Gerald Wilkins was brushing his teeth on a Tuesday morning when the bathroom floor decided—quite independently of any known laws of physics—to stop existing.
“Oh for crying out loud,” Gerald mumbled through a mouthful of mint foam as he plummeted through what could only be described as the color purple, if purple had been having an existential crisis. “Not again.”
This was, surprisingly, the third time this week that reality had malfunctioned around Gerald. On Sunday, his coffee had transformed into tiny singing squids. Monday, his car had driven him to work via the Mesozoic era.
As Gerald fell through the dimensional void, he passed a floating refrigerator.
“Hello,” said the refrigerator in a posh British accent.
“Lovely day for a fall, isn’t it?”
“I’m late for a meeting with accounts payable,”
Gerald replied, still clutching his toothbrush. A string of toothpaste floated upward, forming the words: “DIMENSION 47-B WELCOMES CAREFUL DRIVERS.”
Gerald suddenly landed on what appeared to be a sidewalk made of marshmallows, except the marshmallows were all quietly discussing philosophy.
“The categorical imperative suggests we should allow him to walk upon us,” one debated.
“But what of our autonomy?” argued another.
Gerald stepped gingerly between the philosophical confections, only to find himself face-to-face with what appeared to be himself, except this version was wearing a tuxedo made of live butterflies and sporting a mustache that occasionally barked.
“You’re late!” Tuxedo-Gerald exclaimed. “The Council of Geralds has been waiting. The multiverse is collapsing because you keep using that electric toothbrush! It’s creating a resonance cascade across all realities where you exist!”
“That’s ridiculous,” Gerald said, just as his toothbrush transformed into a small dragon that winked at him and whispered, “She knows you didn’t floss.”
The sky above them—which wasn’t so much a sky as a gigantic LCD screen—displayed an error message: “REALITY.EXE HAS ENCOUNTERED A PROBLEM AND NEEDS TO RESTART.”
As everything began to fade to blue, Gerald sighed and made a mental note to switch to manual brushing—right after he finished falling through the fabric of seventeen more dimensions, one of which appeared to consist entirely of sentient furniture arguing about real estate prices.
“Tuesdays,” Gerald muttered as he fell upward into a dimension where gravity was replaced by smooth jazz. “I should have called in sick.”