Warped

The Universe shifted.

     In the wake of a rough tempest that brewed and blew
     from the most remote extraordinary conditions, the kind
     to record in a journal or ledger of highs and lows,
     I emerged from a cocoon of brick and glass and blinked,
     feeling like the only Little Pig to survive.

          Not that the world had changed, except for random
          elements — flotsam, scraps, odd branches and debris
          out of place — littering lanes and sidewalks, the fronts
          of formerly-tidy yards. No gaping wounds met my
          gaze, the neighborhood still intact, and yet…

What was different?

     A pair of mindless feet found an uncommon route to
     trace. In gawping disbelief I stumbled forth to survey
     once-familiar terrain — semi-scattered and unkempt,
     a little worse for wear, shaken up but seeming whole.
     Leaping a puddle my steps halted, lickety-splat.

          No, things were not the same. What was missing?
          Like a Waterglobe, the picturesque scene appeared
          to be agitated by a massive extraordinary conniption.
          Anything not glued or nailed was broken, rearranged.
          Reality had taken a paranormal turn. Vacillating.

A baffling transformation.

     I pinched myself. It couldn't be Astral Projection,
     so what exactly? Peering about I endeavored to
     count objects that belonged. My fingers came up
     empty. Air smelled like an exotic land. Pungent,
     rank, it burned my lungs and throat, invisible smog.

          Panicked, my chest frantic, gasping fish-like,
          I roamed this offbeat out-of-kilter landscape as if
          a character in a novel; a figment of pigment crossing
          a surreal canvas — translated by artistic proxy and
          eldritch approximation to a being of ink or paint…

A mental Metamorphosis.

     Dimly it registered I had trekked in a circle or
     loop, though I failed to recognize the door and
     design, the color and facade of the house from
     which I knew I had stepped — mere minutes
     before. It couldn't be longer. Couldn't be true…

          This elaborate swish of a magician's cape!
          My brain either flipped or flopped. Not both —
          because that would set things right, revert the
          wreckage, the upsidedownedness to the state my
          provincial surroundings were previously in.

That was Science.

     Or so an addled gourd conceived. I craved the
     untangled orderly confines of a sensible stable
     cosmos. Rational structure. Rigid properties.
     While I watched, this weird alt-world had further
     drifted and knotted in shades of degrees.

          I questioned a passing person I couldn't recall,
          wondering if we were acquainted. A dubious
          atmosphere hovered as suspicion clouded my
          whirlwind thoughts, raveling and unraveling,
          vaguely uncertain and mildly disturbed.

It couldn't be…

     My home. My street. My community. My life!
     The self-same existence that greeted me when
     I awoke. Was it even the same day? How much
     time elapsed during and after the turbulent upheaval?
     As an experiment, I blinked so hard I could hear it.

          Nothing else changed. Perhaps it was done
          and I was stranded in another dimension,
          a limbo realm of fog. A case of somnolent
          suspension. I was jet-lagged, too dazed and
          drowsy to tell. Then remembered a detail.

Almost a clue.

     Puddles were blank. Glossy and opaque, like
     mirrors without reflections. Pools of glass —
     the view around me absent. How could everything
     I knew disappear? What kind of storm wreaked such
     dislocation? Was I lost, or my corner — my niche?

          The scrambled effect, the disarray and jumbled
          tumult of misplacement would be mitigated by
          clean-up crews in white trucks. Fixing but not
          restoring. My former life, my customary sphere
          has been transfigured. A paradoxic puzzle.

A Gordian warp.

     My house key no longer unlocks the house…

          That is no longer my house on a street that is…

No longer Home.

Lori R. Lopez is an author, poet, illustrator, and wearer of hats. Verse and stories have appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies including Weirdbook, The Horror Zine, The Sirens Call, Spectral Realms, Space & Time, Illumen, Altered Reality, California Screamin’ (Foreword Poem), and several HWA Poetry Showcases. Books include The Dark Mister Snark, Leery Lane, An Ill Wind Blows, The Fairy Fly, and Darkverse: The Shadow Hours (nominated for an Elgin Award). Some of Lori’s poems have been nominated for Rhysling Awards. You can learn more about her at the website shared with two talented sons: https://www.fairyflyentertainment.com

Find more by Lori R. Lopez in the Author Index.

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