habit – Michael Seidel, writer

Eating oatmeal remains a little messy and problematic. It almost slipped off the spoon and down my chin.

Wait, I should set it up right: I’m talking about reverse days. That clarifies it, doesn’t it?

Maybe if I go further back, this will begin making sense.

I’m right-handed. Years ago, I decided that I would be right-handed on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I’d be left-handed on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Sunday was dealer’s choice.

I began easy and worked my way into more difficult efforts. Along the way, I grew deeper appreciation for what left-handers must suffer in order to cope with our right-hand biases. My house feels specifically set up for a right-hand user. I never thought about that when I bought it; I accepted it as ‘normal’. I realized that many things can be changed to accommodate a left-hander, matters like how the faucets are oriented, and the way the dryer and refrigerator doors open.

After my practice with reverse days, I can only imagine how difficult daily life must be for natural left-handers. Learning to drive must require a Herculean effort.

Beyond those, I’ve become fascinated with how my right and left hands have negotiated into who does what. Holding and eating a banana, for example. I found that I hold my banana in my left hand so I can peel it in my right. Yet, I continue to hold it in my left hand while I eat it.

The most daunting task for reverse days: definitely shaving. I can shave my face okay with my left hand. But my left hand hasn’t earned my trust for trimming my mustache and beard. An electric razor is used for that task. Using it to shape things requires careful movement and concentration. I like it just so, you know. Although I’ve picked up my razor with my left and braced myself to do it and yet…wincing, returned it to my right. Yes, I am a chicken.

I’m sure I’ll someday summon the courage to permit the left hand to give the electric razor a go. Until then, the left hand won’t know what the right hand is doing.

Then it’ll learn just how hard it is being right.

The habit to check my email is strong. Still do it every morning. It’s even more of a habit now that I’m dead. The body might be gone but not the habits. Those who died before email don’t really get it. Those who died after email died don’t either.

I had mail. I knew I would but I still heave a heavy sigh when I see the messages. It’s iMail so the box is bottomless. I haven’t been able to verify it, but I think the i in iMail means infinite. I have fifty-seven thousand six hundred seventeen unread messages and counting.

They’re all from ‘me’, that is, other versions of me who’d also died but were in a different heaven. The multiverse theory of reality is right; every decision, no matter how small or large or nuanced, generates a new universe. With iMail, the dead across multiverse heavens can connect with one another. The messages from me to me vary little from one another. It’s the same missive I sent to my other selves when I discovered this capability after I died.

“Hi Michael, it’s me. Or you, ha, ha.” With some small differences. Some open with ‘hey’. Or drop the name and call me ‘dude’. Or, Mike, M, Mickey, Micheal, Mychael, etc., or yo. Some start, ‘it’s you’ instead of ‘it’s me’. Some hyphenate the ‘ha-ha’ or leave it naked of punctuation, ‘ha ha’. ‘Hah’ is also used. And ‘ha’. And there’s every variation of all those, including capitalization and punctuation and language. Because some of me were born in NAZI America because the US lost WW2. Others write from the Second United States or the Commonwealth of the United States or the Confederate States of America because I was born in Virginia, and we all share that. That’s who we are but the similarities and differences become complex.

There are some, who, like me, sent out a request. “Please stop. Don’t send me mail.” But the newcomers, who survived the heart attack which killed me — or never had one at all — or were sober, high, stones, drunk, etc. — but were killed later by cancer, accidents, shootings, on Earth, in space or on Mars, the Moon, etc, or by the first wife second wife husband father mother son, etc., — and all the many ways one of those might kill me — and different ways in which the attempt is made — and the different dates, times, locations — all of them come onboard and send out that same damn email, with variations.

I might be in heaven, but it’s email hell. You’d think I’d have the willpower to stop, but here’s the thing about the multiverses: even dead, since I still exist but as another form, every decision creates a new verse. So some of me manage to stop and quit checking their email, but it’s not me. At least today.

I’ll see what happens tomorrow. I hopefully won’t lose it and kill myself in heaven, which apparently we can do.

I’ve seen that imail, too.