Alternate Endings

 Didi Godfrey was living a life mixed with indifference and longing. She was just 25 years old, but felt like she was trapped in an older life of someone in their 30’s, except, she didn’t have a successful career, a love interest, or any hope of making a mark in the world. Her parents and older brother treated her like the black sheep, which she was, of the family. Her friends were few and far away in places thousands of miles away. She was a fish out of water, trying to survive in a new place she never had been before; the people spoke a different language, the weather was formidable, and the dangers that came with this place were many. She’d never seen a copperhead before, never had to find a storm shelter, and never needed long-johns before. Now all that changed.

The daily routine of Didi was typical of a young 20-something-year-old just out of high school and trying to earn a living without a degree in something useful, like engineering or business management: she woke up every day to a meager meal of bagel with cream cheese and a cup of coffee - actually, make that two cups - then got dressed and ready for work in a hot and depressing manufacturing plant where she got dirty, filthy really, and nearly collapsed from exhaustion several times as an anemic. After a hard day’s work, a grueling 10 hour shift with only a 30 minute lunch break, Didi would escape to a park nearby to decompress and just try to enjoy the fresh air and nature before sundown.

But deep down, Didi wanted more in life. She didn’t think she would ever find anyone to live life with - not just a romantic interest, but a partner in life - as it seemed like every time she met anyone even remotely near her age, they were either taken or not interested. Well, it’s not like I’m interesting she would think to herself. In fact, most often when Didi tried to socialize with others her age, it usually ended something like this:

Didi: Oh hey guys, have you heard about this movie? It’s really good.

Other person: Hmm, no I haven’t heard of it. Sounds interesting.

Didi: Yeah you should check it…

Other person: Oh hey, what’s up (to another person) hey I wanted to talk to you about…

Didi: …

Other person: (keeps talking to other friend and totally dismisses Didi)

The truth was, Didi just didn’t fit in. She wasn’t like those other people. In fact, she was more or less like some little alien that dropped out of space and landed here. Did Didi really have any friends? Well, maybe. Just a few. But Didi felt lonely and longed for more than friendship. She wasn’t getting any younger.

One day while she was with a group of other people her age, she stumbled upon something strange. A weird old lady named Shiela was standing at the corner of the street with a crystal ball and babbling about random things like the future and a terrible outbreak that will nearly destroy the country and world in less than a month. But as Didi got closer to this woman, the lady looked right at Didi and pointed to her with a bony finger, and said in no uncertain manner: I CAN CHANGE YOUR FUTURE!

Ok, that was weird, Didi thought to herself; I’ve heard of fortune tellers, and I’ve heard of prophecies, but I never heard of someone changing a person’s future. Intrigued, Didi approached the lady to inquire what she means by that statement.

“I know you are sad on the inside; you desire more in life,” the woman started off.

“Aren’t we all?” 

“But I can change that for you - I can give you the desires of your heart, your future brighter than ever.”

“How’s that?”

“All you have to do is close your eyes and click your heels together three times,” the lady began.

“Let me guess, say ‘There’s no place like home’ three times too?”

“YES! How did you know?” the lady was in awe.

Didi rolled her eyes, “You’re forgetting one crucial part: I don’t have ruby slippers on.”

The lady frowned as she looked at the feet of Didi, clearly not shiny ruby slippers, then reached under the table she was standing behind, and pulled out a pair of sparkly red slippers that just happened to be the same size as Didi!

“You’re joking.” Didi was floored. Her friends were gone, they kept walking without her and never looked back. Didi was thinking as stupid as this looked, she may as well never look back either.

So Didi took the ruby slippers, rather cautiously - who knows, a house might drop out of the sky onto her, and then took her old sneakers off and put on the fancy red pumps. Didi nearly fell over trying to stand up in those things, but they fit like a glove.

The old lady put her hands together in anticipation, and the whole world seemed to stop for this one moment.

Didi closed her eyes, put her feet together, and as she clicked her heels together repeated the phrase three times, “There’s no place like home.” When it was all over, Didi slowly opened her eyes to see a different woman, a younger and more beautiful woman than before.

“So, how do you feel now?” the lady asked, chuckling to herself.

“Like I should be suspicious.”

“Oh, don’t mind me - I’m just the future changed. You can go on with your day, and you’ll see how your future has changed!”

When Didi looked down, the ruby slippers were replaced with some nice shoes similar to the ones she was wearing earlier, but looked more impressive and expensive. Didi looked back at the woman who was holding the ruby slippers. “Are you Glinda?”

“Oh, no dear, I’m not Glinda.” the lady laughed.

Didi also realized she was wearing nicer clothes. It was strange. 

So Didi hurried to go find the group she was with, and when she finally caught up to them, it was as if she never was gone. The others in the group were laughing and talking about something funny they seen in the store. 

