So… hardly anyone played along and commented what their ending to the story was, or who they thought she was. But then, hardly anyone reads my stories, anyway. So, I guess I have to make up the rest of it myself. So… here goes…

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“What are you doing?” It was a voice you didn’t recognize, not right away at least.

“Shit!! Don’t sneak up on someone! I almost lost my balance!” You turned your head to see who it was that had nearly made the fateful decision in your stead. “Holy… what are you doing here??”

The face you remembered from a fevered dream and the voice you now recognized again, replied, “I asked you the same question first. It’s a bit unusual for a young person like yourself to be standing alone on the edge of a rooftop so far above ground. You haven’t a parasail or bungee, so this isn’t a lark. So, I will ask you again… What are you doing here?”

“Isn’t it kinda obvious?”

“Painfully so. My question was not to inform my ignorance but to urge you to reconsider your actions.”

“Are you who I think you are?” You’d seen the Harry Potter movies since you last saw her. From her voice, you half-expected her to say she was Luna Lovegood.

“Don’t you recognize me?”

“But you weren’t real.”

“Wasn’t I? How did you explain me away?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, my. I left you so many clues. Evidence. Did you really convince yourself I wasn’t there after all? Looking after you when you were sick? Proofing your paper? Leaving you food?”

“But you were gone. You weren’t there when I…”

“So, you do remember me.”

“Of course I remember! I looked for you everywhere. No one had ever seen you. You weren’t registered with the school. Why couldn’t I find you!? And why’re you here now??”

“You didn’t find me because you didn’t need me.”

“But I did!”

“Not really. You wanted to see me. Find out more about me. But you didn’t need me. Do you not understand the difference?”

“But…”

“Now you do.”

“But…”

“Would you ease my mind a little and come down here with me?”

“Uh…”

“Please?”

“… Okay.” You stepped off the ledge and onto the rooftop. As you did, you felt a small wave of relief as if a professor had just said the term papers would not be due for another week.

“That’s much better, thank you. I find this place disturbing, now that I found you here. This is not what I saved you for. Would you mind if we went somewhere more conducive to discussion? Someplace gentler on my mind?”

“Yeah. I mean, no. Sure. Where?”

“Will you trust the hands that cared for you in your room to touch your face now?”

“I… guess so. Yeah.”

“Then close your eyes for me. I’m going to place my hand over them so you don’t peek. And we must be in contact.”

“C’mon, what kind of game is this?”

“It’s not a game, I promise you. Go ahead, look around. There’s only us here. No one is going to jump out and steal your wallet because you closed your eyes.”

“But it’s weird.”

“Yes, it is. My being here just at this point in time and space is weird, too, isn’t it? And don’t you find tales of weird events ever so fascinating? Of course you do. But when your own weird event happened, you talked yourself out of it. Tossed it away and then wondered why only other people had special things happen. Are you afraid?”

“No! I’m just…”

“Skeptical? That’s you, isn’t it? Here’s your second chance to have an adventure. To experience the unnatural. Will you take it or shall I go?”

“I’ll… close my eyes…”

“Very good. Close them now. Thank you. Here’s my hand, now.”

Vertigo.

When the spinning stopped, her hand was gone from your face and she said, “Open them now, if you want. Don’t be alarmed.”

The rush of traffic was now the sound of a distant waterfall. The rooftop tar was green grass, growing tall and uncut and interspersed with flowers. Instead of tall city buildings, old growth forest surrounded them as far as he could see down into a valley where a river, fed by the waterfall, wandered off into the distance. And as far as the eye could see, there was nothing that appeared to be touched by mankind’s hands.

“….Where?”

“If I told you it wouldn’t make sense. Just enjoy.”

“…Why are we here?”

“It’s a nicer place to talk, don’t you think? I come here when I need to be calm.”

“It’s pretty, but talk about what?”

“You.”

“I’d rather talk about you.”

“To talk about you is to talk about me.”

“Huh?”

“You’re the reason I exist.”

“That’s bull.”

“Was arriving here instantly also ‘bull’?”

