Ruben Berteau has always been in love with his piano. It’s an emotional instrument and he’s an emotional man.

Sentimental. The sort of man who texts, “The Moon!” when there’s a full moon. Or an almost full moon. Or even sometimes when there’s no moon at all, but he’s just remembering a moon that really meant a lot to him.

You probably know his music. Not by name, but from hearing it at some point in the late 2000s. Maybe in a bookstore. Or a medical waiting room.

How I hated him.

His stupid earnestness. The little notebook he carried to write down lyrics. The way he was always marveling. It’s embarrassing. He should have been embarrassed, but he wasn’t—and that made me embarrassed, and then angry.

We were never lovers. I’m not sure he has lovers, other than the music. We weren’t even really friends, but I did once make him cry.

It was Paris. 1998. Study abroad. I was nineteen, there to learn French and drink wine, to see the Mona Lisa and to have sex with French people. There to live.

Except we didn’t. I shared, in the 5th arrondissement, a sixth-floor walk-up with Clara, who was also from Wisconsin. Our apartment was the size of one and a half Oshkosh walk-in closets. Our landlord was an elderly French woman who lived across the hall and hated us.

Ruben once said it would take a heroic effort to remain unmoved in Paris. Clara and I were those heroes.

We ate Velveeta. We watched TV. We spoke mostly to each other and mostly about boys, not French, but ones with names like Kyle, from other midwest colleges, who walked through Paris in baseball hats.

My single most transportive experience occurred at a bakery far from the tourist district, which I came to accidentally, and which refused me directions unless I bought something. And so I did: bread, which I ate alone, and which was so extraordinary—so soft and warm—that when I bit into it, eyes closed, standing on the sidewalk, I understood that everything I’d ever eaten in Winnebago County was wrong.

But, even this, I did not let stir me. I spoke of it to no one. Not Clara. And though for the rest of my life I would think, at times, about that bread and that morning—the sound of delivery trucks, Parisians bicycling past me in suits, smoking cigarettes on their way to work—I never returned to that bakery.

Ruben was our age. Also American. He was from New York City, but he wasn’t cool. We didn’t know that was possible.

He had big brown eyes, forever quivering. His hair rose from his head in a poof. He wore black with a red blazer, like a magician.

What we wanted, at that time, was for boys to be mean to us. Mysterious. Withholding. 

Ruben, on the other hand, would cry out, “My god!” whenever we saw a vista of Notre Dame. And then, practicing his French, “Mon Dieu!”

Because he was in the same program as me and Clara, and because we were not practicing our French, Ruben became, if not our friend, then someone often with us.

Mostly we ignored him. Waited out his little exclamations. Stood by while he spoke to us, sincerely, about his dreams.

Clara didn’t really mind him. She said once, “He’s actually pretty good,” after hearing him play on the electric keyboard he’d brought with him, at great inconvenience, to France.

I found Ruben’s sappiness not just cloying, but repulsive. Like his blood was so close to the surface he’d bruise if you squeezed him, which made me want to.

It was our last night. Clark (baseball hat) had somehow purchased a beer keg in Paris. He was having a party: the closing blowout, the final opportunity for unfinished romantic business. Clara was there already. I was on my way, late, walking rapidly along the Left Bank of the Seine, looking not at the Musée d’Orsay or the Eiffel Tower, but at my map, which I was struggling to orient.

Ruben had decided to join, and was at that moment trailing behind me, putting his hands on every building.

“Look at the rain on the church walls,” he said. “Look at the stones in the street.” I looked at my map.

He slowed, gazing at a fountain. He said, “Of course our last night would be the most sublime.” I said, “Yes, right. Very sublime.” Then, “I think it’s this way.”

He said, “Can a person feel nostalgia for a moment before it’s over?”

I pressed on. I said, “I think we might have passed it.”

He stopped entirely.

I turned, expecting he had paused to record some cloying insight, or to ask a French passerby, guilelessly, how it was that they could stand it, living amid such beauty. But he hadn’t.

He was standing in the lamplight, dumb little notebook in the crook of his arm. He was looking right at me, and then he said, “What’s wrong with you?”

It was a mean thing to say, but he didn’t say it mean. The look on his face was sad.

What I felt was angry. I was supposed to be sipping keg foam right at that moment with Clara and Clark and any number of fraternity brothers from various Big Ten colleges, not listening to the saccharine musings of Ruben Berteau.

“Enough!” I said. It felt good, grinding my heel into something soft. “We get it. It’s nice here. We’re leaving. That’s sad.” And then, “Ruben, we need to go.”

But Ruben did not grind. He just looked at me with the same sad expression on his face. Then he sat down, right there on the sidewalk, and put his head in his hands. He looked heartbroken, but not from pain or rejection.

He said, “How can you live like this?” his voice quiet with disbelief. And then I realized: This was not an attack. He meant it. Like he meant everything.

And then he began to cry, blubbering right there on the street corner. Fat, wet tears with no one to see them but me.

It was pity. Ruben Berteau pitied me.

It was a beautiful night. Achingly so. That night the moon hung in the sky so big you felt you could take it in your palm, like an orange. The river moved, slow and dark, carrying as it did the same drops of water that had cycled the Earth four billion years.

I looked at the sky, and then at the river, and then at Ruben, weeping on the ground because of my way of life. And then, after a while, at my watch, because I was still late. So finally, when his crying slowed, I said, in as convincing a tone as I could muster, “I’m sorry.”

He snuffled, then wiped his nose with the sleeve of his red blazer. Then he looked at me, and again at Paris. He said, “No, you’re not.”

[recently published here https://anotherchicagomagazine.net/2026/10/15/rubeninparis/\]

—Luke, how are you today?

The room is lined with bookshelves, filling it with the smell of old paper. Vintage even, like an old car’s interior. The dark wooden table stands between Ms. Simpson and me. The wooden chairs we sit on seem comfortable, but their backs are at a weird 90-degree angle. On the table there are books, pens, pencils and stacks of paper. And Ms. Simpson’s notebook.

—Everything is fine, Ms. Simpson. But I wish I had one more cigarette this morning.

—Why?—she asks me, holding a pencil in her right hand. Her blonde hair rests on her shoulders.

—Ha-ha. You know…morning and all that stuff. Just…urges. Routine. Like coffee. So, uhm…I wanted one extra cigarette and that’s it. Do we need to over-analyze _everything?_

—Oh, no-no. Don’t worry, Luke. _You_ don’t need to. Well. Shall we continue where we left off?—she leans back, fixing her hair. Her cold, dark eyes look straight into my soul.

—I guess so. That’s why I applied, right?—I reply reluctantly.

—Very well. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. And start repeating the mantra in your head:

_“One mouse, two mice and a cheese. Two mice, three cats and a breeze. Three cats, four me and a peace. One mouse, two mice and a-”_

 

I am sitting before my piano during my piano classes. The morning sun gathers around the keys: black ones are especially glistening. The white curtains are put just right, open enough to let the sunlight in, but closed enough to keep the sunlight from blinding me. I feel the piano pedals on my feet, cold and hard. Both of my hands are on the keys.

Children are playing outside. I hear them laughing and running around. Birds are chirping and cars are driving around.

I look around the room—there isn't a soul in sight. I don’t remember this place. It feels familiar, but I can’t quite place it.

**Skrchhh**—I hear a very unpleasant scratching sound behind the piano. The lid covers exactly where a person making that sound would stand. I feel chills down my spine. I quickly stand up.

