She’s clear, crisp in my mind’s eye. Her eyes shine. Her hair falls loose. She’s achingly beautiful.

“It’s your turn, Daddy. Stop texting.” Sara is glaring at me from across the table, cross.

“Just a sec, sweetie. It’s Josh about a job for me.”

It was more than a second. I had priorities. I was stupid.

“Daddy?” She’s exasperated. She’s adorable. She’s…

For the first time in a long time, I can see Sara’s face, too. Clear, bright. Her eyes too big to be real, her hair like her mom’s, a tiny sharp chin. Little teeth in her smile.

“Alright, alright!” I free up a hand and reach for the dice…

The dice hit the board. My phone dings. It’s Yours! “Fuck YES!”

Sara stares at me. “Why are you cursing?”

Amina stares too, but she’s amused. “Good news?”

“You rolled a seven.” Sara is back at the board, counting spaces with her fingers. She squeals when her finger touches the seventh space. “Park Place, Daddy! You owe me eleven hundred dollars.”

It was adorable the way she said it.

“Eleven hundred dollars.” It doesn’t sound the same when I say it. I can’t match her pitch, her inflection, her enthusiasm, her glee. I can’t be her.

I don’t have much. I’ve been playing with half my brain, too focused on… “I’m gonna be in a big movie, Little Winner. A big scary movie…” I fork over the remainder of my money. “I’m gonna play the killer!”

“You’re not a killer, dad. You’re too nice.”

“Am I?” I reach into the take-out box next to Amina and pull out the last shrimp bao.

“That’s mine.” Amina reaches for it.

“Too bad.” I put it in my mouth. “I’m a killer, babe.”

Pulled over in front of Hotel Figueroa, lost in time.

Sara is on the couch, looking down at me. She’s wearing a nightgown? Did she own a nightgown? I can’t remember. We’re running lines for a stupid commercial.

“What’s in your wallet?”

“Sillier, Daddy.” She’s laughing.

I can’t make out her face, a mess of smiles, eyes, and skin descends into a panic-inducing swirl. She’s gone. It’s gone.

Sillier, Daddy.

The memory slips entirely. I’m alone in the car. Smashmouth on the radio, Rockstar. I turn it off, hit my vape, but it doesn’t settle me.

The App dings. Its pink splash brightens the inside of my Kia. “Jayson” needs a ride. Black. Smiling guy. Photo on a beach. “Ugh.” Beach photo people never tip. Lower my window to vent the vape-smoke but take one more hit to get me through the ride. The city mellows. The brake-light sea up Figueroa from the arena is fine now. It’ll take me eight minutes to go three thousand feet to The Bloc where Jayson is waiting. I give it a moment, maybe get reassigned something in the other direction. Nope. Okay.

Ugh. No. I know him. He’s an asshole. Arrogant prick.

“Danny?” Jayson recognizes me, changes course and gets in the front seat. “I thought it might be you from your pic, but damn, man!” He jams his hand across the center console. His smile threatens to envelop me. I take his hand, dreading the bro-hug that’s going to follow. “How you been?”

“Alright, I guess.” ‘Jayson is Jayson Means. Years since I’ve seen him in person. Twenty maybe? But recently he’s everywhere on TV. Movies. “Not like you, man.” Fuck him. He’s king right now. Everywhere.

“Oooh…” he leans back in the seat, throws his hands behind the headrest and clasps them. He takes up all the space in the car. “I had myself a rough patch, though, believe me.” He turns to me. I pull into traffic. He’s going to Silver Lake. A house up above The Red Lion. The App wants me to take Hill to 2^nd. Makes sense. Twenty-two minutes. Too long. I won’t survive that long in a car with him. “After Master Class, I couldn’t buy a fucking role.” He chuckles. “Not like you, man. You just…” he makes a sound like a rocket, lifts his hand in a slow arc.

“Worked out great.” I haven’t done shit in the last eight years. “I got some stuff on the horizon, though.”

I see him look me up and down. “Good to hear. You deserve it.  I loved Venice Station. Lasted what? Like five years?” He barks a laugh and claps — “Network, too — some fucking residuals, man.”

He’s waiting for a response. I shrug. My last check was for $396.42. I smile for him. “Yeah.”

He sighs. “Tough when that shit ends, though. I had a rough patch myself. Got far down. Burned through all my Master Class money thinking thing’s’d pick up again, you know?”

“Yeah?” I know all too well. After Venice Station, a couple B movies, a few starrings, and then a collection of day-play five-and-unders until… nothing. Stupid fucking business.

Hill Street’s wide open. Time to destination drops by six minutes.

“Danny man,” I can feel him looking at me. “I worked at Gold’s Gym, got my personal trainer license. People used to recognize me, ask me to say my line when they did good.” He chuckles. “Reeee-dicyoulusssss.” Like he said on the show. “Three years ago I was on Cameo for twenty dollars a pop. It was saaaad…”

“Not anymore, though.” He’s everywhere.

“Nah,” he chuckles again. “Not anymore. Things are good.”

The tunnel under Bunker Hill makes things loud. He doesn’t try to talk over it. He was bad. Before. He was a bad actor — no depth, just looks and a schtick. Nothing going on underneath. Embarrassed me to be on the show with him. I was a lot better than him. Fuck this business.

But he’s good now. Impossibly good. “Been watching Manchester Square.”

He looks at me. “Yeah?”

“It’s good.”

“You think?”

“You’re good. Really good.” Brake lights at Glendale and Beverly.

“Thanks, man.” He’s looking me over again, weird expression. Thinking about something. Then: “You want to join me for a beer or two at the Lion? I haven’t talked with someone from the before-times in years, right.” He waits a moment. “I’m buying.” That smile again.

It’s 9:30. I need money but I’m suddenly tired. I shouldn’t. Shouldn’t drink. It’s a chance to talk myself onto Manchester. He’s a lead. He’s got pull. “Yeah.” I smile. “That’d be good.” I tap, “Last Ride.”

The Red Lion is a cop bar. Two of them recognize Jayson when we come in.

“Reeeeee-dickyoulussss!” One of them shouts. The other one laughs.

Another recognizes me. “You used to be Danny Ruiz!”

I hate it here. “Still am.”

They want a photo. “Manchester Square, man.” The older cop confides when the picture is done. “You ain’t fair to the LAPD on that show, you know. Makes it hard to respect you when you don’t respect us, my man.”

Jayson nods gravely. “I’ll bring it up with the writers.”

I’m drinking again. Oh well. It was a short sobriety. The beer loosens me, clears me like weed just doesn’t do. “Can I ask you something?”

Jayson’s looking over my shoulder at the cops. They’re loud, boisterous and menacing. “Yeah, what do you want to know?”

“Back in Master Class,” I hold my beer up to the light, then finish it off. “You were…”

“I was an asshole, man.” He shakes his head. Rueful. “Especially to you. Part of why I wanted to do this.” He leans in. “I owe you an apology.”

“For what?” Could be a hundred things. He treated me like shit.

“I knew how you felt about Katy, man. I knew but I…” he laughs, embarrassed. “You were better than me, man. I was scared of you so I always tried to put you down, keep you there, you know. I was a scared kid and you were better than me.” He shrugs elaborately. “I never felt good about any of it and I’ve wanted to say this to you for years.”

I don’t remember Katy. Who the hell was Katy? “It’s cool man.” The apology is nice. Unexpected. Maybe now he’ll get me on Manchester. “You were good, though.” It’s a lie.

“Bullshit, man. I sucked and you know it.”

“Yeah, no. We all sucked.”  He sucked more than the rest of us. “We were kids.” I tip my empty bottle at him. “But you are now. Good.”

“I am?” He’s being modest.

“Fuck you, Jayson, you know you are.”

He shrugs. Big smile. “Yeah. I got a lot better.”

“How? I mean, it’s like you got depth or something. I freaking believe you on screen and talking with you I just…”

He chuckles, disarming. Charming. “I learned some stuff, some good stuff. Things that changed me. Changed my life.” His smile changes. He leans in. Conspiratorial. “Gave me a leg up.”

Scientologist. It’s clear now. His big secret. His new success. “Wow!”

“What happened to you, then?” He leans back again, eyes the cops for a moment then back at me. “You were good and then you just…”

“This stupid town, man. After Venice Station, I was primed, you know? Ready. Then Josh talks me into doing some stupid trashy slasher shit that’s supposed to be the next Scream and it bombs, then he talks me into Stellar Ship and that bombs and I start to get the reputation, you know?” I’ve told this so many times. It’s sing-songy now, rote. “Josh tells me I’m poison because he made bad calls, then he drops me.” I sigh, wry smile. “Things are looking up, though. I got some things that might pop. Been writing. Some AD gigs, building my portfolio so I can direct TV, you know.” Don’t push too hard. “Love a chance to get back in front, though.”

“I do know.” He laughs, looks up and raises two fingers. I don’t turn around. “That’s awful, man. You deserved better. You were great on Venice Station.”

“I was a surfer-cop who solved beach crime.”

He smiles. “A good surfer-cop, though.”

More beer arrives.

“Let me see about getting you some time on Manchester, Danny — get you straight to producers for something recurring — we got a Latino neighbor coming up. They all love me there. I’ve got real pull.”

“You don’t have to,” but he has to. “That’d be amazing.” Hope. Fuck. Scientology. Oh well. Might be worth it. “Do you need me to go with you to get…” I’m so stupid. “Never mind.”

Jayson’s amused. He’s leering at me. “You think I’m a Scientologist.” He laughs. “I ain’t a fucking Scientologist, Danny.”

“You’re not?” I blurt it. I shouldn’t drink.

“You’re safe.” He lifts his beer. He’s still amused. Thank god.

“Then how’d you get so good? Whose class?”

He chuckles like he’s got a secret. “No class, man.”

“Then how?”

He shakes his head. “Can’t tell you.” He leans in, intimate. Whispers: “Not supposed to tell no-one.”

