The Weirdest 24 Hours Of My Life

This has been the weirdest 24 hours of my life. I had been out Sunday night and probably more than one too many beers. I was just waking up and happened to look at my ceiling where my overhead protection clock showed 7:21 AM. I jumped out of bed and went to the bathroom. I went to the window and saw the sun coming up in the West........Whoa, what’s it coming up in the West for?.

I was so late for work I didn’t give it further thought. Traffic was heavy and bumper to bumper. At one standstill, I looked to my left and the guy next to me looked familiar. He turned my way and it was me or at least an identical twin. He had on the same shirt and he looked at me like he was saying “.......who the hell are you?”

Traffic started moving and I got to the office and dashed in the front door, sat down and started filing reports. I didn’t notice fellow workers staring at my cubicle for a while. They were staring at my name plate in front of me. I turned it around and it said “TREBOR LLEDSMAR”, my name spelled backwards. Some practical joker had put it there but no one admitted it. I’ll take it home and show it to some of my friends.

At lunch, I met with my old Army buddy, Seth Appleton, who lives in a nearby town but I only see him once in a while. He had called this morning and asked if I wanted to meet with him for lunch at our favorite coffee shop, Jack’s Diner on California Street. He ordered what he always ordered, a hot roast beef sandwich and a Miller High beer. I ordered what I always order, a grilled tuna sandwich and, I decided, after remembering what my day was like, another Miller High.

We separated and I went back to the office and you know, I forgot to mention that Seth had parted his hair on the right side. Until today, he had always parted it on the left. The day was getting weirder I knew when the boss came out of his office and congratulated me on being promoted to assistant office manager when two weeks before he had given me a bad report of performance and threatened me with a possible lay off. At the afternoon coffee break, the other people sat on the other side of the room, looking in my direction and talking very quietly. Before today, it was always a noisy break with every body talking at once about baseball, politics and, in some cases. laughing at a raunchy joke.

I was glad when 5:00 rolled around and I could leave that mad house. I noticed the people on the streets seemed subdued with very little chatter from the normally boisterous crowds on their way home after a day at work.

I decided I didn’t want to be around people that night not even my girl friend who was beginning to seem distant to me anyway. I would have a TV dinner, a couple of beers, watch Monday Night Football and go to bed early. I didn’t really notice, because of the disturbing day I had had, that the sun was setting.........in the East! What the hell is going on in this temporarily, I hope, world?
I had a hard time going to sleep, so I took a sleeping pill. Even with the pill, the wind and rain came up and was howling like a hurricane. I was just start to sleep when something hit the house. I got up instantly and realized it must have been an earthquake.
I had read someplace that California was due for a big one.......but there were no aftershocks. I turned on the TV and there was no mention on the late night channels that were still on.

Well, I was finally so exhausted that I finally got some sleep. I had remembered to set the alarm and my overhead projection clock’s alarm went off like it was supposed to and I got up. I shaved and put on my shirt and tie for work and raised the curtain. The sun was back where it was supposed to be coming up, in the East

I am a science fiction fan and I am beginning to piece together what happened yesterday, such as the guy in the car next to me, the name plate with my name backwards, the boss being nice to me, my friend parting his hair on the opposite side and probably other things that I glossed over. My theory is that I went through the day in a parallel world where every thing is similar to the world I live in but here little glitches happen. I hope it never happens again. One clue was how I looked in the mirror that morning. It was like the picture on this story.