Letter from Your Alternate Timeline Self Who Is Doing Better Than You And For Some Reason Is Your Next Door Neighbor

Dear me,

Like you, I'm completely baffled as to what kind of occurence in the space/time continuum could cause us to somehow be living in the same timeline, and as neighbors no less. If I didn't know better I'd think we were characters in a sitcom, possibly on the WB, and probably not destined to last for more than half a season.

Since we're NOT on TV, however, I would be much obliged if you would stop acting as if we were. For one, I know the garbage on my lawn is from you. For two, I know the awkward prank phone calls are from you. You might not remember this, depending on how far back in the past you and I begin to diverge, but we were never good at disguising our voice, thinking up hilarious things on the fly, or even talking on the phone. Of course, I learned how to interact with human beings on a direct basis. You're probably still online every night, and I bet I could find what message boards you haunt within three tries. Think I'm bluffing? Three words, chump: Lisa. Loeb. Online.

You are not allowed to use my trampoline. I saved up for months just to buy it and I'll be damned if you're going to enjoy it for free. Yes, that's petty and childish, but as you know, that's me.

Also, stop going to my office and pretending to be me. They know how to tell us apart, ass, and nothing you've done there has ever hurt my standing with the partnership. I'm sorry you don't have a job that actually supports you, but you knew that dropping out of college to join a band carried certain consequences for dumb shits stupid enough to drop out of college to join a band. Oh look at me, I play in a band! I'm not like all the other dorks at Sam Ash! Why aren't people paying me to play them several minor variations on the G, C, and D progression?

And yes, I do indeed find it ironic that we seemed destined to participate in music in some form or another. After that, I find it infuriating, because you play so often and so terribly that I can't write anything without thinking that I'm just doing the same thing you would.

If that wasn't enough reason for me to be furious at you - and it is - then you top yourself with all the crap you toss Hilary's way. I'm going to say it one final time. Back. Off. I'm sorry that your Hilary left you - truly I am as marrying her was the best thing I've ever done - but that doesn't mean that MY Hilary still loves YOU. From the long, rambling emails you send her, apparently you just weren't interesting enough to make it worth maintaining the relationship. You don't say that, of course, but I know me and I can read between the lines in an instant. You still quote from the "Stonecutters" episode of The Simpsons, for god's sake.

I could go on and on, but I'm going to wrap this up now, as I'm going to BED with my WIFE so I can be with her before I go to WORK tomorrow. Stop leeching off of me just because I was brave enough to live the life you want to live. You're like a mangy dog begging at the door for scraps. You're a constant reminder of how shitty my life could have gone, how easily I can sink into my old routines. You depress me.

I left you behind and I'll be damned if I pick you back up.

Letter from An Idealistic Teenage Potato Chip, Age 15 (weeks)

You know what I don't understand? Like, everything. Why there is hate, why there is injustice, why there is racism. It feels like everyone is just being lazy and aren't taking the time to actually understand what they're hating and stuff. Like, everyone around here avoids that potato chip that's all crusty and brown, right? My mom and dad even told me never to go near him, but they've never told me why. Just that they don't like what they hear about him, and he gives off a funky smell if you're near. So ONE potato chip actually has an odor. That must mean he's evil. And that must also mean that all the Barbeque chips are stupid immigrants, and all the Cheddar chips are hicks, and all the Vinegar are homos, and all the Sour Cream And Onion chips are wealthy conservative assholes. God, it's so frustrating that chips are so close-minded like that.

It's like those stupid chips that believe we were all created on the same day by He Who Devours when it's so totally obvious that we evolved over time from potatoes. I mean, duh, right?

I'm not going to grow up to be like my mom and dad. They're big chips around here, that's for sure. Dad's always saying that he works like he does so I can have a better life (like I believe that for a second; my dad totally wishes he was a sour cream and onion). But I don't have a better life than anyone. In fact, I probably have a worse life. It feels like most of the time I'm walking alone in the shadows, like no one understands me. All the other chips are concerned about stupid things, like how big they are, how popular they can be, getting good grades, remaining well salted. It's all bullshit. Fucking bullshit. None of that matters. Because you know what happens? You do the same thing your parents did, you be lazy and stupid just like them, and look what happens. You get big and fat and The Hand comes along and eats you. The Hand always eats the biggest ones first.

I wish our art teacher here at school wasn't so useless. She has us inking tracings of seashells. It's so gay. Before that we were using chalk and pastels to draw pictures with shade, dimension, and texture. Some of those tricks were neat, I gotta admit, but I want to know when we're gonna get into some cool shit. I keep asking the teacher if we're going to study some modern artists or impressionists or protest art or something, but she gives me this dumb vacant cow look. It makes me wanna punch her in the face. She's always blaming me for weird things, too. Like she thinks I unplugged her computer or that I broke the kiln or tracked mud into the darkroom. She's a weirdo. And probably a lesbian.

