“Who’s there with you, Dom?”Marty asked, a lilt of panic in her tone.“What’s happening?Are you okay?Are you safe?”
“You heard him…er, that!?”she squealed.If Marty heard the voice, then maybe she wasn’t losing her mind after all.
But then she remembered, Nina had asked if she had fangs or horns.Who asked those kinds of questions?
Maybe they werealllosing their minds.Maybe they were having a shared delusion.Like thatShazaammovie phenomenon, where everyone swore the comedian Sinbad had been in a movie calledShazaam.People had actually recalled scenes from it and everything, yet no one could actually find the existence of the movie.
The phenomenon was called the Mandela Effect, which is essentially the sharing of a false memory.
Or maybe this was all one long waking nightmare.
Maybe…
“Dom!Please answer me!Who is that?Are you safe?”Marty repeated, her voice rising in clear panic.
She held up a hand even though she knew Marty couldn’t see it.“I’m okay, and I’m safe.”
But was she really okay?Safe?
“You goose.Of course you’re safe,kærr.I’d never hurt you.”
“Whois that, Dominique?”Marty pressed, her voice rising higher than it had a moment ago.“I thought you said you didn’t have a partner?What is happening?”
How did she explain this?
Rehearsing it in her mind, Dom went over the facts in a nutshell.
It had been a lovely fall day.The leaves were bright, orange and brown wisps of colorful paper gracing all the trees at the park.
The weather was just crisp enough to wear one of her cute sweaters with pearls and capris pants, but warm enough to feel the sun’s caress on your face.It had been cloudless and blue.
Dom rolled her eyes.Wasn’t that the start of every horror story ever written?
It was a beautifully perfect day…
Anyway, she’d gone to a swap meet with some of her grandfather’s fellow patients in memory care.She volunteered to chaperone the seniors almost every weekend on one event or another.The idea being to keep them engaged and living the last bits of their lives to the best of their abilities.
The folks at Remember Me Memory Care were like family to her.Pippy, Jonah, Annie-Mae, Harold, Roland, Sheffrey, Verlean, all had become very dear to her since her grandfather, Stavros, had joined them two years ago.They were all she had left, and she surrounded herself with them every chance she had.
Anyway, she and Pippy happened upon a table with a bunch of old, rusty tools some guy was trying to hawk for far too much money.
One of the tools had enraptured Pippy.So much so, she’d struck up a conversation with it.One where they shared anecdotes and pleasantries.
And Dom had heard every word.All of it.But it wasn’t just Pippy talking to some hallucination—the tool had spoken back, as though Pippy were a dear, long lost friend.
Thinking she and her mind were parting ways, she’d finally managed to pry Pippy’s fingers from the table and hurried her back to the bus with her heart in her throat.
She’d mistakenly thought that was the end of the delusion.She’d taken Pippy back to the bus, got her back to her room, tucked her in, gave her grandfather a kiss and some of his favorite butterscotch pudding, and gone home.
But when she arrived, the tool was sitting on her kitchen table.
Or rather, thehammerwas sitting on her kitchen table.
Talking to her.
In a very appealing voice that reminded her of a combination of James Earl Jones and Morgan Freeman.Articulate, gentle, deep and satisfying.
At first, she’d ignored it.Dom made up a bunch of explanations for why she thought she could hear the hammer speak.Until it literally carried on a full-blown conversation while she’d gone about her daily chores.
