APARTMENT 2A

APARTMENT 2A

stumble

Tuesday, 3:25 PM

His life was sleep.

Sudden sleep. Unexpected sleep. Sleep that smacked him in the head like a wrench to the skull. Buckled his knees and sank him to the floor at the most inopportune times. Sleep that felled him like a redwood in a forest, throwing him into a world of dark.

His life was waking, curled on the floor, a pile of ash where a cigarette once burned. Of stirring and stretching, rubbing his eyes, the numbers on the clock telling him of moments, sometimes hours, lost.

Moments, sometimes hours, when he dreamed. When he lay trapped in a world of pleasant memories. Memories that shifted into horrible things. Things he’d run from while awake. That scrambled from the dishonest safety of slumber to chase him through this life after sleep.

“So, let’s see what we have here,” the man with the bloodshot eyes and stethoscope slung around his neck said two, three days ago, his fat finger trailing down the page. “Dexedrine, Adderall, Concerta, Xyrem.” He glanced up from the file. “That’s quite a list.”

He looked away from Doctor Whozeewhatzit and shifted in his chair. Focused on how white his knuckles looked if he clenched his hands into sudden fists. Hoped the stranger with the tired gaze and chubby wrists would stop looking at him. Perhaps return to reading the file. Find the answer to this plague of unexpected sleep somewhere in the shuffling scrawl of milligrams and dosages, sleep studies and questionnaires.

“The strength of these prescriptions, though,” Butterball M.D. said with a light laugh. “They really should be working.” He stopped talking, the smile still on his lips. “So, they don’t?”

He stared at the doctor. He shook his head.

No. They don’t.

Not anymore.

A sigh as Chuckles spun his chair to an oversized cabinet, the grating grind of metal scratching metal making him wince as a drawer was yanked open. “First things first.” He rummaged through a crumpled accordion of files, “I’m going to go ahead and schedule you for an Epworth Sleepiness Scale.”

“No.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ve done that a million times and it’s always the same thing.” He shrugged. “I’m not doing it again.”

“It’s a good place to begin. A solid first step for—”

“My last one was three weeks ago,” he said, trying not to grit his teeth. “Do you honestly think things have changed so much over three weeks that another study is going to say anything new?”

The drawer slammed shut, the chair spinning back ‘round, the doctor paused. “So why are you here?” Double Chin planted his elbows in the clutter on the desk and watched him.

“For help. I mean, there must be something we can do, right?” His arms uncrossed, he rested his fists in his lap. He exhaled, letting his chest relax, his shoulders drop, almost allowing the tears to fall. “I’m tired.”

“I can imagine.” The man offered a small grin. “That’s the thing about your condition people don’t understand. These periods of sleep, they’re not restful.” He sat back, the chair reclining with a sharp squeak. “Even if you’re lucky enough to sleep at night,” He looked back at him. “You are sleeping at night, yes?”

“Sometimes. I guess.” He sighed. Thought of the dreams. The field. The blades of grass. His beloved’s smile as she turned her head. And then the lips tight as she looked, not at him, but past him. Behind him. Beyond him. On something that was not him. Something he could only see if he turned. If he found the courage to move, to look, to see.

He squeezed his eyes shut. His shoulders hunched near his ears again. His chest grew tight. “I sometimes wake up and it’s night, so does that count?”

“Regardless,” Stethoscope said, ignoring his question, “the brain isn’t regulating properly, especially with REM arriving, oh, within five minutes or something, so the body isn’t adequately rejuvenated when you wake whether you sleep at night or not.”

“So, yeah, I get it. I spend all day falling asleep and then all night dozing off, but not feeling rested. I know. I’m living it.”

“And the severity of this has become more prevalent recently, correct?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Especially at home. My new place, I mean.”

“Is your home a source of stress?”

“No, I don’t think so,” he said. He took a deep breath. “I mean, it just sucks, you know? The one place I need to be is the one place I can’t be.”

“There seem to be a lot of moves, here.” The fat finger trailed down the page again. “Could that be—?”

“Can’t we do something?” he said, going tit-for-tat by ignoring his question. Besides, he didn’t have the energy for this anymore. He just wanted an end to this cycle of relentless slumber. “Seriously, don’t you have anything to help me?”

“I understand,” Doctor Do-Nothing said, the file still open before him. “You’ve been at this new place,” His finger trailed down the page. “Five weeks?”

He nodded.

“Eidolon,” he said, teasing the word out—eye-da-lon—before looking up from the new address at the top of the page. “Well, moving can be stressful . . . ”

No, my apartment isn’t the problem, you idiot, he wanted to say.

This man, this Doctor who sat talking about how tough moves are and how long it takes to settle in and perhaps that’s why he kept conking out during the day, reeked of failure. The dangerous kind found in those who pile on the diplomas while ignoring the real, painful human suffering behind the multi-syllabic words and indecipherable jibber-jabber they scrawl on their prescription pads.

He was tired. A point he’d made with this quack. Or at least one he hoped he’d made.

And he’d wasted his time.

Again.

He stood, the rain pinging off his coat, the ordinary stretch of Eidolon Avenue waiting in front of him, the slamming of Eidolon’s heavy front door behind him still ringing in his ears.

Having spent most of his twenty-three years as someone not burdened by unexpected sleep, his arrival to the one bedroom on the second floor of this dingy walk-up had kicked open the door to a narcoleptic nightmare. And dreams. Horrible dreams. Ones that sent him crawling out of the apartment into the hall, stumbling down the stairs and pushing his way out the door. Memories, really, he was desperate to leave behind as his feet pounded the pavement until exhaustion and desperation forced him back.

But he knew the moment he set foot on Eidolon and strolled beneath the snapping neon of the local corner dive it would find him. It would follow him, this thing, this Sleep. And this narrow stretch of cracked concrete with its rows of tenements and crumbling sidewalks was its domain.

Sleep walked behind him. Sidled up beside him. Shadowed him. It stood next to him, Sleep, patient and waiting, as he paused before the familiar metal door.

“You’ll need to open those doors,” she’d said two, three hours ago. The other doctor. The psychologist—psychiatrist?—he saw weekly. The one he’d promised to meet—he had to meet—as he stood, his home on Eidolon waiting with a pivot and the turn of a key. The rain tapping his shoulders like impatient fingers insisting he

Go

Now

“We can’t move forward until you tell me about that day two, three summers ago.”

Ignoring her remembered words, Sleep pressing close, he turned and, key in hand, slipped inside.

And it began.

***

He woke.

The numbers on the digital clock glowed red.