—Hello?

No response. I feel…not chills, but hands on my back! I fall. My head hits the keys. I come to.

 

—Huh?!

I am taken aback, drenched in cold sweat.

—What the fuck was that?!—I say, my voice trembling.

—Luke? What did you see?—she looks at me with a hint of curiosity, ready to note down whatever I describe.

—I…I was in my childhood piano class. But something was wrong…and... and… —I was lost for words, because it felt **so** real. Not like a dream. Not even like a nightmare.

—What happened there?—she keeps writing, checking her notes.

—Something pushed me from behind! I hit my head on the piano and woke up! Ms. Simpson…what is this therapy?

—Let’s not talk about the technicality. Based on how you look and feel, it seems to be working. All bad memories are coming out. Take another sip.

I look at the table. There's a cup of tea sitting there.

—What do you mean _another?_ I…I haven’t drunk that. I didn’t even notice it was there.

—There are many things in life we don’t notice, Mr. Luke.

I start frantically looking around the room, my eyes dart from one place to another. My face turns red. I am confused, my forehead starts burning.

—Something…doesn’t add up. I didn’t even have piano classes in my childhood!

—Did you? Hmm…that’s interesting. Mr. Luke, this is very important. It seems we're making progress, we shall not stop _now._ You need to be brave.

—What are you **even** talking about!?

—One mouse, two mice-

—Stop!

—-and a cheese.

My eyes start rolling back and my body feels numb.

—I don’t wanna…

—Two mice, three cats and a breeze…

Ms. Simpson’s voice starts echoing and fading in my head.

 

I am in the exact same room again. Everything is exactly the same as before. I suddenly stand up and run to check what’s behind the piano.

—Nothing… —I mumble to myself.

I hear children outside, the birds, the cars…but when I look out the window all I see is an empty playground. I rush to the door.

It wouldn’t budge. Locked.

—Hey, Mickeeeey~

A high-pitched voice echoes through the room behind me.

—My name is _Luke._

I’m afraid to turn around and see whatever is making that screeching voice.

—Don’t you remember me, Mickey?

I feel cold, damp fingers with long, pointed fingernails touch the skin of my neck.

—I’m the friend who lives under your bed! Teehee!~

 

I scream and try to force the door open. The nightmare suddenly bleeds into reality as I fall from my chair, screaming in the therapist’s office.

—Fuck! What the **FUCK!?**

I get up.

—**WHAT THE FUCK!?**

Ms. Simpson is gone. Did I hit my head too hard? I walk around the room, but I don’t go behind the desk where the therapist was sitting.

—Ms. Simpson!

I try to open the door, but it won’t budge.

—Ms **FUCKING** Simpson!

I look at the digital clock on the table. 4:35 P.M. The sun begins to set. I notice a torn piece of paper tucked under the clock.

_Mickey-Mickey-Mickey. Did you think you could escape?_

Blood starts slowly seeping just under the table towards me. I stumble back. It doesn’t smell.

I gather the courage and check what or **who** bleeds behind the desk.

To my horror, it’s a giant pile of rats with their eyes taken out. The pile of dead, butchered rats is bleeding onto the floor, forming a pool of blood. I feel sick to my stomach.

 

—Mr. Luke, do you suffer from sleepwalking?

I look at the chair. Ms. Simpson is sitting there. The clock says _2:25 P.M_.

—You just got up from your chair and started walking, mumbling to yourself. So I’ll ask you again: do you sleepwalk?

—Wait…what? Didn’t you see a pile of **dead** RATS?—I scream, feeling as though I’m losing my mind.

—Please, don’t do this to me **ever** again!—I pull at my hair, trying to contain myself.

—Mr. Luke, whatever happened in your head stays in your mind. It’s not real.

—But it felt real! Very-very real!

—Just take a sip of the tea. It will calm you down.

I grab the cup and throw it towards one of the bookshelf. The cup shatters releasing the liquid onto the books, dripping down. Sense of sorrow and regret fills me.

Ms. Simpson looks at me like a disappointed parent would at a misbehaving child.

—I…I’m sorry…I’ve lost control. It’s just…it’s Freddy Krueger-type shit! I saw a bunch of dead rats in this very room! Right under the chair you sit in! It…it was bleeding onto the floor, forming a pool of blood!

—Luke. Was someone else there with you?

—Yes! Something—I don’t even know what—was calling me _Mickey_!

—Interesting… —she writes something in her notebook.

—Do you know anyone named Mickey? Or Mike, Michael?—she doesn’t even look at me.

—No, I don’t!

She notes something down.

—Maybe you don’t remember him, but your subconscious _does._ You need to accept it. Otherwise the therapy won’t work.

—Did you hear a word of what I’ve just said?

—Yes, I did. A pile of rats. Creepy.

—Is that all you have to say? You know what? I’m outta here.

As I turn toward the door, I notice that the tea has spilled onto one particular book. I stop to read its title.“Memory injection therapy.”

—One mouse, two mice and a cheese.

I run towards the door and try opening it. My legs fall limp.

—Two mice, three cats and a breeze.

I start sobbing.

—Please, no…don’t!

—Three cats, four me and a peace.

 

I am sitting before the piano. All the same as before. I look around. Still empty.

Maybe Ms. Simpson is right? Maybe, I have to let go? To let _it_ in?

I’ve never played the piano in my life. But I’ll try. I place both hands in a basic A-position. I play a simple rhythm in 4/4 time, in A minor.

The piano’s melody fills the room. I play something very basic, completely at random. But I play whatever I think sounds lovely. It just comes to my mind like an endless stream of information. It seems to come from my heart. Like a bloodstream of ideas and sheer creativity.

Suddenly, something extremely cold touches my feet. Something grabs my ankles with its fingers and rises higher with each note I play. I should not stop playing and sit as if nothing’s happening. I don’t hesitate and let go. It’s not two hands but multiple. They are already at my hips, grabbing me and rising higher. Now they cover my chest. My neck. My face. I can no longer see. All I feel is extreme cold and tears running down my cheek. Suddenly the dark dissipates—there is a key to the door lying on the piano. I grab it and stand up, breathing heavily. I feel as if something has been taken away from me.

I put it into the keyhole and open the door. I walk out into a corridor. It all slowly surrenders to complete darkness, slowly thickening from the outside.

—You’re not from here. You are not Mickey…you are more delicious. You played well. I liked your melody. Your very last of when you were you. Now…we shall be whole.

 

**Five months later**

Luke sits on his sofa, mindlessly watching TV.

_Mysterious disappearances keep happening in the city of New Harlem. Two more young girls have gone missing. If you recognize either of them, call the number on your screen…_

 

Luke turns around and looks over his shoulder at the door, where a sticky note reads“Mickey.”

There had been a rumour that Roan’s bed moved in the night. That was all. Roan went to sleep to one side of his unclean and sort of dark and generally disagreeable bedroom and woke up on the other. Like, it was unmistakable. His bed had moved at least eight or ten feet to where it blocked his door, as if he’d barricaded himself in, and his nose was practically jammed up against the brass knob when his eyelids shot open that a.m. and it was just unmistakable. Roommates heard not a thing. That was all at first.