We drink. Talk about other things. What happened to so-and-so, do you remember how hot so-and-so was, did you actually fuck so-and-so in the costume trailer. Can’t stop thinking about how he got good.

It gets late. The cops filter out. “Don’t think about driving home, buddy,” one of them says to Jayson. “That’d be reeeee-dickyoulusss!” It gets laughs.

Jayson looks at me, then him. “Don’t worry, man, I got a Lyft.”

In the car, Jayson blocks the ignition with his hand. “Maybe we should sit a while.”

“Yeah.” We listen to music, talk more. I’m feeling alright. I’m actually liking Jayson. Still arrogant, but not a dick anymore. “So really, how’d you get so good? What’s the secret?”

He squints at me like he’s remembering something. “You’re married, right?”

“Was.” I don’t feel the whole weight like I normally do. I smile. Feels good to talk about it. “She left me.” He tenses. “Relax, it was years ago. I wasn’t my best self, you know? Things had gone bad. I don’t blame her.”

“That sucks, man.” He looks concerned, sympathetic. “Did you two have any kids?”

Fuck me. “Yeah.” Then: “No.” Then before I can stop it: “Not anymore.” It’s out. This wasn’t the plan. My eyes burn. My throat closes.

He bites his lip, his face creases like he’s screwed something up. “Dammit. I’m sorry, man. Sara, right? I totally forgot — she died? I wasn’t…”

I wave him off. Shake my head. The sadness won’t stop. Beer-loosened emotional sphincters give way. Grief. Ugh. Fuck. Sara. Sara. Jayson’s hand is on me. The warmth. I choke a little.

He pulls me close. “It’s cool, man. I got you.”

He’s strong, comforting. I give in to his hug. I’m crying a little. “Sorry.” I sit up, reach behind me for the tissues in the back seat and set about cleaning myself up.

I forgot about Sara.

“You knew about Amina? About Sara?”

He nods. “Yeah. I knew.” He sounds so sad. “Didn’t know what happened, though.”

“Who told you?”

He shrugs. “I don’t even know, man. Word got out. Danny’s got family, right?” He shakes his head. His sympathy is going to drown me. “I can’t even imagine how awful that must’ve been.”

“You don’t even know…” It’s a whisper. The blue glow from the dash blurs and Jayson’s hand is on my shoulder again. “No.” I clear my throat but it ends in a cough. “FUCK!” Hand to face, hard. Control. I breathe in. Got it. Good. “I’m fine, man. Most of the time.” He’s looking at me, eyeballs round with concern. “Some of the time.” I pull my vape up from the map-holder. “You mind?”

He doesn’t. Deep in. My psyche uncreases just a little bit. “It ruined me, man. I’m just done, you know? My career was already tanked by then anyways, so…” I shrug, because I don’t have the words. “People are supposed to get on with things, but I… I’m not. I can’t. I got nothing now. No family, no daughter, no career. I drive and smoke. I just want to go back, you know? Go back. Go back to when she was here, when I had Amina, back to when I had work. All of it. Go back.” I’m whining, nearly crying. “Jesus.” Another hit. It doesn’t help. “All night every night, all day every day, I stare at the goddamned ceiling and try to remember things. Things we did. Times we had.” I don’t know what I’m doing. I shouldn’t be saying all this.

Beer, weed, and kindness fuck me up every time.

Jayson isn’t saying anything. He’s looking at me. His expression is weird, conflicted. “What?”

He nods, just a little movement, like he’s made a decision.

“What?”

“You really want that, don’t you? To go back? One more game of Monopoly, eating bao with your wife and kid?”

Monopoly. Bao. Happiness. The wish is strong, rises like hope in my gut. Head shake, slow, with the wonder of imagined happiness. “Groundhog Day my ass right fucking then because I’m done here.” I turn to face Jayson square. “I wake up every day and wonder why I haven’t killed myself. I should. I should just do it.” I hold his eyes. “Stupid question.” I’m tired now. I want to go home. I reach for the ignition, then freeze. “How the fuck did you know about that?”

He shrugs, looks guilty.

“What?”

He sighs, deep. He’s still looking me in the eye. It’s uncomfortable. “You wanted to know what happened, how I got good. Can I tell you something? Like in confidence?”

“I couldn’t give less of a shit about your Artists Way journey right now, Jayson.”

“It’s related, man. I could help you. Just listen. It’s not anything you’ve heard before, I guarantee that. I can change your life. I know things. I’m not supposed to tell you, but I’m big now. There’s nothing they can do to me and after how I treated you on set, I feel like I owe you this.” He leans forward, close to me, intimate. His voice is a whisper. “You said you wanted to be in 2014? I can help make that happen.”

His insanity, his narcissism — they’re slaps. I face forward, hands on the wheel. “Fuck you. Get out of my car.”

“Listen.” I lean away, my head pressed against the window, yearning. “Three years ago, man, I was low. Low low. I had nobody. I was months behind in rent and the pandemic was just starting. It was bad.” He sighs. “I was sitting on my bed, holding my Glock and thinking hard about what came next when there was a knock on my door and this girl…” He shakes his head like what he’s about to say is crazy. “She came in and told me I had a choice. She offered me a different way and I took it and… it’s everything, man. It’s my secret — it’s my superpower, and it can help you, too.”

“You said you weren’t a Scientologist, man, get out of my car.”

“This ain’t about fucking Scientology.” He seems genuinely offended. “This isn’t anything like that. This is magic. You know how I knew about Sara? Amina? Monopoly and Bao? I was there, man. I saw it through my own goddamn eyes. That girl? She made me a patch-worker. I protect the integrity of the time-stream, man. I fix the past and it’s got real side-benefits that can help you.”

“Seriously, get the fuck out of my car before I hurt you.”

He doesn’t hear me. He’s ranting, relentless. “I’m not supposed to tell anybody, man, but I think I’ve got to tell you because I owe you that much for how much a dick I was.” I’ve got my head pressed so hard against the window it hurts. I close my eyes. I see spots. The door. I reach across myself. Open it. Stumble out. “Danny, man!” He’s coming after me. “Wait!”

My right foot catches on the lip. I stumble, catch myself, then sit on the pavement. “Leave me alone, man, just leave me alone.”

“I’m telling you real shit. She hooked me up. I work for Time now.” He’s kneeling next to me, leaning close above my ear. His voice burns. “I fix holes in the past — lost memories. I go back in time and fill in the goddamned blanks — it’s how I got so good man. I don’t have to wonder what it’s like being other people. I don’t have to play the truth of imaginary situations. I’ve been other people. I’ve been you, man.” His hand on my shoulder. “Several times.”

“Stop.” It’s a whisper. “Please just stop.”

He won’t. He’s smiling, maniacal. “I rolled the seven that landed you on Park Place where Sara had three houses. I ate the last shrimp dumpling that Amina wanted. I felt that, man. I have been a thousand people in a thousand different lives now and so can you. I can talk to that girl again, man. I can hook you up and maybe you can go back, live that moment, too.” He’s leaning over me again. Tender eyes. Intensity. “Very least you’ll get to be other people, too, help your career, maybe help you in general.”

“You’re fucking insane.” But he’s not. He’s sane. I had rolled a seven. I had eaten the last shrimp dumpling. Amina had wanted it.

He shakes his head slowly. “I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, man, so you can’t tell anyone, either, okay? Next time I see the girl, I’ll talk to her for you, though. I promise.”

I look up at him. His face is open. He’s earnest, honest. “You go back in time…”

“Yeah. Not like some movie sci-fi shit, though. One moment I’m me now and the next moment I’m Sally Archer in Omaha, Nebraska, in 2017 trying to decide which canned soup to buy at Dollar General and wondering if I should leave my husband, and then I’m back to being me.”

“Man…” It’s insane. What if it’s real?

“I swear it’s true.” He looks so earnest. “We’re the people who keep time from getting fucked up. Sometimes things don’t get stored right — things happen but then they get erased so they both happen and didn’t happen at the same time and that can really fuck things up. We go back and re-live the lost moments.  That’s why I’ve been you, man. You keep erasing things.”

It’s not real. I stand up. “You’re such an asshole, Jayson.”

He stays where he was. I watch him watch me drive away. He looks scared. I can’t shake the feeling.

Morning. I think. Light anyways. The vertical blinds in my bedroom are useless. My head hurts. My back, too. Last night’s memories filter in. Slowly. I rolled a seven.

“Fuck.” It’s a whisper, raspy, forced through phlegm. I screwed up my chance for a recurring on Manchester. I feel sick.

Toast, peanut butter, coffee. Consider my day. Drive, I guess. Amina wanted the bao. I should have let her have it. Maybe if I’d let her have it, I’d…

Fuck I’m hungry.

My apartment is gone. I’m…

The Gas’n’Save looks bright and cheery inside. 

I’m being painted over, hidden.

I’m Jimmy Dammaker. 

It’s winter-bright, sun-shiny. I’m in Akron, Ohio. It’s four days before my ex-wife’s birthday. She’s a bitch who took my kids. I need twenty-five dollars in the next few hours or it’s going to be a rough fucking night. 

It’s not me. It’s Jimmy. I’m Jimmy.

The shelves inside are colorful, filled with friendly food. I’ve got four dollars and seventeen cents, but I need that. More. It’s cold. I’m sweating. Not good. The Indian who owns the station kicked me off the property this morning, but he’s not here now. Just the girl.

I walk up slow-like. Casual. I’m beside the door. The wind picks up, blows my coat open. It’s cold as a motherfucker, but my hands, my back, my face feel shiny. 

There’s an older guy getting out of his car, fat and weak. Polo shirt under his coat, khaki pants. The kind who carries cash. “Hey man! Hey, you got a sec, man?”

He won’t look at me.

“I’m a fucking vet, man. You’re gonna walk right past me like you don’t see me? I served for you, asshole.” I didn’t, but I’m mad now anyways. Fuck this guy. I’m jonesing. Hard. “Give me some money, you pussy.”