3:25

He stretched. Blinked his eyes. Tried to focus. He’d gone to the appointment earlier, hadn’t he? Yeah, scheduled first thing that morning. The psychiatrist—psychologist? He’d left. That’s right. She’d probably said a ton of worthless blah blah blah. Do this, do that. Illegible prescription for pills he’d never take crammed in his pocket the second he left. Same shit, different day. No answers. Nothing to bring relief or release. Nothing to help him escape the—

He stopped.

Gritting his teeth, he swallowed a yawn. He’d come through the door downstairs, Sleep stalking him. Yes, that he remembered. Earlier. When? He shook his head, the details escaping him, but the memory familiar.

The tell-tale warmth on the nape of his neck. That slight buzzing on the skin as he pushed open the metal door and shuffled past the mailboxes. A pause as he’d leaned his shoulder against the yellowing wall, his eyes closing, the lids heavy.

He’d gathered strength, continued, his feet stumbling as he’d climbed, his hands gripping the railing. His steps faltering, he’d walked, eighteen, nineteen, twenty stairs, until he’d stood in front of 2A.

Now he sat on the couch. Around him, instead of the warped wood floors below or the stained ceiling above, there was the warm scent of golden grass listing under a late-spring sun. A wide stretch of thick brown trunks capped by lush green squatting on the horizon. Gentle mounds of dirt crumbling beneath their feet. Her fingers in his, her touch soft, her slender hips swaying as she navigated down the slope—

No.

He stood. Then, his mind slow, his limbs refusing to move, sat.

He needed to get to the bedroom, he thought, the words crawling across his brain. He needed to get to the suitcase, the dresser. He needed to pack. His clothes, his essentials. Leave behind what he couldn’t carry. Again. He needed to leave. To run. Once more. Duffle bag in one hand, suitcase rolling behind him, he had to go. Get away. New city, new state. Someplace he wouldn’t be found. Where he could escape.

With a shake of the head, he stood and turned, the bedroom oh so near. He forced his feet to take a step.

And he fell to the floor, sinking into the dark, Sleep taking him once again.

***

This was a dream.

Under the midday sun, before a shivering meadow of gold, they stood.

She held his hand in hers. He thought of the small box in his right front pocket. And then he thought of seeing her smile for the rest of his life.

Pulling him along, she walked.

“Hey,” she said.

He shrugged, shook his head. Could think of nothing to say, his fear of stumbling down the slope, his feet tripping to where the grass grew tall, stalking his thoughts and making his tongue feel awkward and useless.

“What are you doing?” She turned, a small grin teasing her lips.

He smiled and then laughed, the sound feeling small and shy. His secret still secret, his surprise still safe, he gave another shrug, another shake of the head.

“You gotta be kidding,” she said as they made their way down the hill, her fingers clutching his.

He wanted to sit, was desperate to sit, but the words wouldn’t come. He cleared his throat and lurched, the descent steeper than he expected, her hand still in his. He wanted to go back. To be on the slope where it was safe. Wanted to feel the grass in his clenched fist. In his mind, in his plans, that’s where they were supposed to remain. Her hand in his as he’d kneel where it was short and green.

He feared the yellow waiting below. That shallow bowl of blond wavering in the breeze ringed by the dark trunks of monstrous trees. He knew what waited there, hidden in the grass. He wanted to stop and rest. To halt these awkward steps drawing him deeper. He wanted to smell the warm scent of long blades carried by the breeze, not feel them brush against his calves or stroke his knees.

He wanted to just be and not move. Just be. Silent and still for a moment.

Just a moment.

Then he’d speak. But not yet.

She said something then. The sunlight stealing her words before she turned her head, her hand in his as they lumbered toward the acres of shimmering gold.

Having no choice, having no voice, he followed.

And into the yellow grass they went.

***

He opened his eyes and lifted his head. His limbs felt clumsy and thick.

The bedroom. He was in the bedroom, his waist straddling the door, his top half in, the bottom half stuck in the living room. The dresser to his right, his bed to the left, he rose to his knees and then stood, his feet shuffling over warped wood.

Swallowing, he paused, his hand resting on the dresser. He exhaled, refusing the lingering scent of rich earth and a warm meadow. Ignored the growing terror of what came next, under the blue sky, the trees in the distance, the glint of silver catching the sun. With another step, he left the dream. Moved toward the closet so he could find the duffel bag, pack the duffel bag, and leave before—

“Tell me,” said the psychiatrist two, three hours ago. “What waited? At the bottom of the slope. What made you run?”

“I didn’t run.” He focused on the carpet beneath his feet. The concrete gray shot with thin threads of faint amber. Or was it red?

Not caring, he cleared his throat.

She glanced at the note pad on her lap, her pen sliding down the page as she spoke. “A lot of addresses here. We’ve talked about these moves.” Peering from beneath a curtain of black, her eyes found his. “As I’ve said, this looks like running to me.”

“No.” He shifted in his chair, the scuffed leather rubbing against his jeans. “I sat. On the slope.”

“You didn’t go into the meadow.”

He shook his head. No. Then said,

“For a moment, just a moment, yeah, I did. But not for long. Then I was on the slope, sitting in the green grass. Alone.”

“‘In the green grass’,” she said, repeating his words as she scratched something on her omnipresent pad. “How?” She stopped, pen in hand, her eyes lingering on the page before finding him. “How did you get to the slope? Did you walk? Run?”

He said nothing, unsure how to respond. Those missing moments a ravenous black hole of lost memory.

“And where was she?” Thin legs crossed, she waited, the heels of her shoes frayed along the edges. Her pen, nicked and scarred by the gnawing of nervous teeth, rested against her bottom lip.

Her shins were bruised. Even in the dim light of her cramped office, he could see the faint yellow and blue wounding of her flesh. Dressers bumped into. Beds knocked up against. Imagined curses muttered in the dark as she limped to the bathroom or to the kitchen for a sip of water before returning to bed.

Before returning to sleep.

“Where was she?” she said again.

“I sat.” He took a breath, knowing he’d said this already. But it had to be said again. It needed to be understood, this reluctance to move. This fear. It needed to be looked at and embraced. Accepted. This shame, this failing to act, to save, needed to be cornered, captured, torn apart.

“And she moved into the meadow.” She paused.

He nodded.

“And what did she do?”

He waited. Knew what she’d say next, the questions familiar.

“What did he do?”

The closet door open, he rummaged for the duffle bag. Found it. Tossed it on the bed. Turned back. Shirts dragged from hangers and balled up, shoved in. Quick. To the dresser. A tingle along his spine scurried up his neck and threatened his skull. A yawn reached along the roof of his mouth, his jaw, down his throat.

Drawers opened. More clothes. Underwear, t-shirts, socks, all tossed in the bag.

Shoes. He needed shoes.

“What did he do?” she’d asked again, her mug of morning coffee steaming on the desk beside her.

