Wednesday October 21, 2020

I read the daily news blip on my phone. Pope Francis says he supports civil unions for same-sex couples.

“About freaking time.” I say to myself.

Back home this happened during the 90s with Pope John Paul II, of course my world doesn’t have its head buried up its ass to the shoulders.

I have been attempting to reach out to the Audit Manager since his summary dismissal and instruction to maintain the distance and noncommunication with any other dimensional traveler policy, and apparently that also meant him.

I have been having anxiety attacks off and on since that day. To have a piece of home so close and then to have it ripped away, it was just a little too much for me to process. I have continued my reports to the uni and they continue to get removed from my Chromebook after, but who knows if that wasn’t just an automated process that is done on this side of the fence, it may not even be getting back home if there are other people here that receive it.

The euphoria of home ownership didn’t last as long as I had hoped. Angelica has taken to digging up the plants that I have added to the yard and crapping in the hole. I can’t see this as anything but deliberate. She likely feels how off my energy is and she gets a dogpile of anxiety herself from it. Thankfully Instant Cart delivers whatever I need as far as treats for cat bribery and Kraken Rum as a treat for me. This side of the fence has a lot of terrible things we don’t have on my side, but Kraken Rum has been one of the best highlights of this universe. I even brought some home one of the last times I was able to.

My highschool mate James loved it and asked if I could bring another bottle back for him specifically. I had a bitch of a time sneaking it back, so I told him it might be hard, but I would give it a go. I am buying another bottle to replace the one I bought to smuggle to him that I had drunk. I have done this more than a few times, each time feeling like a jerk because I drank it in the first place.

There really isn’t much of a hope that I will be getting home anytime soon, but if I need to evacuate when the connection is reestablished, I should have a bottle on hand… that isn’t open. I open the app again and add two more bottles to the cart. The shopper hasn’t gotten to the store yet, so the order is still open. I add a note to get The Kraken Attacks New Jersey bottle if they are there. I have an empty bottle with that label, but I want to bring James a proper limited edition label.

My home is now nicely adorned with things that caught my interest. I even have two game consoles and a nice sound system, but nothing is helping me forget about the home I left behind and may never see again. There is a hole in my heart. A true longing for home has gripped me and I have no way of filling it, even with material things, security, and wishful thinking. The drink helps. The leaf as well, once I found a provider in the area.

That’s another thing about this universe. How did they ever outlaw marijuana? I mean, it is medicine that grows wild and thrives under minimal care. Here it’s expensive, illegal, and demonized. I tried to figure out where the deviation took place, but their history is really hard to pick the truth of it out from the trash propaganda they force upon them. This America has completely white washed their history into little highlights that play in their favor with the least amount of poor light on their country as possible.

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They acknowledge slavery, but only just. They attempt to recast the Confederacy as though it was just about the states wanting to protect their rights, but leave out, “Their right to keep and sell other people, and those people’s children.” I mean, how do you conflate an issue like that? They are simply in denial of how terrible their country has been in the past.

I want to go home.

My cell phone chimes with a message from the shopper.

The message is a picture of a full shelf of Kraken Rum limited edition bottles and a nerdy looking gal with a pokemon face mask on, holding one bottle up with a hand covering her left eye. The text below reads, “Arr matey, we found a whole case of booty.”

I let out a genuine laugh for the first time in over a week.

“Arr lass, up me order to the case and ye take one bottle for yerself,” I reply.

Another picture is sent in reply and it’s the gal now riding the trolley with my case in the cart. She is clearly standing on the trolley’s carriage bar. Her mask is still on, but the smile she has beneath it is clearly ear to ear.

“Who is taking these pictures?” I say to myself while saving each to my phone.

I head to my fridge and check to see if I have any Real Sugar Pepsi or if they are in the cart. I smile at my luck when I see that I not only have that, but Irn-Bru, Dublin Dr. Pepper, and two glass bottle cokes from Mexico. Crap. With the hostilities at the border it might make these hard to find soon. Damn the luck. Pepsi is okay, but when it comes to Kraken rum, I really like having a knee high Coke to pour from to mix.

This is another thing I hate about this world. How am I supposed to explore the palette of the world with such inflated prices for import? Back home we have the transcontinental high speed rail. Importation costs were fair. I could get my favorite soda from Scotland without having to pay a 300% markup.

I hate this place and I want to go home. Hopefully the giant squid will help tame the despair.

As I am booting up my laptop to begin the log of the day, I hear a knock at the door. As I exit the kitchen I see my delivery was being dropped off. As I stroll toward the door I hear some giggling and there is a shout of “Avast! Yer booty be delivered!” Just before I get to the door I can hear the alert on my phone going off. I open the door and only get a glimpse of two girls in a candy apple Kia Rio tearing off down the road toward the cop parked around the bend, hopefully they are doing the speed limit.

I check the notification and it's the shopper from the previous pictures, now without a mask and posing with a bottle of the rum in her right hand and her left hand, miming a patch over her eye. When I look down my order is complete, with a note that informs me the case is missing a bottle as was ordered by “The Captain.”

These were the first legitimate laughs I had in a week.