I try to get back into writing every time (here's something I kicked around FB).

So you just met yourself from an alternate world...


Hey guyz.
I met a man today named Al Berenstain. He looked and spoke just like me, we played some videogames and drank some beers, it was very fun. He told me Berenstain wasn't really his last name, but it was a way of letting people know he came from another dimension. He told me this was the Berenstein Dimension, and that I'm Al Berenstein. He spoke about some really impressive things about his dimension, different facts about pop culture and politics so that I could understand. He started with The Beatles, he said that tape recording another guy on Twitter found from the 80's that they never split up and Lennon lived was legit. Then he talked about Eminem, and that he was discovered by Anthony Kiedis, not Dr. Dre. Nirvana was also still around, and Courtney Love was in prison for her first murder attempt trying to overdose Cobain. Outside of music he told me the biggest difference was Sean Connery played Morpheus, and he thought it was super weird watching Laurence Fishbourne instead. On politics, neither Obama or Trump became presidents. Hillary Clinton apparently sabotaged Obama during those primaries, but she ultimately lost to Mitt Romney. He couldn't tell me who the current president was after that but all he could say was that it's another Republican.
I asked him about 9/11, and that's when he warned me. It still happened, it needed to happen. And now that you read this and we all acknowledge the existence of the alternate dimensions, take heed of anyone who tells you otherwise.

 Hey guyz!

Today was interesting, I met the famous Al Bronson. Remember when Al Berenstain dropped by and we hung out? He's the guy he told me about. Or more along the lines warned me to watch out for. He came from the Bronson Reality, the strange alternate reality where 9/11 didn't happen. He looked on edge, but wasn't hostile with me in any way, I think just wanted someone to talk to. And just like Berenstain he was thrilled to meet his Berenstein self. I felt the same way, and he...I looked, I mean, he looked very interesting wearing a dark suit. I never looked into a mirror dressed like that, but then again that's not really me at all.
Anyway, same as Berenstain, we were at Santurce and had some beers. He was pretty open about what was happening in his reality. He explained pretty much everything. It was all history, because he knew what's the first thing people would ask him. 'So hey, what's it like living in a world where that horrible tragedy didn't happen? It must be pretty great, we've must've made a lot of progress in terms of race and social differences...'
'Well, it is not!' - he immediately answers. 'Every time, I look, at a history book in the alternate worlds, all I see is a paradox.'
'What do you read about in your history books then?'
'We did not have a September the 11th, because, we also did not have a Battle for Britain.'
'The fn<k? How's that related to this?'
'He took a deep breath, stepped back, and focused on resources.'
'...so the Nazis won WW2 in the Bronson Reality?'
'We chose not to call it that. It was just...The Advance. I've been to your internet. I read about the Migrant Crisis and fascism being on the rise again in your pathetic modern Europe...' - he started shaking his head slowly looking straight at me. 'That is absolutely nothing but a circus when compared to the rise of fascism during those days.' - he fixes his throat, looks around, feeling like he might be making a scene. Once he got his composure back he kept talking. 'It wasn't a World War, Berenstein, it's just something that came up. The Germans always made good on anything they would promise EXCEPT winning a war. So they went to the Middle East, to talk. They talked to Egypt, they talked to Iran, they talked to Iraq. They talked to every single country, tribe, and clan the British Empire and the Saudi Kingdom pushed around. And they made good on their promise of delivering them the heads of the Saudi royals.' - his eyes widened again, but quickly snaps out of it and minds his drink before he continued. 'Your Al Qaeda, it's new. Not ours, we've had them for a while. And they are not a terrorist group, they are the SS of the Middle East...'"
[to be continued]

(PS the last one I wrote on Mandela Day.)

It's what all the cool kids are doing!

Making it Right or Making it Real

Everybody’s been going on and on about sleep paralysis and mysteries as of late, uh…I’ve had a bit of an odd episode involving this phenomenon, and I think I met my doppelganger while I was at it. Truth is I’m not entirely sure if that was something even remotely similar to a doppelganger.

