Each night he put me on his skateboard and had me navigate the treacherous lot where the asphalt had buckled and cracked, filling with evil weeds. Skateboarding was never my thing, but riding this board felt oddly familiar. Only a few minutes into it did I realize why. Standing on that board felt like skirting the slippery slope of Elsewhere. My ability to move was entirely based on my will to do so. At first, I was slow and uneasy on the board, but soon I was navigating the hazards of the lot with increasing confidence. I tried to connect that feeling of confidence to Elsewhere. If I could feel this level of control there, that would be half the battle.

“I believe you have at least one more jump left in you, maybe two, so you have to make them count,” Teddy told me.

And so I tried to imagine the world I wanted to see. Better than where I came from. A place that was peaceful and just—where equality wasn’t something to strive for but something that had already been achieved. And maybe, just maybe, when I saw that world for real, I would recognize it.

And then Teddy blindfolded me.

If you think I could suddenly sense the weeds and uneven asphalt, you’re wrong. The whole night was about falling on my ass and getting scraped up. It pissed me off at first, until I realized the point wasn’t to navigate blind but to own each wipeout, commit to it, and learn how to hit the ground right, no matter how unfamiliar the terrain. Tonight was all about sticking the fall.

“I know each time you’re in Elsewhere, you perceive it differently,” Teddy said, “but even so, some things will be consistent. I want you to think about the things that track.”

After a particularly skillful wipeout, while nursing my skinned knees, I took a moment to consider what Teddy had said.

“Each time I’m in Elsewhere, I can sense the different realities all around me,” I told him. “They feel alive. They feel . . . needy. Like they’re afraid of being left behind. Does that make sense?” The image that filled my mind this time was a bunch of little kids waiting to get chosen for a choose-up baseball game. Definitely one of the cruelest Darwinian rites of childhood. No one wants to be that last kid chosen.

My response made Teddy chuckle. “You look at life as this binary thing; either something’s alive or it’s dead. Has it ever occurred to you that there’s another state? To ‘not exist’ is one thing—but to be outside the possibility of existing is far worse. It’s no surprise you feel the desire of all the things that will never be. You’re a pinprick of light in a place that’s forgotten the very concept of illumination.”