Glitching.

A childhood to remember...

A Glitch in the Matrix.

Do we live in a simulated reality? Scientists can neither prove it nor disprove it. But what happens if a bug gets into the program?

Fictional stories based on real accounts...

A childhood to remember.

STORY 1

The sun was bright, the skies were clear and blue when retired police officer Martha Anderson went for her morning walk. The manicured lawns and trimmed hedges, a far cry from the forest that was once here when she grew up in a house not too far away. This is where her husband and herself had bought their new retirement home. Martha hadn't thought too much about her younger days until they had moved from the city to come to live here, near her old district.

She strolled and breathed in the fresh morning air, memories flooded back to the day that she had met the woman that had inspired her to become a police officer. At her age, distant memories seemed clearer than her more recent ones.

She was about 10 or 11 at the time playing Indians in a small grassy field that lay up the hill from the back of her house with her dog Ruffles. Dressed in an Indian outfit crawling through the long grass they pretended to track prey. Ruffles noticed the stranger first as he took off in her direction, a well-dressed elderly woman coming from the direction of the woods. The Jack Russell didn't act his aggressive self as he normally does around strangers? She remembered watching him bounce and bound with excitement around this woman like he did after she had gotten home from school? The woman pleased with the reception that the dog had given her, bent down a little to let the dog who was by now standing and bouncing on its hind legs, lick her hand.

“Down boy” she heard the old woman say to him in a soft voice.

From a distance, the woman looked very familiar to her “Gran? Is that you? What are you doing here?” Martha remembered asking her.

“Ah. Sorry child, I'm not sure that we have met before? Although you do look very similar to one of my grandchildren.”

As the elderly woman got closer she could tell that this wasn't her grandmother, but she looked very much like her?

Without really thinking about it Martha Anderson found herself boarding a bus. Taking an available seat in the half-empty bus Martha reminisced back to the day that she had met the elderly lady as a young child.

“You look so much like my gran, that's who I thought you were?”

“ You may call me Martha” the elderly lady replied.

“Wow, that's the same name as me! And my Gran's name too. I was named after her.”

“What's your last name child?” the woman had asked her.

“Jenkins! Martha Jenkins!”

“Well what a coincidence?” the woman said with an inquisitive look on her face. “My name used to be Jenkins too? Before I got married that is.”

The elderly woman did tell her what her last name was at the time but she couldn't remember what it was now. All that she could remember was that they were both Martha Jenkins once.

She remembered how they had sat down on the grass talking about each other's lives for what seemed like hours. The elderly woman seemed very interested in things that had gone on in her life in the last previous years and she liked how she had laughed at a lot of her recollections. She also seemed to know more about her family than she had let on? The elderly woman had shared some of her fond memories of her past as a police officer as well. She remembered how exciting that the elderly lady had made that kind of work sound and how good it had made her feel to be a protective member of society. This may have explained why she seemed to know a bit about her family?

Smiling to herself, Martha remembered how she had cajoled her dad into buying a police costume.

“I thought that you wanted to be an Indian?”

“Don't wanna anymore. I want to be a police officer just like that nice old lady that I met.”

It was the elderly woman who had reminded her of the time that day and that she had better make it home before her mother got worried about her. She never did see that old woman again after waving her goodbye before heading down the hill towards her house. But it was her meeting with that stranger that day that started her deep interest in police work and everything that surrounds it.

After all these years she still had the small pendant that the old woman had taken from her own neck and had placed around hers. It had been kept safely away in her jewelry box over the years to give away to one of her own children or grandchildren whoever showed interest in joining the force. But none showed the enthusiasm for it as she and her husband once did. Martha had only recently pulled it from her jewelry box and started wearing it again. This is what sparked her memories of how she came to have it.

The bus climbed the hill to an area very familiar to Martha. So Martha pushed the button to indicate to the driver that she wanted to be let off at the next stop. Only a thin strip of trees was left where the forest that she knew had once stood. Through it, curved a paved path which led to the grassy area where she used to play as a young child. She had heard that it was now a children's playground.

Martha walked the pathway through the remaining trees and was surprised to find that there wasn't a playground there after all? The small field was still in an unkempt state of wild grasses with the odd little bushes growing here and there?

She heard the unmistakable barking of an excited Jack Russell as it dove over the clumps of grass towards her. In the distance, she saw a young girl stand up dressed in an Indian outfit calling, “Gran? Is that you? What are you doing here?”

A glitch in the matrix that had allowed Martha Anderson to go back in time to meet herself.

What gems of wisdom would you pass onto yourself if you were to meet yourself at an earlier age?

Next story here.

Wish the world would just...go away. Story 2