The Other Dina

I remember that random Sunday in the fall, somewhere in 1987. Dillan was just a baby. It was the first, or maybe the second, year car seats for babies became a thing. He wasn’t walking yet, at any rate. We had been to my in-law's house that day, a lazy, enjoyable family time. It had gotten dark on our way home. We had a dog in the backyard, and I was anxious to see him, feed him. Our bedroom in this tiny first house had a door to the outside you could enter from the carport. That’s the one we used as a daily entrance/exit. I had Dillan on my left hip in order to turn the key with my right hand and use my alternate hip to bump the door open, a classic mom move. The air smelled funny, as I recall. I saw many things all at once, though none of them made sense. The curtains were blowing. I had left a window up. But, the window opening was pitch black. Where was the window screen? Why were my underwear on the floor? Where was the lovely console television we’d purchased from the rent-to-own store? It wasn’t until I heard my husband’s voice that I snapped into reality. “We’ve been robbed. Get back into the car, now. He could still be inside.” One drive to the police station later, I sat at the desk of an officer with a very tired and hungry baby, worrying about my very hungry dog, and still trying to sort out my parallel universe of feelings. Had I walked in on a burglary in process? Or, was there another Dina in a world that existed 15 minutes behind the one I currently occupied who’d met a much different fate?

I may have started reading Stephen King in high school for the cool factor. I mean, these were the King years. Carrie had been a huge cinematic hit. Christine had done the same. Everyone loved Stephen King. Yet, he still had that penchant for horror avantgarde that made people see you in a different light when you spouted his quotes. Nothing, however, prepared me for the brain scramble that was the King/Straub 1984 collaboration called The Talisman, about a boy who learns the secret of traveling simultaneously through concurrent universes. The two worlds are inhabited by all the same people, just with different names and backgrounds. Twinners, they’re called. When you pop into a land called the territories, it seems similar, until you realize they don’t have electricity or modernday plumbing. Things are simply one degree on tilt. That feeling, the one I had when I first read and then re-read that book, has followed me for nearly 40 years. It caught up to me last week. Something that was really different seemed nearly the same.

Meet me, the person who gets the bad things. I’m not the only one who agrees. Recently, I signed up for a premium Spotify account. I keep music playing in my kitchen 24/7. The animals appreciate classical when I’m gone. Cooking dinner is best done with a 20s jazz soundtrack, like Ma Rainey. Eating is the perfect time for Coltrane. Anyway, my Spotify won’t link to the premium version. My phone still offers up loud commercials. The thingamabobber in the kitchen that plays music will do the premium version for a few minutes, then pop back onto the free account. I’ve had young people with higher understandings than I do try and figure it out to no avail. Spotify says they don’t get it either. New watches don’t work on me. Alarms refuse to alarm. I’m the one who had a massive health crisis a few weeks after losing a child. I’m not superstitious, but I am a little stitious (The Office humor – you’re welcome). I had outpatient surgery several years ago in order to revise a mastectomy problem that just would not cooperate. A friend of mine was out of her mind worried when I ordered her not to show up in the waiting room. She said, “It’s just that it’s you. If something bad is going to happen, it’s going to happen when everyone says it won’t and it’s going to happen to you.”

Last week, I walked out of Walmart. My first thought was TORNADO, except it wasn’t raining. The sun was out. The air, however, had that green look to it. Cars were honking. Tires were screeching. Several people were running toward me. Some people were standing up and squatting down repeatedly, as if doing calisthenics in jeans was a great idea. Most were walking as normal with no unusual expressions or hurriedness at all. I heard some odd little pops off in the distance. My reflexes took over and I backed up into that transitional foyer where you can do things like make a key, walk into the beauty salon, or get a buggy. No one said a word. My brain was telling me crazy things. “Why is no one talking?” was one of them. Eventually, the air stopped looking green and I began feeling downright silly, just standing there, barely dodging buggy wheels and toddlers with sticky fingers & lollipops. I went out to my car. That’s when I saw the police tape behind Chili’s restaurant. A few blocks away, in the safety of some other parking lot, social media was happy to tell me there’d been a shooting, a shoot-out, or none of the above, depending on the source. There was a story about a traffic stop that involved a warrant and blanks in a pow pow. But, I know the real truth. I just hope Dina in the alternate universe 15 minutes behind us is doing ok today.