He’d wept, then. Had sat, defenseless and alone, her stare unrelenting, the door behind him feeling too far for escape, the chair too safe to leave, the tears falling.

“I can’t.” He winced, afraid he sounded weak. “Please.”

She leaned forward, the notepad still on her lap, the embattled Bic still clutched in her fist. “You have to.”

Back to the closet, the door open, he bent and reached for the shoes. The warmth rose up to swallow his skull, his gritting teeth surrendering as another yawn attacked his clenched jaw.

“If you don’t,” she’d said, “you can’t move forward.”

Sneakers in hand, he collapsed, falling into the dark of dream.

***

“Where are we going?” his beloved said, the long grass teasing her shins.

Wait, he wanted to say, but he held his tongue. Found safety in silence, whatever words he’d mumble paling in comparison to what his soul was feeling. Instead, he slipped his hand into his jeans and took the treasure from his pocket.

And dropped it.

Somewhere tucked in the tall yellow grass, the speck of stone crowning a simple silver band lay waiting.

Hiding.

She stopped and stared. Then laughed, her thin fingers rising to her lips.

He smiled, his heart bruised. His awkward, clumsy hands failing him in this, his one Big Moment in a life of forgettable small moments. He fell to his knees, one hand clutching hers, the other pawing the shivering blades of golden grass, desperate to feel that simple silver band.

Then he spied it: the curving glint of a sharp blade.

She was still laughing, her face flushed, tears trailing down her cheeks. She spoke words he couldn’t hear. Words he would never hear as she darted back, pulling him. He fell, his face pushed into a bed of scratchy straw that poked his eyes and stabbed his nose and scraped his tears.

He lifted his head. His hand in hers, she ridiculed him. The words losing themselves in her coughs and tears, her body bent double.

Why do you do that? he wanted to say. It’s not funny. None of this is funny. He struggled to rise, his one nice shirt now creased and smudged with dirt.

The treasure remained hidden somewhere close but not yet found.

His gaze caught hers. Her laugh quieted, her eyes filling with tears. She looked behind him. Not at him, but behind him. Above where he kneeled.

He turned.

She caught him, her hand pulling his as she walked, urging him to

Come

Now

Stumbling, he lifted, his hand catching grass and light, the glint of silver within reach.

She pulled, her fingers white at the knuckles. A second glance over her shoulder not at him, but something that was not him. Something coming from the slope where the grass was green.

Turning her head, she rushed forward, her blonde hair bouncing. She ducked, the slender shoulders dropping, her hand raised. If it could speak, this hand, the palm out, the fingers splayed, it would have shouted

No!

as from the safety of the slope—

the slope—

he heard the first scream as metal flashed and silver slashed and blood shot into the blue of the sky.

***

Sneakers within reach, cheek pressed against the floor, he breathed dust and grime. He blinked. Fought to focus.

Light flooded the room. It was still day. The light was gray and it was raining, the clouds still low. He flexed his limbs. They felt wooden. The duffle bag sat on the bed behind him. Clothes had been balled up and stuffed in. Socks, underwear, t-shirts, all shoved deep.

Needing to get up, to go, he reached his arms out.

He stopped.

Lifting his hand to rub the sleep from his eyes, he blinked again. Stopped again and stared for what felt like the longest of minutes. Looked to the floor, into the shadows. Exhaled, long and slow. Closed his eyes. Counted eight, nine, ten. Opened his eyes and breathed deep as he quieted his thumping heart, exhaling again, patient and calm.

They lay within reach, his fingers. All eight of them lined up on the floor. No longer attached, no longer flexing from his knuckles, they dotted the wood. Eight familiar digits. No blood. No sign of struggle or trauma. No pain in his now flat fist.

He looked at his hand. The skin where the fingers had once been was smooth, the flesh of his knuckles thick and pale. No sign of decay. No indication this wound, these wounds, were fresh. As if years, two, maybe three, had passed since the digits had been severed or lost or stolen.

Bending forward, he collected them. The heels of his hands gathering his fingers into a neat pile, the knuckled stumps thumping wood as he scooped them up. But his hands now all thumbs, the orphaned digits fell, scattering to the floor.

Sitting back, his lifted his fingerless fists again. Turned his hands this way and that. Looked at the thick skin, the imagined hint of severed bone. Saw the spots of faint red glowing beneath the white. A trace of rubbed, rounded cartilage under the rough flesh.

He stared. Tried to make sense of it. Knew this was not the dream. Knew that what waited in the dream was worse, the horror of it unfinished. The memories of what happened fuzzy, but unavoidable, inescapable. Memories that turned his stomach and tightened his throat. That horrified him into silent tears. He exhaled, the thoughts of what waited in the nightmare of that meadow two, three years ago, crowding his head.

He had to get out.

Scrambling, he lifted and stood. He stopped, his head feeling light, the space behind his eyes empty. He struggled to think, to focus. Blinked, the light from the window feeling sudden and bright. Was tempted to lift his hands again. Confirm in this new glare the shocking theft he’d discovered in earlier shade. But knew he’d find nothing new, nothing changed, his fingers abandoned in the shadows near the open closet door.

A long minute later, having struggled with the zipper of his duffle bag, his thumbs awkward without their eight familiar friends, he hooked the handle with his wrist and hoisted it over his shoulder.

He started toward the door. His head swooned. His cheeks burned red. Another yawn threatened from the bottom of his throat, tiny pin pricks scuttling up the back of his neck making him wince.

His knees buckled, his body bending, falling. He righted himself, his elbow catching the end of the bed. Taking a deep breath, he focused on the door. Just the door. Made getting to the door his goal. Getting to the next room, away from his fingers, away from the shadow, away from this stalking Sleep.

Made getting away the one thing, the next thing, driving him.

“I can’t,” he’d said two, three hours ago as she’d sat, tapping her pen against her chin.

“Why not?” She crossed her legs. The sole of her shoe had been repaired. Glued to the leather, the white streak marring the scuffed black distracting him.

“Some doors should stay closed,” he remembered saying.

The duffle bag hooked in his thumb, his feet tripped across the bedroom on Eidolon.

“Do you want relief?” The tapping pen stopped, pausing against her bottom lip. “Do you want peace? Sleep?”

He waited, leaning against the door jamb. He gazed through the living room with its sagging couch and Salvation Army coffee table into the small slip of a kitchen with its dented stove and too-small sink. Focused on the front door. He sighed and then regretted it, that small decision, that small thing, that sigh sapping his strength. The journey from here all the way to there, a dozen or so steps perhaps, seemed impossible.

If he could just get out of this room—

“Then listen to me.” Her hands on her note pad, she sat, knees together, both feet flat on the floor. “You need to open those doors.”

