Finding home: an alternate timeline traveler story

[silverwolfcc]

The hardest thing about traveling alternate timelines is how the geography changes.

The distances are the same, but the the people make different choices, so roads, farms, forests, buildings, highways, so much of that changes before you can blink an eye.

The easiest part is you're almost always the same, so you can blend in as yourself. Finding where you're going, where you want to be however? More impossible than time travel without paradoxes.

My name doesn't matter, you wouldn't recognize it anyway. What does matter is that I'm just trying to get home: a feat more difficult since it doesn't exist anymore.

Some timelines erupt in nuclear doom, others are too polluted to even save. Mine wasn't that dramatic. People just stopped trying, stopped caring, gave up. it didn't end with a bang, or even a whimper, it was like all of time and everything else ceased to matter, so I left.

I didn't do it consciously, or even on purpose. I did it in secret in the middle of the night, in my dreams. One minute I was in my bedroom, the next, I was still in my bedroom. My bedroom was the same, you see. I got dressed, brushed my teeth, got some breakfast, all routine, all normal. It took me until I went outside to even realize things had drastically changed. It was like Dorothy, but instead there was no tornado. I did have my Toto -- which in this case was my favorite stuffed animal from childhood: a floppy-eared brown dog simply called "Doggo." I was still in Massachusetts, but what Massachusetts is and means had changed. The whole world had changed. Suddenly there were flying cars, and people waving 'hello' at each other.

I went back inside and shut the door, and wondered if I was still dreaming. I tried everything I could to wake myself up. Splashing cold water, pinching, obviously not suicide, because that wouldn't be waking up so much as dying. Nothing I did worked though. I decorated my place all the same. See? People always stay mostly the same, even when geography and technology and things that improve people's well being (making them happier/friendly) change.

But did I still have a job? Was it the same? If I was dreaming, and couldn't wake up, what could I learn from this dream for my waking days?