“Isn’t that so funny, Didi?” one of them asked.

It took her off guard, as this particular person never really spoke to her much or seemed to care about her thoughts on anything. “Oh yeah that is hilarious,” Didi lied - she didn’t even know what they were talking about.

As she hung around longer, it became evident that one of the guys in the group, Phil, whom she kind of was interested in, were more than friends. He was being all affectionate and it felt amazing to finally feel seen by the person she liked.

- - -

Fast forward two years, Didi was finally engaged to Phil. She didn’t think she would ever get engaged before she ran into the weird lady at the corner of the street…

Before she knew it, Didi was married and then a few years later became pregnant with their first child. It’s what any woman would want, right?

Well, the life Didi dreamt would be perfect wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies. Phil got on her nerves more often than not. Didi got on Phil’s nerves and made him feel pushed away. In-laws were a headache to deal with. Then, as if things couldn’t get worse, Didi ended up with a high-risk pregnancy before she even made it to the second trimester. 

Didi was put on bedrest until the baby came. Everyone was hoping and praying that the baby would make it closer to 30 weeks gestation, as it meant a better chance of survival and less risk for both Didi and baby.

But the baby came sooner than hoped. The baby came with a fragile little body weighing in less than 2 pounds. The baby came with a long stay in the hospital, going back and forth from the NICU and continued care unit. The baby came with lots of unknowns and lots of worry for Phil and Didi. The parents couldn’t have been more grateful that their baby survived, however. 

Yet, with the baby’s fragility, Didi and Phil knew that nothing was certain. A friend of Phil’s actually were pregnant at the same time as them, and they just lost their precious baby only hours after she was born. What were the chances of their baby making it to one month old, one year old, or beyond?

Still, they held on for dear hope that their baby, Luke, would get bigger and stronger with each day.

Soon, the days turned to weeks and months, and summer turned to autumn, when the news finally was announced on Didi’s birthday that they could take their baby home.

Half filled with excitement and half filled with anxiety, Didi and Phil took their bundle of joy home. But the baby, Luke, came with a tank of oxygen and two spares, an oxygen concentrator, and lots of tubes and other gadgets. Luke came with things that normal first time parents didn’t come with. Didi and Phil were beside themselves. 

The days turned to weeks, the weeks to months, and soon Didi was facing more complications with Luke. Doctors were telling her that Luke couldn’t be on breastmilk because he has dysphagia; they insisted on getting him on a certain formula, then thickening it with oatmeal. Luke wasn’t even eight months old when everything was flipped upside down once again. At first, however, Didi tried to slowly wean Luke off her breastmilk, so it wouldn’t shock his system. But when Luke was completely weaned off, and the more formula she tried to feed him, the worse Luke got. He wasn’t eating like he used to. He began to throw up more. He was crying and inconsolable.

Didi tried to talk to the doctors about Luke’s change in diet, and how he was getting all these rashes all of a sudden. She and Phil thought he was allergic to the formula. One doctor from the medical group even agreed, but refrained from giving any options because, “The nutritionist said to be on this formula, so I won’t be making any changes.” Yet, not one person would get Luke an allergy test to find out if he was allergic to something.

What nobody knew, all that time however, was that Didi was driving herself mad. She was tired, burnt out from trying to be a mother, and feeling like a complete failure. She was thinking about how she should’ve never been born. My dad was right, I’m just a big screw-up she thought to herself. But she would never get help. She couldn’t. They’ll take Luke away from me if they ever diagnose me as having a mental instability! Didi felt trapped. Didi felt lost. Didi felt hopeless.

One night while Didi was crying herself to sleep after a grueling fourty-five minutes of trying to get Luke to eat, then cleaning up his vomit after puking all over her and the chair, the thought crossed her mind, I hate my life. I hate this. Why did I ever listen to that lady and believe anything she said. I wish this never happened.

After a rest like Didi had never had before, she woke up to the startling realization that nothing had happened. Those three years of marriage to Phil, having a baby with medical complications, and all her woes of motherhood and wifehood were completely gone. There was no Phil in her life. There was no Luke. She woke up to find herself in the exact same place she was before everything she thought changed.

But was it exactly the same? Didi soon found out that it wasn’t quite the same. She went to work only to find out that she wasn’t supposed to be dressed like some grunt worker in the manufacturing plant, but had a nice cushy job in an office where she got to design pamphlets and other things for the company. She also found out that her paycheck was twice what it used to be. Her back: it didn’t hurt like it did before because she was not doing so much manual labor. And by golly, she actually put on makeup and did her hair on a daily basis (she discovered this through coworkers and photos on her desk).

