“ID”? The person working the front desk asked.
Sharon pulled out her ID and slid it to the front desk clerk, who promptly inspected it and let her into the back room where a world of weed awaited.
“Alright,” the budtender exclaimed happily. “Is there something specific you were looking for or did you just want to browse for a bit before making a decision?”
“Umm … actually It’s my first time so I was hoping you had some recommendations.
“Oh! Absolutely!” The budtender said. He walked her over to a pristine glass case filed with different jars of strains and he pulled one out. He explained the differences in effects and let her smell them all. In the end, Sharon wasn’t able to tell the difference but felt like she should make a choice. “But this one, though,” the budtender continued, “this one will take you out of this world.”
“I’ll take that one,” she said, pointing to the jar containing a purplish strain of cannabis that she only picked because she thought it looked pretty. The budtender bagged it up, and Sharon paid him in cash.
She headed to her car, placed her purchase in the glovebox and drove home to her tiny one-bedroom apartment in downtown Denver. In truth, she’d never had any real desire to consume cannabis in any form, but at the urging of her girlfriend, and increasingly overbearing bouts of anxiety, she decided to try it out and see if it would help.
Sharon sat on her couch and loaded her pipe just the way Miranda had showed her and smoked. In minutes it was like her world had morphed into a different place. Her surroundings were brighter, and it felt like her world was actually hers.
She pulled out her phone and texted Miranda.
I love you so much, her text said.
Sharon had been waiting to say that for months, but her worry that Miranda didn’t feel the same always got in the way. In what felt like seconds later, a text from Miranda came back.
I love you too, it said. Those four words sent Sharon to cloud nine. She turned some music on her speaker and began to dance around her living room, jumping through the air. It was almost as if she’d hit the lottery. In Sharon’s mind. She had. Miranda had just told her she loved her and that was all she ever really wanted. To love and be loved.
Soon, though, Sharon could feel her body become heavy. She could feel her eyelids start to droop and so she sat. For the first night in a very long time, she had a dreamless sleep and woke up completely refreshed.
Sharon grabbed her phone and noticed she had 12 missed calls and at least twice that in text messages. The fear began to overtake her, and she wondered what had happened in the hours of her dreamless bliss. She knew that there was only one way to find out. Sharon picked up her phone, placed her thumb on the screen and waited as the home screen began to light up.
She shakily tapped the messages app and looked at all the new messages marked by a little blue dot on the right-hand side of her cell phone screen. There were dozens of messages from people she barely knew, congratulating her on her engagement. Sharon could see the darkness peek through the blinds in her living room and though she’d seen the skyline of Denver a countless number of times, she felt compelled to go see.
Outside she saw what still seemed to be Denver, but it was somehow different. The buildings were taller, the lights; brighter and as she opened her patio doors, she discovered that the air was more polluted.
The lock from Sharon’s front door turned and Miranda came walking through the door. This was not her Miranda though. There was something very off about every feature of her face. Her teeth formed too perfect of a smile, her ears were tucked in just a bit too much, her hair was several shades closer to the intended Crimson red than her Miranda, it was more like brick red.
“Oh my goodness, Miranda!” Sharon shouted. “What happened to your hair, it used to be darker! And since when have your ears been able to tuck into your hair like that?”
“Babe, Fiancée if I may say. Are you alright? Have you forgotten all the surgeries I’ve gotten over the years? Did you forget I dyed my hair differently a couple of months ago?”
The distress crept across Sharon’s face as she glanced at her phone. She noticed something peculiar about the date. It was about eight years ahead of when it should be.