It was here, now, this Sleep. Beside him. Had stepped from the shadows. Darted past his discarded fingers. Angled past the bed. Found him resting against the door. Stood behind him, gathering strength like a coming storm, its breath a too-warm breeze buffeting the back of his neck.

One more step, he thought, ordering his feet to move as his eyes closed.

From hours before, she spoke, Sleep stealing him once again as he sank to his knees.

“Tell me about that day two, three summers ago.”

***

Before the field and the meadow, before the golden grass and the slashing of silver in the glare of a midday sun, there was the stumble.

“Son of a bitch!” Her tray clattered to the floor, biscuit rolling one way, juice splashing the other, the mishmash of dubious goulash splatting in the middle.

Raking her fingers through her hair, she squatted to clean the mess up.

Here, he wanted to say as he alone reached to help, their co-workers sitting, looking away. As if the new girl with the toppled tray didn’t exist.

Biscuit in hand, plates face-up, they stepped back as a flustered woman in white, her frizzy cap of gray held hostage by a hairnet, rushed over, mop in hand.

A long pause.

Then she touched him. A simple placing of her hand on his arm.

“Thank you,” she said with a squeeze of his slender bicep, the palm resting on his rounded shoulder as she gifted him with a gorgeous smile.

Other things were said. He could see her lips move. Those beautiful lips, glistening pink, a perfect row of stunning white teeth waiting within. He watched her hand rise and leave his shoulder. Saw her fingers run through her hair, gentle this time. She glanced behind her and then back at him, her lips still moving as more words were said.

He should respond, but he couldn’t, his tongue refusing.

Then came the nod, the furtive darting of her eyes, and finally the turn as, polite and quiet, she took her leave.

Having no choice, having no voice, he’d said nothing.

But she was his.

And he was forever hers.

Two, maybe three, floors above his cramped janitor’s closet, she worked. Accounting, he thought. Or at least she shared their office space. Where he took two, maybe three trips a day now, broom in hand, in order to maybe see her. Perhaps stumble across her while emptying an already empty trash can or catch tidbits about her life as he rolled the mop in its bucket down a carpeted hall.

But there was nothing. No one wanted to greet the man with the dustpan and the standard issue overalls let alone converse with him. For days he haunted those halls two, three floors above him. He caught glimpses of her. Her lithe form slipping behind doors that immediately shut. Or standing, her eyes skyward, her hands clasped at her waist as the elevator closed. Or talking and laughing and smiling with others. With those who were not him. With those he could never be.

He even, by happenstance after hours of waiting, spied her getting into her car—at least he thought it was her. The clouds low, the blonde hurried, clip-clopping across the cracked concrete, anxious to escape before the sky opened. It was dark and the woman’s face had been tucked chin to chest, but it was her. He knew it. No one had that blend of beauty and fragility. No one needed him more. To worship. To love.

To protect.

But having no choice, having no voice, he was invisible to her.

Until the rain came.

***

Through the grass she crawled, spiking the ground with her bleeding stumps.

The man stalking her laughed, lips peeled back over dangerous yellowed teeth, trucker cap pulled low. Big work boots stomped, rising and falling, rising and falling, the frayed laces stretched over cracked leather the color of rancid mustard, black soles trampling the blades as the man marched, patient and calm, toward his prey.

From the safety of the green grass, he wanted to shout. He wanted to scream. He knew he should. It was expected of him. That he was to stand and do something. To at least move. But he couldn’t. His limbs felt slow and thick, his tongue silent, refusing even the simplest of words.

“And when did you first speak?” Her scuffed heel dangled as she sat, her legs crossed. The embattled Bic tap, tap, tapped her temple as she glanced at the notepad on her lap. “You’d seen her, helped her, but when did you first say something?”

He looked away. Wondered what time it was. Wondered if his hour was up. Wondered if he could leave early.

She cleared her throat. Drummed her pen against the pad.

He sighed. “The next week,” he said, his voice low. “When she needed me.”

“Needed you.” The pen poised above the page, her eyes narrowed. “How so?”

“I had the umbrella.”

From the field of gold, under a bluer than blue sky, she screamed. Called for him. Shouted his name as she crawled. Even if couldn’t hear her, he knew it.

But he could hear it, her terror faint and muffled. As if she lay, wounded and trapped, in the deepest canyon while he alone sat far from harm on the highest peak.

He’d found her, the man with the trucker’s cap and cracked work boots. He stopped.

From the slope, he saw her rise and stumble and stand. She raised her fingerless fists, palms out. Her lips trembled, her bloody arms specked with blades of grass and streaks of rich earth. She pleaded and begged, or so he imagined, the words stolen by the breeze or taken by the glare of the midday sun. Her shoulders jerked as she hiccupped and sobbed while she stepped back from the man with the cap.

Then, soft blades of green beneath his fingers, before he looked away and closed his eyes, before he turned his face to the warmth of a brilliant sun in the shining blue of a perfect sky, he saw the man grab her arm.

***

He woke.

The light was gray, the floor cold against his cheek. It was still day. Later, yes, but the sun had not set, the dark hours away. And though the front door felt like it was miles away and his fingers lay abandoned somewhere in the shadows behind him, he could get up, get out, get away.

He readied to stand.

His arms dropped to the floor with a hollow thump.

He stopped. Sat back. Raised the remaining stumps. Saw the thick flesh where the forearms had connected at the elbows. The arms gone, there was nothing left but the span from rounded shoulder to slender bicep. No blood. No pain. Like his fingers, one would think they’d fallen off years ago. Or been severed. Or chopped. Years ago.

Angling to his knees, he struggled to stand. He bent for the bag and stopped, the sight of his cast-off arms with their useless fists now orphaned and worthless smacking him like a concrete fist.

He’d have to leave the bag. He didn’t consider how he’d open the door without a hand to grip and grab and turn. Or how he’d escape Eidolon or reach for his wallet for cab fare, bus fare. Or how he’d drive a car. He never thought about how he’d exist in a world where you had to do these necessary things.

In that moment, he considered none of this.

All he thought about was rising and taking the next step. Then the next. What drove him, what carried him away from the horror of his falling limbs, was getting to the door. Getting away from the bedroom, away from the closet, away from the couch. Putting distance between him and the monster breathing behind him. This Sleep still lurking in the shadows, along the edge of the room. Sauntering its way toward him, teasing him with its inevitability.

What gave him the courage to walk was knowing what came next.

In the dream.

“You had the umbrella?” The notepad on her lap, she’d watched him, waiting. Over her shoulder, through a rectangle of dusty glass, the sun rose, escaping morning as it crawled toward noon.

“Yes,” he said. The memory was fuzzy. “It was in the parking lot of our building. Where we worked.”

“O-kay,” she said, drawing the word into two long syllables. “And then?”