But Roan is a truthful person. To a depressing fault, you should know. Roan does not know how to invent whatsoever. I think if he tried, the effort would be transparent. But he’d never try. It’s unthinkable Roan could render that story, painting so earnestly, just, the abject horror of waking with his bed to the wrong unpleasant side of his sort of dim room and his nose being jammed up to brass, the smell of brass utterly suffusing his nostrils first thing as his eyelids flashed open and registered the inexplicable wrongness of his situation. For Roan to produce such a yarn would be more off in its own right than any nighttime bed-moving. So I heard Roan himself vouch for the rumour, and that was all for me. His word is golden. Besides, he was only the first.

 

Hallewell Academy is many great slabs of dreary stone. It is coated in ivy like rivulets defacing a huge plate of melting ice. The silver maples that line Hallewell’s imposing, north-facing front gates have a tendency to whisper at you from overhead in the fall and there is a sense of something namelessly old, and unfriendly, and possibly dangerous that hangs about the place and its narrow halls. The ceilings are too low. There is a sense of something clinging to your back as you walk. It rains or snows perpetually, like the sky is spitting on you for being here, and yet something abstract holds you in place, and the grounds have a harsh, uncommon beauty to them.

This is an academy where we ski. There are the alpine skiers and the Nordic skiers, very different camps forced into close proximity. Roan is a Nord. There is academics, too, of course, interspersed between athletics. I am also a Nord, but I was an Alp before and I don’t think that’s been well-received. Switching sides isn’t outright unheard of, but it’s very uncommon. Mostly it’s not a logical thing to do. It’s sort of an apparent step backwards any way you cut it, but if you want to know, I just found I liked the flats. I just developed a dramatic fear of falling down on an incline. Cold sweat kind of fear. I became emotionally affected by an incident involving my ski boot and a shoe horn decorated to approximate a mallard. It just got so fucking old sitting on the chairlift up Collingwood Mountain so many times each week and staring at, two thirds of the way up, the same rusty disfigured cedar tree I’d picked out to stare at, as a progress marker or something, and eventually I started dreaming about the cedar. Swear to God. But then the flats are really hellishly boring and I’m getting sick of them too. I’m definitely not fond of things moving inexplicably. I guess I’ll drop out of Hallewell before long.

The second incident was more dramatic. It eclipsed Roan’s bed-moving. It had to do with what they call the Top Shack, on Collingwood Mountain. The Top Shack is a sort of mildewy wooden structure next to the clearing on top of Collingwood where the main lift deposits skiers. Unpleasant things are known to be done there on nights off between Alps, events that cause the Faculty to purse its lips and disapprove without addressing anything too directly. I didn’t spend much time in the Top Shack but I was fond of it on a philosophical level: because it was pretty unhinged, and lawless.

On February 14, Valentine’s Day, last week, the Top Shack lost its floor. The event was unsettling and not at all romantic since it made the little space unlivable, practically. I.e. now clothing would be layered on rather than stripped off. The nasty cold frost-coated ground being right there, within immediate sight and reach and all.

I suppose the floor wasn’t lost so much as it was taken. That was a theory that caught on anyway. But actually no one could say where the floor went―when Jonathan Lockhart and Ben Almoznino were deposited first by the chairlift on the 14^th and wandered into the Top Shack probably to share a joint before plunging down the mountain, the floor was absent. Gone without a trace. In the next few days the questions being asked were, to my mind, not very interesting. People were concerned about the logistics of the stunt, as to how students could have pulled off something like that. I’ll admit it was unclear. Just the previous afternoon there had been people inside the Top Shack, people who confirmed vehemently and independently the presence of a floor. But I think what I wondered at was more fundamental. I wanted to know why.

The Faculty was all giddy over it: they declared the building’s structural integrity had been compromised and cordoned it off by noon. It was a Saturday, meaning it had been a Friday yesterday, presumably when the floor vanished, and also the 13^th day of the month. Which really gave people the willies.

 

I was talking with Mallory Goff last Tuesday. The two of us made up one of three groups remaining in the caf this late past one in the afternoon, the caf which was filled with dull wintry light that had arranged itself in oblong patterns across linoleum. Mallory is an Alp. “What will I talk to Mirrie about?” she pleaded with me, as if I were forcing her to interact with Mirrie. She made a gross face. “Pop culture?” The words practically dropped from her mouth to the floor like stones.

“Mirrie has the face of a stork,” I said, meanly. I have to be mean around Mallory Goff or she won’t take me seriously. I’m very conscious of these things. As it stands I am very mean and she takes me perhaps more seriously than anyone else.

Mallory giggled. She said, “Mirrie knows forty-seven words and has run out of possible arrangements for them. I heard her repeat the same sentence four times yesterday.”

I considered this seriously. I thought of which forty-seven words I might choose in the same case. The idea struck me as really alien. I asked, “If you only knew forty-seven words, which would you choose?”

Mallory scoffed. The question didn’t seem to interest her at all. “I wonder.” She sort of picked at the remains of her Greek salad. I mused on the consequences of choosing just four-syllable words, for instance, and the silence stretched out and started to get boring.

Eventually she asked me something almost offhand: “So what’s with the lower gym equipment?” But I didn’t know what she meant.

My not knowing seemed to trigger something in Mallory: the shift was immediate. Her eyes widened and became celestial. There was a new tension between us all at once. And I couldn’t tell what had produced it.

“You haven’t heard?”

I shrugged.

“The lower gym equipment.” Her eyelids lowered now to frame something like malice playing beneath them, but something innocent too, a medley of things in the careless blue eyes that Mallory Goff possesses without trying or working for it. “The treadmills and everything, not just the weights, it’s all in Boucher’s classroom. Like, stacked there. All of it. Someone moved everything up to Boucher’s classroom on the third floor. It must have taken hours. For no fucking reason at all.”

And I felt, very slightly, like shy hands in a classroom, the hairs on my arms rising.

 

I confirmed it later. Boucher, who taught French, had entered his classroom earlier that day to find the small world he presided over and controlled for so many of his daylight hours, upended. Formerly tidy rows of desks had been displaced and in their wake was equipment from the lower gym. The rowers and kettlebells and racks and cages, et cetera, the weight plates, everything, had been arranged into an utterly neat and interlocking spectacle that maximized use of space and demonstrated, it was thought, something obscure. It couldn’t quite be said what was being demonstrated, actually. But the event went beyond pure chaos. There was something being proclaimed here. The equipment arranged so delicately, balanced so deftly, nothing so much as scratched, the precision and utility of the act―it took hours to disassemble; how many to put together?―like a complex puzzle that had been expertly made up. The whole arrangement of it formed an almost perfect cube, I heard. Surely what Mallory had said was inaccurate. It was typical of her to think as much. But this wasn’t done for no reason.

The desks are gone. Yet to be found.

 

It was the next day that Hallewell was stormed on and I got caught in the snow walking home with Marlon Nabi from dryland training in the lower gym, which by then had regained most of its equipment. The flakes were so fat and fell so heavily that I was sure they’d overwhelmed me a little. I was no longer working through them; they worked through me. The snow was not an obstacle through which I had to make my way home. I was an obstacle to be struck down by the snow in its unvarying drive to the earth.

Marlon and I pushed ahead in silence, our labour focused and grim. I remember lifting my eyes briefly at front campus, glimpsing neo-gothic hints of the Hadfield building ahead, all frigid towers and its huge clock like an eye, its arches like raised eyebrows conveying judgement. I remember thinking how truly beautiful the fog of snow was. The silence it had bestowed.

And when I arrived to my dorm, wet and sullen, I found the first note. Slipped under my door. Without a name, paper with only three words scrawled childishly on it:

You’re like me.

