The Jotted Line

Describe your life in an alternate universe.

In a world where there might be infinite universes of infinite realities, why stop at just one story? Let’s take a glimpse at a few alternate lives I might possibly lead.

***

Alternate Life 1: The Painter

Droplets of paint flew through the air, hanging onto that moment for a second longer before splattering onto the cavas – and the walls – in a perfectly hazard arc.

My paintbrush dripped onto the already laden ground, colored with all the days of paint splatters before it.

On the large canvas that took up nearly three-quarters of the spacious wall, great, gobs and smacks of gray and black paint, sprinkled with tiny rainbows of yellow and red, told the story a young girl growing up and finding her place in the world. It showed her as a child in a yellow raincoat, running off to her schoolbus. It showed her, older now, with her friends. It showed her waving goodbye to her parents in front of a college campus. It showed her meeting someone, falling in love, and getting married. It showed her traveling and writing. It showed her and her husband adopting two children, raising them as their own. It showed her getting old, smiling in contentment at the life she’d lived and whatever time remained. It showed her grave, next to her husband’s, red and yellow peonies stark against the dark gray stone.

I sighed in satisfaction – finished at long last. I looked around for my phone, finding it on a stool behind me, and texted my client.

The next day, Ms. Pearl stood in front of the mural, her eyes getting all teary.

“It’s beautiful. Just wonderful. I love it. And I know my family will, too. Thank you so much,” she said.

“Of course. I’m so glad you like it. And I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” Ms Pearl said, dabbing her eyes with a tissue she pulled from her purse. “I just wanted to memoralize her in some way. She always loved art, though she couldn’t do it herself.

“And I remembered this one time she brought me to an art exhibit. I thought it was boring at the time, I was just a kid,” she gave a small chuckle. “But she stopped and stared at every painting. And then she got to this one, and I can’t remember exactly what she said, but she had this look of wonder and joy about her. I turned to look at it, and in the corner, in tiny letters, I saw… your name. I still can’t believe I remembered that after all this time, and that I found you so quickly,” she said, laughing softly.

“I’m grateful you did. It warms my heart to know my art could bring such joy to someone.”

“Yes, it truly did. If she could see this now, I’m sure she’d be overjoyed. She always said to me, ‘Do what makes you happy. Don’t get so caught up making everyone else happy that you forget about yourself. You have to live your own life, so make it a good one.’ And I think this painting really embodies that about her. It’s free and yet, purposeful; just like she was.”

Ms Pearl sniffled again, dabbing her nose with another tissue. “Sorry, I’m just rambling.”

“No, not at all. That’s a wonderful sentiment. And I’m happy my art reflects her so well.”

“Yes, like it was meant to be,” she said, and smiled.

The rest of the transaction went with relatively few words. I helped her roll up the canvas and load it into her car, her phone hovered over mine until a green checkmark showed up on the screen and a little “cha-ching” sounded, and she went on her way.

It was rather lucky she found me. I went back inside my studio, sighing in relief after closing the door. I’d almost had to go into debt, but that job had saved me – it had been a costly one, for something so large and detailed.

The art exhibit she’d spoken of – I remembered it well. It was the first one I’d been able to feature my art in – though that was mainly because they were trying to promote young artists for their fundraiser. Still though, it had kicked off my career. I didn’t expect that it would still be benefitting me ten years later. I’d gotten a lot more requests after that debut, many of them from rich, fundraising-going people. But after several months the time between requests stretched longer and longer, especially when I didn’t get my art featured in any galleries for a while. I made a website, posted on social media, but still, requests for my art continued to dwindle, until I was barely scraping by.

It didn’t help that so much art could be found for free on the internet, or even AI-generated these days. Though I supposed that the type of art people were looking for from free sites or AI was pretty different from the type of art people wanted from a painter – but it also felt like fewer and fewer people wanted the latter.

I sighed again. Maybe I should think about changing my game. Graphic or web design, maybe. But I was loathe to give up the brush.

Either way though, I was good for a while now. Not only had it been a huge painting, but it’d also been a rush job – my client, Ms. Pearl, had asked me if I could finish it before the funeral, which had only been a week away. At first, I had blanched at the thought of doing something like that in only a week, but I didn’t have a lot of other options, and it’s not like I was busy. She offered to pay me double – double! my going rate if I could finish it in time. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.

And despite the rush, I was proud of that work. I felt like I’d painted my vision, based on what Ms Pearl told me about her mom, to its full potential.