The girl inside is wide-eyed scared, hand on her phone. The guy in the polo shirt slows. “You need to leave.” He won’t even look at me.

“Give me twenty bucks, then.”

His step stutters. “Here.” He pulls his hand from his pocket, holds out a five. “Go.”

My hand is halfway to my mouth. Jimmy Dammaker is still in me, memories that feel like mine but aren’t. A house with a big lawn, fist-holes in a wall, a twelve-foot python named Sofie. Sadness that feels like anger. He’s slipping away, but he leaves a sheen of himself behind in me.

My toast reaches my lips. I bite instinctively, but I have no saliva. The bread sits in my mouth unlubricated and unpleasant. I spit it into the trash.

I pulled Jayson’s number from the app. His phone rings a bunch before it’s answered. “Who’s calling, please?”

It’s not Jayson. Maybe an assistant. “This is Danny. Ruiz. Can I talk to Jayson?”

“What’s your relationship with Jayson?” The guy on the phone sounds too old to be an assistant. Professional. Suspicious.

“We’re friends, man. We were drinking last night. Can I talk with him?”

The voice changes. Harder. “You were with Mr. Means last night? At his house?”

“No man, at the Red Lion. What the hell?” My head is pounding. I’m starting to feel sick.

“Mr. Ruiz, my name is Detective Rafael Luna, LAPD. Would it be alright if I sent someone over to talk with you?”

Jayson is dead. Beaten to death in his home. They ask me about baseball bats, whether we fought. I tell them the truth. When they leave: “We might have more questions, so please keep yourself available.”

After the door closes, I vomit into the sink, spare sausage from last night, bile, water. It burns.

I collapse on a chair, put my head in my hands.

A knock. Solid, confident, a set of three raps. Moments later, three more. I should get it, but I can’t move my hands, my head. “Just a minute.” I pinch my cheek hard. The pain brings me out.

“Sorry, I was in the bathroom.” It’s a woman I don’t know. “Who are you?”

She’s in her thirties, maybe my age exactly. A little heavy but wearing it well. Her hair is thick, teased and messy, reminds me of Jennifer Finch from L7 back in the day. Clean jeans, a black tee, black Chuck Taylor’s. Pretty but scary. “Hi Danny,” she says. She smiles, but it doesn’t touch the rest of her face. “Can I come in?” She pushes past me. “Thank you.”

I stay at the door, watch her scan my living room. It’s been a long time since anyone who wasn’t me has seen it. I imagine what she sees and blanch. “Sorry. Who are you?”

“My name’s Darby.” She turns to face me. She smiles again, then motions me to the couch. “Have a seat, Danny.” She sits on the far side, angles herself to look at me. “I was a friend of Jayson’s. We need to talk.”

I can’t sit down. I stay standing, arms crossed, between her and the door. “You know about… It was you, wasn’t it? The girl who talked to him, told him about Time and whatever. What did you do to him? He didn’t do anything, man. He was trying to help me.”

She laughs, for real. It’s at me. “Danny. there wasn’t anything me or anyone else could do to keep Jayson from dying once he broke the rules.” She widens her eyes at me, like I should understand. “He told you. He shouldn’t have done that.”

“But none of this is real.” I don’t even believe myself anymore. “Was it? Is it? It wasn’t. That’s stupid.”

“Okay.” She stares up at me, dead-faced.

It deflates me. “Fuck.”

She glances at her watch. “Jayson broke the rules and was sent to patch a death. You are now a patch-worker because it was either that or kill you because Jayson was an idiot and told you.” She widens her eyes, leans forward. “Rules.”

She lays it out. Just like Jayson.  “You’re gonna fix Time, Danny.”

It’s heady. Patching is re-creating a forgotten moment, a piece of time. It takes a while for the past to solidify. Most moments are strong, sticky, built to last, but others don’t set right. Others get erased.  She gives me an example: “Imagine you buy blueberries at the store and pay six bucks — if that moment disappears from Time, then you ate blueberries that you didn’t buy, someone else might buy blueberries that don’t exist and the shopkeeper is six bucks short while you have six extra you already spent. We go back and relive that moment, make sure it sticks.” 

“I don’t…” It’s a lot.  My head hurts.

“Don’t get lost in the whys and wherefores, Danny.” She wrinkles her nose, shakes her head. “More things on heaven and earth and all that. Just know you’re saving the world.” She shrugs. “If those paradoxes make it to the present, Time’s fucked. We’re all fucked. We keep that from happening.”

As she leaves, I ask my only question. “What rules? What are the rules?” I don’t want to die like Jayson.

“Fight Club, Danny.” Darby smiles as she stands up to go. “The rules are Fight Club rules.”

Donnie Gleason. It’s 2016. Richmond, Indiana. I’m wide. Tall, too. My skin beads with sweat. My hair is hot on my head. It’s hot. Can’t believe I still live here. You ain’t leaving, Donnie. Too fucking scared. I tighten inside, shameful. Speedway has twenty-five pumps, but the one I chose is out of regular. I scan the lot, consider getting back in the car to move to a different island, but it seems like too much. It’s too hot. The Purina factory is making the whole town smell like dog food again. Seattle doesn’t smell like this. How the fuck would I know. 

I slap the button for premium. It’s twenty cents more.

“Fuck.” Nobody’s listening. Nobody cares.

Patches come randomly, no warning. I’m here, signaling left, third in line for the turn and then suddenly I’m Jaden Preble helping my sister buy a dress for her eighth-grade prom and I’m mad she hasn’t even said thank-you even though I could have spent the day playing Call of Duty. Then I’m back but I don’t remember where I am or what I was doing and everybody gets pissed at me while I puzzle it out.

She should have thanked him, though.

Patching. Inconvenient, but not awful. Sometimes good. I feel what they feel. I’ve been thrilled about finding twenty bucks when I was Emmett Combs, a bricklayer in Evanston, Illinois in 2015. I’ve felt schadenfreude as Connor Fields in Klamath Falls when Caden Brooks got busted for vaping in the bathroom. I’ve felt the sadness of Alberto Mendez of Massapequa when his favorite pair of socks were too worn to keep.

There are downsides, too. Something happens to me there, it happens to me.

Eric Bledsoe. Truckee. 2018. Driving, barely thinking, thinking. Not thinking.

“Not…” words are weird. Sounds. Mindblowing. Moving air makes music. Moving air.      “Blah blah blah blah” means something but it’s just air.

Laughing now. Can’t help it. It’s snowing a little, still September. Weird. Brake lights in front of me. I feel lazy. Moving slow, foot from gas to brake.

Not going to make it. No panic. No worry. Just is. I turn the wheel, slide onto the shoulder, then over the shoulder… over the shoulder sounds… more sounds.

The car bumps, then we’re riding a bucking bronco, up down up up up up down down. Stop.

“We’re okay!” I tell myself. I’m the only one listening. My nose hurts.

I had a bloody nose after that one. Back and neck sore for a week. Jayson died like that, being someone else when they got killed. He was trying to help. Wanted to give me my career back, give me a chance to see Sara again. I think about Jayson a lot. Beaten to death. A bat, maybe something else. Found in his living room, wearing boxer-briefs and a robe. The robe didn’t have any blood on the outside, no blood anywhere but on his body. Reddit’s got a sub now, r/meansmurder. People think he was killed elsewhere.

Not elsewhere. Elsewhen. Sent to patch a death.

Most patches are small. Moments in time easily forgotten — choices made doing laundry, whether to buy tomatoes.  People worry. People care. People are scared. People have joy. Patching is making it harder to judge people.

Then there are erasures, moments people remember into oblivion. People like me. We are memory destroyers.

Paula Robinson. The Anasazi Steakhouse is fancy. Caleb’s choice. He’s across from me, eyes down, intent on his rib-eye. He cuts it carefully, fork in his left hand, backside up, tines in the meat. His manners are so good. He’s refined. People would never know if they saw him at work or driving on the freeway in his beat up ancient green Tundra.

“This is nice.” I feel myself flush. I sound simple. “I’ve never been here before.”

Caleb looks up. He’s chewing, but it’s subtle, quiet. His eyes are bright. His face, he has a look. Everything about him is slightly wrong — his nose is too large, crooked, too. His eyes too deep. His goatee isn’t full, his cheeks are hollow but the whole thing together looks… good. He’s like a younger Sam Elliot. He smiles. “Couldn’t think of another place where I could take you and people wouldn’t think I was too cheap for my date.”

I’ve been here as Paula three times already. Something must’ve happened to Caleb. She must really miss him. Erasures like hers and mine are always tragic nostalgia.

Every time I fade, splash down inside a mind somewhere else in time, I hope it’s mine — that moment where I rolled a seven. Some other moment of joy with Amina, with Sara. I drill down on memories daily, forcing moment-by-moment replays until the faces dissolve and the moments drown in murkiness and I’m not even sure it happened at all.

If they’re sending patchworkers, they’re not sending me.

But Jayson was right. While I’m patching I am them. I feel them, think them, know them. It’s real. I don’t have to play at imaginary truths anymore.

“You want back in.” Josh sounds skeptical.

We haven’t talked in four years.  Last time we did he told me my only options were reality. Screw that. If my career was going to end, it wasn’t going to be sitting across the desk from whoever-the-fuck replaced Donald Trump on Celebrity Apprentice or whatever.

“I’m ready. I’ve spent real time focusing on craft. I’ll impress you, man. I’ll impress everybody.”

He tells me I don’t need to impress him. He wants a new headshot. “You haven’t updated your webpage.”

“I’ll have it all by Tuesday.” Hang up. Lean back, close my eyes. Another moment with Sara. I focus, remember it hard.

The concrete path to our front door in South Pasadena. Amina is on the porch. She’s radiant, watching us. I’m holding Sara’s hand. The sun is hot. She’s looking up at me. She’s smiling. “The baby muskrat!” She says. She’s telling me about Wonder Pets.