 

This morning I am speaking with Marlon Nabi in the back of Calc I. We’re suppose to be learning to integrate but I’ve already written that off. I’ve asked every person I know over the age of thirty when he or she last integrated something manually, by hand, and not one of them could give me a date.

Marlon is back on about the lower gym equipment. The Faculty, tight-lipped as of yet, will finally face these strange happenings head-on: there will be an official address next period in the auditorium. Something has to be said. But I already know the line they’ll take: students are to blame. What else could they say? I hear Marlon mention something about Who do I think is behind it, just now. I grab him physically by the shoulders and shake him, and say, too loudly, “It’s not some prank. It’s more than that!”

I really believe that. Marlon is shocked for a moment, but then he breaks into a grin and takes it as a bit of theatrical hyperbole. He takes it as a joke. My being grandiose for his benefit. Parsons, our teacher, from the front, basically tells me to irreversibly sew my lips shut.

This is when things really start to fall apart.

After class we glide down long busy hallways to the auditorium and I watch my feet landing one at a time, again and again, on dull, speckled vinyl flooring designed for thousands of feet to trample it every day. I’ve decided after some thought to stay quiet about last night’s note, slipped under my door. I’d woken uneasily this morning, thrown on a black Cranberries t-shirt and jeans, slipped into the bathroom I share with three others. There I’d splashed water on and regarded my face in the mirror. A bit red-eyed. But at breakfast no one seemed to notice. I couldn’t bear to bring up the note, for whatever reason. 

As we walk the halls now as a class, I think of it again. You’re like me.

Then I am seated. The auditorium is large and cool and fills impassively, as with a tipped hourglass being fed sand. Students chatter in groups as they drift by. Nabi is to my left; to my right was an empty seat until just two moments ago when Mallory Goff spotted me and wound her way here to fill it. She’s chewing spearmint gum. “Zombie” has been going in my head all morning because of this tee that I’m by now wearing under my collared white shirt, covertly, because we can’t wear tees during school hours, we must all wear the same clothing, and I’m beginning to sweat a little, almost imperceptibly.

Then someone is addressing us, all 300 of us or nearly. It’s Larsen, an actual Norwegian who is hilariously (people agree) an Alp and not a Nord, and who is also vice president at Hallewell. Larsen is saying something but I can barely understand it. I have the strangest sense of lying underwater, in a shallow kind of pool and looking up toward the sun, someone standing before it, blocking it slightly and looking back down at me. A couple bubbles escape my mouth and fly zanily to the surface. I smell spearmint.

And then we are in Philosophy. An elective I took instead of something comparably generic. Benhabib is up front and facing us and is leaned back against her desk, providing a pretty casual air, but ultimately she retains the simple authority lent by a height advantage, her being upright and the rest of us seated in tidy rows facing her and looking, for the most part, up.

“Nietzsche used the Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus to represent two halves of human nature. Anyone know what those halves might be?”

Benhabib points one lethargic digit in the direction of Tremblay, who blinks. He barely hesitates. He says, “Good and bad.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Like, innocence and evil.”

Benhabib wears what appears to be not one, but two cardigans, the one over the other, and is visibly perspiring. She says, straightening slightly, “Not really. Apollo represents rational thought. Lawfulness and order. Dionysus here is frenzy and ecstasy. An inability or an unwillingness to categorize and structure things. Sculpture is Apollonian. Music is Dionysian. Make sense, Tremblay?”

Tremblay gives an exaggerated shrug. He laughs a little under her continued gaze. “I guess.”

“I think we can all picture these personality types. But Nietzsche would argue that Apollo and Dionysus exist, both of them I mean, in each of us, and that both are necessary. Why do you think that is?”

There’s a drawn out silence and Benhabib says something like: Anyone?

Benhabib’s apparently voluntary decision to dress herself in multiple cardigans is baffling and climatically inappropriate. No one else seems to have noticed. She is looking right at me now; she says my name and I keep my composure. Although, I’m jiggling one leg and it’s causing my desk to vibrate―nervous habit. “What about you?” she says. “What do you think?”

I feel, very suddenly, a revulsion for my surroundings. Everything about the setting is all at once abhorrent to me; the order in every dimension. Us, an even twenty students, uniformed and hair combed, arranged so meticulously in four rows of five and Benhabib, perched on her desk now and facing us down with such flawless symmetry. That’s it maybe, the symmetry of the scene. I almost can’t take it. I want to pick the class up in its entirety and shake it, I want us to fly from wall to wall and sob and kick chairs aside and flip tables and kill that pulselessness. Manically, violently untuck our shirts. I want to smile like a shark.

The words seem to arrive fully formed. I don’t even have to create them; I’m not even sure of the question. What I say has always been there. It’s been waiting to propel itself from me.

I say: “Order is the opposite of humanity. Authority is against our nature. It murders anything human. It flays us and coats us in rubber. It makes me sick. It’s worse than evil. Evil is a facet of humanity. Would you choose to be evil, or inhuman?” People are looking, mildly interested. The tone of my voice, the word sick. I say: “I would rather be evil.”

At the back of the class, somebody giggles.

 

Later, I swallow cold water in huge gulps. I can’t recall the last time I had water; I just forget. I’m feeling very weird. I’m so horribly thirsty. I’m leaned against the raised wall panels of Gersham Residence’s west wing hallway, which are of oak and are stained dark old, wealthy shades. I can hear the polished and echoing click of someone’s shoes very far down the hall, but I can’t see anyone else. It’s curiously empty here. I’ve never seen it so empty.

There’s something I need to do. But I don’t know what.

 

I wake up the next morning on my hardwood floor and still in my jeans, with muddy boots by my bedroom door, under which the second note has been slipped. I’m wearing a Sonic Youth t-shirt. I sit up groggily and grind the palms of my hands into my eyes and retrieve the note. It’s a bare minimum thing once more: no address, no greeting, only a few words scrawled on a lined sheet of paper. The thing is folded in half diagonally. It’s very eerie, actually, that fold, because no one folds paper that way.

I read:

 

THIS PLACE IS DEAD AND SOMEONE MUST REVIVE IT.

 

As I fold the note back along its diagonal and stand, finally, I notice I am no longer myself. I am slightly removed from myself. Do you know the feeling of being beside yourself? That’s where I am, a little to the side, still tethered to my physical self in a funny way but no longer in total control of him. I’m sort of just a viewer. And it isn’t funny, really, it’s a little horrifying, because I know there will be repercussions for the actions of my body, surely there will be, but I no longer have any control over it.

I can hear excitement outside my door. Running, raised voices. Heavy steps flowing down my unit’s hallway, all in one direction, mad, weird scuffling. I hear someone yell in a tone I’ve never heard, something almost like joy and terror together, from someone still deciding which to choose, then they’ve run past my door too and their voice is lost. It sounds like bulls going by. A big herd.

I burst through my door―I see myself do it, from the side―and grab Roan by the shoulders, arrest his intense motion.

“Man, what is it?” I practically scream at him. Something is making me exceptionally nervous.

Roan is wild-eyed like I’ve never seen him. “Hadfield,” he says to me, and I know he’s incapable of lying, “it’s turned around!”

“What? Turned around?”

“You just― just come see it!”

I try to respond but then Roan has wriggled free and resumed his sprint, and there are others flying past me too, fully running.

