He threw me through a window. I was a scrawny little kid. Fifty pounds. My whole body would shake when I came home from school. I knew he’d be around. With any luck, he’d be passed out on the floor.

Or. He would grab me, strip me, and whip me. I was compelled to take it and take it and take it until my mind escaped down the Rabbit Hole of Fate. Time itself was unable to push fate at the speed of light. Not much moves fate except another timeline.

And there are Homo sapiens who actually want to revisit all their Other Selves. It would be a problem. What timeline do you pick, and exactly where does it end. Access means you can change dimension. The problem with infinite timelines is that the universe itself is probably one as well. From the beginning to the end. Perception is everything. Location only is. We were up late one night just to watch the Chalkman Moon light up the desert all around us with mischief and wild ponies to their fates. Our own fire had faded. The only way you could survive these tests was to get whatever sleep you could.  The challenge was always the same. Could I walk out alone and survive. What other option was there.

There were a few.

I ran. I ran like I always did. Your own shadows push you to do it. To stay ahead of wolves there had to be wolves. I’m not sure I even knew what wolves were, but they had to be bad because all the gnarled, old grey men were grim. Grim with teeth. Guns. Grim with night. Grim with grief. I could hear them at night. I wanted to avoid the snakes that hunted fate down with such assurances as what comes around, goes around. At night with the howling, probably coyotes, maybe not coyotes, maybe hyenas. Hyenas everywhere.

Now, we are in the Rabbit Hole, third floor up from the Queen’s apartments. What timeline did I get thrown into this time.

You can hide down inside the sleeping bag.

He called me, Boy. I do not know why. Timelines all have an arch.  You cannot know them all. You can only know one. Some matter. Some don’t. Some are chasing demons. Instrumentality. Expedience.

Which one would be the truth. The demon, the instrument, or whatever you can squeeze from timelines. It’s the Sixth Dimension where you are at high risk, the timeline will take over as AI has programmed it to, but only with some of the rules of the Seventh Dimension. It’s like an an Eleventh Century ship sailing off the map. Perhaps plunging downward all the way to the private apartments of the Queen of Hearts. I always get the Sagittarius card. Arrows. I do not know where they land if they land at all.