I can hear her voice. It’s everything. Her face blurs, the house, the path, the heat, the voice, they fray, degrade into swirled flashes of colors.

Somebody will get to patch that. Probably not me.

Headshots and web-service are expensive, but Venice Station residuals check came in yesterday. $433.89. Bigger than expected. If I don’t pay rent I can swing it.

“You booked it, man!” Josh.

The call woke me from a sound sleep. “I did? That’s great!” I don’t know which part he’s talking about. I’ve sent in tapes for more than a dozen in the last few weeks. “Which one?”

“The recurring, man! Sunset Emergency!”

“Really?” I smile. Channeled Dr. Ahmet Pour for that one. I was Ahmet for three minutes while he sat on the toilet and thought about calling his wife. We didn’t. There was too much to talk about and not enough time. We both knew he wasn’t calling because he was afraid. “That’s awesome.” My superpower. Jayson. “Thanks, man.” I didn’t used to thank Josh. Didn’t used to thank anybody, I guess, but people need to hear it.

Off the phone. Jayson was right. Don’t even have to rehearse. Shit’s just there.

Jayson.  “Thanks, man.” I touch my heart, bring my fingers to my lips, and then raise them to the sky.

“You’re doing it on purpose.” Darby showed up at my door unannounced. We’re sitting on the couch. “You’ve got to stop.”

She’s intense. I want to meet her eyes, but I look at my coffee instead. “I’m not…”

“You want to see them again, I get it, but it’s not going to happen.” She sets her water bottle on the table. It lands firmly, with a clack against the glass that startles me. “We don’t patch ourselves.”

“Why not?” My voice betrays my panic.

“It just doesn’t happen, Danny.” She sounds sympathetic, sad, like I’m a child. “You have to stop.”

I shake my head. I’m not going to answer. She waits. I wait longer.

She gets up, lifts her bottle from the table. “I’m serious, Danny. You need to stop. You’re creating work for other people and it’s never going to get you what you want.”

I don’t look up.

“Daddy?” Sara just got her uniforms, ugly gray polos, blue polyester pants. She’s standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the setting sun behind her from the open patio doors. There’s jasmine in the air…

She stands to leave but pauses at the open door. “I’m serious, man. This is serious.”

Sara does a spin. “I’m modelling!” She spins again.

“Gorgeous, Little Winner!” It’s ugly, but she’s amazing. I’m smiling. Happy.

When I look up, Darby’s gone.

In line at Lassen’s, basket full of fruit and meat. People look at me as I shop. They recognize me. The girl staring from the cross-aisle by the coffee, the guy by the meat counter.

I hear my name. I smile, pretend not to have overheard. It’s been years. Decades. They know me. Sunset Emergency is big. My character’s arc is airing currently. There’ve been interviews — “Phoenix from the ashes” sort of things.

“Hey man.” Guy behind me. I turn around, smile.

“What’s up?”

He points to the front of the store. “Register’s open.”

Still awake. Still in bed. Sheets are too warm. Blanket’s too much. I feel damp.

Amina is standing beside the bed, pulling off her shirt to put on her nightgown. She’s telling me about something that happened at Sara’s daycare, something about what another parent said or did. I’m not really listening, watching her breasts, waiting for her to take off her pants.

“Mom?” The door bursts open. Sara’s there, all smiles until she sees Amina clutching her shirt to her chest. Her eyes go wide. “Were you having sex?”

Again.

Amina is standing beside the bed, pulling off her shirt…

The image is blurring. Amina’s skin, face, hair, muddling into blotches. Her voice slips, becoming simple unspoken words in my brain. She’s being erased. She’ll need a patch.

Jayson lied. It won’t ever be me.

Bestia. Josh’s choice. “We gotta celebrate!” He just bought a new condo in the old Parker Paints building. He’s high on the Arts District and wants to share it.

Bestia’s fine. Good food. The agency’s picking up the tab with the Marvel money I’m about to bring in. We’re sitting by the big windows in front, visible from the street for obvious reasons. People aren’t staring, but I still feel eyes while I eat flatbread and tapenade.

“Danny?”

She’s standing beside me, snuck up without me noticing. She was always quiet. She’s dressed well, but I recognize the loose long dress that cinches at the waist. She bought it when we were still together. It’s frayed at the hem, a little faded. The tailored black cardigan hides it. She’s lost weight. Her hair is swept back into a loose knot. There’s gray in it.

I don’t know what to say. I stare until the discomfort of silence overrides surprise, overrides the ache she brings. “Amina… hi.” I gesture across the table. “You remember Josh.”

“Hi Josh.” She smiles. It’s hollow. Her cheeks are hollow. She’s hollow. She’s a gutted version of herself, a taxidermy like me. To me: “How’ve you been?”

I shrug. I ache. I’m hollow, too. I’m sorry. You left me. She’s dead. I’m dead. “Okay, I guess. Career’s picking up again which is cool, but…” another shrug. “How are you?”

“I’m…” She shrugs. Her eyes turn hard, the look she had after Sara whenever she looked at me. I wilt. “I’m surviving.” She turns, looks back at someone or something. “I just saw you over here and didn’t want to leave without at least saying hi.”

I stand. “Hey, maybe we…”

She shakes her head, smiles again. Sad. Still hollow. “No, Danny. I don’t think I hate you anymore but this is all I can handle, okay?”

Maybe before I might’ve forced the issue. Not anymore. Too much of other people’s pain in me to prioritize my own anymore. Sitting down again, watching her walk up Traction with another woman. They look back, but I can’t tell if it’s at me or the restaurant. Josh is speaking, saying something. Enthusiastic.

She still thinks I let Sara die. I want to die.

Sara. She’s standing in vomit outside my bedroom door. I’m etching it into my mind. Every moment, every color, sound. Erasing.

“I threw up.” Her voice is soft. She’s holding her head. She’s so small. She’s sad. “My head really hurts.” Then: “I’m sorry I made a mess.” She’s clear, then she’s not. For moments I see her face as it was, but then it degrades, disappears. Needing a patch.

“No worries, Little Winner.” I step over the puddle. The smell is acrid, awful. Bile. Vomit usually makes me want to vomit, but hers doesn’t. It’s just a mess to clean. Weirdly undisgusting. “You want some Tylenol?” It’s the moment before the worst moment of my life. If they won’t give me this, they won’t give me anything.

“Yes, please.”

That vomit stayed for days.

“Just over there,” Cassidy gestures at the hill across Sunset. She’s twenty-four, been in LA for two years and now she’s Daimeon to my Ghost Rider. She’s pointing at her apartment. “I might move, though.” She shrugs, twirls her drink. “I want to stay in the neighborhood but my apartment is…” She makes a face. Some fans are pissed she’s a girl. Incels and losers.

We’re good together, on screen. She’s okay but together, chemistry. “It’s a good area.” I don’t know what else to say. It’s true. Echo Park is nice.

Daddy? I threw up. I take a breath.

“Are you liking Beachwood?” The show is coming together nicely.

“Only been there four months, but so far it’s fine…” On set, I get to be Johnny Blaze more than I have to be Danny Ruiz. It’s a relief, being someone else consistently. Not one-offs. Even Ronnie Suarez on Sunset Emergency wasn’t as all-encompassing.

But at the end of the day, I still go home.

Cassidy’s eyes move off me, up. Something behind me. “Hey Danny.”

Darby. She’s not alone, standing with a tall lanky Black guy who reads gay. I shift on my stool. “Hi.”

“I’m Darby,” Darby puts her hand out to Cassidy. “I’m a friend of Danny’s.” She points to her companion. “This is Alex. Alex, Danny and…” She cocks her head in Cassidy’s direction.

“Cassidy.” Cassidy tells her. “It’s nice to meet you!” She looks around as if trying to find a pair of stools to pull up to our counter at the window. “There’re no…”

Darby shakes her head. “No worries, we can’t stay. Can I steal Danny for a sec?”

Outside. Alex has stayed with Cassidy. I can see them talking. Laughing. “You brought muscle this time.”

“Alex is not muscle, Danny. Alex is just a friend like us.” She shifts herself, putting her body between me and the window where Alex and Cassidy sit. “You’ve got to stop, Danny. I told you it was serious. Don’t fuck with things you don’t understand.”

“You’re telling me to stop remembering my daughter. You shouldn’t fuck with things you cannot understand.”

“I’m just the messenger. I’m trying to save your life. Erasures like yours, they endanger Time and they won’t have any compunctions about stopping you permanently if need be.” She leans in. “If you keep at it, you’ll end up on a death patch, just like Jayson.” She looks honestly concerned. “Please.” Then: “You’ve built a good life, Danny. Love what you have, look forward not back okay?”

I look past her at Cassidy. A good life. Daddy? Maybe. In some ways. It’s not enough. It will never be enough. I nod, let go the breath I didn’t know I’d held. “Yeah. Alright.”

It’s later. We’re still at the bar across from Cassidy’s. Lights are bright. Noises loud. My cheeks are warm. Cassidy is laughing.

“Can I ask you something?” She leans forward. “Something serious?”

“Sure.”

“It might be rude.” She shakes a finger at me. “I don’t like being rude, but I really want to know.”

“Ask. I won’t be offended, I promise.”

“Okaaayyy.” She sits up straight. “I was watching Master Class and a little of Venice Station…”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“We’re working together. I wanted to see.” She sighs. “Anyways, I was watching and… I work with you and you’re like… you’re amazing now but then you…”

“I wasn’t very good.” I chuckle. I wasn’t very good. Jayson’s words. “I know.”

“What happened? How did you get so good?”

“I just…” I shrug. “I learned some stuff, you know.”

“You took classes?” She squints at me. “Playhouse West or something? Studio 5? It’s just… I’m not very good.”

