You

You know a Marley: Dickens’s miser, music’s Bob. That list goes on. However, you never came across my Marley. I know because he is not real.

I mean, of course, he is real or I could not talk about him. But he is not real in the sense you could know him. Okay, okay, I get it. That is confusing and essentially useless information.

Let me start over at sort of the beginning.

“Captain, are you ready to go?”

That is General Smith. He is the nice guy who leads our facility in our mission. Our mission. We teamed up with some crackpots on a project that is supposed to wrap us around to a different universe to a planet similar to ours. Everyone has read a graphic novel or seen a movie about this stuff, but our crackpots figured out a way to do it.

No Pentagon bigwig could resist dreaming about their name in history books as the one who proved we had an inter-universe war advantage.

After a year of proving to the General and all those other Pentagon bigwigs that there were other universes, they took another year to explain with volumes of equations that we could go to one of them after building a transport device. At the end of that second year, here I am sitting in the three meter by three meter lead-lined, Faraday-caged room with an irritating hum from all the top-secret technical stuff that hums.

The disembodied voice calmly stated, “We’re ready to go, General. Captain Taylor, please stand by for initiation.”

“I’m ready. See you all shortly.” That was the plan; I would return from wherever five minutes after initial departure.

The General encouraged me with, “Good luck, Son, and we’ll see you in five.”

“Initiation sequence commencing now,” that disembodied body announced.

“Hey, Dude, welcome! I’m glad you finally made it. I built this place about one of your years ago. Which is very close to the same as one of our years.”

All I could say was, “Hello to you! Did I make it to wherever I was supposed to make it?”

“You sure did! And I must say, I’m relieved. I thought maybe I was going nuts thinking some alien was going to magically appear in this room just because I built it. So, I built it and you came. Interesting. I have a zillion questions for you but lest you think me barbaric, can I get you food or drink? Do you need to relieve yourself? I don’t know how long you’ve traveled so I have no idea what you might need.”

“I’m fine. As it turns out, I have two zillion questions for you. I’ve never thought of myself as an alien, but I guess to you I am one. I was in my transport room like this about, let’s see; oh, my, fifteen seconds ago. That explains the no hunger or thirst or other physical needs. I wasn’t sure my phone would work here. Oh, wait, nope, only the time shows up. I guess that makes sense.

“If I have it right, I just slipped from my universe to yours where you built this room to receive me. What does your government expect to get from me? And why do you look like me? And why do you speak my language? And how did you know where and when to build this room? What do I call you? I’m called Chuck Taylor. And are you going to eat me?”

“I’m called Marley. No, I have no intention of eating you.”

“I didn’t really think so. I was trying to be funny. Fair warning, I think I’m funny despite all my family insisting I’m not. So, what about the other stuff? Language, similar appearance and so on?”

Marley responded, “Language is easy. You and I think; therefore, we communicate. It’s not mind reading; it’s just a form of communicating. Same with appearances. We each see what we are accustomed to seeing. I dare say yo are not really a quadruped which is what I am and what I see.”

“No, I’m a biped and you look like a biped to me. Okay, that explains language and appearance.What about your government? What do they expect or want from me? And how did you know about this room and about me coming? And what would have happened to me if this room wasn’t here?”

“All great questions, Chuck, and I’ll answer them the best I can.

“This room. Suffice it to say the concept of this room came into my mind. That’s not magical woo-woo stuff; that’s the way this universe works. I don’t understand how it all works. I just know it works.”

“We’ve got people like that where I come from,” Chuck stated. “We call them gurus or holy men or crazy. So, did the whole concept of this just pop into your head as a complete plan including timing? And you said a minute ago you were worried about me not really coming. Does that mean sometimes the things that come into your mind aren’t real? How can you tell the difference between real and not-real?”

“Wow, you really do have a zillion questions! Real, not-real, it always works out the same. I always have doubts. Think about it. If it occurred to you that someone was going to pop in from another universe and that you had to quickly build a specific receiving vessel, would you have a doubt? Of course, you would even if over the years ideas had come into you mind and they were always real.

“It’s quite a leap from finding you keys under a pillow on a couch you know you didn’t sit on based on a hunch and concluding someone was coming to visit from another universe. You would have a doubt.

“Even doubting, I still follow through on the prompting. And here you are. Thus, I see no difference between real and not-real.”

I had to know, so I asked, “What would have happened to me if you didn’t build this place?”

Marley replied, "You wouldn’t have come. Something would have happened on your end so you couldn’t come. Chuck, you’ve got to go back in about thirty of your seconds. We will meet again, I promise.”

“When?”

“Soon,” was all Marley said.

“General, it’s all real. Oh, my dear God, it’s all real! I promise you!”