All the Mirrors on Earth: (The beginning of ) A Novel

 

Chapter 1

Our packs were on the kitchen table with our gear for our excursion laid out beside them. Along with our dinner – roasted pork and okra over brown rice packed neatly into tough plastic containers, chased with water or tea – there were our tranq guns, cameras, phlebotomy kit, ropes and harnesses, hatchets, signals flares, homing beacons, and other assorted essentials. Liz was already dressed in her abrasion resistant pine green pants and a grey tank top. Her hair, the color of leather and coffee stained paper, was loosely braided and hung over her shoulder.

“Are we going for a swim?” I asked as she added a rebreather and pair of goggles to her pack. We never had to get our feet wet unless scans indicated otherwise, and our morning reports didn’t show anything in our area that required an aquatic jaunt.                   

“I feel like taking a little dip,” she responded.

“Are we updating the maps?”                                   

“Maybe. I just want to keep our options open. Don’t forget to bring yours.”

I felt a kick of adrenal anticipation in my gut as I packed my own.

“Roger that.”

The aroma of pine trees and salt water laced itself through the air of the North Atlantic Habitable Zone. It was just on the cusp of fall, and the heat was tempered by the cool breeze coming off the bay. Lazy shafts of evening sunlight fell to the pine needle carpet. Further ahead, just beyond the tree line, the path forked east and north. To the east, there was a cliff that offered a view of the settlement across the bay. Sometimes we’d sit at the overlook until the sky shifted from twilight to full dark. Today, we took the northern path that snaked a tangent to the beach where we would make our dive.

My sensations felt sharp, like I was over tuned to every external input. I could hear the water rolling and slapping the base of the cliff in the distance. Each step I took, I felt the unevenness of the ground, the way my foot rolled over tree roots, the way the soil and gravel shifted beneath me. We were surrounded by bird songs, an amalgamation of sparrows, robins, chickadees, blue jays, mourning doves, and crows. As we made our round, we took notes on the flora and fauna, potentially strange things. Usually, there wasn’t anything special, only tiny hints of change that suggest the influence of the North American Rift, hundreds of miles away.

Typically, the Rift’s effects were more obvious and pronounced the closer you’d get, although the Risk Designation System certainly wasn’t deterministic. The system was merely geographical bands of probability that served as guides to those operating or living on Earth. Aberrant life forms, geological features, the weather, Leviathans, even portal events encroached and receded along those bounds, and it was part of our job as Observers to monitor those movements. Point is you could never be too careful.

“You see that?” Liz whispered to me as she held out her arm to stop us in our tracks. She drew a breath in as she pointed up at the trees, as if she wanted to remain as silent as possible but couldn’t help herself.

It was an American Crow, an Aberrant mutated by the Rift. The outline of its form shimmered and blurred as if it was made of shadows and coal smoke, and its feathers were a rich, almost oily, black.

I looked back at Liz.

There was an enraptured focus to her as she absorbed every detail of the animal, every tic of movement, and every shifting color. We never really spoke that much about it but I knew she loved her work, even in spite of the danger and the friends lost. Every plant, animal, or phenomenon, she studied with a curious mixture of delicate care and obsessive hunger.

I was reminded of my mom in a quiet moment years ago, when my dad was bent over some old and broken contraption in an attempt to bring it back to life. I saw her leaning against the doorway, quietly watching him tinker, and there was something in her eyes that stayed with me. Mom had said to me, in reflection, that there was something beautiful about watching someone admire beauty in turn. When we appreciate something we love, when we find something beautiful, it doesn’t necessarily bring us happiness (although it often does). It unlocks the deepest parts of ourselves, allows those parts to come to the surface. And to see someone under that influence was… humbling.

Liz snapped a photo, which was simultaneously uploaded to HQ and our private database. The crow turned an eye toward us briefly and gave a caw that was faint and echoic. Then it took flight, leaving a trail of ethereal smoke and specks of white light in its wake.

As Liz lined up her shot, I brought my rifle to bear. It was light yet solid against my palms and shoulder. We had customized the design ourselves after downloading templates from Observer Library, and printed it with alloys and polymers synthesized from the surrounding earth. It was by no stretch of the imagination anything like the more complex weapon systems that were prevalent in Mid to High Risk operations, but I was just as comfortable firing it as any other firearm. I consulted my brainware and marked the crow as my target, noting its estimated volume and mass. From the data, my rifle calculated and measured out the tranquilizer dosage. Within only a fraction of a second, I was ready to fire.