In fact… an idea sparked in my head. Maybe I didn’t need to change my art after all – I just needed better advertising. Sure, I’d made a website, but did I really exhaust every avenue there? Surely there was more to it than the just the basics. Or maybe I could look for new ways to showcase my paintings. I hadn’t done a timelapse in a while.

I picked up a marker on my desk and started jotting down ideas on the large whiteboard set up next to it. When I was finished, I snapped the cap back on the marker and stood back triumphantly. I wasn’t washed-up; I was only getting started.

I tied my hair back into a messy ponytail. It was time to get to work.

Alternate Life 2: The Revolutionary

Shouts and screams rang out from all around, but they were drowned in the cascade of booms that resonated with the very earth, shaking up dust and unstabilizing rocks on the cliff above. The too-thin metal structures our small group hid under creaked and shuddered. One direct hit and it’d be gone – us along with it if we stayed.

“We’ve rested long enough. We have to go now.”

“We can’t go out there,” someone protested. “We’ll be blown to bits.”

A few others nodded in agreement.

“We talked about this. This little roof wasn’t made to withstand firepower or bombs, it was made to withstand rain and sun. The enemy is coming down that cliff, and if they surround us, or bomb us here, then we’ll be blown to bits.”

The others murmured to each other, still looking uneasy. I sighed.

“We just have to make it back to our ships. There we’ll stand a fighting chance of getting out of here in one piece,” I told them.

“I agree. We’re dead if we stay here. We have to make it to the ships,” another said.

“Alright then. I say we go,” someone else spoke up.

One by one, everyone got wearily to their feet. I peeked out from behind our makeshift cover and saw the enemy preparing another cannonshot. Waiting until they fixed the target, I gave the signal. We all burst out of hiding and into the open, just as the cannonshot was launched from the top of the cliff and dropped with frightening velocity down onto the tin roof. A loud clang, and then – red-hot flames roared outwards, riding the shockwave to graze our back with its searing heat. It only fueled our feet, though, driving us forward despite our injuries and exhaustion.

I could see the sun sparkling over the water now. We were almost there.

Just then, the ground shook – more violently than ever before. Some in our group lost their footing and fell. A few went back to help. The rest of us stumbled but tried to keep going – until the earth cracked open in front of us, like it was trying to swallow us whole. Most of us managed to avoid it in time. A few did not. Their screams echoed a long way down, eventually cutting off.

I turned on my heel and sprinted alongside the crevice.

“This way!” I shouted, and the others followed suit.

Dust sprang up all around us like geysers, some of them engulfing a few more of our group’s meager numbers. The rest of us kept running, desperately hoping we wouldn’t get picked off, too.

This crevice had to get thinner somewhere. It had to run out sometime. That’s what I kept telling myself, but the further we ran, the wider it seemed to get.

Turning back wasn’t an option. So what would we do if a crossing point was nowhere in sight?

Something shimmered on the horizon. I squinted, trying to make it out, but it was no use. All we could do was run blindly forward, hoping we found a way out of this.

And then the ground under my foot leapt into the air, and I fell, blinded and suffocated by dust, my ears roaring. Everything stopped.

When my senses recovered, I found myself alone, unfamiliar voices and footsteps approaching, the clank of weapons like the bell tolls of death.

They stopped a few feet away, their voices rising. They seemed to be arguing. I looked around desperately for a way to escape.

The footsteps came closer. The shulick of a weapon being loaded. The crevice on the other side of me seemed like the earth’s wide smile at my fate.

My eyes widened, glimpsing the smallest sliver of hope. I glanced back at the enemy soldier, his finger on the trigger, the barrel aimed at my head.

I rolled over the edge of that sinister smile and plunged into endless darkness.

Several meters down, my descent thudded to a stop on a small alcove that just barely jutted out from the sheer cliff. I turned so I was flush with the wall, hoping they wouldn’t see me if they looked down. It was rather dark, and I’d only just barely been able to see the little shelf – and even then, I hadn’t been entirely sure of what I was seeing. But it was either take that chance or die for sure.

But I needn’t have worried – the enemy soldiers didn’t even bother to look down the crevice. The sounds of their departure echoed down into the darkness.

I waited a long time, until even distant sounds of battle – if you could even call it that – faded away. I ended up sleeping for a short time, getting some much-needed rest. But then twilight fell, and I knew I couldn’t stay here much longer. I needed to get out before it was too dark to see where to climb.

I sat up carefully, reaching up and grabbing onto a rock. I pulled a little, testing its strength, and it crumbled out of the dirt and broke into pieces, showering me with dust and falling down into the darkness. My eyes automatically followed its descent, and the endless depths made my head spin. My heart quickened and my blood roared at the thought of falling into that abyss.

