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Preview of CONTINUUM

THE WEIRD PART

Of all the things I guessed may come of the black box that mysteriously appeared in my apartment, parallel universes wouldn’t have made the short list.

It was a muggy late June evening—and the four year anniversary of the worst day of my life—when I came home to discover it. I’d spent the day at my very vanilla day-job listening to a co-worker complain about how involved her mom was trying to be in her life. I tried my able best to be empathetic, despite not being able to relate at all.

Instead of a family home, I had my little apartment that felt horribly empty since my roommate/best friend/greatest person in the world, Cheyenne, left two months prior. She was off to pursue a dream job in New York, while I was left to my lonely cat lady existence in the heart of South Philadelphia.

All I had left now was Bucky, who was right at the door when I walked in that dreary day. My usually mellow cat seemed elated to see me, nuzzling my legs and meowing loudly like he hadn’t seen me in weeks. I kicked off my shoes by the door and scooped him up into my arms, burying my face in his long pitch black fur to plant kisses on his head.

I rubbed his ears, the left of which had a little gray splotch that vaguely looked like a star, and plopped down on the sofa. Cuddling with him made the gnawing sense of sadness that always accompanied this dreaded June day feel just a little less marked. “What do you say Buck, Twitch streams and ice cream tonight? How’s that sound?”

That was when I noticed the box.

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