I follow the crowd down this hallway, and then down two flights of stairs. I follow it through the reception of my residence, where the receptionist is absent although she’s never absent, and I feel the excitement of the others rushing past me and carrying me forward in huge waves, building my own anxiety until I think I might just disappear.

I am outside now. It’s late February and bitingly cold. I have no coat on, but nobody seems to. It’s as if everyone dropped what they were doing and ran at first word of this. But the cold isn’t important. My boots leave dirty imprints in the white below them.

Now down Moore Street and then onto College, and through Orleigh Park onto Back Campus, which looks ugly in this light, ravaged by three-hundred crisscrossing sets of tracks. Snow churned up. When I reach it Front Campus is worse. It looks like it’s been dug up. In fact, the snow is barely there, replaced by slushy mud, one grotesque brown pool. But that’s not what draws the eye.

It seems every student at Hallewell is here, standing in a loose ring around Front Campus, humming and arranging ourselves in mismatched, shambly groups. A few of us stand alone―I do. And in front of us is Hadfield building, only it’s facing the wrong way. Everything about it is normal, but it’s been turned 180 degrees. It’s exactly like Roan said. I can’t explain it.

It’s odd, as I stare, it’s like Hadfield is gazing back at me. 

There aren’t only students here; everyone is here. Teachers, custodians. The huge building’s arches of time-darkened stone are somehow more pointed now and somehow meaner than they ever were. I drop my eyes and gaze down to my boots, which are still caked with mud. Old mud, dried mud. From where?

There is someone beside me: Mallory Goff. She’s saying something to me. I make a concerted effort to hear her.

“What’s with your face?” is what she’s saying.

“My face?”

She gives me the strangest look and turns her eyes up to Hadfield. She seems subdued, timid, for once.

I press my hands to my face and feel it, and I can tell suddenly that I am smiling. Not only smiling: I’m grinning. My face is ecstatic, I can feel it, my cheeks taut, every tooth displayed. Utterly beaming. My eyes are dancing, I know it.

From beside me someone says, “Why would they do this? What’s the point?” and I’m laughing all at once and I say, “Why wouldn’t they do this?” I’m receiving some funny looks. But mostly everyone is riveted to the building, which looks so weird in this position.

Someone screeches, “They’ll have to re-landscape!”

“How will we get inside now?”

 This is like a seam in reality come undone. Hundreds of cheeks are pink from the wind. I’m no longer looking at the Hadfield like the others. I’m looking past it and to the sky and something serene is happening to me.

It’s just the sky is blue like I’ve never seen, and it’s crisp, like a sheet that’s been plucked from the line and spread deftly and tucked so evenly and severely, and I feel myself being dissolved into it. Like sugar into coffee. The chattering and hushed voices around me fall back: I’m on a conveyor sliding away from it all. I have a feeling like spring as I breath in and fill my lungs to their maximum and I almost can’t bear it. The cold is utterly absent. I feel, suddenly, the infinity of this single moment.

There’s so much time, still a world of time, and so much potential. For once I understand it. I can see the endless unlived threads of my life spread before me like spiders’ legs. And I almost go to pieces, with the ecstasy of it all. Just something about it.

“This isn’t like that Twilight Zone episode where aliens come and turn our planet into a utopia and then invite earthlings to their planet, only for the humans to discover en route that the aliens intend to cook and eat them?”

“Could be. Though earth hasn’t become a utopia, and I don’t think you can consider the transmission we received an invitation.”

“What else would you call it?”

“A slap in the face.”

“Come again?”

“It feels a whole lot more like a galactic put down insinuating that we’ll never be as good as them. I mean, look at the opening of the transmission:

Greetings fellow sentients. We who send this missive wish you well. It is unlikely that time and space will align for us to meet, but we must tell you of us and our world. It is a world of peace and plenty, of wealth and well-being. We have blossomed as sentients and only seek to learn what there is to learn. All this we owe to our great and gracious Opinoko who has made our world a splendor unsurpassed. We sing the praises of Opinoko and wish the galaxy to know of the glory we have gained through Opinoko. Let us name these glories…

And then what follows is a long, long list of all the wonders Opinoko has brought them. It’s akin to sending us a sales brochure for an upscale and exclusive gated community we can’t possibly move into. Why send it?”

“Maybe they just want us to know they’re out there and that things can work out well for a planet.”

“I don’t know. It sounds like they’re thumbing their Opinoko noses at us—if they have noses. Instead of forwarding us a laundry list of their greatness, maybe they could have sent something practical like a process for cold fusion or a strategic plan for avoiding international conflict and war.”

“Could be they don’t want to bootstrap us. Maybe they want to encourage us to find our own way and not interfere with how we do it.”

“Ha! Just by sending the transmission, they’re interfering. I call it the Prester Effect.”

“Prester?”

“Prester John. A mysterious letter began circulating in the twelfth century from a so-called Prester John trumpeting the might and wealth of his kingdom located vaguely and variously in India, Asia and Africa. The letter spoke of wonders like the fountain of youth and paradise on earth. It got the medieval world worked up, jumpstarting a quest mentality. Many folks went blindly in search of Prester John’s kingdom. Though it was never officially found, it didn’t stop some nuts from claiming they discovered it.”

“So, you think this Opinoko transmission is a scam?”

“A clever one that’s got three quarters of earth believing it’s real. Ruse or not, there will be fools who’ll go in search of this alien Prester John.”

“It’s light years away.”

“Yup. Just like journeying from England to Africa in the Middle Ages. People went then. They’ll try now.”

“Why?”

“The grass is always greener.”

“Does that mean you wouldn’t go?”

“I told you. The transmission was a slap in the face.”

“Maybe it was to wake us up.”

“Or keep us down.”

“That’s hard to say.”

“Trust me. It’s a colossal waste of time.”

“But, not of the imagination.”

“Be sensible.”

“That will only get us so far.”

“Are you really planning to set out for the land of Opinoko?

“Already halfway there.”

“A typically rash and unreasoned human response.”

“Well, imagination has that effect.”

