What happens when a planet falls from the sky?
That’s the question Damon (Earth-X) and Marissa (Earth-Y) were tasked with answering, but they were busy eye-fucking each other. Then they remembered the spectators in the background, on both ends of their respective mirror worlds in their respective public parks, there to watch the Overlap.
Marissa and Damon could only communicate via tablets.
Marissa: “If our worlds solidified on top of each other, it’s possible they would merge.”
Damon: “That wouldn’t be bad.”
M: “Why?”
D: “I’d get to see you.”
M: “But our planets could likely snap in half.”
D: “Well you know how to flirt.”
M: “Who said I was trying? ;)”
Their tablets beeped. The Overlap was ending.
The two suns in the sky overlapped and turned a bright hue of canary orange with undertones of molten copper. They dreaded that time: when their respective forms would dissipate back into their dimensions, fading out of sight, leaving one another standing in the middle of the park, in their respective worlds. It reminded them they were both on different Earths; only able to see one another temporarily. But nothing else.
They both went back to their homes on their respective worlds, but weren’t sad. They had a ritual of sorts. Before the rift closed, they would send each other poems over their tablets.
A year ago, a rift between two realities opened; yellow, throbbing splits in the air. Then people began to see translucent forms roaming around, walking through peoples’ bodies. Next came phantom structures: homes; skyscrapers, vehicles. It was like everybody was walking around with their eyes crossed. But it was two similar realities overlapping one another intangibly for 60 minutes a day.
Earth X and Y’s scientists communicated their findings with one another via tablets that connected during the Overlap. Several labs were tasked with figuring out: What happens if the realities were no longer intangible, and were solid right on top of each other?
Damon worked for one lab; Marissa for the other. Their messages started off surface level. Then one day, a book of poems peeked out of Damon’s bag. She sent him a suggestion, then things took off, and crossed into the personal; then hot and heavy. Due to the short window, every message had to be succinct and tight… what better to share emotions economically than through poetry?
One day he suggested “Recreation” by Audre Lorde; she sent “The Floating Poem” by Adrienne Rich. Sensual poems, expressing longing, touching, wanting. From then on, despite the distance, they were madly in love.
One day at the site, no spectators were around. With no prying eyes, they found a tree in the park that was parallel to one another’s, and sat underneath it in the shade.
Damon: “You really think this could happen? Our worlds colliding?”
Marissa: “I don’t know.”
“Are you nervous?”
“I try not to think about it.”
Damon sighed. “What can we really do about it?”
Marissa: “Nothing.” She paused before typing, “Is it corny to say that if the world were to end, meeting you would be the best thing to happen to me?”
Damon smiled: “Just a little corny.”
She rolled her eyes.
Then that tell-tale beeping. The Overlap ended.
The next day at work, Damon was greeted by HR. He knew what it was about … he wasn’t foolish enough to think they wouldn’t monitor communications.
That night, Marissa arrived at their rift spot, and was greeted with his replacement. She knew their time together ended.
They looked for each other for a month, scrambling to remember one another’s favorite places. But they were quickly struck with how not every establishment had a perfect mirror. The location of Damon’s favorite bookstore on Earth X? In Marissa’s Earth, it was a donut shop.
Damon found out which scientist replaced him, and asked him to tell her to meet Damon at a spot that was a parallel between their Earths.
He went to the spot—a park bench near the New Orleans Zoo—and she was there waiting for him. Her eyes were soft; his, grief stricken. They both knew they’d never be able to love one another the way they wanted. They couldn’t touch or smell or hear one another; there would be no wedding, no kids, no happy ending.
A lone tear streaked down her cheek and he reached to rub it away, only for her to slip right in between his fingers.
Like clutching at mist.
Poetic, she thought, that everything she ever wanted in a person was right before her, but an entire reality away.
He thought the same, and on his phone, typed a poem’s title, and showed her. It was about heartbreak: “I Crave Your Mouth, Your Voice, Your Hair,” by Pablo Neruda. They both stayed there until Overlap was done, and their respective worlds faded out of sight.
When their Earths collided, the ground split open. Sirens rang. People ran and screamed; some were on their knees praying to gods they suddenly believed in. There were escape pods, meant to get as many people off-planet as possible. Damon ran to the park. He felt stupid, risking his life for someone he couldn’t touch, or even hear. But he wanted to see her, if this was the last time. He knew she would think the same.
Marissa was there waiting.
Earth trembling beneath their feet, no one certain if it would stop once the Overlap was done, they reached for one another and … they touched.
So what happens when a planet falls from the sky?
The Earths would fuse together in an amorphous figure 8, as everything crumbled; select few people would fly into the stars to start anew; seas would rise and cause calamity; and two lovers would finally hold each other and, despite all the emotional poetry they’d read over the years, would bring each other to tears with one simple word:
“Hey.”
