Being in Hampstead always makes me thoughtful. It is a place I associate with wonderful happiness, but also traumatic events from the night I was attacked. While we were walking their dogs across the Heath (a place which is particularly poignant for me), I chatted with my friends (Liam and Holly) today about everything that has happened with Jack.
I looked at Teresa’s prompt early this morning before I went up to Hampstead for the day:
Your challenge today, should you accept it, is to explore the flipside and write your best Science Fiction Alternate/Parallel Universe tale and see where it leads…or whatever/wherever the picture takes you.
https://maplesswanderer.wordpress.com/2020/01/26/daily-writing-prompt-26/
I interpreted this as the kind of scenario from the Gwyneth Paltrow movie “Sliding Doors“. My head is too heavy to make up a tale, so I have opted for more bad poetry! My awful poetry is steadily advancing from worse to worse!
The picture Teresa supplied us with made me think of the cobbled lane where I crossed paths with Jack late last summer. I remember coming home that day and writing about it in this post called That Was Me. Within a fortnight, Jack made contact with me. I wrote about that too, I Will Never Ignore My Phone Again, and the rest is history.
But I asked Jack a question during one of our deep conversations. I asked if he had not seen me that day when we both happened to be on the same cobbled lane in North London, would he have called me. He said no, he wouldn’t have. Seeing me reignited his desire to heal the breach, to end the silence. He had wanted to for a long time, but as silence persists, things become more awkward.
For a long time, he didn’t know how and when to contact me. I had changed my phone number, I had moved several times, I had stopped using my old email address. I had asked those of my close friends who knew my contact details not to give them out and not to tell Jack where I was living. But after seeing me that day, he went straight to Liam and Holly (who I was with today) and told them how he felt about the silence between us. Liam and Holly gave him my number. I am glad they did, even though I had previously asked them not to.
Anyway…sometimes I think about that film “Sliding Doors” and how things may have ended up very differently. What if Jack and I had not been on the same cobbled lane that day? What if I hadn’t have changed my plans? What if I had been walking along that lane five minutes earlier, or five minutes later? I have expressed some of my thoughts in the terrible “poem” below!
In a parallel universe there’s another me
She’s wandering blindly through her life, lost as can be
In her heart a battle wages, hope against despair
Always pretending, she hides away her anxious care
Her lover in Australia, felt so far away
She’d been with him all summer, but knew she couldn’t stay
She’ll work overtime in the hope she can see him soon
Saving every penny to afford a flight next June
Not a word from Jack, her ex-flatmate, these past four years
No one she can confess her pain to or share her tears
Fearing family or friends that might blow her cover
Can’t blame her clinging to her long distance lover
With Goldfinch’s arms around her Caramel escaped
Suppressing the memories from that night she was raped
Will he ever understand how he helped her to heal?
How he made love, joy, peace and hope become something real?
However, I think she knew from that very first kiss
Goldfinch was reluctant to make her any promise
Although she may have dreamed of one day being his wife
She knows that we don’t always get what we want in life
Her realizing things could be an awful lot worse
Helps her be content with her place in the universe
Don’t forget this is about the other Caramel
I’m just imagining the make-believe parallel
There is a song I did not want to miss out today. It’s something I have been looking forward to sharing every since I saw this theme on Jim’ list weeks ago. Jim Adams, aka Newepicauthor, the creator of 
However, when it comes to opera, duets can be rather spectacular. So I have decided to feature one of my favourite duets, “Belle nuit, ô nuit d’amour”, (The Barcarolle) which is from The Tales of Hoffman. You may already know this stunning duet. If you don’t, you are listening to a beautiful melody from Offenbach’s final opera. Apparently Jules Barbier wrote the lyrics.
Jim Adams, aka Newepicauthor, the creator of 
John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John (aka Danny and Sandy) provide one of the most iconic duets of musical history, in the form of “You’re The One That I Want”. Such fun! Young love! I do love that sentiment “You better shape up!” It’s so no nonsense, “don’t mess me around!” – isn’t it!
Caramel 