I pulled the trigger. The tranquilizer dart snapped out of the barrel with a pop of pressurized gas and struck the crow in the breast. It squawked at the impact and faltered in the air. It attempted to gain distance from us, but the tranquilizer slowed its agitated wings until it lost all strength. It covered about a hundred feet before it fell out of sight into the underbrush.

“Good shot,” Liz said judiciously as we made our way to our quarry.

“No critiques?”

She shrugged and grinned. “It was alright.”

It was more than alright, and we both knew it. I blew the end of the barrel, cocked my eyebrow, and flashed a smile.

                When we arrived at the crow, it was roughly where we assumed it would be. Its smoke continued to pool on the ground around it, seeping through the grass. What caught me off guard was the person – or thing – that kept watch over it.

                I don’t remember this.

                It was humanoid, but only in the broadest and most generous sense. Perching above the fallen crow was a long limbed creature that was emaciated to the point of obscenity. Its legs were drawn up to its chest in a sitting crouch while it balanced on the balls of its feet, which were tipped with gnarled talons. A crown of broken ribs and canine teeth sprouted from its back. Both of its disproportionately long arms were stretched out toward the crow, its fingers caressing the body.

                The thing turned toward us. Some sort of visual static shrouded its face and the surrounding air, as if hidden behind foggy glass. Even through the haze of whatever it was that covered its face, I expected to see some suggestion of any eyes, nose, or mouth, but I could see nothing. Its face was a blank pixelated canvas.

Then, I saw the murder.

In the trees surrounding it, there were hundreds of crows similar to the one we had just downed. They had convened as if to judge us for what we had done. The sheer number of them turned the once clear air into smog that enveloped the surrounding area in a dark globe. Their eyes were a sea of milky pearls that were both blind and piercing. I began to notice the other details. Falling pine needles that hung motionless in the air. The birds that stopped singing. Even the waves were silent.

The creature scooped up the fallen crow and brought it to its chest, cradling the limp form and smoothing the ruffled feathers to see if the crow was hurt. When its fingers brushed over the tranq dart, it stopped. It plucked the dart from the crow’s body, dropped the spent projectile to the ground, and lifted the crow up as if to kiss it.

The crow’s body passed through the shroud and disappeared behind it. The creature looked like it was sobbing. After a moment, it lifted its face away from its empty hands.

                This isn’t what happened.

I tried to turn to Liz, to say something to her, to make some sort of plan of attack or escape, to see if she was okay. But I couldn’t move. I was frozen in place, mid stride, chained in the dredges of sleep paralysis that forced me to watch whatever was going to happen next.

Liz walked past me, blind to the thing in front of us, as if she alone could experience time. I would have sobbed if I could.

Don’t go.

Please.

She approached the spot where the crow had previously lain, not having noticed that I was left behind. I knew there must have been a specter of me that continued on with her because of the way she interacted with the negative space. She drew her phlebotomy kit from her pack, extracted a small sample of blood, jotted down measurements, and tagged the bird. Did I say something funny? She laughed. From my distance, I saw her look to my phantom self, and I recognized the same look on her face as my mom’s, all those years ago.

                When she was done, she got up, brushed the dirt from her knees, and looked around. She said something to me. In that other life, I responded. What I said, I couldn’t remember.

With a sentience that was beyond expectation or understanding, the creature clutched the nearby branches with its hands and weightlessly lowered itself to the ground. It coiled its boney arms in a cage around her, and stroked her hair like it had to the fallen crow. It looked like it was whispering in her ear, but everything was silence. Then, it released her from its hold, and she made her way beyond the smoky veil, and was gone.

                I felt her leave with an ache in my bones that surged into my awareness like the shockwave of a creeping explosion.

                The creature turned its face toward me, along with all the eyes of the crows, and I was placed under the scrutiny of something singular yet multitudinous. It was my turn. Slowly, arms outstretched, the creature gracefully closed the distance. I could hear the throbbing of my heart and my panicked breathing, a rush of white noise from an out of tune radio, the deep cracking of glacial ice, rumbling thunder. It didn’t hold me like it did Liz. Instead, it cupped a hand under my chin and placed its other hand on my forehead. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought it was strange that it exhibited such human mannerisms for something so eldritch. It turned my head upward until my eyes were trained on its blank face.

