New writer alert! Lorraine Schein has published in Strange Horizons, Scientific American, Star*Line, and the anthologies Wild Women and Tragedy Queens. Her latest book is The Lady Anarchist Cafe, available from Autonomedia.
Congratulations on creating or stumbling into your new wormhole!
It may be quite a while until it spews you out into another multiversal world or time, so decorating your space can help make existence easier while you’re stuck here (assuming you’ve survived going through the black hole’s event horizon to get to this point). Here’s some inspiration for things you’ll need to buy or bring along to make your stay a comfy one.
First, you’ll want comfortable, malleable seating, because wormholes are long, tube-like cylinders that float between probabilities. Beanbag chairs are perfect, since they are easy to carry and will squish to fit any wormhole. Likewise, a sturdy sleeping bag is better than a bed and ideal for sleeping on the wormhole’s floor (if there are any visible surfaces).
A mini-refrigerator will keep your delivered food fresh. Cooking is not practical in a wormhole, as food will evaporate as you cook it. Be sure to bring takeout menus and keep your GrubHub app handy.
A flashlight and whistle for alerting others can help in cases of sudden stringification, in which your body becomes stretched out to infinity. Plus, a compressor or a waffle iron can help you get right back in shape. (Of course, no one in your former universe will be able to hear the whistle. But someone on a planet in the next multiverse might be able to lend a hand, tentacle, or other appendage.)
Cell phones won’t work in your new digs, but it’s been verified that old Princess dial phones, superstring cups, and telepathic postcards will.
No worries about pooping in wormholes, since no one will be around to see or smell it.
Bring plenty of reading material, as computers and social media won’t work — but reruns of Jeopardy strangely will.
Decorate your entranceway with a doormat that says Enter at Your Own Risk!
This piece is an excerpt from "Interior Decorating for the Ninth-Dimension" by Steven Hawking & Martha Stewart.
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Love this. finally, a wormhole survival guide that makes the multiverse feel cozy and hilarious. Beanbags in spacetime = genius.
Last time I traversed a wormhole, my beanbag chair punctured and those little foam beads went *everywhere*