His beloved stood that afternoon, her hand fumbling in her purse. The heavens had opened and he, by happenstance after hours of waiting, was standing in the shadows, watching for her.

Because he knew if she left her desk two, maybe three floors above him at 5:04 and it took her two, maybe three minutes to make her way to the elevator, a minute more to descend to the lobby and then, from there, another four, perhaps five minutes to walk across the parking lot to space 12B, he could be there to watch and protect.

To know this, and be prepared, was a good thing, he’d decided. After the ruined lunch and the lack of fellow saviors in the cafeteria, he never knew when she might need him again.

“What was her name?” the lady brandishing the Bic said as the sun spiked the carpet with a sudden splinter of light.

“Who?”

“The girl.” Her brow creased. She scratched something on her pad. “The one you’d sworn to protect. Tell me her name.”

Armed with a dollar store umbrella, he hurried across the concrete, skirting between the cars as lightning flashed and the first drops fell.

“Her name,” he repeated as the gnawed pen scribbled and scrawled. His eyes watched his clenched fists. The gray carpet beneath his feet. The sliver of sun out of reach. His fingers splaying into slender claws to rest, harmless, on his knees.

Under his umbrella and safe from the storm, her hand jammed in her purse, she’d turned. “Hi!” she said with a sharp smile. “Thanks.” Then she laughed.

Other things were said. More words. But she’d hit his heart, this beauty. Standing this close, the smell of her hair, the effortless kindness of her every expression, her perfect skin blessed with the barest hint of blush, she heated his blood. Clouded his mind. Captured his soul and quieted his tongue.

All he could do, having no choice, having no voice, was watch.

Watch her lips move. Watch her eyes, first kind, then maybe curious, then perhaps nervous, as she stopped, waiting, he imagined, for a response he just couldn’t give.

She looked down at her purse, her hand sliding free, her fingers clutching the keys. Somehow, in the easing of the rain and the now distant thunder, Mother Nature’s temper tantrum having exhausted itself, the spell had been broken and he was hearing her. Not every word, but enough to catch “busy,” “wedding,” “week away,” “June.”

“We were getting married in June.” He unclenched his fists and exhaled.

The woman with the cheap shoes and chewed pen turned the page. The Bic continued mauling the pad.

On Eidolon, the front door still too far, he stepped over his discarded arms and stopped.

Sleep was near.

“So, about this wedding . . . ” She’d glanced up from her scribbling, her eyes finding his.

He waited, the bed behind him, the dresser at his back. His head was hot. A battalion of tiny needles marched up his spine. He lifted his hand to feel his forehead and then laughed, remembering he had no hand to lift. Then he stopped, the reality of these thefts stealing his breath and wetting his cheeks with tears. Tears he couldn’t wipe away.

He took another step.

“What about it?” In her office, two, maybe three hours ago, he clenched his fist as the sun shone behind the woman with the streak of glue scarring her shoe.

More steps, the bedroom behind him, the couch to his side, the coffee table near.

“Where was it taking place, this wedding?” she said from the past as Sleep caught him by the shoulder and forced him to the floor.

“In the meadow,” he said, his voice a whisper, his eyes closing.

***

She stumbled, tumbled, tripped, the long grass fighting her every step. Her captor was omniscient, inescapable, blocking the sun, his footsteps shaking the ground, those mustard-colored boots rising and falling, rising and falling.

He sat safe where the grass was green, silent and worthless, not knowing what to do.

“You want to what?” she’d said, her keys in hand, the car door not quite open. The rain still fell, though it no longer pelted the thin umbrella or pinged off the roofs of the cars. The sun peeked through the arm of ominous gray reaching along the horizon.

“A picnic.” He paused, shocked at the sound of his own voice. He looked away. At the light reflecting off the wet concrete. The sudden crimson warming the clearing sky in the distance. His hand gripping the plastic handle. “Go for a picnic. With me. Us. Together, I mean.” He took a breath. “Just . . . food, you know . . . I guess.”

He stopped.

She smiled and then laughed. A light laugh. The sound not cruel, but not kind.

He watched her standing there, not speaking, not responding. The seconds felt like years. The moments between his awkward invitation and her inevitable dismissal a Dark Demon of Endless Disappointment that held his breath in an icy grip. Then she glanced up at the umbrella.

“Okay,” she said. “Um, sure, why not?” And she smiled.

He grinned, his soul soaring. Her lips moved, but the words were lost. The sky blushing red and the thumping of his chest distracting him from her “as a friend” and “a picnic could be fun.”

A bloody sky, his racing heart and the vanquishing of the Dark Demon of Endless Disappointment distracting him from her lies.

“No!” He heard her scream.

The word smacked him. This syllable escaping the meadow, slipping from the mounds of dirt and rising from the grass to catch the breeze and rip him from his reverie.

From the slope, he opened his eyes.

His arms drenched in red, his nice shirt stained and dripping, the man with the trucker cap and cracked work boots stood knee-deep in quivering yellow. His back bent, he paused, one hand clutching her ankle, the other gripping glinting steel as his arm sawed.

And on the slope—

the slope—

he closed his eyes, lifting his face to the sun.

***

He knew before he opened his eyes what had happened. Before he raised his head and looked to the front door. Before his gaze caught the coffee table and the edge of the couch. Even before he considered how he’d get out, he already knew he’d be thumping his stumps to drag himself forward.

With that, his elbows scraping wood, his hips arching, his knees digging, he inched along the floor, his feet from the ankle down left behind.

He didn’t need to see them slide from the cuff of his pants. Or fall over with a soft thud, his socks and shoes in place, laces tied up tight. He didn’t need to confirm that the flesh now covering his ankles was as smooth and thick as the skin wrapping ‘round his elbows.

In truth, he didn’t have the strength to witness what else he’d be leaving behind in his escape from Eidolon.

“Yet you stayed.” She took the notepad from her lap, flipped to the next page and, pen poised, waited for him to speak. “On the slope.”

“Where it was safe, yes.”

“But you said earlier . . . ”Her fingers rustled paper as her eyes scanned the previous pages for his words. “You said—Hold on— Right, you said that you were to protect her. So . . . ”

He sat silent.

“She needed help,” she then said. “You claim she needed help. Yet you did nothing.”

“We were to be married.”

“Right.” The room filled with the sound of her pen scratching the pad with her private thoughts. “Married. The wedding.”

It jarred him, that sound, that scratching. It stomped into his ears. Elbowed behind his eyes. Barged into his brain and bore into his teeth like a drill.

“I can’t move,” he said before correcting himself. “I mean, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t. I tried.”

“Let’s talk about that wedding,” she said, her pen at rest.

He stopped to catch his breath. Eidolon’s coffee table now behind him, he inhaled the mephitic cloud that crept from the filthy bottom of the fridge. The forgotten grime of dust and grease and cobwebs of tenants past lingering yet out of sight.