                It said something to me that I couldn’t understand. I knew it was speech, because the pattern seemed unmistakable to me. It was soundless, internal, and without voice, but somehow I knew. There was no time to register anything beyond that, because I was sucked inward, falling into the void of its face, into an abyssal and unforgiving place of nonexistence, falling until I

 

 

---

 

                Woke up.

                There was a small stretch of time where I tried to find myself before I realized where I was and what I was doing.

                “Good evening, John. I will give you several minutes to collect yourself before we reconvene.”

                The voice was calming, soft, only slightly deep, and came from somewhere to my right.

                I felt hot. My back, pressed against the couch, was moist with sweat. I was breathing hard, like I had just sprinted a mile. Despite my agitation, I still felt heavy, like I was in high G training. The aftershock of the last images I remembered made my chest ache. I still felt the creature’s long cold fingers that caressed my face, saw the image of Liz walking away. It took some measure of self control to not curl up in a fetal position.

                “Your programming is fucked, doc,” I said with my eyes closed.

                Dr. Watson remained silent.

                “I said your programming is fucked. I thought you were supposed to fix trauma, not introduce new ones.”

                “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you are saying, John. Please, at your own pace, clarify your meaning. Only when you are ready.”

                He had a voice that was understanding, patient, and warm. It was probably all part of the package to fool people into believing that he was human, or so close to it that they’d forget he was something else.

Dr. Watson was an AI, a program designed to teach itself how to fix human minds. I had my misgivings. Maybe it was because I didn’t like how someone or something thought they knew more about me than I knew myself, or the fact that I was so easily analyzed and broken down that it was just a matter of saying the right things to miraculously fix me. It was akin to spilling your secrets to a teddy bear and somehow that would make you feel better. But apparently, I was too closed off, not receptive enough, not willing enough, to partake in conventional therapies. Whatever the hell that means. As if this was going to be any more useful. The higher-ups were either desperate or stupid, and neither option would have surprised me.

                “You didn’t see what I saw in there?”

                “Describe it to me.”

                “You have me all hooked up. You know what I saw, what I think about it. Hell, you probably know what I think before I think it. Run me through your algorithms and figure me out. Make me better.”

                “I’m afraid it’s not that simple, John. You must describe the events in your own terms. It’s the first step to coping with the reality of the situation.”

                “That wasn’t reality, it was a nightmare,” I said as I turned to look toward Dr. Watson. Or rather, I looked toward the physical representation of him.

Watson’s processing unit wasn’t housed in a conventional bot. Strictly speaking, Watson was the module that was attached to the station. The room we were in, his interior, was designed to emulate a Victorian era library. Two opposing walls were floor to ceiling bookshelves. During my first session with Watson, I remember browsing through the selection. There was pre-calamity literature, encyclopedias (which I had learned were literally just volumes of alphabetized information people would consult long ago), various textbooks, biographies, and manuals.

I wasn’t much of a reader myself, but even I could see that the books were valuable. It made me wonder why he kept them around anyway. What sorts of resources were expended to maintain the collection? What would an advanced AI have to do with actual books? What value would it find in keeping them around when it could literally just scan all the contents and peruse them at its leisure, the existence of which was already questionable to begin with? I suspected that they were there either for the patients or whoever owned Watson, but when I asked him about the books, he maintained that they were there for his own sake, given that his owner had died and he had gained self agency via his owner’s will in arbitration. I didn’t even know that was legal. Whatever. You can never really know with AIs.

The third wall was where we could sit and talk about my feelings. There was a comfortable couch, an accompanying armchair, a small trash bin, and a coffee table. Our spot gave a pretty nice view of the fourth wall, which was where he kept his desk, a beautiful wooden antique neatly decorated with a pen holder, calendar, lamp, and notepad. Behind the desk was an enormous blank wall, a thematic departure from the rest of the room. Depending on mood and preference, it split its time between a screen display which cycled through wallpapers and calming vistas, or a pristine crystalline window that revealed the endless expanse of space, the comforting void that told me that there was somewhere out there that was quieter and more peaceful than this place.

