Practical joke

A Casio watch marks 8:59 pm on the nightstand, everything in the house is quiet. The phone rings, the clock now marks nine o’clock.

“Hello, who is this?” said Ernesto while still struggling to stay awake. “Mr. Ramirez, I am calling on behalf of the security department of Banco Mexicano. During the past hour, transactions have been made that do not match your purchase profile, and the computer issued an alert. Your card has been blocked, please we ask for your cooperation.” “Ok, I want to let you know right away that I have not made any purchases in the last hour. This call woke me up.” Ernesto could feel the adrenaline incorporating into his bloodstream. “What kind of purchases have been made?” “I’m very sorry to have woken you up. The alarm indicates that a hotel checkout was made. After your card was blocked, the system showed 3 cash withdrawals that also do not match your profile.” Ernesto thought this could be some kind of scam. “Ok, what do you need from me?” “First of all, you have to calm down, these kinds of things happen all the time, the second thing is to wait and help us with the investigation. Thank you very much.” “Ok, I’ll wait for more instructions.”

Ernesto hung up and went to the computer. The first thing he did was log into the bank, and while the page was loading, he checked his email. There were the notifications, money withdrawals had been made, and a hotel had been paid for. The strangest thing is that the hotel was in the same city, not far from there. Then, finally, he took his card and, although everything matched up, he wanted to be sure. So he called the phone number on his card. He asked for the security department, confirmed that the call was real, and reiterated his willingness to cooperate.

Now that he thought about it, this week had been somewhat strange. His wife had complained several times about him not having done some errand that she had supposedly asked him to do. Also, that week, someone broke the window of the back door, which leads to the patio. He could no longer continue sleeping and got up, not knowing how to kill time. It was his only day off, and now he would only think about those charges.

The day went by normally. In the evening, he went out to the patio to smoke a cigarette, which calmed him down and allowed him to sleep. As was his habit, he could only sleep after having smoked one or two cigarettes. Already in the patio, he was distracted trying to light it, which was somewhat difficult because the wind was strong. Suddenly, he heard a hissing noise like when a mosquito gets stuck in an electric trap.

What he saw left him speechless. It was a kind of portal that had appeared in the middle of the patio. Through the oval portal, like the game of the same name, he could see his patio, but the ground was wet, as if it had rained, which intrigued him and he walked around it amazed. He did what anyone would do if they found a strange object, he touched it, but he didn’t feel anything, maybe just a change in pressure. And then he decided to enter completely, thinking of immediately exiting.

But the moment he finished entering, the portal closed behind him. The ground was wet; it was night. He wanted to check his phone, but he remembered that he had left it on the nightstand next to his watch. He was puzzled, everything looked the same as his house. It seemed strange to him, but he started to think that some product of his imagination had made him see that.

He started to look at his cigarette to see if by mistake he had consumed something more than nicotine. After making sure it was a regular one, he shrugged his shoulders and prepared to enter the house. But something was wrong, the door was locked.

As there was an excess plot of land next to his house, he could walk around the house and ring the doorbell, which was somewhat unnecessary because the car was not there, which means his wife had gone out. He still doubted what had happened. “Did I cross a portal?” He shrugged his shoulders again.

He stayed thinking for a while when he saw a car turning around, and it was his wife with another man. As quickly as he could, he turned around the house to hide in the patio.

While he was hiding, he was very attentive to hear what was happening inside. For a moment, he was happy not to have had security cameras, or he would have been easily discovered.

“I told you the tickets were here, you left them on top of the bar.” “Well, yes, you’re right, let’s go, we’re going to be late.”

They were about to leave when Ernesto could observe them from the patio window. It had been lucky because the curtains covered almost the entire view

, but what he saw left him frozen. It was him, his wife’s companion was the same. But how could this be possible? Ernesto thought in the patio.