He exhaled, his exposed elbows red and raw. He thought of rubbing them with lotion later. Perhaps quieting the sting with a cool cloth. Then he remembered his fingers dropped somewhere by the closet and his forearms abandoned over by the bedroom door. These stolen appendages making the simple comfort of lotion or a moist cloth now impossible.

“I can’t.” He watched his shoes. Ignored her stare.

“Okay, then, tell me about him.” The pen poised, she shifted in her chair.

“Who?” He closed his eyes.

“The man who left the scythe, who left the shovel. Who waited in the meadow, in the dark, long before she showed up.”

He shook his head.

“You said earlier, last time we met, you said—” She snapped the pages one, two, three, four, five back until, pen pointed like an accusatory finger, she read:

‘The night before, he stood alone, as always. Always alone. There were treasures left. Treasures dropped. There were treasures to be found in the tall grass. Treasures waiting for me should I need them.”

“‘Should I need them’,” she repeated. She flipped back to the present page, her eyes finding his. “What did that mean?”

“He was tall.”

“The man in the meadow—”

“Yes. His shoulders were round, his arms skinny. I couldn’t see his face. It was like the cap, his trucker cap or something, was pulled halfway down his cheeks, over his eyes. His legs were long and thin and his hands . . . ” He stretched his own hands out. Splayed the fingers wide. “They were greater than mine.”

“Greater?” More scribbling, scrawling, mauling, her eyes lurking behind a curtain of black bangs. “How were his hands greater than yours?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“And the man on the slope, the one who didn’t move, tell me about him.”

“On the slope . . . ?”

“Yes, was he you?”

The wood on Eidolon rubbed his skin raw, each thump scraping the flesh. Sweat rolled down his temples. He refused to think of these stumps weeping red. Or of the pain of the wounds later. He couldn’t think of his chest, his torso, chafed and bleeding. Not now. Or of the warped floor digging into his knees or his feet, still in their shoes, left behind. He thought only of getting out. Of getting to the front door.

“Was he who?” He closed his outstretched fingers into a fist.

Inching along the floor, Sleep pressed close. A yawn threatened the back of his throat, the tops of his cheeks. Teased the hinges of his jaw. Moments later, it attacked. Filled his mouth with a sudden rush of air he couldn’t fight, the brutal inhalation stopping him in his tracks.

Face to face with the grime lurking under the fridge and now the stove, he blinked, opened his eyes wide, all in an effort to stay awake. To move. To go.

To escape.

Her voice rose as she leaned forward. “We have to talk about the man on the slope.”

But he’d lost. Sleep’s arms wrapped around his chest, holding his upper arms tight. His knees no longer able to lift and rise and push, the heavy weight of the inevitable pressed against him.

“Who was the man in the green grass?” she said from two, three hours ago as his eyes closed and his beloved sobbed in a shivering sea of gold.

***

Hidden in the yellow grass, she crawled, clumsy and wounded.

Silhouetted by the sun, the man stood. A surprising shadow haloed by light, he imagined, to his prey cowering below.

He, safe where the grass was green, had yet to find the now useless treasure hiding close but not yet found. The stone and the thin band of silver both swallowed by the ravenous appetite of that hungry meadow.

He’d spent more than he should, more than he had, earlier that day in the mall. And afterwards, fighting yawns and the kind of restless exhaustion that comes from an unexpected night under the stars, he’d watched the couples stroll past, shopping bags in one hand, pretzels or soda in the other. All of them happy. All of them belonging to someone. Belonging together.

He considered cleaning the dirt from his boots as he sat surrounded by the drumbeat of idle banter and canned muzak. But he sat quiet and still, his backside grateful for the wooden bench, his back against an oversize potted . . . something.

A tree? Perhaps a shrub?

With a shrug, he glanced down at his jeans. Thought about freeing the yellow stalks hiding in the rolled cuff crumpled over his boots. Of releasing these accidental hostages he’d dragged from their homes when tall grass grazed his knees as he trudged in the glow of a rising moon, his eyes on the stars.

In his mind, he could see how this dream would unfold hours from now.

Together, he and his blonde beloved would walk hand in hand under the gentle early afternoon sun. In his thoughts, they’d talk, finally, of everything and nothing. Discover an inescapable kinship. They’d sit together on the slope where the grass was short and the blades were soft. In his plans, filled with courage and an effortless avalanche of perfect words, he’d whisper his love. She’d smile her perfect smile in silent acceptance.

On the slope, all would be as it was meant to be.

To deviate from this would mean disaster. Refusing the slope would mar the plan. Wandering into the meadow would ruin his meticulous thoughts. Venturing into the omnivorous sea of listing yellow would disrupt his mind.

Now, hours later, under a cloudless sky on wounded stumps in a trail of blood, she led him deeper into disaster through the spiking, stabbing, poking shards.

“Take me to the slope,” said the woman with the pad and the pen. Behind her, the sun crawled into a darkening haze of approaching clouds.

“No,” said his beloved, pushing him away as he tried to reach her. As he tried to stop her and take her back to the short blades of green. To set right his destroyed hopes. To save her. Again. Rescue her from what breathed between the quivering yellow and the crumbling mounds of dirt.

“When did you go back?” The shoulders hunched, the pen pummeled the new page with more opinions, thoughts, fears.

“I don’t know.”

“You do,” The writing continued. Her concerns, worries, disapproval endless. “We’ve spoken of this. Tell me again.”

After a long moment,

“I was on the slope.” The words were mumbled, reluctant to leave his tongue.

“And she?”

“In the meadow.”

And then,

“He?”

Choosing silence, he watched the sun creep into the eager mouths of those dangerous clouds. Glanced at the glue marring her shoe. Resisted the sight of the pad and the pen, both itching, he suspected, to hurl judgment and record condemnation. He gazed instead to the carpet below and then to the scuffed arm of the chair, his knuckles clenched a familiar white as he gripped the wood.

“Tell me about him.” She sat very still.

“Who?”

“The man not on the slope.” A brief pause. “The man who remained in the meadow.”

“In the meadow.” He exhaled, long and slow. “My hand was sweaty.” He thought of the feel of his beloved in his grip. “I mean, her hand was sweaty.”

“As you held her?”

For a long moment, he sat, counting his breaths.

“The pop,” he then said. The two syllables hung in the air, silencing all words, suffocating all thought.

“Okay.” Nothing scribbled, nothing scrawled, she watched and waited.

“She was in the grass,” he said. “In the yellow. She was pulling, running away. I was there—”

“And the slope—”

“I grabbed her to bring her close. Bring her back. But the sun, the sweat, she slid away from me.”