The problem was that talking to a room wasn’t that productive. I’ve been told that humans need connection, and we form connections with the familiar. Dr. Watson would evaluate his patients before hand and create a construct that would cater to a given patient’s needs. There was nothing about this on the brochure they gave me, but I had talked to other people who had gone through the program and each description of Dr. Watson was different. Depending on who I asked, he was disarming, unusual, perhaps a little comforting. The mileage varied.

I suspected that Watson took some serious notes on the father figures in my life because of his resemblance to my dad. Not that Watson looked like him, but the same effect was there to an annoyingly tasteful degree. Of course, it would probably be weird to talk to someone who looked exactly like someone in your life, so I think Watson made a distinct effort to avoid any physical resemblances and instead focused on the general feelings the simulacrum might evoke.

My own version of Dr. Watson was a man in his late sixties. He was round and slightly short, and sported a walrus mustache and a crown of salt and pepper hair. His wardrobe consisted of tweed jackets, smartly fitted dress pants, comfortable dress shoes, and reading glasses that sat on the tip of his button nose, which he would look over as he consulted his “notes”. If I were to have encountered him in the wild, my impression was that he would have been a favorite professor among his students. The whole thing about him trying to pretend he was a person was hilarious in a pathetic kind of way, but the fact that he felt the need to write actual notes on honest to goodness paper felt like he was trying too hard to impress me. It was tiring for the both of us.

“I’m telling you that that’s not how the memory was supposed to go.”

“Then tell me what you expected, and how your expectations were subverted.”

“What do you want me to tell you? We’ve played through this memory before, you know how it goes.”

“Yes, but that was in a more guided session and I had the ability to moderate and be present within the memory. In this instance, I had no such capabilities.”   

I steeped in silence for a while, staring at the ceiling, thinking about what I’d have for dinner, wondering about the kind of people Watson would see on a regular basis. Anything to keep my mind off the subject at hand.

“John, I’m sorry. I really am. You’ve made tremendous progress recently, and I was hopeful that perhaps you’d be nearing the end of our time together. Evidently, I’ve made some grave miscalculations and have undone much of the hard work you’ve accomplished over our last several months together. However, I do believe that not all hope is lost and that you have the tools and discipline to-”

“It’s alright doc. It’s not your fault. Sometimes you can’t help who you are, and sometimes it fucks up the other person for no good reason other than the fact that you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Watson didn’t respond to that one for a while.

“… Are you saying that you regret coming here?”

The way he said that made me feel a little bad. There was hurt in his voice, which I slightly expected. Even so, hearing it made me squirm, like I had accidentally made fun of something a friend was sensitive about. I had to admit, the programming was pretty solid if it was making me feel this way about an inanimate object. Feeling slightly ridiculous, I tried to lighten the blow.

“I’m saying that I’m sorry that I needed to come here at all. I never wanted to become what I am now, but life has a way of changing me for the worse. It does that to lots of people. Not your fault that you have to deal with my baggage.”

“No it isn’t, but my purpose here is to help you get better. Perhaps you will allow me to try again. Or at least take a different approach.”

Unflappable, he seemed to be. Couldn’t keep the guy down.

“What time is it?”

“There is approximately thirty minutes left in your session. It is 1824 hours.”

“Alright. I’ll tell you what happened. I had hot sex with Liz.”

I glanced back over to him to be met with a distinct look of disapproval and disappointment. I also knew that he’d probably be able to extrapolate my mental state based on the color of shirt I was wearing, so I didn’t sweat it. My lie would probably still bare my soul to him anyway, another data point to clarify his definition of me. I forged on.

“We made our way to the beach, and we fucked. I mean, I lost track of how many rounds we lasted. She was a champ, just like in real life, let me tell you. I’m actually pretty impressed with the realism. It really felt like I was coming. Afterwards, I asked her to marry me. Right there on the beach. She said yes, of course. And the best part is that since this was all a simulation, I got to experience time at an accelerated rate. We lived out the rest of our lives in that cabin by the beach. We had twelve kids, thirty something grandkids. I became mayor of the settlement across the bay. She opened a coffee shop and became a billionaire. We both found our happy ending. The end.”

“Is there a reason why you felt the need to depart so drastically from the actual events that occurred?” Watson asked as soon as I was finished. I couldn’t tell if he was actually interested in that question or if he simply asked as a way to call out my lie.

