Fletch Blunden
I bought a blind van a couple of years ago. You know, a van with no side windows. I instantly learnt that its height is 2.1 metres only in the brochure. I can’t get it into the carport. Ah, I’m moving soon anyway.
The other thing I quickly learnt was not to drive it into tight places. Always reverse the thing in. If it all becomes too hard you can just drive it back out. Come unstuck and have to reverse it out, then you know you’re in trouble. So when I come home I reverse it down the drive and park it up against the carport. No problems, until recently – until this parallel universe thing just suddenly happened.
I figure I’ve got a new pigeon that’s moved in. Yeah. Another one. It’s taken me a while (I’m a bit slow). But, I think I’ve figured it out. It’s to do with the portal.
Imagine you’re my new pigeon. You’re no average pigeon. I don’t know whether you’re extremely perceptive or just plain stupid. But, you’re different from the rest of the flock that’s inhabited my place over the last decade.
Anyway, you’re now a pigeon, and you’re flying down my driveway. You’re heading straight for the van. No side windows, rear window up against the carport, so it’s dark inside the van. That’s why the sloping windscreen reflects what’s above it. You look into this portal and see another universe moving past. There’s a sky inside the portal. Wow! As you glide down the driveway, you become mesmerised by the vista of drifting trees and clouds inside this portal. You’re tempted to fly in, until …
Suddenly, you see a bird flying upside down inside this portal. Weird. The feathers on the back of your neck stand up, all atingle. It’s too weird to enter into there. What happens next happens very quickly. The bird you see is looking down towards you above it. I know that doesn’t sound right, but the bird’s upside down and it’s below you. So when it looks down, it’s actually looking up, of course. You’re the one looking down. As I said, this whole thing is over in an instant, but there’s a lot going on.
You recognise it’s you you’re looking at inside the portal, and you’re flying upside down – now that’s scary. You look into your eyes and see you’re staring straight back at yourself – weirder than weird. Instantly, you realise that inside this parallel universe below you, the other you will fly straight into the edge of the portal, upside down. Plus, you’ve become distracted. If YOU don’t start getting some altitude in a hurry, you’ll fly straight into the portal yourself. Aggghh!!!! This is the pivotal moment that made me realise I’d created a portal into a parallel universe. Every time it flew down my driveway, the pigeon pooped itself at the instant it just cleared the van. EVERY time! Well, you’d poop yourself, too! There’s a superstition that if a bird poops on you it’s good luck. Well my van got VERY lucky all of a sudden. I wasn’t so lucky. It was my job to clean it off the windscreen every time I went to go out, and I’m not superstitious.
I managed to close down the portal by doing the counter-intuitive. I drove forwards into my driveway. The rear window on the van is vertical. No sky or birds in this parallel universe. No more pooping either.