I remember before the internet all the crazy magazines. There was a boom for aliens and the Garadiavolos at the beach, and maybe an odd ghost at a public space now and then. I had a friend in elementary who looked up these small magazines that looked like Reader’s Digest, Enigma. I had a curiosity for them, if I was with my mom at the groceries and I wanted to look at something spooky while at the cashier, there they were next to VEA for the old ladies. Anyway this kid at school once shared me one of those spooky little articles with an issue he brought, the story of Queen Elizabeth I meeting her own doppelganger. I didn’t quite read into it at the time, but he summarized it with an asspull about that queen dying after seeing it.

So last Sunday I’m taking a nap. I’m lying half-asleep watching TV, drifting between a football game or news coverage on the Paris Attacks. There’s a shitload of noise going on outside, dad hired some men to work a wall to fix a backyard door, so there was some concrete getting smashed with a small jackhammer. In spite of all this I just start to snore, I just laid there like someone slammed me and I really appreciated it. Finally I dozed off for just like a couple of minutes, then the paralysis kicked in. I was still real sleepy, but my body wouldn’t move. The paralysis wasn’t new to me, fact is I welcomed it, felt like lucid sleeping and that was good because I think my body is getting the rest it deserves. But then I start hearing a voice. My own. I close my eyes thinking I’m probably mumbling and snoring, but I felt like I dove into something, like I was fast in a dream. I make out what my own voice is saying. “I’m out. I’m right here.” – and then I see it, standing right on top of me. To give you some perspective, my bed doesn’t face the door like everyone else’s, I’m facing the wall to watch TV, so right behind the bed is the door. Standing on top of me as I’m laid down on my pillow, is me. I’m looking down at my head in the pillow, smiling, fully dressed like I’m going out to get drunk. It identified itself as my conscience. He had a pleasant, calm smile. He asked me to search for somebody. He said I could do it now that he was out. My mind could search anyone, and he wanted me to look for someone and send him an important message. I close my eyes, as if I could go fast into the dream again. My room changed as I kept lying looking upwards, in some flashes I was no longer in my room, I was in some kind of muddy cave with roots. I think I saw people, I was looking for somebody, but I just wasn’t sure. They seemed like bright figures.  My conscience said I could find anyone, anywhere. And it was at that moment that he dove down, and out foreheads met. I was going to keep going. I could keep going. I was going to find this person, he (and the conscience told me it was a he) was far. But I could go far. All I had to do now was focus. I was in the paralysis, and my mind could do something, reach someone in that state. The task now was to stay this way, and concentrate before I’m able to jump far.

“This is very useful…” – I thought to myself. “He’s out, I can move in and around. There’s so many things I can do now with all this space.” – it’s vast, and I could reach anyone. I could go all the way to Europe, and find this guy. But I had to concentrate. This entailed staying like this for hours, possibly the entire day.

And hilariously it stopped at that point. My urgency kicked in and I literally kicked myself out. Simply put I was not willing to really spend the day like that. And so I jumped out. And it wasn’t easy. Physically, I didn’t jump. Didn’t jump, sitting up, sweating as if I got killed in a nightmare like they show you in the movies. I had to ‘jump’ from where I was at because I had seemingly gone all in. It wasn’t a matter of opening my eyes, my eyes were open, it was a matter of jumping back from how far and fast I had gone from that dream. And just like that my body was moving again. I was again paying some scant attention to the football game going on, or Polly Boiko talking. I actually fell asleep again, the day was just going super slow. I did not get up until I felt hungry.

So that was it. Today I’m typing this wondering what that was, brainstorming. It could’ve been a dream I’m overanalyzing for the trolls. It could’ve been my conscience and I had discovered a milestone for telepathy as if moving memory and data around a computer when you care for some extra space. It could’ve been my doppelganger out to drown me.

He did help me kick out. At that moment of urgency, he knew me like I knew myself.

- AA