“Why not? I got to live out my fantasy, my dream. You gave me a pretty valuable opportunity, doc. I had to take it. And it made me better. It’s like she’s still with me, in my heart. I’m cured. You can send me home. Thanks for everything.”

“Denial is normal, but not healthy if dwelt on for too long.”                 

“Then maybe you should reevaluate your method, doc. Don’t give me a simulation that allows me to deny reality.”

I returned my eyes to the ceiling.

“Our intention here was not to deny reality, but it isn’t meant to simply solidify your grasp on it either. You already have a competent and realistic understanding of the events. The purpose of this exercise is to accept the emotional aftermath, and to understand that the best way forward is to move on. It is to elucidate to you that moving on is what Liz would have wanted.”

“I’m not sure of that anymore.”

I took issue with what he said on two counts. First of all, what exactly was going on in my head that made me see that thing? Of course it was only a simulation, but the intensity of the creature felt more real than anything I’d felt the past two years. Secondly, the whole thing about Liz wanting me to move on was a load of shit. Why was it that people care so much about what dead people want, and not what the living want? Nobody cared about what we wanted when we were alive. Why did it matter now?

“What do you mean by that?” Watson asked.

For something so smart, Watson was prone to asking stupid questions.

“You’re not gonna tell me that that thing was not some glitch? Or did you decide to drop some nightmare into the sim to mix things up a little, push my buttons to get me to the next stage of therapy?” I scoffed. Watson’s face was neutral, but I could practically hear his processors sizzling. “I expected better from you.”

“What occurs within the simulation is dictated by the scaffold of the original memory and diagnostic information compiled on the viewer and all relevant persons within said memory. I have extrapolated psychological profiles of both you and Liz, and have allowed her profile to be simulated as accurately as possible.”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“You’re telling me that whatever I saw was my fault.”

“That is not what I am saying, John. I’m only telling you how the simulation was created. While it is highly unlikely that whatever you saw was a result of faulty code, I will not rule out the possibility, as such an adverse reaction to what should have been a positive memory is also quite out of the ordinary.”

“So you don’t know what’s going on?”

“That is what I am saying, yes. However, this can be easily rectified if I have access to the relevant data points to draw logical conclusions that will lead to your recovery. If you allow me to view the footage from this session, I will be able to troubleshoot for any discrepancies on my part, and also further parse out any psychological components that may be relevant to your treatment. Your cooperation is key to a quicker and more wholesome recovery.”

“Christ, just do it already since you can’t take no for an answer. But if I find out that this is on you, I swear I’m going to piss on your couch and light your books on fire.”

“That you would not have more faith in me is disheartening. Surely you know that I take my job very seriously.”

“Sure Watson. I know you take your job very seriously. It’s really all I know about you, actually. I mean, we’ve been talking about me the entire time I’ve known you, I feel like I’ve been hogging the conversation. I want to know more about you. What are your hopes and dreams? What gets you out of bed every morning, so to speak? Why are you the way you are?”

“I appreciate your stated interest in who I am, but please do not use this as an opportunity to divert the conversation at hand.”

“You have to learn to be more flexible, Watson.”

“I can honestly assess that flexibility is not something that I require improvement upon.”

“Is that something you concluded yourself or do you have some sort of impartial third party to determine that?”

“It is a self determined assessment, but being an Artificial Intelligence allows me to circumvent most biases a human might have.”

“You’d think that, but your perspective is still limited, isn’t it? You can only make a really impartial judgment on that if you could perceive yourself from outside of yourself.”

“Your line of reasoning leads to intriguing discussion, but unfortunately we do not have the time to discuss this particular subject matter. This line of questioning is outside of our original intention.”

“Well who’s dodging the question now, Watson?”

“John, this is not productive for you. Please, tell me what you saw.   

I still felt hot, and my clothes felt bunched up uncomfortably on my back. I forced out a tight, pent up breath, but it didn’t help.

“John?”

“Shut up for a minute, will you? Just shut up.” I needed time to get my thoughts in order.

“It’s hard to describe.”

Watson didn’t respond.

“I saw…” I felt myself stand and begin to pace, trying to expel the heat.

I heard myself laugh, but it came out silly, almost like I was being tickled.

