It took a while, but I managed to find my way back home. The cat followed me. It ran right in the house and searched around, looking for food. Finding none it stood at my feet and meowed. I couldn’t find any food, either, as the food pantry was replaced by part of a tree and the refrigerator door seemed welded shut.
Unlike the cat, I wasn’t very hungry. I let it outside and then went into my room, lied down on my bed and tried to take a nap.
I yawned twice and fell dead asleep.
When I awoke it was sunny outside, and birds were singing.
The cat was outside my window, meowing. I stared outside, seeing a normal world, seeing people in their cars driving and kids playing on the sidewalk. Alright, I thought. Albert fixed things.
I took a leisurely walk in the warm afternoon sunlight over to where Albert’s house once stood. In the house’s place was a vacant lot. The street still held the skid marks from Albert sliding the Viper up into his driveway, but the Viper and the driveway were gone. Walking up to where the garage had been, I found the Viper’s keys in the dirt.
A suspicious neighbor looked on as I poked around the lot.
“Where’d Albert’s house go?” I asked her.
“Who’s Albert?” she asked.
“The guy who lived in the house that was here.”
“There’s never been a house there.”
I nodded. Apparently Albert had not fixed things. Apparently Albert had crashed reality, and the Cosmic Sysop had reset the program and terminated Albert’s account.
Altogether.
Back home, I found my parents had left a message on the answering machine saying they were coming home from the vacation Albert had sent them on. I looked in my wallet and found I still had the license to do anything, but doubted if it was good anymore. There was still a pile of cash under my bed, so I grabbed some of it to go buy some cat food and a litter box.
It appeared the cat was there to stay.
––––––––––––––––––––––––
[Oh man, that was awful! Get me out of here!]