“Cassidy, you’re good.” It’s a little bit of a lie. She’s cute and she’s got charisma but she’s not good. I lift my beer to my lips to hide my shame. She could be good.

“Bullshit. I’m cute. I won’t be cute forever and I want to be good. I want to have staying power. How’d you do it?”

Staying power. I’ve got staying power now. I’m big again. I’ve got the nice place, the career. Daddy? I couldn’t care less. It’s your turn! Cassidy is watching me, waiting. I can give her what she wants. Patching made me a better actor. A better person, maybe. It didn’t give me what I wanted. Maybe it will for her. Maybe she’ll be happy. “You really want to know?” Daddy?

“Seriously, Danny!” She pushes my leg.

“It’s a big dark secret, Cass.” I raise my eyebrows, take a sip. “Life and death.” Park Place, Daddy!

“Tell me!” Eleven hundred dollars!

I sip my beer. It tastes good. The evening light is perfect. I’ll miss this. “I really shouldn’t, but okay…”

I have two of Sara’s uniform shirts left in my closet. I take one. It’s very small. I raise it to my face, but it only smells like soap. I bring it with me to the couch.

A hit from my vape. I wait in silence.

Fight Club Rules. “Anytime now.” I wait. Nothing.

Until.

He’s not coming. “Daddy!”

I’m not me. I’m her.

My head. The noise.

Oh god.

The door opens and he’s there. I can’t look up at him. At me. “I threw up.”  He doesn’t look mad. “My head really hurts.” I look around. The vomit. The mess. I feel bad. “I’m sorry I made a mess.”

“No worries, Little Winner.” He’s smiling. He looks tired. He’s got no shirt. His hair is messy. “You want some Tylenol?” He looks around. “I’ll get this cleaned up later.”

 He takes my hand. I can barely see it. Things are dark now, blurry. “Daddy?”

“What’s up, Winner?”

“My eyes are weird.” My head hurts. A lot lot lot.

He chuckles. It relaxes me. He’s not worried. “Let’s see. Headache? Barfing? Weird eyes?” He lifts me onto the couch and sits down next to me. He’s warm. He’s comfortable. Daddy. “Sounds like you’ve got a migraine, Winner.” He leans forward, looks me in the face. “I used to get them, too. They suck.”

I laugh. It hurts. It’s hard to see. I… more vomit. Dad sees it coming. Catches it with a popcorn bowl.

I’m soooo tired. My eyes.

My head…

It hurts… “Daddy?” It hurts so much. “Where’s mommy?”

“She’s in Houston, remember? Work. She’ll be back tomorrow.”

I want her to be here. I want to see her. My head hurts so much. “I’m scared.”

“Don’t be, Winner. It’s just a migraine.”

I can barely hear him. Through a tube, a long long way away. It’s so dark.

Am I dying?

It’s not a migraine, Little Winner. It’s an aneurysm. I’m so sorry.

It’s dark.

I love you so much.

A long time. Our hearts beat.

I’m so sorry.

Then slow. Beat again. Once.

We’re together. In silence.

You should have known me when I was on top of the game. Morphing was still new and few artists had mastered it. Not everyone could handle the drugs that would transform you into a piece of art a Collector would be proud to hang on the wall. We were a small group, known to the gallery owners and dealers, and cultivated, like rare hothouse flowers. There were parties loaded with the best Stimuli (especially the music, either tingling or throbbing) to trigger a Morph that would be as interesting and innovative as possible.

Oh, those parties! When you could hardly remember what you were when you came in and could barely recognize yourself when you came out. It took days to get back to your usual self, but who cared? If the Morph was successful and you sold, there was a nice fat contract —six months to a year—waiting for you with your dealer. The perks were there too, as most likely you’d be living in some penthouse or estate, with the best food and drink, all expenses paid, and a staff to wait on you at all times.

So, what happened, you want to know? Why am I hanging in a place like this? Well, when I tell you the story, it will become clear.

I had just come off a year of hanging in a mountain retreat somewhere in Colorado, tanned and relaxed and feeling refreshed. Ready for the next Morph, back in New York, where the best Collectors were, and represented by one of the top galleries. My dealer, Hans, an expert at the game, was adept at teasing multiple buyers or establishing a new trend, which ironically, only his artists could fulfill.

I had a nice, loft-like apartment on Tenth Street in the Village, stocked with ample supply of morphizine and art books, my only treasures. The Cubist and Futurist movements of the early 1920s were my sources of inspiration, and influenced my Morph, making it distinctive from most of the other artists. My unique talent was Fragmenting, projecting my fragmented self onto different planes, taking Cubism from two dimensions to three, sure to excite the most elite of the sophisticated Art Collectors.

Hans had scheduled a top-tier Collector’s party, a showcase for his high-ticket Morph Artists. Grabbing a two-pack of morphizine, I donned my black shiny raincoat and was on my way. The black pavement was shiny after a drizzle and my stiletto-heeled retro pumps clicked loudly across it as I followed the route to the warehouse site of tonight’s gallery party.

“The biggest Collectors will be coming, Liebchen,” Hans had gotten me into the habit of referring to Collectors as their own special entity with a capital ‘C’. Big Collectors were very busy and very rich, but in pursuit of their Collection they tended to come early and stay late, wanting to be certain of the art that caught their attention, before committing their millions to a purchase.

However, that night, at least, I was game—and if took a little more morphizine than usual, so be it. I was healthy, relaxed, and felt I could easily handle a full night of Morphing.

Wandering around by myself, (Hans was too cheap to pay for added chaperones for Morphing artists) I finally found a dressing room, where I disrobed, took out my syringe and sat on a rickety chair to shoot up the morphizine.

If you’ve never taken morphizine, you can’t imagine the initial rush as it sets your cells up to Morph. It leaves you feeling you’ve had a small taste of paradise. (By the way, in those days I scored the best morphizine you could get; the crap I get now barely gives me the same kind of buzz).

How does it work, you ask? I’m not totally sure, but one time a doctor tried to explain it to me:

Your DNA is like the instruction book for your genes, much like the instruction book that comes with a Lego set. Evidently, the DNA tells the genes and cells of your body how to structure itself, and how all the little tiny pieces should come together. Then, some scientist discovered that DNA can be altered, and with the injection of a new drug into the bloodstream and the right stimulus to activate it, it can direct cells to change the body’s structure.

Initially, the drug was used to retool the DNA and restructure the genes of people who were born with disabilities caused by missing or non-functioning genes. With the success of this application, the excitement of more possibilities grew, after scientists discovered that some people were more responsive than others to DNA-change. These people had genes which were dynamic and would bind and move quickly and easily once the drug and the stimulus were administered, and experienced few, if any, side effects. Oddly enough, those who responded so well to the drug had a high creative instinct and became Morph Artists.

Since there were no serious side effects to taking the drug now known as morphizine, it was made easily available to Responders, although artists have to take a blood test to confirm their response everytime they refill a prescription for morphizine. 

So here I was, eyes closed as I reveled in the euphoria produced by the first rush of morphizine into my veins, and I took my time before getting up and into the Morph. Even without Stimuli like music or flashing lights, my body was beginning to morph. My fingers extended into tendrils, turning green, and my hair began to grow into vines, encircling my body. Feeling good, I slithered out of the dressing area to where the music caused the floor to throb, while trying to control my feet from morphing, until I got to the heart of the party.

I followed the throbbing floor to a white metal door, which was a struggle to open with my fingers already morphed into tendrils. I stepped onto a painted metal catwalk surrounding a giant fish tank filled with colored oozing things. The music made both my legs and the catwalk vibrate with its syncopation, and I had to concentrate to prevent the Morphfrom rearranging my cells randomly to the rhythm. It not only took the right DNA, but self-control to direct the Morph into the kind of art a Collector would appreciate.

I climbed down the ladder into the tank, and let the warm water engulf me. Concentrating on fragmenting, not angular but smooth. My tendrils stretched and diversified into more branches through the pulsating water.

With the disintegration of your usual form, it takes the power of imagination to reshape every cell in your body. As the Morph progresses, the connection between consciousness and emotion grows fuzzy, and oblivion sets in. It’s important you understand this now, so you’ll understand what happened later.

I remained in a semi-conscious state until 4:00 am when, at last, the morphizine began to wear off. The water in the tank had grown cold and goopy, and I tried to avoid oozing forms clinging to the walls as my tendrils slithered upwards. With a shiver that shook my entire form, I emerged, restored to my natural shape. However, the Morph was now stamped into my brain, and at the right price, I’d recreate it for the Collector who wanted to buy it.

Hans was waiting for me when I exited the dressing room, a big smile on his professionally reconstructed face. “Well, you did it this time, Cecilia,” he said as he kissed me on both cheeks, “You’ve caught the big fish. The biggest Collector of Modern Art of the western world, Sir Giles McCullen.”

“You’re kidding,” I said, skeptical.

Hans patted his jacket pocket. “Got the contract right here, already signed by the Collector and now ready for your signature.”

Landing in the art collection of Sir Giles McCullen, one of the richest men in the world, was the ticket to stardom. Sir Giles was a leading Collector, and an influencer, and I was to be his first Morph acquisition.

Han’s answer to my next question of, “How much?” staggered me with its outrageously high amount. His surgically enhanced facial muscles strained as they widened into the biggest grin I’d ever seen him attempt. Grabbing the papers he offered, I did a quick scan, looking for the location and start date. Two days! Not much time to get a full supply of morphizine, but, luckily, the location was a penthouse apartment on Park Avenue, not some lonely far-off estate, so delivery from a nearby pharmacy would be feasible.

“Wait a minute. It’s only a 3-month contract!” I looked up angrily, “what’s with that? I thought we don’t do samples.”

Hans tented his fingers before his face, “He likes to rotate his art and allows nothing to hang for more than a month or two. For Sir Giles McCullen, you’ll do three months or whatever time he wants, capisce? You’re getting the three because you’ll be his first Morph Art, and I convinced him he should take more time with it. The good news is that after he’s done with a piece, he usually makes sure to pass it along to another prestigious Collector. So, you’re far from being left out in the cold. This will turn into a never-ending gig. Promise.”