“The slope—”

“I reached again, grabbed again. She fought. I don’t know why. She needed me. I needed her.”

“You needed her?”

“Yes, I needed her and she wouldn’t have me, but I had her, I finally had her. After all this time she was mine because I had her. And I grabbed using all my strength. Tried to bring her out of the grass and back to the slope—”

“Take me to the slope.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. Took a deep breath and held it, his fists clenched.

“Okay,” she said. “The pop. Tell me about the pop.”

“I grabbed her . . . ” He exhaled. Relaxed his fists.

“Yes.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Okay.”

“It just happened.”

“I know—”

“I wouldn’t do that—”

“You say that—”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“I know you wouldn’t.”

“But her arm, it popped.”

“How so?”

“I grabbed it.”

“Right—”

“It snapped and she screamed.”

“Okay.”

“She grabbed it and cried. Tried to get away even though we were meant to be and no matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, she wouldn’t see that. She couldn’t understand how inevitable we were.”

“And her arm?”

“It hung there. Like it was dead.”

“Why? What happened?”

“It popped. Out of the socket. It popped.”

“You popped it from its socket.”

A long moment passed.

“That’s correct, isn’t it?” Her voice was a whisper. The pad waited on her lap.

His fists clenched, his shoulders tight, he nodded.

And he was there, in the field, surrounded by yellow.

The heat too hot, the sun too bright. His plans ruined as she refused the obvious. The hollow crack of bone separating from bone, the shoulder releasing in a dreadful snap.

The horror. The terror. The shouts.

“You stupid fucker!” those perfect lips screamed. “You goddamn piece of worthless shit!” She stumbled away from him, her injured arm gripped close. “You’re fucking crazy. Get away from me.”

He reached to help, to comfort. He reached—

“GET AWAY FROM ME!”

And he was in the green on the slope.

Her never-ending pen at rest, she sat back. “That’s when you found yourself in the green grass.”

He exhaled, long and slow.

But he, the man with the hands that were greater than his, that were stronger than his, that could rip and snap, slice and saw, remained in the field.

“And what did he do?” she said, her coffee ignored on the desk behind her.

Breathing the dirt and grime on Eidolon, Sleep straddled him, mocking him.

“Did he go to her?”

Gathering his strength, the front door too far away, he dug his knees into the floor and pushed.

“Did he help her?”

His elbow stumps thumping, his chest grating, sweat rolled off his brow as he pulled forward.

“Tell me.” She leaned forward, waiting for him to speak.

“I can’t.” He looked away from her. Glanced at the diplomas on the wall. The heavy curtains flecked with dust. “I left. She told me to leave and I left.”

“I know,” she said from two, three hours ago. “But you’re finally here and I can’t let you go. You need to stay.”

“I can’t.” His cheek pressed against warped wood. Catching his breath, he stopped, the door still too far, his knees ready to push.

“It’s over,” he heard her say as Sleep bent forward, reaching and grabbing and dragging him back into the dark.

“We’re walking into the meadow.”

***

This was no longer a dream.

Though he felt cold wood against his cheek, he smelled sun and grass and dirt. And even as Eidolon remained, the front door close but not yet near, he stood on the slope.

Stood, not sat.

The shallow bowl of dangerous yellow waited below, ringed by the thick trunks of distant trees.

“You’re on the slope,” he heard the psychiatrist say from someplace near but not quite here. “Are you standing?”

He nodded, the musty, grimy scent of tenants past in his nose.

“Good,” she said. Her voice was calm, soothing. “And she’s in the meadow.”

From the slope, he looked. Somewhere hidden in the knee-high grass she lay, wounded and sobbing.

Another nod.

“What else?” He heard her shift in her chair. “What else do you see?”

“He’s there.” His lips pressed against Eidolon’s floor. He tried to steady his breath before trying to move.

“Okay, is he holding her leg?” A page turned, her pen writing something short.

“No.” From the slope he watched as Trucker Cap with the mustard-colored work boots took a step, crushing the tall grass flat. He heard her cries. A desperate wordless pleading that sounded beyond fear.

“Take a step.” The sound of silence. Of waiting.

Elbow stumps scratched and weeping, knees scraping, he angled forward.

The field moved as she crawled.

He looked down. He’d walked, those missing moments a ravenous black hole of lost memory. Yellow brushed against his knees. He turned. The green slope rose behind him.

“The man, what’s he doing?” The sound of another word written quick.

He turned back to the field. Saw the man. “He’s found her.”

Trucker Cap paused, blade in hand. He bent low.

“He’s reaching for her.”

The man’s arm pawed the tall grass.

“She’s kicking.” He pulled himself away from the fridge and past the stove.

“She’s kicking,” she repeated to the sound of scratching, the page flipping fast, and then more scratching.

A massive hand caught a bloody ankle, the foot missing. The wrist dripped red, the stranger’s knuckles white as he gripped her calf, her thigh. The man’s boot lifted to stomp on her pelvis as he wrenched the leg to the side, the joint snapping.

She screamed.

The blade rose.

“And now?” came her voice. “What’s happening now?”

The man sawed. His beloved screamed, pleaded, wailed, sobbed.

And then—

and then—

the man with the mustard-colored work boots stood tall, her severed leg in hand.

Ripped free, the stolen appendage gushed red. Blood pumped as ligaments flipped and tendons squirmed. He tossed it, his treasure landing behind him, swallowed by ravenous yellow.

Before he moved, before his elbow stumps thumped the floor to pull forward, before he even thought of hooking his knee up to push against warped wood, he knew Eidolon had taken another bite.

“Move forward,” said the doctor with the glue marring her shoe.

“I can’t,” he said, his voice quiet, his soul exhausted. “I can’t move.”

“You have to,” came her voice, urging him deeper into disaster.

He moved. His legs from the hip down slid free from his pants legs, laying abandoned like his fingers, his arms, his feet. Still, he slithered toward the hall, stumps sobbing, the door within sight.

In the field, he approached the hollow where his beloved lay.

“Where’s the man?” she said from the safety of her office.

Trucker Cap paused, halting his work, but not yet turning.

“He knows I’m here.” He stopped. The floor was slick with his blood. His shredded and wounded stumps sobbed, the weight of his stolen limbs negligible to that of the skull, the brain, the heart, and organs.

The door was still too far away.

Bending, the stranger grabbed his beloved’s remaining leg. Lifted it.

“He’s grabbed her again.”

“What will you do?” she said as the page turned.

“Leave.” A gasp as the floor ripped a new gash in his elbow.

“No.” The pen stopped. “Never.”

A grin curled the lips of the man with the blade.

