A frustrated breath escaped my nose, tickling the whiskers of my beard. I set my pencil down, took my glasses off, pinched the bridge of my nose, and groaned. My elbows thumped on the desk as I leaned on it. My wife’s clomping footsteps echoed in my sparse attic office. Beams of sunlight shone through the floating dust and a waft of hibiscus tea preceded her. I sat back in my chair, glancing over my desk at the contraption sitting on the floor in the back of the attic. A mess of cables sprouting from an array of batteries wound up a curved metal spine, then down to three hanging metal arms with pointed ends surrounding two hotplates on the floor, like a toy claw machine waiting to pluck a prize off the plates. That machine would propel my name into the annals of history with the likes of Einstein and Lamar. The final step creaked as my wife stepped through the doorway. Thirty years together and my heart still fluttered at the sight of her. Less so once I noticed the stack of papers in her other hand, topped by an apple and a scone on a small plate. A groan escaped my lips as my wife smiled and sighed. She set the stack of papers down on the edge of the desk, the tea in front of me and rubbed my upper back.
“I’m almost done here. I’ll come down when I’m ready,” I said.
She stood behind me and bent to kiss the top of my head.
“One day, my dear, the cover of TIME magazine will read, ‘Dr. Emilio Torres: The Man Who Redefined Physics.’ But for today—” She slipped the plate of food over to me. “—your students need their mid-term grades so their anxiety levels can return to normal.” She patted my shoulder.
My stomach grumbled, and I sighed.
“Corazón, I swear, I have just one more—” I was too late; she was already halfway down the steps. I couldn’t blame her. We’d had this argument more than once, especially since my last grant denial. I clenched my jaw, pushed a breath through my nose, and went back to my laptop. A web of cables snaked out the back of my computer and connected to the batteries. Ignoring my duties, I wrote a few more lines of code, adjusted the math to better account for time displacement, and pressed enter. As the code compiled, I took a bite of my scone and frowned at the stack of midterms. A notification beeped, signaling the machine was ready. I finished my scone and brushed the crumbs off my sweater. I needed a new test subject. The apple, yes, that would be a good idea. Not too big, it would fit nicely on the hotplate.
I stood up, chair creaking, to place the apple on one of plates and went back to my desk. I brought up the control program on my computer, strapped a pair of welding goggles on, took a deep breath, and clicked the green TEST button. A chorus of crackling, whirring, and buzzing filled the attic. The temperature spiked and sweat rolled down my brow. The arms spun, slowly at first, but rapidly blurred away to create a vortex of wind in the small attic. The hot plate rattled as the arms spun faster. Lightning flashed. I blinked. The apple vanished, leaving nothing but a plume of smoke and a scorch mark. My shoulders sunk. I took my goggles off and threw them behind me. The stack of papers remained. I should have used those instead, but as much as I wished they were a smoldering pile of burnt carbon, Lena was right. I yanked the first packet off the pile, plopped it in front of me, and started reading. The top margin had a hand-written note: Dr. Torres, we didn’t go over much of this in class. I did the best I could. I checked the name. Isabel Hampton. My best student and I had left even her in the lurch. Guilt tugged at my chest. I needed to be better for my students. Their failure was my failure. Still, the paperwork needed to be done.
Three midterms and an empty teacup later, I stretched and yawned. A small rattle came from the hotplate. I stopped. I checked the laptop; it was off. Then the battery terminals glowed orange hot, and sparks burst from the connections. The arms immediately spooled to full speed. I dove for my goggles and held them up just in time as a series of lightning flashes cracked and bursts of dots flitted against my eyelids. The hot plate exploded, and I ducked under the debris. I cursed. One of the metal circles clanged behind me and rolled down the stairs. Then, as quickly as it started, it stopped. I peeked over my desk. My apple was back. Wait. My apple was back? How?
I scrambled over and snatched it up. A chunk was missing.
It worked.
It worked!
I screamed, whooped, and called for my wife to come upstairs, but the explosion had already summoned her to the doorway. Horror filled her face as she took in the sight of the destroyed machine. The batteries sparked again, and she flinched. I held up the apple.
