#alternatelives
I began walking before I understood
why the path had chosen me.
The map, tucked into my jacket pocket,
felt less like a piece of paper
and more like
a small, warm heart
beating against my ribs.
It didn't wait for me to consult it;
whenever I hesitated at a fork in the road,
the paper would grow heavy
on the side I was meant to take,
pulling my body into the turn
like a lead weight.
The map was a picky companion.
In my hands, the ink didn't just rearrange;
it pulsed.
When I tried to focus on the landmarks,
the names of the streets would blur
into the names of people I used to know,
only to snap back into illegible squiggles
the moment I blinked.
It wasn't showing me where to go;
it was showing me
what I was carrying.
I reached a section of the path
where the light turned the color of a bruised plum.
There, sitting perfectly still in the middle of a clearing,
was a single wooden chair.
It was the exact shade of blue
as my grandmother’s kitchen table —
a specific, chipped cerulean
that shouldn't have existed
out here in the "nowhere."
I felt a sudden, sharp pang of a regret
I thought I’d buried:
the memory of a phone call
I let go to voicemail three years ago,
a silence that had eventually turned
into a permanent wall.
The scent from the map intensified then —
no longer just a faint hint,
but a thick cloud of rain
on hot pavement and old books.
It was the smell of every "if only"
I had ever whispered.
The map stopped pulsing.
It went cold.
I realized then
that the city of glass
wasn't ahead of me.
I was standing in the middle of it,
built from the transparent pieces
of the life I hadn't lived.
I didn't need to find the doorway.
I just needed to acknowledge
it was there.
I took one breath of that impossible air
and turned around.
When I finally looked back,
the path behind me
had already forgotten
I was ever there.
Feb 7
Feb 7, 2026 at 6:02 PM UTC
I've had a series of dreams where things went differently then they did in real life.
Where nobody left.
And nobody was hurt.
One dream in particular keeps coming back, the one where nothing really makes sense, but it makes me feel better sometimes.
I remember running, and she was beside me.
But I immediately knew it was a dream because she was taller than me.
She's never been taller than me. And here I am...
Running beside a 5 foot 8 version of my once best friend.
What?!
This dream is so weird.. and yet it feels so normal.
She's never had to look down to see me.
Heck, she's never had a reason to look up to me either.
For height eye contact or otherwise.
And somehow this dream follows me, her, and her significant other into a building.
I'm in a hallway saying that I'm on my way to a specific room.
She says she'll follow me there.
For some reason, because this is a dream, I go to a completely different room, a shop actually.
Woodshop. Like the one I went to at school.
I don't even know what I'm doing there, I'm not sanding or doing any work, they are. I don't know what they're doing, I'm watching this alternate version of a person just...
Exist.
And suddenly she cuts her hand on a saw blade. Much like I have in shop class.
I don't panic, I grab paper towel, and start wrapping her hand.
She's gonna be fine.
She's gonna be fine..
There's no dialogue, nobody says anything, I'm just taking care of someone I care about.
This dream is just playing out.
I wake up...
I feel content and somewhat happy for a second.
But then I remember I was dreaming.
I was dreaming...
And that's okay.
But I return to a reality where none of that happened.
And I suddenly feel the utopic dream leave me.
I can't even remember most of the dream, and this is all I have.
This isn't the first time I've woken up from a better dream life to find that I'm here.
But I do need to realize that I'm here.
Despite everything.
Jul 5, 2017
Jul 5, 2017 at 11:22 PM UTC