He stood near, the slope behind him. Yellow bruised his calves and punched his knees. He closed his eyes. He couldn’t watch. He wouldn’t see this. He refused to witness this final end. Had never been this close in the dream. This part of the memory had always been nothing but a long scream. Someone else’s distant nightmare he’d hear from the safety of the slope as he sat, his eyes closed, short blades of green clutched in his fist.

“Open your eyes,” the psychiatrist—psychologist?—said as his beloved wept. “Open your eyes.”

He opened his eyes.

He and his beloved were on the slope. Alone. The meadow waited before them. Beautiful and blonde, she stood beside him.

“Hey,” she said as she moved forward.

He gripped her tight, unwilling to let go. She pulled him. He stumbled after her, their feet tripping to where the grass grew tall.

“What are you doing?” She turned back, a grimace on her lips as she tried to escape.

Her wrist in his fist, he laughed, following her every step.

“Are you kidding me?” she said as she tried to wrestle her hand away.

Ignoring her, he rushed to keep up, darting ahead of her. He pulled, forcing her to stumble and trip.

“Where are we going?” She tried to stop. Wrenched her arm back as the tall grass gnawed at her knees.

“No,” said his beloved. She pushed him away as his other hand tried to grab her. To stop her and take her back to the short blades of green, setting right his destroyed hopes and saving her.

Pop.

“You stupid fucker!” those perfect lips screamed. “You goddamn piece of worthless shit!” She moved away, her injured arm gripped close. “You’re fucking crazy. Get away from me.”

He reached to help, to comfort. He reached—

“GET AWAY FROM ME!”

“Can you get to the door?” Her pen scratched something on the pad. “You can’t get to the door, can you?”

She’d fallen, her face pressed to the dirt. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed.

His cheek rubbed against the floor. Pulling, he crawled away from the stove to the sink, the bottom of the door almost within reach.

In the field, he dropped to his knees. He gathered a fistful of blonde. It was silken. Bright. Relaxing his grip, he ran his hands through it just as she had when the biscuit rolled one way, orange splashed the other, goulash splatted in the middle. His palm caressed her scalp, her skull, the soft blonde snaking around his fingers.

“Why?” Nothing written.

Whatever his bride was feeling was wordless. Her cries an enduring wail catching in her throat and heaving her chest. Having no voice, having no choice, she lay, wounded and waiting.

“Why did you do this?” No page turned.

I don’t know, he wanted to say.

“You do know.” The Bic was silent.

He was close. If he were to shout, or even whisper, at the bottom, his voice could carry through that quarter inch gap separating floor from door and directly into the hall.

“Why?” A page turned.

She would’ve said no, he thought. There would’ve been someone else. Someone not him because she would’ve said no.

“There was someone else.” The pen started again. “The man in the field.” The pen stopped.

What? he wanted to say, but he couldn’t. His missing limbs ached and his head was light and his heart raced.

He just wanted to get out.

“No, no, no.” She took a sip from her long-forgotten mug. “You’re not getting out.” The pen clicked quiet. “You’re almost done.”

Behind him, from its perch on the coffee table, the phone rang.

“Speak to her,” the woman with the glue marring her shoe said from somewhere near but not quite here. “She’s here, now, your beloved, your betrothed. What do you say?”

Pushing aside the grass, he grabbed a second fistful of blonde. He turned his bride over.

“Hello,” he said to the bloodied head on the limbless torso cradled in yellow.

“Hello?” Cheek to floor, he called into the hall. He cleared his throat. Took a breath. Called again. “Hello?”

In the field, her eyes blinking in the sun, the blonde stopped. Dirt stuck to her tear-stained cheeks. Errant bits of grass clung to her hair. She stared at him. Her lips no longer trembled and her chest no longer heaved. And though she bled, her flesh white, her lips not yet sky blue, she watched him. As if daring him to end it.

“You have to follow this through.” No scratching, scrawling, writing. Only silence. “All that running, trying to hide.”

He heard the sound of walking. Of footsteps, calm and steady, climbing the stairs.

The phone still rang.

“All those addresses, all those moves, everything bringing you here to this.” The sound of a page turning. “Where you are, right now, inescapable.”

No. Lips to the door, he shifted. Pushed closer. He had to get out. Get away. He forced his cheek to the floor, his lips crammed against the gap.

Hurry, he wanted to say to those small-sounding steps in the hall. I can’t move. I know what’s coming next.

Hurry!

His trucker cap low, he kissed her in the grass. The tongue darting forward, forcing its way into her mouth. The taste of copper as he pulled away, the lips cold as winter, his hand tilting back her forehead exposing her lovely neck.

He hacked, once, and drew the blade back, long and deep.

From the coffee table, the phone rang a third time and then clicked, the answering machine picking up.

“You see what you’ve done?” she said. The pad rested, still free from the wounding of her private thoughts. “Did you think you could hide or run or escape from that?”

In the grass, the blood ran as he sawed. He gripped her hair in his fist. Yanked her head. Knee on her chest, her ribs cracking with his weight, he snapped the skull back, back, back as the blade sliced. The red a defiant splash against his skin. The bone popping as the knife angled and chopped. Her flesh paper-white, her veins stretching, reaching in a map of blue. Highways, by-ways, sideroads pulsing against her thin skin, their color fading as her eyes grew pale.

On Eidolon, crimson flooded his mouth. His neck burned, the wood beneath him drenched. Light-headed and weak, he tried to gasp. Failed. Felt bubbles on his neck. The meeting of blood and air as the fatal slice stole his breath.

The footsteps came near. Slowed. Stopped.

His “I’m not here, please leave a message” greeting played from the answering machine on the coffee table.

Pink tennis shoes, the laces shot with glitter, turned to his door.

“It’s over,” said the lady with the embattled Bic tapping her chin.

“You’ve lost,” came the small voice from outside his door.

He wanted to respond, but he could not speak. His face numb, his vision hazy, his breath no longer his to catch, all he could do is stare as the little girl’s tennis shoes stood, waiting.

His eyes closed. He smelled rich earth. Felt it cover his face. Could sense walls of dirt around him. Of a grave dug quick. Hidden in the shadows. Could sense the reaching branches and thick trunks of green trees far above him, the dangerous yellow in the distance, the dishonest safety of a green slope beyond that. Hear a shovel striking dirt, again and again and again.

I can’t move, he wanted to say to the pink glitter at his door.

Eternal Sleep drew near. Its arms wrapped around his chest. Its breath a too-warm breeze on the back of his neck. Its hand covering his eyes with endless black.

I can’t move.

“I know,” the little girl said.

Then she walked away, her steps light, almost bouncy, leaving him in the gathering dark of an anonymous grave as a woman’s voice, a familiar voice, on the answering machine began—

“This is Dr. Devalio, your psychologist. You missed our appointment this morning. We need to reschedule as soon as possible. Please call my office at . . . ”