Oh, well. Hans was as ambitious as I was, and would ensure the commissions would keep rolling in.

Within two days, I found myself in the stark white entry of Sir Gile’s penthouse on Park Avenue. My contract required me to hang for about 6 hours a day, beginning at seven o’clock in the evening when Sir Giles got home, and ending when he retired to his bedroom, at around one in the morning.

For my off-hours, I had been given a cozy large room with a private bath, with big picture windows framing a stunning view of Manhattan. The lap of luxury and the kind of life I’d always imagined, complete with an efficient and courteous staff to tend to my every need.

You’ve heard of Sir Giles McCullen, haven’t you? Want to know what he was like before the murder, don’t you? Well, I couldn’t tell you. I never spoke to him, and he never spoke to me.

Usually, Collectors couldn’t stop asking about the Morph, because it was the one experience they couldn’t buy. Even if they were to shoot up a ton of morphizine, there’s no way to force a Morph; it was all up to the DNA.

Sir Giles, however, seemed to have no desire to know more about the Morph, and the only reaction I got out of him was a lift of an eyebrow on the first day he sat down to dinner and noticed me on the opposite wall.

Sir Giles may have initially been attracted to my creation, the fragmenting of the physical plane and the creation of tendrils that glinted, mercurial and ephemeral, in different lights. Though he lacked understanding of Morph Art, he obviously had been informed of the need for continued Stimulus to maintain it and arranged a full-spectrum light show along with pulsating music to play during the hours I was scheduled to be on the wall.

In my off time, I kept busy by meandering around the apartment or swimming in the infinity pool on the terrace. Occasionally, Sir Giles would see me in my ordinary human form, but his face never registered a flicker of recognition nor the inclination to speak to me. When I wasn’t on his wall, I was invisible, just like everything else in his household.

In that vast complex, servants and assistants were ever ready to receive his orders, and they too were treated as invisibles. It was not intentional or derogatory; it was just Sir Giles. He had a lack of interest in anything once collected, and anyone already on his payroll.

Except for a beautiful man. Many know of his obsession with Michelangelo’s David, and it was rumored he’d purchased it, although was persuaded to leave it where it was, in the museum in Florence. It was also whispered that Sir Giles seemed to have a passion for collecting a living embodiment of Michaelangelo’s artistic ideal and had many flings with David-like young men, who all signed non-disclosure agreements, of course.

Now, let me set the stage for Sir Giles’ final night on earth.

I was hanging in my spot in the dining room when Sir Giles came home at his usual time, accompanied by a tall, blond, perfectly proportioned young man who looked like he had been chiseled out of ice. Sir Giles was in constant movement, picking up a glass, pouring a drink, tinkling the ice. He tapped his fingers repeatedly on the side table not more than two feet from where I hung, but he ignored me, didn’t even try to show me off to his guest. He did not acknowledge the staff or the dinner they laid out for him and his guest on the long dining table.

Sir Giles was in his late fifties, with graying hair, and he sported a beard that hid the lower half of his face. He could not take his eyes off the young blond man, as if he were some new treasure to be added to his collection.

Reality gets hazy when you’re into a Morph, but I remember snippets of the evening. I could see the young man, as he tried repeatedly to engage Sir Giles in conversation and waited and waited for some response. After absolutely no reaction, his guest reached for knife and fork and began to dig into his dinner.

While in the middle of a Morph, your senses feel like they are on overload. Waves of disgust and disappointment were emanating from Sir Giles. He must have said something to the young man, who paused for the first time in his eating. Rising slowly, I could see the glint of the knife clutched so tightly in his hand, and felt the anger, like a hot wind, simmering from the young man. Although my senses were in high alert, my consciousness was not, and so when the young man began to shout at Sir Giles, with the knife still in his hand, I could not summon any muscle to react or even to open my mouth.

If Sir Giles noticed the knife or the young man’s anger, he did not seem to react to it, and instead, reached for a tumbler, poured something into it, and offered it to the young man to drink. The young man took it and downed it in one gulp, then wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his white shirt, leaving a faint brown stain.

Sir Giles turned away to the window. The turmoil of emotions surging from the young man was so powerful, it caused new branches to sprout from my tendrils, which inched down the walls towards the source of the sensation. The young man came closer to Sir Giles, who suddenly turned and struck him full across the face. Stunned, a red splotch appeared on his cheek, and he placed a hand on the mark, as if feeling for damage. Suddenly, the young man’s arms shot out, and then in a flash, Sir Giles was propelled through the picture window with a trailing scream.

I was too far into the Morph to pull myself off the wall or call out for the staff or reach for the phone to summon the police. It took all my willpower and control to prevent myself from Morphing to the waves of fear and anger blasting from the young man. He still had not noticed me as a live person, though he came close enough to me on the wall to hear him snarl. I watched helplessly as he grabbed a tabletop sculpture, and tossed it out the shattered window after Sir Giles.

Paralyzed, I was in my position, because aside from taking morphizine I had ingested a Fixative pill to keep the Morph in the exact position that Sir Giles had paid for. It was the Fixative, not the morphizine, which locked me in place, as I kept explaining to the authorities. Besides, I was in danger. The young brute could have taken me in his arms and tossed me out after the sculpture he just threw, and I would have been helpless to save myself.

Luckily for me, the servants must have had heard the window shatter, and they had called the police, who burst into the room, handcuffing the young man before he could get away.

After twenty-four hours, the Fixative and the morphizine was out of my system, and it was my turn to be interviewed by the police, who had already completed their discussions with the suspect and Sir Giles’ staff.

An eyewitness, wasn’t I, you say? What I saw should have put that young murderer away for good, but my testimony was discounted. The Defense Counsel turned the case against the Morph, and public opinion turned against me, as if I had committed a crime. They claimed I could have saved Sir Giles, but I was “under the influence of morphizine” and “in a state of disarrayed molecular structure” which disqualified me as “an individual capable of testimony”. In short, I was ruled to be an Object, since the Morph had deprived me of my humanity. Therefore, I was disqualified as a witness to an act of murder.

The press had a field day, and I’m surprised you don’t recall it. Artists like me were condemned for going to such extremes for the sake of newfangled creativity, demonstrating our defiance of basic ethics and standards of humanity.

There was a public debate, with vocal protests about the dangers and depravity of the Morph from one camp, and criticism of the judiciary for ruling an artist was no longer a member of the human race but an Object while in the midst of art performance, from the other.

“Accidental death” was the official ruling–not murder, and the beautiful but deadly young man got off with no charges filed against him. Wouldn’t you know, it turned out the young man was also an artist, a sculptor of some new technologically advanced non-melting ice? Now, with new notoriety and Hans representing him, he became the newest Art Star.

At Hans’s suggestion, I left town and he promised to get me back into circulation once the publicity died down. I should have known better than to trust Hans.The estate of Sir Giles McCullen paid out the rest of my contract, keeping me in some basic comfort as I waited for Hans to send me a new commission.

However, Hans was sad to inform me that my role in Sir Giles’s death, contrary to the judge’s ruling, had stirred the Collectors to realize the artist was not an Object, but a human being, who had a fly-on-wall-intimate view of their personal lives. Not an appealing thought to Collectors, who believed their wealth allowed them to indulge in anything they chose, secure in the privacy of their homes. The art they buy for their walls should tell no tales, but an artist hanging on their walls, no matter how altered their physical shape, was seen as an invasion of their privacy.

My short-term exile became a long one. Outside of New York, there were still wanna-be Collectors who still wanted to get in on Morph Art, so I found work for a time. Then, like everything else in the art world, the Morph went completely out of fashion. Nowadays, I can count my Morph gigs on the fingers of one hand, and with morphizine so much harder to come by, it’s probably time for me to retire.

That’s my story, so have another drink, on me. I bet it’s not every day you meet a witness to a famous murder, even a discredited one.

That’s why I landed here, an oddity, in this rundown, godforsaken bar in Newark. No matter what I see, and man, I can tell you, I see a lot, does it really matter in the long run? No one’s buying it.

He had ordeals before but rarely accompanied by such a strange, inexhaustible urge; a feeling that had been with him right from the start. He thought everything about the place was off-kilter. The shapeless, shuttered windows. The wrangled pitchfork tines hanging from the greased wall. The way the notched beams of the log cabin coupled at the corners, harbouring weird and elusive shades. The sporadic hiss and shriek of a feline or some other thing outside, which bolted him upright from his stool every time.

The men who sat around him had an unusual manner about them. Strangely hypnotic, strangely absurd. It wasn’t their spoken tongue – though he found that maddening too – but the odd way their mouths moved in conversation. When they spoke their jaws hung in mid-air and the tongues coiled and uncoiled inside the mouths, resembling murky, androgynous eels. It made for a bewitching spectacle Mick couldn’t draw away from as they all sat positioned around the head of a barrel shedding cards onto the flat round surface, their knees cosily pressed against the staves. Three of them besides him – Valera, Volodya, Vasya. He tried to remember their names via some rhythmic sequence but for the life of him could not remember which was which, especially in his drink-induced haze. He only knew the bus driver, Valera, who embodied the inert mass slumped in a stool across from Mick bearing an incredibly broad jaw and a thick, ruffled head of hair. The rest of them sat nameless, fading into the surroundings until someone would sporadically shoot up and bellow out some gurgling inanity, incomprehensible to all.

Every one of them brandished glass jars with a strange liquid that shimmered oddly under the light of the ceiling lamp. A sharp, piercing tang when it hit the back of Mick’s palate – something mildly comparable to tequila or a whiskey single malt, but lost among even the strident of beverage aficionados.

