Three days of this! Here's a vignette about what you do when you reach an edge of the world.
The world's topology is complicated - it has many, many edges.
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"Come here. You've got to see what I found!"
It's Maddy, of course. She's always the reckless one, the mad one. The one sneaking through neighbor's yards, who found the tree you could climb to hop over to the roof of the school.
You're all out together, in the kind of early fall day you when you can still pretend it's summer. The kind our parents still call "Indian Summer" no matter how many times we tell them not to, then awkwardly joke that it's "Native American Summer" or some other such silliness.
It's Maddy who always gets you all into trouble.
Mike looks skeptical, like he always does. "What is it this time? Are we gonna get in trouble again?" Mike was the last one down from the school roof. The principal caught him and made him spend an hour carrying books to different classrooms. He didn't turn the rest of us in, but he still never forgave Maddy.
"Nothing like that. Look, this'll be great. You've just got to see it. But you have to hurry. It doesn't stay there for long."
You follow, not open for long being a magic phrase. After all, we don't want to miss out on something that isn't there for long, do we?
This adventure leads you on bikes down the busy street and to the sculpture garden behind the tiny art museum our parents drag us to sometimes. Past the lake, to the wide grassy hills nobody ever wanders past. Not because there's anything to stop us, but because there's nothing there. Just well-manicured grass and perfectly straight hedges.
Before long we get there, to a perfectly straight row of hedges with a perfectly round hole through the middle. The sunlight, from straight overhead, leaves the hole perfectly dark. This must be the "it doesn't stay for long" Maddy was talking about. Her eyes are bright.
"It's a gateway. To another world."
"Another world?" Mike looks at the hole. The gateway. He doesn't step closer, doesn't shy away. "What's this other world like?"
"It looks like this one, but EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT." Her eyes are wide, bright. Mike shakes his head. "Except for when you guys talk me into trouble, I LIKE this world. It's where I keep all my stuff."
Maddy shakes her head. "Well, I want to explore."
You find yourself between Mike and Maddy, as he edges back towards the hole and she steps forward.
Maddy walks through the hole and vanishes.
You follow. Darkness washes over you, as the world vanishes for just a moment. Then step out into the light, on the other side of the hedge. Maddy smiles at you. "I knew you'd come. We can't go back through, or we'd end up back in the same world." The back of the hedgerow is less even, less finely cared for. You smell damp earth, something a bit wild. You walk along the hedge together for a bit, her hand in yours. Then you find a thin spot between hedges and slip through, branches tearing at your skin. You walk back along the hedges until you find this world's version of Mike, with this world's version of the bicycles another you and another Maddy had left behind when they went exploring, off to a different world.
Or you don't follow. Maddy gives the two of you a look of disappointment, disappearing into the darkness as she steps through the hole. You and Mike share a look of resignation. Minutes later another world's Maddy appears from a gap in the hedges a ways down. Not a portal, not a tunnel, just a gap. Neither of you stop her from taking your Maddy's bike to ride home in silence, her disappointment hanging in the air between you.
You glance back once, knowing that your choice matters. That now everything is the different.
Or everything is the same.
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