Parallel Universes

I live in the World of Things Appear and Disappear. This happens without warning, at random, any time of day, no matter how organized I think I am, or how carefully I try, just this once, to keep track of my physical world. I’ll have my phone in my hand, knowing I’m holding it, and then I look down and it’s not there. And it’s not in my purse, nor in the pocket where I normally keep it, nor on the desk or the counter or the table. It’s nowhere at all. Just, suddenly, not there.

I'm not just talking socks, mind you. Socks are for amateurs; really, all you need is a dryer. I’m talking about phone charger cords, bank cards, bills that must be paid, remote controls, important letters, scraps of envelope upon which I have hurriedly scribbled a crucial phone number, my brush or winter scarves or a shoe—one missing shoe, from the pair I decided to wear that day and nothing else will do. Anything in my life that will make it run more smoothly and efficiently is apt to disappear at will. And not MY will, but some magical mystery gremlin-ish will of the universe that plays impish tricks on its inhabitants for fun, or spite, or both.

My friend Alicia told me once that one day the remote control for the TV in her living room disappeared. Suddenly, without explanation. They used it every day; it was always there, and then it was gone. They looked all over the living room, and finally, mystified, the house. They tore apart the couches and looked underneath cushions, behind the lounger and the rocker and the bookshelf, under covers, in the cracks, between and beneath and beside. But it was nowhere.

There was no reason for it to disappear; their children had moved out of the house and the remote was half the size of the cat. Hard to imagine that Ben, their small orange feline, would all of a sudden find pleasure in transporting a boring, everyday, metal-slash-plastic device it had lived with for years to some secret unknown location. So they gave up looking and lived without. For months, actually, because what, really, do you do when your remote disappears, short of buying a new TV, something they were not inclined to do?

And then, months later, literally, there it was. All of a sudden. Right on the floor, in the middle of the living room.

My friend Alicia swears there is a parallel universe with small wicked goblins, devil-like Borrower creatures who travel back and forth, collecting objects for their anthropological research, and who then return them without warning when they are done. If so, they have defined my house as a prime location for study. So I spend inordinate amounts of time searching for whatever it is they have absconded with that day. I don't mind their curiosity; but really, don't you think they could be at least somewhat considerate about other people's things? Leave a note, perhaps, telling me what they've borrowed, and when they intend to return it? So I don’t run around the house searching for it like a Cornish hen without her head, convinced I’ve lost my mind?

But alas, the Borrowers never do. And so I live on, forever searching, flummoxed, perplexed, in a world where all of a sudden Things Appear, and Disappear, and Reappear, without any warning at all.