A Parallel Universe

Written in 2005.

It was a common morning, like so many other mornings. The kids off to school, the garbage truck making its rounds, the local dog taking a crap on the neighbors' lawn.
  For Joe, this morning was different than other mornings. This morning, Joe was cleaning up his attic. Joe had put it off for years, but now since he was selling the house next week, he felt he should give the attic a once over. Maybe there was something of value up there. He didn't really know. He hadn't been up there for years...or had he ever been up there at all? He had lived in the house for 8 years now, and he was going to sell it for a handsome profit. Maybe he will be able to buy that new sports car he wanted.
 It took Joe some time but he finally found the attic door. It was in the walk-in closet in the master bedroom. He pulled down on a string and the attic door opened with a "whunf". Years of dust filtered down from the dark opening, and it was a while before Joe stopped hacking his lungs out, caused by the putrid air. "Maybe I haven't been up there", Joe thought to himself. He pulled over an old wooden wobbly chair and managed to scramble into the tight opening.
  Suddenly, all was dark. He remembered the flashlight he had stuck in his pocket and he yanked it out and switched it on. There was still a lot of disturbed particles in the air and it took a while for it to clear. Gradually he was able to make out outlines of objects in the attic.
  An old dressmakers dummy, a few boxes that had all but disintegrated, a set of old wooden golf clubs, an awkward pile of moldy looking matter, and an old chest. "An old chest? Now this is interesting", Joe thought to himself.
  He approached the chest cautiously, which was kind of silly because he was probably the only living thing that had been in that attic for years. When he finally arched his head over the top of the heavy wood chest, he noticed it had a strong looking lock bolted onto it. "Now, how the heck am I gonna get in there? Maybe there's some pirate treasure", Joe thought with a sly smile and chuckled to himself. Joe pondered the problem and from some deep inside region of his brain a voice said, "shake it, you moron". He reached out and fumbled with the lock and to his surprise it clicked open. He hefted the heavy lid aside and shown the light beam of the flashlight into the chest. It looked empty at first glance, but when he made another round with the light, he came across a little metal box. Joe took the box in his hand. It was heavy. He ran his fingers over its seemingly smooth surface and found what looked like a button. His flashlight flickered for a moment. "I should have changed the batteries, d****t", Joe thought. The light beam then began to shine true again, albeit at a dramatically lower power. Joe placed the box close to his face and looked at the button more closely. Two words in small print were clearly shown above the button. They words said simply,"PUSH ME". Now Joe thought about what could possibly happen if he pushed the button. Would it make a funny sound? Would a cheap party streamer fly out? Would the whole house explode into a million pieces? But most likely, Joe thought, nothing would happen at all.
  So he pressed the button.
  And nothing happened. So he put the little metal box down. And then something did happen.
 Suddenly it felt like his bowels were being spoon fed to him with a shovel. And then nothing.
He tried to close his eyes , but he discovered he didn't have them any anymore. Then, like in the movies, it all seemed to fade to black.
  Then Joe awoke. He had his eyeballs again, so he could see. But what did he see? White. All white. Everywhere white. "Wait a minute", Joe thought, and he moved himself back. His eyes had been millimeters in front of a blank white wall. "Now that's better", Joe thought. At least he could see something now. A blank white wall wasn't very comforting, but it was better than nothing at all, he supposed.