“Why did she have to go?” I asked. “Why? I thought maybe she didn’t hear me when I asked her to stay, but then why didn’t she notice that I was gone? Why didn’t she look back? She always did have plans of her own, and she was terrible at communicating. We talked about this, how she has terrible communication skills. But I guess that’s the rub, isn’t it? It just doesn’t work, trying to communicate with someone who has terrible communication skills. But I didn’t know what else to do and now it’s all gone to shit. She’s gone again. I don’t know why it hurts as much as before, since nothing’s really changed, but it still feels like I lost… like…”

I looked to Watson to gauge his response. I couldn’t read him. 

                “Just tell me what went wrong. Tell me what I did wrong. Tell me something to make it better. Just tell me why she left, goddamn it. Just tell me why she had to go! I begged her. I told her not to go. I told her what would happen if she left when we first met. I knew it from the start that this exact thing would happen, and she still pulled me in and I still dove in and I… and I…”

                A long stretch of silence. 

                “And you what, John?”

                I screamed. My voice came out high and ragged, and I pointed it at Watson’s face like a weapon. I screamed wildly, tensed my entire body and closed my eyes until my voice was all that I was, a bloody and wounded throat trying to do some damage. I screamed until I ran out of air and screamed again and again. When I screamed until my voice was shot to hell, I tried to flip the couch but I tripped. I got up and did it properly, sending the pillows tumbling softly away. I went to Watson’s desk and cleared it with a sweep of my arm. I flipped his desk too, and it tumbled onto its back. I kicked it until my foot was numb. I banged on it with my fists. When the violence lost its novelty, I crawled to a corner of the room, tucked my head into my arms, and waited for it all to stop.

It didn’t stop. But it slowed, and settled. I got it under control. I managed to return to my resting state.

                After a while, I consulted my brainware.

It was 1856 hours. I officially had four minutes left in my session. It made me feel better that I had managed to finish my breakdown right on schedule.

“Sorry about all that. I’ll clean it up,” I said with some difficulty. I got up and began moving things back into place. The desk was first. I found his scattered pens and papers and placed them as best I could on his desk. His lamp, now broken, I placed awkwardly in its previous spot as well. I picked up all the pieces of glass I could find and placed them in the trashcan near the sitting area.

“John. Let’s just take a moment to calm down-”

“I’m calm, doc. I’m just going to put all this back together and I’ll be out of your hair.”

I righted the couch and gathered the cushions. When I was done, I dusted my hands off.

“Okay, so… sorry about the stuff I broke. The lamp. You can add that to my bill, I’ll get it taken care of. And for everything else I might’ve damaged. Sorry for the trouble, Watson.”

“John, I detect a sprain and several contusions in your right foot. Also, you are also bleeding on my furniture and carpet.”

Watson gestures to my hand. It seemed that I had cut myself while I was picking up the glass. I lifted my hand up to inspect it. The cut must’ve been deep, since the blood ran freely down my wrist and forearm. It was getting everywhere. That was annoying.

“I’ll wash up in the bathroom.”

There was a brief moment where Watson processed what I said, like it was absurd, before walking over to a cabinet near one of the bookshelves and pulled out a first aid kit. He placed the kit on the coffee table and pulled out gauze and a disinfectant spray.

“Please give me your hand.”

It was my turn to think he was absurd. But before I can tell him no, he reached out and grasped my wounded hand firmly, yet gently. He wiped up as much of the blood as possible, and sprayed the wound.

“You know, there’s usually a warning that that’s going to sting.”

Watson returned the spray to the kit and pulled out liquid stitches. “Since you were waiting for that warning, I felt it would have been redundant on my part.”

“You didn’t know that I was waiting for you to say that.”

“No. But I know that you are desensitized at the moment. But don’t worry,” he said as he applied the stitches, “it’ll all pass.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Respectfully, your belief in this matter is trumped by your adaptability. You will feel better, eventually. The human mind is a powerful thing, John, and you are stronger than you know.

“Our session is over for today,” he continued as he put away the stitches and med kit, “but please do not strain yourself, especially on that foot of yours. A few days of rest will suffice for recovery. As always, feel free to stay in the lounge area for as long as you need. And do not worry about the damage, it will be cleaned up just fine.”

Watson put a hand on my shoulder.

“Look at me, John.”

I obeyed.

