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"Andy! Darling, did you hear what I just said? If it`s a girl,I´d like to call her Nicole, after your great aunt, what do you think?" He recognized the voice immediately but this face,,,it belonged to Nancy allright but that was 30 years ago, there wasn`t a wrinkle to be found, her hair still had it`s natural dark blond color , her grey blue eyes were sparkling and she seemed to be positively glowing with a genuine smile playing around her lips. "Nancy?" He practically jumped off the couch he didn`t realize he´d been sitting on, only to fall back onto it when his head started spinning wildly. "Andy? What´s wrong? I thought you`d like my suggestions! You always tell me how much you liked your aunt and so.." "I , I ah….excuse me for a minute ok", Andy got up again, this time steadying himself on the armrest with one hand, holding the other one palm first out to Nancy in an attempt to silence her. This gesture earned him a somewhat confused and slightly disapproving look which he barely noticed being busy trying to orient himself in these new surroundings. Only, they weren`t new, as a matter of fact they were quite old because judging by the dreadful cuckoo clock, that Nancy had loved so much, staring back at him from across the room, this was their first house. He vaguely recalled the bathroom being down the hall on the left and decided to give it a try before Nancy would start getting even more suspicious. His memory served him correctly and he quickly locked himself in the bathroom splashing cold water in his face…he needed to wake up from this nightmare or whatever this was because it sure as hell wasn`t real, it couldn`t be. Andy lifted his head to look for a towel when he saw his own reflection looking back at him. His mouth fell open and he instantly backed away from the mirror…his reflection showed a younger version of himself..again, around 30 years younger without any grey streaks in his hair or the careworn features from years of addiction and witnessing human abyss. Apart from the expression of disbelief Andy was quite content with what he saw. He tried to remember what it was like "before" ,tried to remember this particular time in his, in THEIR lives and suddenly it hit him and he knew exactly what day this was.
That very morning Nancy had told him that she was pregnant with Nicole . He remembered how thrilled he was about the idea of having created life while he was surrounded by death all the time,felt exhilarating. He felt every bit of that exhilaration right now as if he had indeed just heard the news a few hours ago. What on earth was going on here? Was it all a strange dream, a hallucination of some kind? Then he remembered seeing his bleeding body and the paramedics kneeling over him and suddenly it hit him: could it be? Did he….he didn`t really want to finish the thought but his subconscious betrayed him…..did he die? Was this some kind of afterlife, heaven or maybe even hell? NO! no,it couldn`t be! There was no such thing! Although he was brought up a Catholic, the bitter day to day reality of his job had taught him otherwise. If he believed in anything at all, it was the devil or the evil because no God in his right mind would tolerate parents killing their own children, husbands murdering their wife's or innocent people ending up as collateral damage in a gang fight. No, there must be another explanation for his current predicament. He closed his eyes firmly hoping everything would be back to normal again when he opened them but as soon as his eyelids were shut he saw himself in that parking lot again and Sharon stretching out her arms to where he was lying…OH GOSH! SHARON!