I forced myself to look up instead. I narrowed my eyes, trying to shield them as much as possible from the dust, and reached up again. And again, my handhold crumbled away.

I panted, panic starting to set in. I might not be able to climb out of here.

I reached for another rock. Please, I thought. Don’t give way.

It held – but only a second longer. As soon as I put a little more weight on it, the earth around it collapsed and the rock was pulled free. I let it drop next to me on the shelf.

I paused in my efforts, my body trembling. Was this it for me? Would I slowly die here, stuck on this tiny shelf between the enemy and the abyss?

Calm down, I told myself. Just keep trying. Don’t give up now.

I stood and reached further. Maybe the rocks were more stable the closer to the surface. I grasped one, larger and rougher than the others. Slowly, I shifted my weight onto it. It held.

Quickly, but carefully, I reached up again, grabbing another. It crumbled, but I didn’t fall. My feet scraped and pressed into the soft earth, making small footholds for myself. I reached up again, this time just digging my fingers into the earth, taking the idea from my feet. The dirt started to cave a little, but it held long enough for me to reach up again, and again, and again.

A while later, I lay on the surface, panting with exhaustion. Under the cover of night, it would be a lot easier to move around. I hoped at least a few of the others made it to the ships, and that they hadn’t left yet.

I got to my feet and started forward. Come what may, I would make it out of here alive.

Alternate Life 3: The Gamer

“Ohhhh! And that’s a match. GG.” I said to my opponent.

“GG,” they replied back, if a bit begrudgingly. The green dot next to their username went red as they logged off.

“Whew! What a race. I hope that was entertaining for you all.” I laughed. “Jeez, I can’t believe I did it! So crazy, how I just barely managed to swoop in at the last moment. It was a maybe a tiny bit of a snipe, I mean, he was about to win but I got a burst of speed on a great line before the finish and just zoomed.” I put my fingers together and moved them quickly towards the camera for emphasis. “Well, thanks for watching. Until next time!”

I cut the stream and I took off my headset, looking at my game stats for a moment, pride and accomplishment welling up.

“There’s a new world champion in the houuuuse!” my friend, Sharon, yelled as she burst into the room.

“Ha, hells yeah there is,” I said, slapping my hand against hers.

“Wanna go out to celebrate?”

“Right now? It’s the middle of the night.”

“Not right now, you dolt! Tomorrow night or something.”

“For sure. Let’s get malkshakes at that place that just opened!”

“Malkshakes?” my friend asked.

“Like a milkshake but, like, not with real milk ‘cuz that stuff’s disgusting.”

“You’re such a weirdo. Whatever though. Let’s go after I finish with work.”

“It’s a date!”

***

~ After work, the next day. ~

My phone buzzed. I hesitated before taking it out, having a bad feeling.

Hey I’m sorry, I have to cancel. Rain check?

I sighed, and texted back:

np. Is everything ok?

I got to my car and started the engine when I heard the buzz.

Yeah… it’s just I’ve got to pick up an extra shift. Paul said he feels sick and went home.

O that sucks. When will u be done? I can pick u up for a late-night malkshake? dinner too?

ur the best bestie!! ❤️ 9pm.

yeah I’m pretty amazing. 😉 See ya then!

I drove to the grocery store, re-planning tonight’s streaming schedule in my head. Thankfully there was nothing in particular going on in the game tonight so I could just do whatever. I mean, most streamers probably had the whole week or month planned out beforehand, and I did for some stuff, but other times I just liked to see where inspiration would take me.

Once I got home and put the groceries away, I filled a bowl with salted crackers and headed into the studio, aka my bedroom. I munched as I waited for the game to load.

It had been two years since I started streaming. Sharon had been the one to suggest it, since I had just lost my job and I’d started spending all day playing video games. At first I’d scoffed at the idea, thinking she was joking, because there was no way I’d make any money doing that. It was far too competitive and I didn’t think I was nearly good enough.

But it wasn’t like I was doing much else with my time besides applying for jobs, and it couldn’t hurt to try, right? Sharon even got her brother to lend me his old equipment – just a good mic and camera – that he’d used for his video channel before upgrading to newer ones.

It was slow going at first, and I still didn’t have nearly as many subscribers as some of the larger channels, but people seemed to genuinly enjoy watching me improve – the journey rather than the destination.

Of course, I still burned through my emergency fund and had to take out a loan, but things were starting to look up now – I was no longer spiraling into debt, but climbing my way out of it.

The end of Sharon’s extra shift approached quickly. I stopped the stream and hopped in the car. It was time to celebrate with my best friend.