He tried to amend his posture on the weakly riveted stool (his spine was in a complete knot from the three-day jaunt). The rickety 70-hour train had taken him through a litany of destinations, from the murder site of Russia’s last tsar (Yekaterinburg) to the industrial dive where Lenin’s corpse was exiled during the Second World War (Tyumen). But it was the half a day spent on a suspension-less marshrutka that had really done him in. The pitiless, Soviet-made minibus mowed over the harsh, mountainous terrain to get to the warren he now found himself in. The single fulfilment he got from it was having the pleasure of comparing it to the image he found on the obscure, low-traffic travel blog that brought him here. He had finally made it.

Mick turned his head to the rear of the cabin, where a charred firewood stove stood with its thin long chimney reaching up through the wood shafts. It crackled and popped in the blaze. The men’s hands blundered on top of the barrel with a rich dissonance; Mick looked at the tattered cardboard lumps in his hand which bore the insignia of playing cards. He tried to participate in the game but was distracted by the smell coming from the gentleman to his left. A vegetal undertone with an unmistakable tinge of samogon. He resembled a still from a travel photography magazine: his thin, wavy beard withered under the neckline of his shirt, and he dispensed loud snores that sent waves of putrid scent in Mick’s direction. Mick imagined a caption accompanying the guy’s photograph on the glossed page of a National Geographic magazine. Bucolic life in the village of Belkovo. Or Domodedovo. Or wherever the fuck he was.

He turned to the barrel-chested driver – Valera. “How far is it to the next village, Valera?”

The other did not respond.

“Kak daleko—?”

“Kak daleko kuda?” grunted the infernal Valera.

“To next village,” Mick replied, moving his hands from top to bottom in a broad curve, like he was stroking a ball. “Next… village.”

Valera eyed him bewilderingly. “Ne ponimayu nitchevo, Misha.”

His voice sounded like an off-tune symphony emanating from his battered larynx. The drink seemed to completely erode his ability to speak and understand English. Mick lowered his right hand into his pocket and clawed out his phone, sending it alight with the glow of a Google tab. His fingers typed out a slew of text, then hit ‘Translate’. He passed the device to Valera. The other read it and let out a satisfying howl. “Ahhh – yes!” He set down with startling gusto to type on the Cyrillic touchpad. Meanwhile, the third man, sitting on Mick’s right, looked on vacuously. This other man hadn’t talked all night, only occasionally looking up to flash a coy grin – a grin Mick couldn’t stomach for reasons beyond his command. The guy’s stiff lip retracted, revealing a stained, toothless gum. It didn’t do much to compensate for the rest of his features.

The heat from the fire gathered in thick waves of mist around the room. Mick was called to its direction by a sharp snap. The burning pine vaporized in a thin rivulet of smoke. He looked at the flickering blaze with hypnotic fixation, rising above the room. He moved through the bulky, congested avenues of Moscow, where the grandeur of Soviet edifices and the wide, people-smelling underpasses had left an unlikely impression on him. He remembered how easy it was to pass the time there, walking – or even staring; at nothing, really. Or maybe, the best of all, indulging his inexhaustible fondness for the local Tinder selection. Those endless collages of slender and bony Slavic women with their elasticized limbs and all-revealing smiles. He was disgruntled that none of them had graced him with the pleasure of their embrace, though he made sure to revel in the decorum their profile photographs had supplied.

Mick was pulled out of his stupor by an approaching arm clenching a phone between its fingers. He reached over the makeshift table and pulled the glowing screen of it up close.

“We are four hours from Tyumen,” the text read.

Mick cleared the screen and fingered a reply. “Where is next village?” he wrote, passing the phone.

Valera took to the keyboard again and hammered out a slew of text. He handed it back. “Village area not village.”

“For fuck sake…” He took a moment to contemplate the message and returned to the keyboard. “How far to the next” – thinking of the best way to phrase it – “occupied settlement.” The phone passed between them like a divine herald.

“20 kilometres east,” Valera’s reply read.

“What is the name?” Mick wrote, passing, receiving.

“Heavenly.”

Mick looked at the text for a while before dropping his head in slow resignation. Google.

He stared back up at the screen. A ‘No Service’ was embroidered across the top bar like an affirmation – of what or who he could not tell. He was recalled to the present by the elusive fire stirring up embers in the oven. Flakes of ash swirling aimlessly around the room, eager to escape their wanton captivity. A cold chill swept across the surface of Mick’s forehead. He sat with hands joined over his thighs, holding up the cards and gazing at the wall behind Valera. Two sagging doorways gleamed back at him. One of them had a huge, fist-sized gap between the closed door and transom, revealing a thick bar of darkness on the other side. Mick stared at it. It stared at him.  Somewhere between the awkwardly-exchanged looks Valera requested for Mick’s phone again. When Mick passed it, Valera took to the keyboard and typed in his drunken vigour.

“Misha let’s, go guessing.”

Mick took a moment to comprehend. He did not have the slightest idea what the gesture implied. He wished for some kind of follow-up or a clue to decipher this cryptic fucking inanity. Instead the giant raised the jar to his mouth and knocked back a good measure of gargle. Bucolic life.

The alcohol gave Valera a renewed sense of zest; he stood erect, brandishing a grin that suspended his boorish features about half an inch. When it ceased, his skin withered back down like a loose drape, hanging down off his cheeks with the light playing curiously between its folds. Still clasping Mick’s phone, Valera brought down his bulging thumb on the screen and produced another slew of text. “We have a magic basement,” it read. “It can show you whether you will have good fortune.”

Valera jumped on his feet suddenly and lugged himself towards the stove, stepping over a stack of tools that lay on a brittle-edged hatch in the floor. Its square shape stood out by the slight inward curve of the timbers. Mick felt a twinge in his bowels of an unpleasant sort. He tried to reason but was overcome with a weird, pulsing sensation. He thought of something. Moscow. Lenin. Anything to distract himself from the nauseating putridness of this place.

“Do you know Lenin?”

Valera’s head turned in a slow, delayed nod.

“Vladimir Lenin,” said Mick, trying to hit home with the name. “Did you know he hired an Irish lad to teach him English while he was living in London?”

Mick looked in Valera’s face for some sign of comprehension, “Irish lad… taught him English.”

The other looked on unresponsively.

“People say he ended up speaking with an Irish accent, Lenin.” He waited a moment then poked his finger toward Valera with declaration, “Your Lenin, spoke with an Irish accent.”

Acknowledging futility, Mick sagged back down in his chair, reflecting on a painful conclusion to his gallivanting, the backpacker’s life he promised himself would bring him some indescribable ecstasy or a meaning to the world he could not foresee. He was done, he thought. No more raking through mud. No more crazed and delirious Russians. No more acting bollocks.

There was a sound of moisture and he turned to see the toothless man’s lips part into a wide curve. The last one – Vasya or Volodya – now lay fully comatose, draped over the back of the chair like a boneless mass. His torso had slid down inertly and his neck was bent with immaculate elasticity, creating a hook that propped his body up on the chair spine. Mick’s eyes shifted back to Valera, who stood on the loose trapdoor chucking stumps of wood into the flames with a look of excitement over his face. He beckoned for Mick’s phone. Mick stared back in trepidation. The queer light and the smell and the ruffling cacophony outside rattled him to the innards. He got up and approached the grinning idiot, putting the phone into his outstretched hand. Valera typed something on the screen and handed it back.

“You need to sit on the edge here and put your feet in,” the text said, “Then wait. If the hand that comes is a hairy hand, it is good sign. If the hand is without hair, it is bad luck.”

Another twinge gripped Mick outright. He looked at the small window on the wall. The twigs beat aimlessly against the loose glass in the night wind. Droopy, rod-like strands of loosestrife and larkspur bonding in lustful accompaniment. Mick looked at Valera and the curved trapdoor beneath the man, scanning his eyes over the chipped edges and the strip of forged iron binding together the timbers. He blurted something. Something like “Bollocks”.

Valera spread his giant buckled legs over the trapdoor and yanked up the ring-pull handle. A shower of dust fell into the pit underneath. Mick could see the marshy ground in the square of light along the bottom. Ruts crisscrossing along the floor, from a bicycle or wheelbarrow or god knows what. Mick caught a glimpse of Valera looking for his attention and looked up to see him standing on one leg, fluctuating his wrist over the raised foot. “Naski snimai.”

Mick hesitated a moment. Then he slowly, as if by instinct, stepped back, leaving his flip flops behind. As if he was not his own command. He followed the action by pinching the hem of his right sock, then peeled it off his foot. Then the left. He did not know why he was doing it. He was commandeered by some divine, unnegotiable force. His eyes darted from one object to another. To the men. Looking for some predictability or an order to things. His eyes stopped on Valera, who was beckoning him to sit at the edge of the hatch, slapping his hand against the chipped timber like a large spatula. “Davai – Come on, come on,” he said in an eastern timbre.

Mick shot a look down into the hole. At the floorboards. Marks of oily residue along those edges. Tiny little clumps of dirt, like a boot sole was scraped across. Mick lowered himself onto the hardwood, staring into the ominous rendition of darkness below him. He planted his backside down, carefully lowering his feet into the gap. First slowly, calculably, and then with a quick, careless release. His body shivered with the cold. Some kind of sorcery, he thought: it must have been twenty-eight degrees outside. He sat for a second or two, rigid, sampling the mellow draught wheezing in from under the house. The hollow floorboards thumped behind him and he turned to see the toothless man slowly approaching. The sneaky culprit circled around him and stood beside Valera and they both stared down at him with unwavering amusement.

The room developed a strange anticipant air about it, like someone’s arrival was forthcoming or a thing that was heretofore absent was now imminent. Mick looked at Valera. The latter wore a strange grin on his face that Mick hadn’t been acquainted with – a meld of curiosity and expectation. His skin paled slowly under the jittering light.

“Aghhhh… Haghhhh!” The spittle flew in every direction as the toothless man recoiled from his sneeze.