“Uhhh…”

“Right. You’re having a little trouble coping right now. Take it slow. Open your mind. Think before you speak. Now then… you studied physics a little. You know the ideas being tossed around about parallel universes and alternate timelines. So, here you are inside one and you refuse to accept data input from your senses.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“To be expected. Most of the people talking about universes and timelines also get lost. I’m going to tell you some things and I ask that you reserve judgment until I’m finished. Then I only ask that you consider if there’s any other rational explanation. Deal?”

“… Um… okay, deal.”

“The truth about alternate timelines is that there’s only one timeline. But it’s malleable and also, what it looks like depends on the observer’s point of view. Like a lot of things. Herr Einstein wasn’t very far off on some of his insights. Now, the timeline you were on that… that time in school, that was the end of your timeline.”

“The end of my…timeline?”

“Yes, you were going to die. The night after I came, you were going to have a seizure that would lead to you dying alone in your room. Your body wouldn’t be found for days afterward.”

“And you stopped it?”

“No. I bent the timeline, changed the aspect angles, and your seizure instead became a ‘hallucination’ that was me.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know the answer to that. Not yet. Even if I did, I think I’d be unable to tell you and continue to exist.”

“But why you?”

“That’s a silly question isn’t it? No matter who it was that came to you, you’d ask the same thing. But if you mean, ‘Why anyone at all?’ then I don’t have an answer for that, either. I’m sorry.”

“You’re as mystified by some things as I am, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Yes, I am. It’s wonderful.”

“Alright, maybe you can answer this one… Why appear on the roof?”

“Oh. You don’t see? It’s inextricable from our meeting in your room. I kept you from dying then, I couldn’t allow you to just die again.”

“Why not? I didn’t want to keep on the way things were going.”

“I understand. You despaired. But you didn’t really want that leap, I think. Remember how upset you were that I almost made you lose your balance?”

“Ahhhh… Maybe I was trying to make up my mind and couldn’t think of any reason not to jump.” As you said it, you remembered the wave of relief as the moment of decision had been snatched from you.

“Clearly, you do have a reason to go on, though neither you nor I know what that is, presently. Nobody ever does. But I wouldn’t have been there for you, if you hadn’t any. And as for not wanting to go on… there are so many things humans do though they don’t wish to. And often, on reflection, they are thankful they did them. Glad to have chosen to endure the hard road. Such is your path.”

“What? Are you saying I’m some kind of important person in the future?”

“Not particularly. Your purpose may not be ‘important’ in any of the ways you think of it. And if it wasn’t you, then someone else would be made to do. But you were already on the right path, it merely needed tweaking.”

“But how can I do whatever-it-is if I don’t know what it is?”

She made a little shrug. “The same as everyone else. You do what comes natural and right to you. Somewhere in it all, will be the thing you needed to do. Listen, it may not even be you who will do a thing, but maybe you motivate the person who will do it. I cannot know. Neither can you. The only thing exceptional about you right now is that, unlike most humans, you’ve been allowed to see how your life was changed.”

“And you don’t know why that is, either, right?”

“Right. I can talk about your past, that’s harmless, humans do it every day. And I can talk to you about the present…”

“Also harmless, right?”

“Yes. But I can’t tell your future. Or mine. I don’t know it. I only know what I need to do when it’s time to do it. And that I’m here with you because something in your future holds some importance to someone, or to something, somehow.”

“So it’s all a dark mystery…”

“As it is for everyone. I think it’s beautiful.”

“What now, then?”

“I need to send you back.”

“To my ‘real world’?”

“Of course. Will you take a seat on this rock, please?”

“Sit here?”

“Yes. It will be more comfortable for your arrival, trust me.”

“Okay…”

“And close your eyes.”

“Okay, and your hand will…” She touched you and you never finished the thought.

Vertigo.

Here we go again, you thought. But when it stopped you still felt like you were turning… turning…

Something hard bumped hard against your butt and the walls and contents of a room spun slowly around you as your balance returned and you realized you were turning your head instead. And then your eyes fell on the seat behind you in your Psych class.

And focused.

She was still smiling.

You thought there was something about her that you knew, but you couldn’t recall it. Then you decided it wasn’t important. She’d been in your room. She cared about you. You’d find out who she was, and everything important to know about her would, in time, be revealed. But you felt sure that, somehow, nothing would ever be the same.