindframe, the horrors that robbed me of being a healthier human being in general.
I let it go finally a few years back when I realized, hey, I really enjoy my own company. Maybe I didn't get as fucked up as I thought I did. I look back at those times, and I read the notes that my mom and dad wrote to me, and I can feel the love radiating off the pages. I lucked out. They could have been twisted, vile creatures.
Now I look at their pictures from before I was born, and I wonder what kind of people they were. What went through their minds when they looked into each others eyes? What they felt when they watched the news or went to school or hung out with their friends. How did they meet? What went wrong?
Who were they before they became Mom and Dad?
I can't ask them. They're both gone.
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