“It worked,” I said with a beaming grin. Her jaw dropped and she stammered. I went to her. “It. Worked!”
“Oh my god.” She let the realization linger with wide eyes, and then smiled. “Well, we know what the next step is, right?”
“Reproduce results.”
“Exactly. Let’s get to work.”
“What about the papers?”
She paused and worked her jaw from side to side. “You still have to finish those. So, let’s work on getting these done together.”
It was the closest I had felt to her in a long time. We cut the grading time in half, working in sync. With that tedious task done, we set ourselves to weeks-long project of rebuilding the machine. Instead of using hotplates, we wrapped large ceramic discs with aluminum and built a sturdier base. At every turn, Lena rebuffed my bad ideas, corrected my faulty math, and kept us fed. While I was teaching classes, she kept working. I would come home after lectures to a string of code and math I had started, that she finished with ground-breaking adjustments. It was her idea to check the data on how the power surge blew apart the batteries—which led me to finagle another array of batteries siphoning power from the main line that would not blow a transformer.
Then came winter, and the solstice.
“We should go to sleep,” Lena said. She rubbed her eyes. I didn’t register what she said right away.
“I think this setting is right. I’m not sure if we need to—”
“Emilio, we need to sleep. It’s—" she checked the watch on her wrist. “Oh my god, it’s six in the morning. We haven’t slept and I have a headache.”
“Maybe the size discrepancy between the apple and hot plate caused a—”
“Emilio!”
“Huh?”
“Bed. Now.” Lena pointed down the stairs.
“One test,” I said.
I picked up a stapler and set it on the plate. Lena tsked me and set her hands on her hips. I ignored her, set the program up and hit the button. The batteries hummed, the arms spun without drama and instead of random arcs of lighting, the power concentrated at the tips of the arms to create a globe of electricity around the stapler. Seconds later, the stapler blew apart and a shower of flying staples stung my skin.
Lena threw me a flat look. “Honey, we can try again after we get some sleep.”
“No, I know why it failed. I’m going to try something else.”
I set the machine to start, and Lena stood up from her perch on the desk.
“Emilio, what are you doing?”
I ignored her. I had to get the math right. We were so close. The machine started spooling.
“Emilio stop.”
I couldn’t stop. How could I stop when I might have the answer? I dashed across the room and stood on the plate.
“Are you crazy?!” Lena yelled. She went to the computer, but I had locked the controls. The arms spun and the tips glowed bright blue. “How do I shut it down!? Emilio! You can’t—”
Lightning flashed. The world went black.
I wish I could remember what happened between then and when I woke up. It was like a dreamless sleep. I was nothing until light seeped in through my closed eyelids, prompting them to flutter open. Grass prickled my back and arms where I lay. I breathed. I could breathe! My eyes adjusted to the light, which came from...everywhere? I sat up and evaluated my body for injury—it was surprisingly… okay.
That’s when I noticed that the grass wasn’t green. It was an array of different colors and grew taller than my legs were wide. Trees that grew into a curling Fibonacci pattern, like a pig’s tail or curly fries dotted the undulating slopes of squat hills. The leaves seemed normal enough at first, but the base of the stems glimmered with a dewy gem refracting the light into twinkling rainbow stars. The sky wasn’t a sky. It was a blanket of purple and white. The transcendent plain extended into infinity chasing the horizon until the end of time.
I stood. A wisp of something drifted toward me. It collided with my outstretched hand, and then dissipated into a plume of bright green dust. It felt…sad. To test my legs, I picked my steps to the nearest tree and pressed my hand to its bark. A steady pulse and sense of contentment warmed my palm. I dragged my hand across the trunk as I circled it and found a knot. I ran my thumb over it, and its roots erupted from the ground behind me to form a flat circle of light exactly like my machine —except this one was silent. Certain that this was the portal I had made, I took my sweater off and tied it around a branch to mark its location. I expected to be cold given the occasional breeze, but I felt no different in just a t-shirt. I took a deep breath. It smelled like breakfast with Lena. How I wished she could see it.
I spread my arms and laughed. The sky shifted to green and swirls of blue, as though it responded to my happiness. I sprinted down the hill and leaped several feet into the air. I spread my arms and glided back down to the grass all the while laughing, crying, and squealing like a child. For what felt like hours I did what I hadn’t done in over forty years. I frolicked. I danced, spun, rolled, ran, and climbed trees.
