They fell in love across dimensions while watching television.

 

It began in Michael’s apartment. One Sunday morning in his living room, he turned on his television set, expecting to see reruns of an old sitcom.

 

Instead, a confused but beautiful woman looked back at him through the glass screen.

 

“Hello?” she said.

 

“Hello,” he said.

 

“I’m Michelle.”

 

“I’m Michael.”

 

And that was that. Some serious men from the government came soon and told Michael his television set had somehow become a portal to a previously undiscovered dimension. They were not sure whether it was an alternate timeline or a different layer of reality. Scientists had a complex theory that the television sets not only connected their dimensions but might also translate them into mutually comprehensible concepts, so their minds could communicate. Otherwise, the two worlds would be too alien to perceive each other.

 

He didn’t mind.

 

He was now quarantined in his apartment, which meant he had more time to speak to Michelle through the television.

 

Sometimes the lack of privacy bothered them. All their conversations were monitored by shadowy agencies on both sides of the dimensional rift. They were given constant warnings not to reveal too much to the other.

 

“Have you ever been married?” Michelle asked.

 

“Once. It didn’t work out,” Michael answered.

 

As time passed, Michael never left his apartment and almost felt he had been physically transported to another world.

 

Michelle told him about her parents, who were affectionate but quietly disappointed that she hadn’t gone to grad school. She spoke of her job, where she was valued but often frustrated. She told him about her childhood, her sisters, her paintings, and her favorite television programs.

 

Michael told her about his parents, who had moved away to Michigan, and about his job, where he was treading water but not unhappy. He spoke of his high school track team, his cat, his plants, and his favorite television programs.

 

“Sometimes I wish we lived in the same dimension,” Michelle told him.

 

“I wish that all the time,” he told Michelle.

 

Their respective governments passed messages through Michael and Michelle when they could get them to stop making eyes at each other. No one was sure why the portal had appeared in their television sets or why they could see and speak to each other through them.

 

Once, while speaking to the President of the United States, Michael mentioned that he thought he was falling in love. The chief executive was taken aback.

 

When Michael wasn’t talking to Michelle, he was thinking about her. He had never met anyone like her, although to be fair, no one had ever met anyone from another dimension. Even if what she was saying was not really what she was saying and the portal was merely translating utterly incomprehensible language and images into something he could understand, he felt like he knew her.

 

Then, one day, the scientists told him they had made a breakthrough.

 

After months of research and mistrustful collaboration with the scientists on the other side, a true physical connection might be possible. Michael didn’t understand the science and technology involved.

 

“Are you nervous to finally meet in person?” Michael asked.

 

“Yes,” Michelle answered.

 

Later, Michael stood in his apartment, facing the television set. He was wearing elaborate protective gear and a transparent helmet. No one knew what breaching the dimensional barrier would involve or what they would see when the two worlds met.

 

The scientists fiddled with something in the corner of his living room.

 

The television screen began to glow.

 

Something came through.

 

Inch by inch, a horror crept out of the screen, piercing through the glass in a sinuous, horrible slither. Michael didn’t know if he was looking at tentacles and ooze or some other terrible, indescribable thing. A shapeless, churning mass of luminous protoplasmic bubbles constantly formed and unformed as it emerged into his world.

 

He stared at Michelle.

 

She stared back at him with a thousand blinking eyes.

 

Michael could hear the scientists whispering in the corner. He knew there were soldiers armed with weapons, hidden in case of otherworldly danger. He knew the President of the United States was watching via a hidden camera.

 

He slowly removed his helmet, ignoring the scientists' frantic voices in the earbuds the government had made him wear.

 

“Michelle?”

 

The eldritch horror shyly nodded.

 

“It’s good to finally meet you,” he said.

 

Michael and Michelle embraced.

 

They held each other for as long as they could.