A Fear of Travel

The brakes screeched and hissed as the train slowed down to a halt in front of the platform. A man stood silently. Awaiting the doors to open as his grip around the briefcase tightened. The deafening wail from the horn made his heart skip a beat, but his startled reaction was nothing the outside world was shown. As the conductor stepped out to make his voice heard, the rumble of people began making their way onboard the carriages. Broad shoulders and luggages bumped him around the crowd, and although he didn’t make a scene of it, the thought of the train leaving him before he had time to embark, began creeping up his mind. The horn wailed once again and sweat began trailing down his lower back. 
“Excuse me,” he murmured, but the sound was barely heard and drowned as soon as it left its shore.  
He cleared his throat and tried again, “Excuse me, sorry.” 
He repeated the words silently, more for himself than for others, as the river of people rinsed him along inside the carriage. The inside was beautifully decorated with various shades of lacquered wood that framed the glass windows as well as the cream painted ceiling, and to his right, a narrow aisle presented itself along the carriage. On either side of the walkway, sets of two seats opposite each other were lined up along the walls, with a dark mahogany table in between, lacquered and shiny as the rest of the interior. Clumsily, the man began making his way down the aisle, casting quick glances to his sides hoping not to get any returned. He passed by families with parents desperately trying to console their small children who didn't seem at all interested in lowering their cries. Old women chattering and giggling amongst each other, possessing countless anecdotes from their long friendship together. A beautiful woman sitting alone in the corner seat, daydreaming as she admires the landscape outside the trainstation, turning her head just as he walks by. The man couldn’t react in time. Their eyes met for but a fraction of a second but to him, it felt like a lifetime. With neither a smile nor a nod, she let her glance turn down to the table as she straightened her posture. This was it, he had to act quickly. Do not dwell on the matter, ask if the seat in front of her was free. 
“Excuse me, is this seat taken?”
The words were clear and confident as he said them in his mind but to the man's disappointment, his tongue would not speak. Too much time had passed now since they exchanged glances, his window of opportunity had closed and with yet another silent glimpse of her rosy cheek, he continued past her. Three rows behind the woman, all four seats of a table were left untouched. The man put his briefcase on the luggage rack overhead, before sinking down onto the red velvet fabric with a sigh. Had he at least smiled at her? He couldn’t tell if it was subconscious or not, but he had taken the seat facing the direction that he had come from, granting his eyes the opportunity to wander off and examine the shining golden hair of the woman diagonally in front of him. Was she even that beautiful? He thought to himself as he could barely spot her left cheek, or was it just the event of a not so bad looking woman making eye contact with him that made it exciting? Was it the scenario of meeting the love of his life on a train like this that made his tongue bend backwards or was there something else? He forced his gaze off of her as he pushed up his glasses with his hands and massaged the tired eyes with his knuckles before letting them trail the platform outside his window. 
“Look again,” he heard a voice in his head tell him, “She might’ve turned around to look at you just now and you could miss it. A second chance to start a conversation.”
The man tried to silence the voice by leaning his cheek on his palm, creating a screen between the woman and his eyes. She wasn’t even that pretty and besides, the time was not right at the moment to meet someone, he thought to himself. But maybe a last look wouldn’t hurt, just to make sure? Slowly, as to not admit to himself what he was doing, he separated his fingers barely enough to make a peephole for his view. But just as he turned his eyes, the peephole darkened.
“Is this seat free?”
Startled by the deep voice, the man recoiled and let his hand fall down in his lap as if he had been caught stealing before looking up towards a stout man in a black suit pointing towards the seat in front of him.
“Ehhm, yeah s..” His voice broke. He gave away a light cough to reset his throat and repeated, “Yeah sure!” as he gestured with an open palm towards the opposite of the table. 
The man in the suit didn’t answer, just gave an unnoticeable nod before putting his leather briefcase on the luggage rack next to his and sat down. He carefully examined the man as the large figure scooched his rump towards the window seat before adjusting his suit and tie, wondering if it would be strange to greet him. Just as he was about to offer a handshake, the older man reached for a gold watch from inside his suit, opened it, and carefully inspected it. In a desperate attempt of an evasive maneuver, the young man changed the course of his hand and pulled out a tiny notebook from his breast pocket. He laid the pad open on the table and began scribbling nonsense as a third wail from the horn echoed along the platform and the train let out a loud hiss before the wheels began chugging. The led on the page began to take shape of transfigured faces and shapes inside the man’s notebook and from time to time, he would let his gaze wander off and grace the woman’s rosy cheek before returning down to his creations. Perhaps it’s best this way, he thought to himself as he let the pencil traverse the paper on its own, at least it’s easier. 
“What are you drawing son?”
The words took him by surprise.
“Oh this, ehhm…” He tilted his head slightly and raised his eyebrows as if it would give him a clearer picture of what he had made. “I.. don’t really know, just a way to clear my mind.” 
He closed the notebook in a hurry but let it lay on the table in front of him as he began fidgeting with the pencil between his fingers instead. 
“You got a lot to clear by the looks of it,” the man answered humorously with a nod towards the closed pad
“What?” He replied, despite having heard the comment, and continued to answer without waiting for the other man to repeat himself. “Oh, no this… This is just…” sweat began to stain his armpits as the pencils movement grew hastier in his hands, “Or well I guess you could say that.”
The man raised his bushy eyebrows alongside the corner of his mouth hidden underneath a large mustache in a way as if to say, “Don’t worry, take your time.”
The younger man’s gaze began to flicker around the carriage before ultimately returning back to the woman in the back who – as if to mock him – was talking with another young man in front of her.
“Is it a lady issue?” his moustache raising even higher.
“Sorry?” He shaked his head, eyes brought back to the man in front of him, “Not really. More so…”
The older man had no intention to interrupt as he studied the younger man's troubled face.
“More so…” but he couldn’t find the words, “I’m not quite sure.”
Slightly turning his head so that the broad man could view the woman behind him, he answered, “Such a shame, you had your chance.”
“My chance for what?”
He tried to play dumb but as the man turned back his head and caught his eyes with one eyebrow raised, he realised there was no reason to try.
“She’s not my type exactly, besides; I’m not in a good time at the moment to meet someone.”
The latter statement was indeed true to an extent, however by the look on his fellow passengers face, it didn’t seem all that convincing. 
“Not your.. type? You say huh,” pausing on the word as if it was foreign to him.
“You know…” the younger man began, hoping it would be enough to make the older one understand.
Judging by his unchanged facial expression, it was not. 
“I’m not interested, okay? That’s all.”
The man let his eyebrow sink down to its usual place but his posture indicated that he wasn’t yet satisfied by his answers. His gaze was burning as the stout man examined him, and even though his intuition told him to open up the notebook again, he did manage to halt the act as he deemed it too obvious of an escape. Instead he retreated his vision for the window again, tracing the distant mountains with his eyes as if he was painting them himself. 
“What’s your name son?” 
The question had a subtle touch of judgement that the younger man did not let go unnoticed, however he turned his head back towards the man and met his gaze as he answered.
“Jesse Howells,” he said, neither his tongue nor his throat failing him this time.
“Henry Craig.” He stuck out a burly hand, not necessarily fat, but strong, “Pleasure to meet you Jesse”
Jesse mirrored his action and a firm handshake was shared between them.
“Likewise.” An undertone of uncertainty lingering behind as he pulled his hand back.
Silence took its place over the table as the deafened chugging and puffing from the train outside accompanied the passengers through the beautiful valley. 
“It seems that you’ve cleared your mind,” Henry said, breaking the silence as he gestured towards the closed notebook on the table with his eyes. 
The younger man followed his gaze and answered with a small chuckle, “I must have.”
Silence fell again between them. The inevitable stage he always met when he practiced leaving the shore, he thought to himself. This was why it was easier to stay in the harbour. But the ropes were already loosened and with no way of turning this ship back around, he frantically began making up questions in his head. Questions that wouldn’t result in short boring replies and what topics those answers might result in. While his mind continued to tie knots on itself, he caught himself glancing over towards the woman’s golden hair again. The man she had been talking to was nowhere to be seen and a medley of relief and hope showered him. Why was that? Jesse knew himself well enough to know that he would make no attempt at talking to her either way so, why did he feel this way? 
“So tell me Jesse.” His focus shifted back towards their table, “Where are you going?”
“Where I’m going?” He repeated the question to stall for time as he wondered if he should tell the truth or lie. “I’m traveling"
“Alone?” The man looked surprised.
“Alone,” Jesse confirmed, managing not to avert his gaze away from the blue eyes. 
Henry examined him for a second before he continued, “Tell me Jesse. What is a handsome young man like you doing, traveling by himself? Do you not have any friends to accompany you?”
The question stung in his chest but he was quick to recover, “My own company has always favoured me the most.”
The words came out as sharp as they always did when he was asked that question. The same lie he always told when reality came too close. The same lie he had hid behind so many times that he was beginning to get fooled by it himself. He could see the older man get caught off guard by his well-formulated reply, but authority quickly took its place inside his deep eyes.
“Its not the first time you speak that line, is it?”
It was now Jesse's turn to get taken aback. How could he know that?
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that those words are rehearsed.”
He didn’t know what to answer at that. This man had just walked right through his shield.
“Please correct me if I’m wrong,” Henry continued when no reply was met, knowing fully that he had hit the nail on its head. 
There was no correction. How could he even begin to try when he had already gotten disarmed that easily?
“How… Did you know that?” His words were frail as his eyes subconsciously glanced over towards the woman yet again.
The older man didn’t answer, only examining the younger man's glimpse, before the corners of his mouth rose again.
“You stare an awful lot for someone that isn’t interested.”
“Sorry?” The change of both subject and tone in the older man’s voice made him instantly forget his shattered defense and the younger man felt his cheeks grow hotter.
“I said that you stare an awful lot for someone that isn't interested.”
“I’m not staring,” Jesse answered with a loud voice before he lowering it to barely a whisper, afraid that she might hear them, “I’m not staring”
If there had been traces of authority in the blue eyes before, it was nothing compared to what sparkled inside them now.
“What are you doing then?”
“I’m only…” halting himself from looking at her once more, desperately trying to come up with an excuse.
But there was nothing, his mind was completely blank. Nothing he could say or do would prove his innocence, because deep down he knew he was guilty. 
“That other fellow seems to have left,” Henry said after casting a quick glance towards her, “You might still have a chance”
“A chance of what?” the young man sighed, “A chance to make a fool out of myself?”
“A chance to grow, Jesse. To leave the shore and finally put a use to those beautiful sails you've been working so long to perfect.”
His words pierced his chest as if he had been made of sponge, and when he turned his gaze and met the older man’s blue eyes, the towering authority that had taken its rightful place there had been changed for gentleness. Almost melancholy gentleness. This man before him had without doubt in Jesse’s mind, struggled the same way as him once. 
“I… I can’t,” he managed to get out, “If she had been open to meeting someone here, that other guy wouldn't have left her,” unsure if he was trying to convince Henry or himself. “At least he had the courage to try.” But those last words never left his mouth.
Have you ever wondered how many experiences you have missed out on, polishing your hull by the docks, theorizing and pondering over all the possible outcomes and consequences? Trying to figure out your opponent's final move before you’ve even drawn your first, not realising that you’ve already started to make up excuses proving why it’s not even worth a try.”
The young man’s eyes widened after every word. All his life had been spent alone and safe, because that was the easiest way not to get hurt. But right now, this man in front of him was speaking his secrets as if he was reading them from a nursery book. 
“But I like it there,” he tried to counter, realising that he was only playing into the man’s card even more, “It’s familiar, it’s calm, and most of all I don’t run the risk of getting hurt.”
A compassionate expression spread across the older man’s face as he examined him.
“Have you already lied to yourself long enough that you actually believe what you’re saying, or is there still some part of you that recognizes that the shield you’ve built to protect, is actually constraining your sail to catch the wind?” 
He knew that, he thought to himself. A suppressed fact, buried deep beneath the castle of lies and excuses he had told. A fact he was too afraid to recognize since it would reveal that he wasn’t someone that favours his own company over others. He wasn’t someone that enjoyed eating alone at school, nor was he someone that never found women around him beautiful. He was a coward.
When no answer was met, Henry continued, “The familiar and calm essence of the harbour is what makes it so dangerous. It traps you there because why should you put your boat at risk of sinking when you can watch it slowly bob up and down under the glistening sun by the dock instead? But it is when thoughts like that keep whispering, that you have to remember; that is not why it was built.”
The man was right, maybe the time had come for him to finally put his sail and hull to use. With newfound courage emboldened by the words he had just received, and a firm gaze on the beautiful woman’s golden hair, shining in the sun as his unused sail had done for many years, he lifted himself off the seat just as a thought hit him.
“Where are you going, sir?” he said, lowering himself down on the fabric again.
She could wait a little longer for him. It would be rude to leave the man without asking about himself, especially after having granted him such wise words. Besides, it wouldn't take that long.
Henry sighed when the young man sat back down in front of him, and he couldn’t restrain himself from glancing out through the window. He was in no hurry to come up with an answer, as he watched towards the scenery outside, almost as if he was searching for it among the mountaintops. 
“I’m going to see my wife,” he finally said softly, eyes still focused on the landscape beyond. 
“Where is she?” 
Another long pause took its place between them,  “Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.” The words barely audible behind the rustling from the train.
Jesse staggered. Had he heard the man correctly? But as tired eyes filled with sorrow turned back from the window and met the younger man, he knew he had not misheard. And all of a sudden, as if it had been hidden beneath a jolly mask the stout man had worn, he noticed the grey hairs spread across the bushy mustache and eyebrows. He noticed the wrinkles around the man’s eyes and tiny razor-cuts on his chin, caused by aging trembling hands. This man was much older than he had originally thought Jesse realised.
“Is she sick?” he managed to stumble out, trying to figure out where to look.
“Turberculosis,” Henry answered shortly.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” His gaze finally landed on the woman in the front.
As if he didn’t even recognise his condolences, the old man continued, “I still remember the first day I saw her at our school. A girl, barely able to stay seated at her desk from the excitement of answering the teacher's questions correctly, looked back at me with large brown eyes, reassuring me that I was not invisible.” A distant chuckle left his stomach. “Every day I would sit and stare at the back of her head in class trying to muster up the courage to ask her out, but never gathering enough.”
His gaze had returned towards the window, however this time it was not mountains that his eyes traced, but memories. Memories of days turning to months, and those months turning to years as his love for the woman grew larger and larger. 
“When we finally graduated, I thought it would be the last time I saw her. I knew that if I let this moment slip away, I would regret it for the rest of my life. Still, my tongue failed me, and the last thing I told her that day was goodbye.”
There was a long pause after he had finished speaking. Two men sitting in front of each other, silently admiring a woman they wish they would have spoken to. 
“Just like you, I began building walls. Hiding behind lies I convinced myself to believe because the truth of what I was haunted me every day that went by. I would play that last day together in my head, time and time again, hating myself for not being braver. Wishing that I would have said this or done that instead, deep down knowing that if I could go back to that day again, the outcome would have been the same.”
As Henry kept reminiscing about his wife, Jesse began to understand how this man had been able to penetrate his shield so easily. They were the same, he thought. It felt like the old man was describing his own life as he monologued, seeing the whole picture clearer for every sentence. 
“However,” Henry continued, “Eight years ago. On a train similar to this one, a woman asked if the seat opposite of me was empty and when I raised my head to look at her, large brown eyes looked back. And although age had left its trail around her face, I instantly recognised her. Naturally I invited her to sit down and to my pleasant surprise, she remembered me too. We started talking and I soon realised that she had divorced a few years back, leaving my window of opportunity larger than I had dared hope. I realised that this second chance I had been granted could not be thrown away, so with the help of all the sailing practice I had done over the years, I asked her out on a date. She said yes and even revealed that she had had an interest for me before graduation and was disappointed in me never pursuing her. Two years later I proposed, and we got married.”
A platform appeared, swooshing past their window as the train slowed down to a halt beside it, horn wailing. 
“I’m getting off here,” Henry said as he stood up and reached for his luggage above them.
Jesse hadn’t even noticed the train’s change in haste nor the man’s announcement of departure. He wasn’t even sure he had heard the last words of his story, because as Henry’s anecdote had mentioned that the reunion of him and his wife had taken place onboard a train like this, he had not been able to take his mind off that girl. 
“Jesse.” 
The robust voice awakened him from his daydreams and the young man suddenly realised that people around them had begun making their way towards the doors of the carriage. His gaze rose and met the towering man above him, like they had done when first meeting each other. 
“I am forever grateful for the second chance I was granted to meet my wife,” he began, deep blue eyes staring through every wall the young man had ever built, reaching his very core, “Although a day never goes by where I don’t regret never having asked her the first time. It might seem calm and tempting at the harbour this evening, son. But when the fishermen come back from the open sea with both stories and fish, and you find your body too old to follow them on their next journey.” He turned around to look at the woman as Jesse's gaze followed, “Don’t you dare feeling envious when you chose to cast your chance away.”
At this, the old man bid the young one farewell before the horn wailed once again. And although he was unsure if he had even said something in return, as the train continued rolling towards its next destination, Jesse found an ace that he could keep in Henry’s final words. 

