Read Life Out of Order Online Free by Audrey Niffenegger

Halloween

Friday, October 31, 2031 (Oliver is 27, Alba is 30, Zach is 30)

Oliver: I’m not sure where I am in time or place. I am hiding beneath the porch of a large Victorian house. Wooden slats crisscross the enclosed space under the porch, so I have a three-sided view comprised of hundreds of small diamond-shaped openings. The houses across the street are all 1950s style. Many of them are decorated with skeletons and orange lights.

Halloween. There are still trees here, and they have yellow and red leaves. Groups of children wearing costumes wander along the pavements laughing and talking loudly with American accents. Some of their costumes I recognize: Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, a tall person in a white sheet (at first I thought it was a KKK but then I remembered that is how Westerners represent their ghosts) holding the hand of a little girl dressed as a pink octopus. One boy is dressed as a zombie giraffe, covered in fake blood. Daylight fades, the streetlights begin to glow and the children switch on their torches.

There is dirt under this porch as well as broken bricks, gravel and some plastic toys that look like robots—that is, they look like the humanoid robots that people once imagined would take over the world; these broken robots look quite harmless and sad, which are not feelings I usually have about bio-robots. It is impossible to be comfortable. I am naked, hungry and cold. I crawled under here because the street was crowded and it was the nearest hiding place, but now I am trapped—I can’t leave while children are nearby; I would certainly be arrested.

My hiding place is like a box in a theater, the other houses lit like so many actors on a stage. The house directly opposite me is a modernist house, one level of brick and glass, the shrubbery around it cut into smooth ovoid shapes. A young man stands at the door giving out candy. He is sweet to the children, calls some of them by name, praises their costumes. A flock of tiny ghouls holds out their bags for candy, and he says, “Wait just a minute, we’re running low! Alba, honey, could you get me that bag of KitKats?” And then Alba, my Alba, appears at the door.

Here it is: her real life. This is Zach, her real husband, the man she goes home to in her real home. I’m just her other husband. She says she loves me, but it’s obvious from the way she stands there with him, both of them smiling and laughing, that her real happiness is here, and whatever I hope for or pretend to myself, whatever she says and I believed, whatever seems possible and true when we are together—this is real, and I am the secret, not him.

The children flutter down the path, on to the next house. Zach turns and holds the door for Alba, who ducks under his arm and into the house. I see his face in the porch light, calmly glancing up and down the street for more trick-or-treaters. He’s disconcertingly handsome. It’s dark now. I can hear children laughing and see the beams of torches bobbing away around the corner and vanishing, but no more children approach. Zach, satisfied, steps through the door and pulls it shut behind him. Lights go on in the house, but the curtains are closed.

I make a smooth dirt spot in the gravel with my hands and curl up on it. I hug myself to keep warm; I don’t dare to sleep. I wait for quiet, I wait to disappear back to London, to my own room, my soft bed. I imagine telling Alba I don’t love her anymore. I imagine finding someone in my own time, someone who might love me simply, solely. I feel panicky even considering this, as if Alba could sense my hurt and doubt from across the street, behind the walls of her real home.

The street is finally calm. Then I am back in my own flat, my bedroom. It’s morning, and I can hear English children talking, laughing; they are on their way to school. I climb into bed, into cold sheets, and pull the covers over my face and weep. I fall asleep. When I wake up, it’s afternoon, and I feel steadier, but some of the pleasure has departed from my life and for a long time afterward I don’t feel much of anything at all.

The Empty Bottle

Friday, June 9, 2034 (Zach is 33, Oliver is 27)

Zach: Alba’s been time traveling more often and for longer stretches of time lately. She’d been home for almost three weeks and I was starting to feel less worried about her when I woke up two mornings ago and couldn’t find her anywhere. I think she might have vanished while she was asleep next to me; I found her T-shirt crumpled under the covers, cool to my touch.

The house is too quiet when she’s gone. I get a lot of writing done, so it’s productive, but lonely. Tonight I finally decided to go out, just to be with other humans. I’m at the Empty Bottle—I don’t care about the bands, I just figured I’d have a couple beers and see who’s around. All my friends seem to be either out of town or unavailable due to domesticity, and it’s hard to fault them on that because I haven’t been around much myself. I’ve become a homebody without meaning to; I work mostly remotely now doing social media for Gomez, all my books are there, Alba is there (except when she disappears for days at a time, like now), the outside world seems grim and pointless and it gets harder and harder to leave the house. Ever since the latest federal lockdown was lifted our friends have been feebly attempting to revive the concept of nightlife, but we find that it’s mostly the barely twenty-ones in the clubs these days, and tonight this place isn’t crowded. The audience is sparse, and the band sounds like Green Day; I wish I’d stayed home. It’s only nine thirty.

The attractive bartender slouches at the end of the bar with a faraway expression. She pulls an IPA for me and smiles when I tip her, then that absent look settles over her again just before I turn away. When did I become invisible to women? Perhaps it’s a side effect of being married for a while? I turn away from the bar and I notice the guy too late: he’s trying to sit down on the bar stool next to me, I walk right into him, and my untasted beer ends up all over him.

A few people turn to stare. Unfortunately, he looks ridiculous. He’s immaculately dressed, in fact, strangely overdressed for a dive bar on a warm night in June: he’s wearing a gray suit, white shirt and a light blue tie. He’s tall, but he was almost sitting, so the beer is in his face and all down his shirtfront. A dude laughs and I tell him to shut the fuck up and the bartender hands me a towel and I try to wipe the beer off the guy, who still has his eyes clenched shut. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! Did it get in your eyes? Come on—” I pull him off the barstool. He still hasn’t said a word, but he lets me lead him down the hall and into the men’s room.

“Here’s the sink,” I tell him. I turn on both taps. He bends over and splashes water on his face. I’m getting wet, but that’s fair, I guess. He has really long black hair tied back in a ponytail, which seems incongruous with the suit; my first impression was that he might be a Mormon. He stands up and opens his eyes, water streaming off his face like flop sweat. I hand him a bunch of paper towels. Then I realize that he’s Chinese and he hasn’t said a word yet; maybe he doesn’t speak English? Maybe I’ve just poured beer all over some tourist? I’m wearing a pale green short-sleeved shirt from the late ’50s over a white T-shirt. I start unbuttoning it and the guy looks alarmed. “It’s okay, I’ll give you mine,” I say, miming the exchange. “It won’t help your suit, but you’ll be drier.”

“Oh, please don’t! That’s quite unnecessary,” he says with a very elegant English accent. I feel secretly racist for suspecting him of not speaking English.

“Are you sure?”

“Very sure. I’m fine, just a bit sticky.”