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His body would not respond.
    The sound of crushing metal filled his ears . . . exploding glass shattered around him. Flits and flurries of a crash 23

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    24 strobed through his mind but in no particular order. A sheer rock wall. Swish-swish, swish-swish. More squealing tires.
    Rain. As he fought the darkness, he tried connecting the fragments together, one way then another. Swish-swish, swish-swish. The deafening horn. The frightened young face of the driver. More glass shattering, metal crushing.
    He’d been in an accident—
    “We ran the Glasgow Coma a second time en route to the hospital before the surgery.”
    —and, apparently, hospitalized.
    But what of the baby . . . the laundry room? Where had they been? Where had they gone? They were so vivid. The entire scene had been as real as any bits he remembered from the accident. Even now he could smell the penetrating odor of marijuana, hear the jingling of beads and bells.
    “. . . worlds we can’t even see . . .”
    Where had he been? And when had he been there? Before the accident? After?
    “No, Mister, you ain’t dead . . . at least not yet.”
    More shattering glass.
    Swish-swish, swish-swish . . .
    “We’ve come to see the baby . ”
    It seemed so real. Santa Monica, 1970—the flower children, the cars, “Keep tab with Tab,” the mother and baby . . .
    he remembered them down to the tiniest detail.
    “. . . we’re talking the existence of other realities . . .”
    “. . . you can prove this?”
    “He shouldn’t be having any residual chemical paralysis at this point.”
    Maybe it was one of those out-of-body experiences somehow connected to the accident. Or a hallucination from all the drugs they were no doubt pumping into him, or . . .
    “. . . eyewitnesses, people have seen these . . .”
    “I am afraid eyewitnesses would be locked up in insane asylums, or in drug rehab programs.”
    Swish-swish, swish-swish . . .

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    25
    “. . . worlds identical . . . but with differences .”
    The idea of a savior born in a laundry room was intrigu-ing—and he’d be a fool not to recognize the similarities between what he saw and the Christmas story Suzanne insisted upon reading every Christmas morning . . . although he suspected that “Away in the Laundry Basket” might not carry the same poetic charm as the original.
    Swish-swish, swish-swish . . .
    “. . . worlds identical . . . but with minor differences . . .”
    A heavier darkness began to wash over him.
    Was it possible? He didn’t know. Then again, maybe even these thoughts were a hallucination. How could he be thinking so clearly and yet be so . . . so . . .
    He fought the dullness as it started to swallow him.
    Maybe . . . from the trauma, the drugs, his imagination, or some combination, maybe he had entered another world. And if that was true, hadn’t Endo said there were others? Millions?
    Traveling at different speeds?
    The darkness was nearly complete and still he fought it.
    And if he had entered it once, wouldn’t it be possible to
    . . . to . . . couldn’t he . . .
    Conrad’s thoughts collapsed upon themselves as he fell back into the silent void.
    v
    Julia was so lost in thought that she nearly missed the Janss Road Exit off Freeway 23 into Thousand Oaks. Fortunately the early Sunday morning traffic was light, and she was able to swerve sharply, crossing two lanes and barely catching the exit ramp in time. As a girl, she remembered Thousand Oaks being a backwoods hick town with cowboys and horses. Well, all of that had changed. The expansive, grass-covered hills with their occasional dual-wheel ruts leading up to the summits had now been transformed into wave after wave of red-tile-roofed homes. She could still spot a few fields here and there, even catch the faint odor of dried hththt 5/14/01 11:34 AM Page 26
    26 grass and horse, but it was just a matter of time before that, too, would be swallowed up by L.A. sprawl.
    She