Following up on Paul and Sally’s multiverse adventures after Push the Button introduced us to their predicament and Watch the Screen continued their tale. This story focuses on one of their children from another universe…
Multiverse Adventures: “Find the Device”
Written by BW Derge
For the first six years of life, Jeremy had a normal upbringing with normal, loving parents. His dad, Paul, worked for an insurance company or something. His mom, Simone, was a homemaker who earned some money on the side from watching neighborhood kids. This meant there were often other children around for Jeremy to play with.
However, this normal life changed instantaneously one afternoon when the child was but seven years old. Naturally, when a traumatic event occurs which the kid does not understand, they retrace their memory for hints for what was about to occur, to wonder if, somehow, what occurred could have been their fault.
But from what Jeremy could recall, everything became intense and strange and confusing one afternoon when he came home from playing at the park. His mother had a panicked face and froze her steps with a gasp upon seeing him. “Fuck,” she stated. “Paul!”
Then his dad stomped into the dark foyer of their quaint suburban townhome. He as well stopped abruptly when he saw Jeremy. “Oh no.” The man’s freshly shaved face grew ghostly pale.
“What’s wrong guys?” the boy asked with a scratchy throat. “Is something wrong?” The awful silence is what Jeremy remembers most about that fateful moment. Their horrified faces, unable to squeak out any sort of response for an agonizingly long time, were burned into mind.
“Hey kiddo,” his dad finally spoke. He had never called him ‘kiddo’ before. “What would you like to do for fun?” The man’s stare darted around the house like he had never been there. “You got TVs here?”
“Are you hungry?” his mom wondered. “I can fix you some food while you watch TV or whatever. Me and daddy have to talk.”
Jeremy could hear them slightly arguing with urgent whispers in the room upstairs as he ate a snack and watched a movie…
When his mom came back downstairs, she crept toward him like he had transformed into a monster or demon. “This might sound like a weird question,” she said. “But do you know your grandma very well?”
“Dad’s mom?” Jeremy wondered. “Is she okay?”
“I am sure she’s fine,” Sally replied. “I was actually wondering about my mom, have we ever visited her or anything?”
“No, mom. You never really mentioned her.”
“What have I mentioned?”
“That she’s from where you’re from… Pennsylvania.”
They packed bags that evening and rushed into the family car. The frightened boy couldn’t grasp why they so suddenly had to drive across several states to find his grandmother. He thought maybe she was really sick at the time. But as they drove, he remembers hearing several strange statements as he sat in the backseat:
“They never expanded the highway here like in most places,” his dad commented along the way.
“The car has a phone but I really don’t think cell phones have caught on here,” his mother remarked at one point.
“Hey, at least there’s an internet. Finding your mother is damn near impossible when the internet doesn’t exist. What if your mother didn’t keep the device?” Paul wondered.
“She kept it,” Sally replied confidently. “We will find the device.”
Besides the weird comments, his dad was also calling his mom “Sally” instead of Simone although she still referred to him as Paul. As for Jeremy himself, they had not said his name. Only nicknames like “sport," “junior,” or just “son.”
He eventually fell asleep as his parents took turns driving throughout the night. When he awoke, they were parked out in front of a small house as the sun rose.
An old woman answered the rapid knocking that pounded her front door. When she saw the three of them standing there, the grandmother’s expression winced slightly. “Hello Simone. I figured you’d come back one day. Come in.”
Moments later, the boy sat at the kitchen table eating pancakes while the adults spoke. “What can I help you with?”
“I wanted to look through some of my old things,” the mother explained. “You didn’t throw it all away, did you?”
The elder lady sipped some tea. “You sure I can’t fix you a cup?” The parents again declined the offer and the grandma then answered, “Whatever I kept is in the attic.”
Upon hearing this, they ran upstairs and after some rummaging and rattling, the noises upstairs grew still. The lady turned her attention to the small child. “And what’s your name?”
“Jeremy.”
“Hi Jeremy, I’m your Grandma. I’m so glad to finally meet you.”
When Paul and Sally returned to the kitchen, their initial curious glares froze up in the same manner as the day prior – when all this weird stuff started happening. “Push the button,” his mom declared.
Obediently, Jeremy’s father lifted an odd orange rectangular device – like a remote, but it had but one large red button at its center and no other noticeable features.
Upon pushing the button, both of their eyes glazed over as they appeared to be overcome by a trance-like state. Then simultaneously, both of their expressions regained life and they started looking around like they had just now arrived.
. Sally looked over at the lady and kid sitting in the kitchen with mystified glares watching her. “Hi mom.”
Paul began to say “Push the –“
But the grandmother interrupted him. “Wait just a second now.” The parents paused their movements. “Come with me in the other room, I’d like to have a talk before you push that button again.” She looked over at the boy and instructed, “You wait here.”
The three of them walked off and he could not hear them well enough to decipher any words. What he remembers is that his grandma was holding the device when Paul and Sally returned. The pair of them gave him a hug and Sally said in a cold, saddening fashion, “I love you, Jeremy.”
“Goodbye, Kid,” his dad said.
Stunned, tears filled the child’s eyes. He did put up a fight, he pleaded to know what was going on, he begged for them to take him back home. All of the efforts were futile. His grandma handed Paul the odd orange device with a look on her face that suggested some sickening mixture of disappointment and rage. Without looking back at him, his parents walked away, got in the car, and drove off. He would never learn where or why they had to go. His grandma smiled a sad smile and looked over at the boy. The morning light still pierced through the kitchen windows. Half-eaten pancakes were neglected as the boy sobbed.
“We should probably get to know each other,” she stated. “You’ll be living with me for now.”
When Jeremy was older he would ask his grandma about what had happened that day and would inquire about details pertaining to the mysterious contraption with the big red button. The older lady and her grandson had grown close over the years but he was still only twelve or thirteen at this point. “I’ll tell you when you grow up,” she would say. “Maybe.”
© 2026 All Rights Reserved.
Written by BW Derge
NO AI WAS USED TO WRITE OR EDIT THIS STORY
Check out the Laenif Productions YouTube Channel for more original stories, essays, poetry, and more!