Didi was shocked. Did that fleeting thought she had before falling asleep cause things to change again? Was her whole life just some weird movie? Did she have the ability to live different lives any time she got tired of one? This was insane.

After a week of living this splendid life of being a relatively successful mid-twenty-year-old working the job of her dreams (kind of - she didn’t care for working in manufacturing, but she still liked making things on the computer), Didi almost forgot about ever being lonely. She actually didn’t really care at this point if she grew old with ten cats instead of a man. She could get used to this life.

Well, Didi thought that she would get used to this life anyway. It turned out that things weren’t so spectacular when she realized she had a nemesis at work who was trying to take her job. She also figured out that there would always be a man in her sights that she would long after. Yes, this time it was some fellow named Derick. He worked in the office and did IT work. He was a geek, but so was Didi. Would things play out differently if anything came of her and Derick? What if he wanted kids too, and what if the same thing that happened with Phil happened with Derick? Didi couldn’t bear the thought of going through all that again.

Fortunately for Didi, however, it turned out that Derick didn’t like her. In fact, he was decisively gay. But the point for Didi was that she could remain focused on her selfish - I mean, her self - and especially self-care needs. So Didi treated herself to lattes and nail salons every month. Didi took up the hobby of being a YouTube streamer on the side, mostly making videos of her making random crafts. She really wasn’t a great YouTuber, however, so that hobby eventually disappeared.

It may have been years before Didi finally had a revelation. She looked in the mirror one day and saw herself for what she was: an aging, frightened, and desperately sad person on the inside. She managed to pretend it all away by divulging herself in hobbies and focusing on her day job that made her at least think for a moment that she finally made a mark in the world. But she was missing something. What was she missing so much? Family? Friends? A romantic relationship? Didi couldn’t shake the feeling that this life too was not what she intended it to be.

As if some magical entity was waiting for the thought to cross her mind, as soon as Didi just pondered for a slight moment, What if it was different?, then Didi blinked her eyes to find it was different yet again.

Now Didi was out in nature with the birds, documenting their behavior and trying to photograph them or record their songs and calls. Didi was an ornithologist? Oh, no, it turns out she just took up the hobby of birding and eventually got into volunteering for the local Audubon chapter. Didi was on top of the world it felt like; she had a day job but could spend weekends doing something else of notability. She wasn’t chasing boys, but birds, and there didn’t seem to be any stopping her from publishing an article about the faux Tanagers that frequent the woodlands of her hometown.

This life too seemed promising. And in this life, it seemed like her actual family respected her for once. It was kind of strange really. But Didi was excited about seeing new bird species and any time she got a good photo (because she really sucked at photography - at least in her past lives). 

What really intrigued Didi was when she discovered how ambitious she was. For birds. For wildlife. It turned out that there was this big sand mining company that was buying all the woods around the county and would eventually just leave big gaping holes that couldn’t even grow a weed when they were done. Didi was on a mission: she was going to gather as much evidence against the sand mining industry and take it to their local government, then move upward if necessary, to try to put a stop to the debilitating effects of sand mining on the community and wildlife. 

Didi managed to find very promising evidence against the mining company for pollution and habitat loss of a very fragile species of bird that requires woodlands for its breeding, which was at risk for extinction of it continued to lose habitat. The Wood Thrush, a notable and endearing species with its ethereal songs, used to frequent the woods of their community for most of Spring. Now the woods were silent with the eerie sense of impending doom.

Did Didi have what it took to stand up against the sand mining industry? Or did she let her ambitions get the best of her? After a grueling four-year battle of Didi going up with other like-minded environmentalists and conservationists, trying to rectify the situation of their woodlands that had been tattered and fragmented for decades, the local counsel finally made a decision and attempt to do something about the current destruction of several locations where woodlands were bought up to turn into more mining spots.

Residents that lived around the areas being mined began to put up signs and lobby against the local mining industry, causing an uproar for those who were trying to work at the local mines. The local government passed a law stating that the local mining companies could no longer buy land that was within one mile of residential areas, natural water sources, and must restore any land that has been damaged after their mining was completed. It was an ultimate win.

Then, Didi had run into a small family that brought back a haunting memory she couldn’t quite place: a man and woman in their thirties who had a baby that was born extremely premature were struggling to find peace and hope amidst their battle of uncertainty as their baby was going through a long journey in the NICU.

What is this? Why do I suddenly feel like I am looking at my life from an outside view? Suddenly Didi remembered her original wish - for a family of her own - and realized that she had abandoned that poor baby, Luke, who desperately needed her. But was it too late?

When Didi tried to conjure up her original dream life to make right what was wrong, she found it impossible. She couldn’t return to the life where she ultimately abandoned her growing baby boy. Despite her seeming successes and new-found respect from her family and community, Didi was haunted for the rest of her life as she knew it by the life that she abandoned.