The large white sun had turned a burning orange as it began its descent behind the mountains, colouring the skye an eye-catching shade of red and magenta. But this time the young man’s eyes were not charmed by the reflections in the windows of the houses by the dock as they often were. Nor were they charmed by the inviting shine from the lanterns that had been lit throughout the harbour. Because after having heard the story of an old fisherman late on his departure for the sea, his attention could not be drawn from the golden waves shining at the horizon. Nor could it be drawn from the rosy clouds hovering above the vast, terrifying yet captivating waters as he awaited the seagulls' wails to set sail. When the next station appeared and the train came to a halt as the horn made itself heard once again, the woman in front of him stood up from her seat by the window and on the tip of her toes, she reached for her luggage above her. The young man mirrored her movement as his heart began beating faster, afraid that it would burst out of his chest. Silently he followed her light steps out the doors and on to the platform where she paused, only a large step in front of him. He cleared his throat, took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a second before opening them and finally casting off the ropes from the dock.
“E–”
The wail from the train horn echoed along the station, drowning every word or confession spoken on the platform. A sudden gust of wind had grabbed the sails as the small boat had disembarked, striking fear and uncertainty into the young man. But when the horn grew silent again, so did he. Defeated, he remained among the people, watching as the golden waves and rosy clouds walked away from him. The wind had calmed down now, nothing was stopping him from trying again for the horizon. But maybe the harbour wasn’t that bad after all.