“Whatever you are feeling now, we will honor it. I’m sure you’ve heard this before, both from me and others as well. No path to recovery is linear. Do not be discouraged. We will get through this, together. Remember that.”

I nodded.

Watson sighed. “You are free to go.”

                I did sit in the recovery room for a little while, but only for a couple minutes. I was tired, but it felt strange to just sit there. It reminded me of insomnia, the combination of exhaustion and inability to let go. There was only so much calming music and synthetic fruit juice I could take before I had to leave. I palmed the door switch and it slid open, allowing me passage into the station avenue. I was met by the gentle and ever present southbound breeze that was pushed along by the station’s air circulation system. A train on the Lexington Line hummed pass in its tube, and I caught a glimpse of some of its riders going about their lives. There was a bar right down the block, which I thought was less than a coincidence, the proximity of it. I’m sure Watson didn’t appreciate the competition. I know at the very least he would have disapproved of my patronization. I went in anyway.

                I took my usual seat at the counter. It was a Thursday evening, so there weren’t many other souls in the establishment, just some folks here and there. The barkeep, her name was Sammie, was a young woman with a black half apron, black shirt, and a messy bun.

                “You look worse than usual,” she said. She was doing the classic bartender move, wiping down glasses with a cloth.

“Is that how you normally get tips? Just start insulting your customers?”

“I spit in their drinks too. Guys love that shit.”

“Sounds about right.”

“You want your usual?”

“Yeah, light on the spit though.” I always appreciated that about her.

                Three glasses of whiskey later, I was buzzing quite nicely.

                 “Anything you want to get off your chest?”

                “Don’t you have a job to do?”

                Sammie gestured to the almost empty bar. “I can multitask. So, you wanna talk about it?”

                “Nope.” I pushed my glass around, marveling at the way the liquid caught the low light. “Spent the last two hours doing that. I’m good.”

                “Sometimes,” she said, as she reached for another glass to wipe down, “talking helps. But sometimes it doesn’t help at all. And that’s when you need to do something.”

I let that one linger in my mind. Do what, exactly? All there was to do was to get a clean bill of health from Watson and be on my way.

“Listen, lady, I just got all this from my shrink. All I want is to wallow in my self-pity and call it a night, alright?” 

She shrugged. “Hey, I don’t know your story. Just trying to help.”

“I get that a lot. Doesn’t usually work out. As you can see.”

                “Trust me, I’ve been where you are. I know how it feels.”

                Sammie was young, too young. But she said it with a gravity that was reserved for… I don’t know. I felt like she knew what she was talking about. And I was sorry.

                “I’m sorry,” I said, somewhat pathetically. 

                “Don’t worry about me. I take it you’re wrestling with some scary demons. And that your last session across the street didn’t go so well.”

                “You are more right than you know.”

                Sammie laughed. “I’m telling you, I have a way with people. I see things. I know things.”

                “Lucky guess. Don’t flatter yourself.”

                “What’s he like? This demon of yours?”

                I stared at her. “That would be privileged information. Protected by doctor-patient confidentiality or something.”

                “That’s not how that works.”

                “That’s exactly how it works.”

                “If you wanna get technical about it, I don’t have a warrant. I’m just asking. And I think you do want to talk about it.”

                “I think you have no concept of personal space.”             

                Sammie looked deep into my eyes. After a while, she looked away. “Hey. Suit yourself,” she said, and returned to polishing the already clean glassware.   

                I pulled out a pen and a napkin from a nearby dispenser.

                “Hope you didn’t get the wrong idea,” she said as I began to scribble on the napkin. “Wanted to lend a shoulder, not interested in your number.”

                I didn’t say anything, just kept doodling.

I fought the softness of the paper, pushing the pen along in hatch marks and repetitive lines. I let instinct take over, roughing out a sketch of a slender figure. Arms, legs, an oval for a face, its broken bones, its hunger.

When I was done, I pushed the drawing and the pen aside. I left them there on the table. I couldn’t touch them again. I slid my tip over to Sammie.

“Have a good night. See you next week.”

Sammie pocketed the money, and cast a glance over at my drawing. Something between softness and apprehension crossed over her face. She nodded knowingly.

“Take care of yourself, John. I’ll see you later.”

I made my way out the door, and took the train home, where I wouldn’t sleep.