I flew.
The sky drifted and morphed into wonderful colors and fractal patterns. I never ran out of breath, nor felt any hunger. On occasion the color of the sky would thin, and I glimpsed the twinkling of distant suns, planets, and galaxies.
Lena would love this, I thought. I needed to go back and bring her with me. I found the tree I had tied my sweater to, brought the portal back up. I braced for whatever pain might befall me, but I passed through as easily as passing through a doorway
My office was as I left it: papers strewn about, the machine in the corner. I took a step and the base of the machine wobbled. I caught my balance and dodged a hanging arm. I didn’t remember it being that low. I went back to my desk and checked my computer. It had been turned off.
“Lena?” I called out,.
Silence answered. Worry wrapped around my rib cage. I picked up the plate on my desk and went to the stairs, but stopped. I didn’t recognize the pattern on that plate. I went back to the machine. It was shorter, had fewer arms, and the platform bent at an awkward angle because a support had bent. I turned on my laptop and entered my login information. Incorrect Password? That can’t be… I looked at the keyboard. Spanish accents? I hadn’t used a Spanish keyboard since…
“Oh no.”
I sprinted down the stairs and checked the portraits on the walls. My graduation, my sister, all my family except one. Lena was gone.
“No, no, no.” Panic rose in my throat. My stomach flipped and tears welled in my eyes.
I sprinted back up the stairs. I had to get to work. I wasn’t going to be stuck there without Lena. I tried my old college password and thanked God that it worked. There were only two explanations that made any sense: a timeline shift or an alternate universe. Given that I hadn’t made changes to anything, the multi-verse theory made the most sense. Still a gamble, but one I had to make. That’s what Lena would say. Pick something you know you can fix and work from there. That’s what I would have to do. I could fix the machine and work backwards from there. Repeat the process from my world. Without Lena.
“We did it before, I can do it again.”
It took weeks. The phone rang. Notices and mail and collectors came. After a few months, the power was shut off, and I rewired the house to siphon power directly from the tower bypassing the city’s safeguards. Finally, I was ready. I went to my bathroom, shaved, put on the same clothes I wore the day I left, and went back in.
This time, I thought, I’m bringing a tether: a length of wire attached to a terminal here in this world to test different portals. I set the program on a timer, grabbed the apple on my desk, and stood on a platform. The countdown finished and the machine spooled up. I bit into the apple and awaited the inevitable lightning crack. That time, I stayed conscious. The world pinched into a pinpoint as darkness surrounded me. A heartbeat later, a pinprick of light widened into a perfect circle. The plains rolled within the portal. I stepped through, and things were different from the first time. The sky didn’t swirl in color as it had before. Instead, I stood in the dead of space on an infinite multi-colored grass plain. Saturn’s rings swirled above me as I paced through grass. If I wanted, I could have jumped up to swim among swirling ice crystals.
I tripped.
My apple fell from my hand, rolled down the hill, and bounced off a tree.
“It can’t be…”
A hole opened in the ground and the apple vanished. I scrambled to my feet and dove into the waiting abyss. I swallowed my nausea as I spun and flipped faster and faster. I closed my eyes and screamed until I ran out of breath.
I gasped.
“Emilio!” Lena screeched.
I lay in her arms on the attic floor. I held her tight and sobbed into her chest as she pulled me close. I pushed away, and as we wiped the tears from each other’s faces, I smiled.
“Don’t ever do that again,” she said. “That was the scariest minute of my life.”
“I guess time works differently than I thought. I should have made that adjustment before I came back,” I said.
She squinted. “What are you talking about? Emilio, you didn’t go anywhere. You collapsed on the plate and your heart stopped. You only came back when I started CPR.”
“What? No, that can’t be right. I—" I looked around. Everything was as I remembered.
She stood and pulled me by my forearm to my feet. My back ached and my head throbbed.
“I’m taking you to get checked out. God knows what that shock did to your body.” Numb, I let her pull me to the stairs. Then I saw it. On the floor beneath my desk.
An apple.