Murray Leinster

“ The truck stopped. Your car slid, even with the brakes locked.—It's nonsense, Jimmy!"
"I'd rather you continued," said Jimmy, white.
"You—ran into the truck, your car swinging a little as it slid. The girder came through the windshield. It could have hit you. It could have missed both of you. By pure chance, it happened to hit Jane."
"And killed her," said Jimmy very quietly. "Yes. But it might have been me. That diary entry is written as if it had been me. Did you notice?"
There was a long pause in Haynes' office. The world outside the windows was highly prosaic and commonplace and normal. ”

“ He quivered a little. He smoked again, carefully not looking at the desk. It was not until he knocked out the second pipeful of ashes that he let himself look where Jane's diary had been.
It was there again. The book was open. There was a ruler laid across it to keep it open.
Jimmy wasn't frightened, and he wasn't hopeful. There was absolutely no reason why this should happen to him. He was simply desperate and grim when he went across the room. He saw yesterday's entry, and his own hysterical message. And there was more writing beyond that.
In Jane's hand. ”

“ The feeling we have for each other draws us together. There's a saying about two people becoming one flesh. If such a thing could happen, it would be Jane and me. After all, maybe only a tiny pebble or a single extra drop of water made my car swerve enough to get her killed—where I am, that is. That's a very little thing. So with such a trifle separating us, and so much pulling us together—why, sometimes the barrier wears thin. She leaves a door closed in the house where she is. I open that same door where I am. Sometimes I have to open the door she left closed, too. ”

“ In another, the difference was that between life and death. But they hoped. They convinced themselves that the barrier grew thinner. Once, it seemed to Jimmy that they touched hands. But he was not sure. He was still sane enough not to be sure. And he told all this to Haynes in a matter-of-fact fashion, and speculated mildly on what had started it all....
Then, one night, Haynes called Jimmy on the telephone. Jimmy answered.
He sounded impatient.
"Jimmy!" said Haynes. He was almost hysterical. "I think I'm insane! You know you said Tony Shields was in the car that hit me?" ”

“ Jimmy looked better, but he was drawn very fine. Though he greeted Haynes without constraint, Haynes felt awkward. After a little he said, "Er—Jimmy. That matter we were talking about the other day—Those photographs—"
"Yes. You were right," said Jimmy casually. "Jane agrees. There is more than one now. In the now I'm in, Jane was killed. In the now she's in, I was killed."
Haynes fidgeted. "Would you let me see that picture of the door again?" he asked. "A trick film like that simply can't be perfect! I'd like to enlarge that picture a little more. May I?"
"You can have the film," said Jimmy. ”

“ He passed over the picture of the door. It looked to Jimmy like two doors, nearly at right angles, in the same door-frame and hung from the same hinges.
Haynes looked at it and said tolerantly, "Didn't know you went in for trick photography." He picked up a reading glass and examined it in detail. "A futile but highly competent job. You covered half the film and exposed with the door closed, and then exposed for the other half of the film with the door open. A neat job of matching, though. You've a good tripod."
"I held the camera in my hand," said Jimmy, with restraint. ”

“ As noted hitherto, he had a number of unlikely hobbies, among which was a loud insistence on a belief in a fourth dimension and other esoteric ideas, because it was good fun to talk authoritatively about them. ”