“Jesus Christ,” caromed Mick. He turned to look at Volodya or Vasya passed out by the table. Still unmoving. A gravestone. His skeletal frame was caved in over itself and the wispy beard fluttered with each breath like a trick of the light. He hadn’t moved at all.

The combination of nerves and fascination held Mick’s gaze. Eventually, when he turned away, the strange tickling was already felt at his feet. A coarse brushing. Mick sat unmoving for a moment, letting his senses connect, then he felt the unmistakable touch of flesh closing around his ankle, like a retracting noose. He let out a choked yelp and sprang erect like a garden rake, watching everything spinning around him frantically, the faces of the men and the implements on the wall, the barrel and loose cards on its surface. In his frantic dance Mick shot his eyes back into the hole: he saw the shadows copulating and moving and he was standing up on the edge with his fists clenched and the sweat waterfalling down his back. The tinge of adrenaline rushing through him like a rapid stream. He cast a look over at the two men and saw Valera suddenly bowled over, choking himself with laughter. Mick did not move. He could not move. He gathered his breath and after some time enough faculties to mutter some low-pitched variation of “fuck”.

Valera, catching a breath, shouted, “Pyat sekund!” He held up his fingers. “Very short,” he said, “Longer need.”

Mick took a breath and then another and then another again. And once more. The toothless man stood beside Valera with the big gape of his mouth formed into the shape of a grin.

“So which is?” groaned Valera.

“Which is what?”

“Hair, no hair?”

In his paroxysm Mick lost all the sensibility inside him.

“I… fuck. Hair.” He breathed. Paused. “I donno. Fuck that.”

“So is good!” Valera expounded. “You understend? Is means good.”

Mick stared in stupor. Valera chuckled in a soundless, careless manner. Slowly he turned and made his way back to the table. Mick looked down at his legs – blue as Christmas – and thought in his palsied, deluded state: bucolic my arse. When they returned to their seats Mick took a refill of the gangrene-looking drink. Valera still chuckled to himself. He carried a couple of broken sticks to the fire and heaved them into the blaze. The unconscious one still lay in his chair, marinating in a horrible stench of his own devising. Mick sat quietly with the feeble limbs on him drenched of all physical capability. Listening to the restless felines mucking about outside. He did not think about what he experienced. Instead he thought of girls. The Russian girls. The Kalinka. Lenin. He thought he had only a week more to see what was left of the stubborn Siberian steppes. As they sat around the awkward barrel Mick raised the glass jar up to his mouth. Sharp and new. He sat quietly sipping on the concoction, watched as the card game slowly regained dominion. Perhaps, he thought, he would take the week. Take it all. And maybe he would not stow away his backpacker’s days just yet. Maybe, or perhaps, he would use his new strike of luck to continue that venture. And let the rest determine itself.

I liked the way that sounded. It was a compliment and I replied with a smile.

The next time our paths crossed, he shouted the same thing.

“Hello, handsome man.”

“Hi,” I replied, walking on.

It took me a while to realise he was a neighbour. Two houses down from mine. One night, I saw him go in there, a residence that, unlike my town house, was shared by lodgers. Through the ground floor windows, I saw abstract art and a faraway television showing the news. Near the house was a bench I’d begun to settle down on from time to time when the evenings were warm. The street was quiet on those summer nights. I’d enjoy a beer or two there, watch the passing cars and contemplate the meaning of life.

One day, coming home from work, I noticed him on the same bench.

“Hello, handsome man,” he’d said.

“Yeah, that’s me. The handsome man.”

“Where are you from?”

“You know, around…”

“A beautiful evening.”

“That it is.”

I carried on walking, got to my door, shoved the key in and turned the lock.

Now and then I’d see him coming out of our local convenience store. Dirty shorts and T-shirt, a satchel round his shoulders and a plastic bag swinging by his side. There was something about him… a sadness. Pity! I’d begun to avoid our little exchanges when I could.

Sometimes, however, I was lonely myself. On one such night, I spotted him while I was out for a walk. I’d wander the streets to get out of the house, get away from the computer, the TV, get out into the real world for a half hour or so.

He was there, coming straight for me.

“Handsome man,” he bellowed.

“How’s it going?” I replied.

We talked about the weather, the hot summer we were having. Then, somehow, we got onto the subject of UFOs.

“Up there,” he warned me. “They are watching.”

“Oh yeah?”

“They’ve taken me.”

“Taken you?”

“Before,” he answered, his friendly expression sliding into that of morbid sorrowfulness.

I backed away.

“You be careful,” he warned.

“Sure,” I answered. Then: “So, you’ve seen them?”

“I did,” he replied, looking down at his satchel. “But I have ways. Ways to make them stop.”

By coincidence, I wrote sci-fi stories and was working on a collection—I should have been more interested (What had they done to him, what did they look like? Did they have names, these aliens?)

But this was real life, not a game.

Frowning, I asked if he took medicine. A cousin of mine had heard voices. She’d been put on medication. I considered the possibility of helping this man. Reporting him … but to whom?

He began to wave a finger at me. “They are watching!” he shouted. “Watching you. Watching us.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“You just be careful, handsome man.”

I looked at my watch and reassured him that I’d be okay.

An argument broke out on my street. Unable to resist the temptation, I carefully slid open a window.

It was him, shouting at two drivers who were having trouble passing each other in the narrow road. Parked cars on either side: a phenomenon not uncommon in the street in which I lived.

Ordering each driver to back up, to move forward, to drive more carefully, his shouts were met with embarrassed politeness. This was not his business but who were they to argue? Best not to get involved.

Inside the convenience store one evening, I ran into my boss. We got to talking, an awkward conversation about work.

“Hello, handsome man.”

“My neighbour,” I stated by way of introduction.

“Ah, hello there,” said my boss. “Neighbours, then. And what is it you do?”

“He sees UFOs,” I muttered by way of explanation for this dishevelled figure. To excuse whatever words he might come up with.

“I live two doors down,” he exclaimed happily while my boss shrank away in horror.

Again, I’d pass him. Some days I’d stop to talk; other days I’d just smile. I began to wonder how hard it would be to make friends with this man. I was lonely myself, so why not strike up a partnership of sorts? I’d have to set down rules though. No hassling me every day. It would have to be on my terms. We could wander the streets after dark, take in a beer or two. Or we could become best friends. Why not? I’d be doing him a favour. I could change his life.

“Hello handsome man,” he shouted, his satchel clanging by his side.

“Hello,” I’d reply, walking on.

Soon, however, I started to notice a change. There were a set of drunks who’d gather at the park, who’d sit outside the convenience store with their cheap wine and angry banter. I noticed he was sitting with them more often than not. He’d found friends. I was off the hook.

He’d pass me in the street with a plastic bag full of beer cans. Instant noodles. I noticed the lady who worked at our store had begun to chat with him whenever he was in there. Before he’d been served coldness, a glacial apathy, but he’d become more respectable, acceptable. A local, friendly drunk.

He’d pass me looking worse than ever and I was often the first to acknowledge the other.

“Hello,” I’d say.

“Handsome man,” he’d reply with a glazed expression.

And we’d both walk on.

But one time, I saw him in the supermarket at a table drinking a coffee and I joined him for a moment, saying I had somewhere to go, someone else to meet. I couldn’t stop—just wanted to say hi. There was a queue, and I had a minute to spare.

“My son,” he said. “He lives in America.”

“Oh, so you have a son,” I replied. “That’s nice.”

“He’s a good boy. Very handsome.”

And your wife? I almost asked.

“Studying there.”

“Oh, yes?”

“He’s very smart.”

“Of course,” I stumbled. “I mean, he must be.”

The last time I saw him he was with two older men playing chess in the park. He wasn’t playing, just watching. It was nice, I thought, that he was allowed to sit with them. I wondered what his life had been like before. If he really did have a son. What he’d been like as a boy. Sitting with other kids in the classroom, the same as everyone else. From what I knew of my cousin, common forms of schizophrenia and such types of madness could hit at puberty, other kinds hit you later in life. But as a child, he’d had a mother and father and friends at school. He’d had hopes and dreams. One day, when he was older…

It must have been over two months when it finally dawned on me that I hadn’t seen him in a while. Where had he gone? Whatever happened to that crazy fellow who always used to call me a handsome man? I suspected that he might have died. Either that or moved away. I wondered if he’d been committed. Cured.

“That guy,” I said to my neighbour. A retiree who often stood outside smoking by his front door. “The one who was…” how to put it? “A bit crazy. Haven’t seen him in a while.”

My neighbour peered at me through a cloud of smoke. “Two doors down that way?” he coughed.

“That’s the one.”

“Dead, so I heard.”

“He died?”

“Bad heart. He was young and all.”

Older than me but younger than my neighbour. Must have been in either his forties or fifties, though I decided to not bother with asking for any confirmation over his age.

“His heart?” I said instead.

“Drank, you see.”

“Sure, I guess he did.”

“Not mad. Just drunk.”

“But he was a bit, you know, I think he had some mental illness. Maybe that’s what—”

“—No, not mental illness. He was a drunk.” My neighbour spat on the floor. Stubbed out his cigarette.

“At the end he was, sure,” I insisted.

“No, no, always. His satchel. Full of it. Drink like that—it’s bound to get you in the end.”

About a week later I walked up to the woman in the store, the one who’d been nice enough to chat with him in the last few months of his life. I wanted to tell her, just in case she didn’t know. He’s dead, I wanted to say. The news—I felt a strange need to share it with somebody. I wanted to find out more about who he’d been. Had there been a funeral? Who, if anyone, had gone?

“Would you like a bag with that?” she asked.

I hesitated open-mouthed. I didn’t want to shock her with talk of dead neighbours.

“Sure,” I said instead, handing her the money. Giving her the best smile I could manage, I picked up my stuff, then walked outside.

You be careful, handsome man. They are watching you, watching us!

Grey clouds mixed with emerging stars. The wind blew softly.