The whole school is messed up. I submitted some of my poems, right, for this yearly magazine they put out, but they rejected it because they were "too dark". What's up with that? I'm just telling it like it is. It's DARK here at the bottom of the bag, at the bottom of the world, at the bottom of the chain where I am. No one respects any of us down here, all the adults higher up think they know better than us. I can't imagine any of them as teenagers. Except Mr. Winslow. He's awesome.

Oh, get this. I had to go to my guidance counselor the other day and fill out this career evaluation form. When I was done my counselor, who also counsels like a quarter of all the chips here so he's not really "my" counselor, said that the form said I would be best at supporting ranch n'onion dip and salsa. That I would give flavor to other chips surrounding me. That's such crap. How can a form know what I'm best at? You can't reduce a person to questions on a paper. A stupid test can't know what I think. I'm best at creating. I'm best at finding the things no one wants to talk about. Salsa. Whatever.

I'm not going to do what all the other chips do, marching along like mindless sheep. I explore, I create. I've got music in my collection that's tons better than what's on the radio, but they'll never hear it because they're all too dumb to seek things out. My destiny isn't theirs. I'm not going to let mediocrity defeat me. All the chips I see around me...they're gonna get fat, and big, and eaten.

But not me. The Hand will never catch me. I'm not like the other chips at all. I'm different.

Letter from An Unlikely Pacifist

I cured Alzheimer's. Me. I did it. Right here. I also paved the way for others to find the cure for buckets full of other genetic maladies, but their names escape me. My target was Alzheimer's, because there was lots of funding available for anyone who wanted to aim the double barrels of science and medicine at it. Pow! Take that, forgetfulness!

Here's how I did it: I took the extreme approach. It took a while. Through the use of modified bacteria (luckily this part was half-done for me, we've been using bacterium as convenient protein carriers for years, decades even) I starting manipulating human genetics. Transforming certain strings of code that, through the Human Genome Project god blessit, I was convinced held the info and misfiring directions that were the source of the problem.

It took a lot of trial and error, most of which I'd rather not discuss.

At first I got a hold of Staph and Strep bacteria. Really nasty strains that had evolved beyond the reach of antibiotics. That certainly wasn't easy. At first I was convinced that the bacteria would have to be unbreakable, so to speak, or else common medicine would be able to wipe out the carriers before change could be enacted in a subject's genetic sequence.

This was also a bad idea, and thankfully one that didn't last too long before I realized I could use common digestive bacteria to much greater effect. So the dangerous bacteria went back to whatever Level 4 quarantine it gets stored in and I began playing around.

Before long, I had it. The precise sequence and how it had to be changed. After the first success I immediately entered my hermetic bio-cube. I am determined to see how the behavioral changes would affect the global population. My main mission accomplished, I monitored the news, internet, radio, and television constantly, working on what they had actually given me grants for: eliminating Alzheimer's. This also took a while, but it gave me something to do while the bacteria spread around the world and began to affect change.

I have pacified the world, you see. Rolled up my sleeves and knocked the mean gene from the human race. It's gone. All ruffled feathers shall become smooth. Animosity, war, jealousy, hate will all become quaint historical terms in a couple decades. I have my reasons for all of this. I'm sure you do too.

Soon I will be the only one on the planet capable of hatred, and that is a delightful thought. I find myself sometimes bounding around my bio-cube screaming as many terrible epithets as I can think of, just because I can. Just because they will soon be powerless to affect anyone. Finally I have let them out to play, but there is no one for them to play with anymore.

Things have become a great deal less sensational since the behavioral change began to circle the planet. News programs are actually informative instead of accusative (and there are now only enough news stations to suit the population, instead of two per channel). Entertainment becomes increasingly boring, though it remains steady in its uneven qualities. Brilliance has been given more of a chance to shine, but drama and conflict are quickly becoming memories as well. Religion is as prevalent as ever, though.

I watch everyday from my little bubble. Somedays I become truly worried. Things are getting slower and slower our there in the yonder. No one feels the need to accomplish anything anymore, fearful of any damaging effects. There is less and less innovation. Many seem confused at how pacified they should be. There is being polite and considerate and then there is being isolated and wooden. Of course, it's truly ironic that I myself am isolationist, though still capable of negative actions and thoughts.

My new world is yet young, though, and there is no telling what may yet happen. The next generation may kill themselves en masse from boredom, or they may devote themselves to the arts, to math, and to science.

I have no idea what I myself may do. Open the door one day and let myself join the world I created? Or continue to observe until death? It is a mystery to me. A great mystery that I think, I hope, shall never be solved.