Crossing the Divide

The following strangeness might be egg-and-milk for adherents of the “many-worlds” theory of Quantum Mechanics. It should also be food-for-thought for anyone else who has witnessed something strange but not spoken about it less they be ridiculed. What I will say though is what I’m about to tell you is true, not some attention-seeking Internet fakery, deep or shallow or otherwise. But for clarity it should also be pointed out that, yes, I have recently had a head injury that needed ER treatment. However a full medical didn’t throw up and further problems and from my own viewpoint I’m pretty certain I’m as sane as I ever was …

I live in a housing estate built on a hill and around the corner from us, is a particular younger family. For years the husband worked in the building trade and was often away from home during the week. The wife seemed to be a full-time home-keeper with a child to look after and was often seen out and about. Then something happened. An accident? A medical trauma? I don’t know, but the husband gave up work and became a full-time carer to his wife who could no-longer move unaided and had to make use of a wheel-chair. She went from being a lively, happy lady to sullen and depressed-looking, often in distress, slumped and unable to control her legs. Her husband rallied to their cause though and threw himself into his new role. We shared greetings if we passed on the hill and had the odd word, but nothing notable. This caring situation has been the same now for a couple of years at least.

Then, about a week ago I was going out to buy food and passed the couple not far from their home. What I saw shocked me.

The husband was now struggling to walk back to the house, using one of those hiker’s poles as a walking-stick for support, lurching around dramatically and looking pretty distressed at the effort, his legs clearly weak and struggling. His wife was upright, fully-mobile and as fit and able as she had been before her own trauma. She was helping support her husband as he staggered on, apparently used to the situation and smiling encouragement, clearly not panicking as though this was something new. A very clear and jarring role-reversal.

I drove on somewhat confused and did my shopping. On the way back they were gone of course but my route took me past a Close, a dead-end side-street, that had a house newly offered for sale in it. It struck me as potentially funny at the time because their neighbours had recently sold-up too and moved out. Maybe they didn’t want to remain without their old friends next-door, or they’d just discovered they couldn’t stand their new neighbours.

Nothing more was thought about these events until the following day.

I was driving out again and saw the married couple once more. This time the wife was being hoisted out of her wheel-chair and into their VW Combo van by her fully mobile and fit husband. Yes, their roles were back as they had been prior to the day before. What’s more when I looked into the Close again, that For-Sale sign was no longer there.

Back home I checked the estate-agent’s web-site for the notice I’d seen previously but there was no property in the Close for sale. This could mean the householders had changed their minds of course, made an abrupt about-turn. Even so you might have expected an archived for-sale page somewhere, left for those who’d already expressed interest, but marked as no longer available. There was for the sold property, but not for this new one. What’s more walking into the Close I could see no evidence of a hole in the front lawn where the for-sale sign would have been hammered.

I really have no idea what happened that day and you are the first people I’ve told this to. It’s all true, but no-one else would believe me, would they? Looking back I do try to doubt it all myself, but the memory is just too strong. I remember it all so clearly.