Slip

Reading Time: 4 minutes
(Image created with the help of Adobe Firefly.)

My twisted birth body lies on the ground like scrambled contents dumped from some cosmic blender.

Dead again. Only this time, it’s happened in my timeline. On my planet.

The plan failed, or I wouldn’t be here assisting a paramedic as he straps my corpse onto a gurney. Confusing? Yeah.

Try being me.

My name is Eugene, or it was.

Is.

I’m the progeny of two genetic mutants whose lust damned me to this life in limbo. All those extra, special genetic mutations pasted into my chromosomes, and voila. Chaos.

My gift, this Slip—a curse I can’t control—catapults me through time and space. Fast as a shooting star, I’m slammed into a different body. I can be out for a walk, cooking dinner, or even taking a piss when wham, I find myself breathing somewhere else. Once, Slip stuck me in front of a moving bus. I lived long enough to die in excruciating pain before I slammed back into my body on Earth. Another time, naked, I ran headlong toward an oncoming army. Died then, too.

I don’t always die, at least not right away. But why me? And to what end?

The time when I fought alongside a subservient class of insect-like aliens, liberating them from their rulers, I thought I could translate some lessons and skills I’d learned to improve disparities here on Earth. I thought I’d found an answer, found a purpose.

Nope.

Different worlds, different rules.

So why do I Slip over and over again?

My parents say that one day, my purpose will be clear.

Fuck that.

My heart and soul have suffered through centuries. Love and loss never get easier. Earning a living, surviving, is a constant struggle on every world. Death’s a reality in all dimensions. It’s agonizing enough to live one life. Living many is downright cruel.

I dread the next where. The next when.

Sleep is unsettling. I fear that precarious moment each night as I drift off when the world seems to drop away, because it reminds me of Slip. Only instead of jerking awake in my bed, if I Slip, I’m hijacked. Everything shifts. I swim through the black void, and when my vertigo settles, I’m no longer a twenty-six-year-old mutant. Instead, I embody whatever indigenous species populates that given dimension. There I remain until Slip brings me back home, where only seconds or minutes have passed. I’ll smell fresh grass or pasta sauce or warm urine. Whatever, wherever.

I’m tired.

Which is why I’d begun this day ten thousand feet in the air, butt on a sling seat, waiting to reach our dropzone. I figured jumping from a plane would be like another day at the office. Falling, spinning, landing, it’s all second nature.

Only the ending would be different.

I’d be free.

My sister, Alana, whose genes are more orderly, is Veracious. She says Slip is punishment for humanity’s small-minded beliefs. “Forces you to see the universe through different prisms. You are its receptacle.”

I resent her smug attitude and perpetual smirk. Why does she get to lead a relatively normal life? One with a husband, a house in the suburbs, and a child on its way. It sickens me to watch her pet and coo over her growing fetus. But mostly, I loathe how her Veracious powers pry open my truths and force me to answer her questions. I’m furious she details my lives like some Benedictine monk cataloging sacred scripture. She cannot comprehend how pointless everything seems to me, and I hate her.

The plane banked, and I peered down at distant farmland. I spent fifty years in an alternate dimension growing crops. Laborious, thankless work even though thousands needed my harvest to survive. Fifty freaking years.

Yeah, no. I wasn’t doing that again.

Slip sucks.

My Telekinetic mother and Shapeshifter father suck for conceiving me.

Alana really sucks, just for being.

The skydiving instructor shot me a thumbs up. He helped ready me while we were in the hangar, tightening the straps I later sliced with the box cutter hidden in my pocket.

I cozied closer to him and the open door.

The green light illuminated.

Wind slapped against my face when I released the strut and stepped into the air.

Falling.

Earth below.

Spinning.

Sky above.

It did feel like Slip.

Spinning. Air. Gravity.

Wham.

Darkness.

A crippling wave of nausea.

Shit.

I’ve learned the hard way never to open my eyes before my stomach settles. One of the rare commonalities in most worlds is that vomiting never makes a good impression.

My body was in a strange position. I practically kissed my knees. I dared a glimpse at my surroundings. A room devoid of light. I reached out, touched some kind of barrier, and pushed. It pushed back. Recoiling, I attempted to extend my legs, but there wasn’t room. I tried to say, “not funny,” but my mouth filled with fluid. I drowned for an instant until I stopped trying to speak or breathe.

Fuck. I knew where I’d gone.

Bone-crushing muscle squeezed against my flesh.

I felt a heartbeat in my temple fast as a hummingbird’s wings and remembered the parachute’s canopy deploying. It yanked me toward the clouds, and as the straps ripped, I tumbled.

Falling… Earth below. Fields. Cows. Brown dirt.

My head pressed against a small opening.

Bruising pain. Another contraction shoved me along.

Spin. Blue. Sky above.

I slipped into brightness. Hands set me into my mother’s greedy arms.

Through blurry eyes, I recognized her. Alana.

“Tsk-tsk,” she said. “You can’t end it that easily, Eugene. Humanity’s sins are infinite. Welcome to your new body. I’m going to take such good care of you.”

It was almost like she’d planned the whole thing.

I wailed.

Falling.

Spinning…

Bam.

I’m dressed in a blue uniform, riding shotgun in an ambulance speeding down a dirt road. The driver—nametag Bob—slams on the brakes. My stomach roils.

“There,” he says, pointing to a handful of adults huddled together. “Ready, rookie?”

I nod.

Bob grabs his medical bag, jumps out, and trots across the field toward them.

“Rookie!” Bob waves me over.

I step from the vehicle, pause, and swallow bile. I already know what we’re going to find, and it resembles wreckage cast from the eye of a tornado.

Someone cursed.

Forever falling.

Spinning.

Slipping.

Never really landing.

Me.

Eugene.

Andrea Goyan is cohost of the MetaStellar YouTube channel's Long Lost Friends segment. She is also a writer, painter, performer, and Pilates teacher. Winner of the 2021 Roswell Award for Science Fiction, some of Andrea's recent stories can be found in The Molotov Cocktail, Dear Leader Tales, Luna Station Quarterly (issue 043), 365 tomorrows, and The Dark Sire. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, a dog, and two cats. Follow her on Facebook @Andrea Goyan Storyteller or on Twitter at @AndreaGoyan or check out her Amazon author page