Into Earths

Mono

The sun crept gently across my face, and I was awakened.

I turned to the side of my bed expecting to see Mum, with the usual hug she gave me each morning after she'd opened the window shutters, but she wasn't there.

I soliloquised that perhaps she was sick.

She's never missed a day of this ritual in all the twelve years I had spent on earth with her."

I could recall that even when she was sick the year before she had not failed, so why would she now?
I made up my mind to go see her after my bath.

I went towards my mother's room and knocked at the door but I got no response, then I headed down the stairs and the smell of bacon and eggs filled the air, this normally would have made my stomach cringe with hunger but I felt nothing.

I rushed into the kitchen, and mum was dishing out breakfast. So why didn't she come to my room this morning?
She looked happy and she was singing like she always when dealing with stuff in the kitchen.

I walked up to her and a voice I could recognise as my own said;

"Mum breakfast looks delicious."

"That's sweet of you Zoe, come on here's your milk," my Mum said.

"Awww, Mum I can pour my own milk, i'm a big girl now, and i'm going to be drinking coffee soon," the voice continued.

I knew I wasn't saying anything but I was definitely sure it was my voice.

I glanced through the room, and sitting at the dining table was myself !! (Another me).

But I was here standing by the kitchen counter, so how could I be here and there at the same time?

I couldn't fathom the situation, perhaps I had been endowed with some cool new super powers that aided me in making duplicates of myself or maybe I just had a twin I had never met before today.

why would mum hide such essential information from me and not even cuddle me into the news, she couldn't just surprise me in this manner even if that were true.

Wait a minute, no one even noticed me.

"Mum!" I called out, but it was like she didn't even hear me.

I tapped her on the shoulder, but she was rather unruffled.

"Mummy!" I screamed but it was like I was screaming in a vacuum.

I knocked over a plate and Mum blamed the other me, she tried to defend herself but mum just didn't want to hear it.

Why were they acting like sey I no exist, was I invisible?

And who was that girl?

She was me I knew it, but I couldn't comprehend it.

Mum! Mum!
I called relentlessly, but she didn't hear me no one could, and they couldn't see me too.

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My Dad, I had thought would acknowledge the feel of another presence, But I was sadly mistaken, because he walked right past me and on to the coffee maker.

He poured himself some coffee then bade mum farewell, and the other me followed him to the car and off they went.

I suppose that he must have dropped the other me, at school on his way to work, as he had always the same to me.

I couldn't understand still why all these things were happening, why?
Perhaps it was all just a dream and I would still wake up, although I highly doubted that possibility, because I never thought I was having dreams in actual dreams.
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At 2:00pm the other me came home.
I was not relieved at this happening, because I had thought it was merely my imagination and that if I just went with the flow and waited it out everything would go back to normal.

She dropped her bag on the couch and brought out her physics assignment, I sat next to her as she couldn't see me.

The assignment wasn't due till the following week's Monday, but as she was me she got right at it , it was based on doing an independent study on black holes and the big bang theory.

The way she quizzed herself, getting all the answers right made me kinda admire my other self.

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Four hours passed and mum came home from the clinic where she worked the afternoon shift.

She had left the hospital in the city where she was a cardiologist when she married dad and they'd both moved to the suburbs where she now worked at the local community clinic.

It had been her dream to move to the suburb with white picket fences in her retirement years, when all her kids had gone to college but now, her dream had come too quickly.

You'd think she'd hated it but she didn't. In a sense that she wouldn't leave not even for a million dollars, which I on the other hand wouldn't think twice, before taking the cash and getting the fuck outta there.

Anyways, mum had always hated life in the city because; it was too noisy, too many people and cars in the streets, air pollution from industries, and too many tall buildings which had taken almost all the space, which also meant everyone had to stay in apartments and flats, you couldn't have a place -house of your own, also the worst of all was that along dark alleys thugs were sure mug you at night.
So it was all these disadvantages that made mum quickly adapt to the suburban lifestyle.

"Mom," Zoe called from the living room.

"You should have called me to help with the groceries, those bags are too heavy for you , you should know better you working with a chiropractor and all." She said as she collected the fully stocked brown paper bags, from Her.

I too wanted to help, but how could i? when I wasn't even sure of what was happening. Besides I was practically in another dimension. So I just walked closely behind them as they moved to the kitchen.

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Mom had finished making dinner when dad came home.

He was not as cheerful as he usually was that day, when he came home to a plate of hot mashed potatoes, gravy seasoned with curry and peppered chicken fresh out of the oven.

My other self asked him why he was moody? but he simply said that he'd had a bad day and all he needed was to eat and have a good night sleep.

Then I asked him, ---that is; my my other self asked him; what happened?
But Mum told her not to push it and that he would be fine the next day and it was true.

The next day pops woke up as happy as a clown getting ready for work, and as he went into the bathroom I called out to him, to say Good morning and for a slight second there, I thought he had acknowledged me when I saw the other me waving at him.
I bit my lips.

I had begun to hate her.