“God damn it!” said Tammy. “I’m telling you, we are lost.” She shouted.

“Shut your mouth, woman. We are far from lost,” said Mike while he sat down on the big rock on the edge of the pond.

The rock he sat upon was half-buried in the black, fertile soil, where the water’s surface was gently bobbing at the mossy waterline on the side of this grey sloped boulder. Sitting down brought him closer to the forest floor. The warm, moist, juicy musk of the ground went straight up his nostrils as he drew in a forced breath. He was staring at his feet when his sweat started tracing a line from his brow down to the tip of his nose, making it itch, and finally dripping off and disappearing into the green.

He lifted his head back up with great effort. All he could see was the dense growth of trees through and through, with enough of a gap between the thick trunks to see more trees in the back. The pond was like a pool you may find at the bottom of a waterfall. Deep in the middle, shallowing out towards the edges. The water wasn’t stagnant, but it was still and lifeless. No manner of creature lived in these waters apart from the algae which covered the far end of the pool where the canopy of the forest allowed some sun to pierce through the musk. The forest sloped down and away, out of sight behind the pond. The only promising direction was the path which meandered away from the rock into the depth of oblivion.

Mike took off his bandana, dipped it into the pond, being careful not to disturb the mud bed, waved it around gently in the shallow water, sending ripples to the other edge, took it back out, and held it above the surface, allowing the fabric to let go of the water it couldn’t hold on to and then squeezing out the rest. Wiped his face and neck. He looked at his bandana, thought for a second, wrapped it into a ball and squeezed it again, and then tossed it away. The fabric was still wet, so it went quite the distance. It wizzed over the pond and through the steam of sunlight on the far edge, reflecting it in a red flash until it lost speed and opened up like a parachute and flapped out of sight, downhill, not far from the pond.

Mike signaled Tammy, and they continued on the path through the forest. He wasn’t thinking about where to go. His mind was in a buzz, which was like the shrill sound of an electric device, sharp and penetrative but not loud enough for you to bother looking for the source of it. His legs were moving, and his feet were leading him. He was following them, just as Tammy was following him. His feet were racing after one another, almost like they knew the way.

A few miles in, they came into a clearing. The grass here was knee-high and dry. This clearing offered views of the sky, a relief from the endless canopy. The path they were on continued into the trees. But they decided to spend the night here. Mike took off his bag and dropped it where he stood. Their shoulders were strained carrying that much weight all day. Seemed like they packed for more than they needed. Mike straightened his bag upright and unbuckled the tent from the top strap. He unzipped his bag and something bright yellow peeked through the opening. He ripped out this yellow parachute-like fabric and laid it flat, like a mat on the ground. It was another tent but not a functioning one. He turned over his bag on the yellow carpet and started shaking it violently. His belongings started piling on top of each other. He stopped when a flask fell out of his bag and rolled over the pile of clothes next to his feet. It was a Grey metal flask with a push lock on it. He undid the lock, gulped down almost half of the flask, then he started putting up the tent.

All this time Tammy was just standing and staring at him. When Mike was almost halfway through, she decided to unpack too. She opened up her bag and flipped it similarly. Cans of beans, precooked sausages, a large bag of oatmeal, and two flasks of water fell on the ground with a thud. There was still some stuff left at the bottom of her bag, but she didn’t bother shaking it out. She was too tired for that, and by some coincidence everything they needed fell out by itself.

When the tent was up, she went inside with her bag and took out two sleeping bags. She opened one up completely, and it was almost the size of the yellow mat Mike had fashioned earlier. She pushed all of Mike’s stuff to the edge of the tent and placed the open sleeping bag on the floor. Then she took out a second sleeping bag and opened it up too. This one was going to be her blanket. Mike came inside and placed his own sleeping bag on top of all this. He was going to sleep in it like a silk bug in a cocoon. They didn’t talk. Not a word. Ate a can of beans each and went to bed.

Throughout, Tammy was thinking of running away. She had no idea how long they had already spent in this forest. She knew they were lost and were going in circles, but she never dared to part ways. They must have been asleep for a few hours when a loud but distant sound jolted them up. Tammy was shitting her pants. She started begging Mike to go check. This was the first time they talked since the pond. Mike got up, crawled out of the tent, and started scanning the forest treeline.

He wasn’t afraid. He never had been. A brutal childhood had introduced him to the world’s ugliness early on. He had made his peace with the luck allotted to him in life and decided that the best way to live would be to just suck it up. He figured a vicious world didn’t deserve a soft man.

The night sky illuminated the treeline enough to save him a walk. Whatever made the noise wasn’t visible. He was about to pull the tent flap shut when the dark split open. A sound tore through the trees. A wet, foul screech that felt less like an animal and more like a dying man’s throat being ripped out. The noise didn’t just rattle his ears; it hit him in the gut, turning his stomach to ice. His lungs seized, locking the air inside them. He tried to take a step back, to hide in the canvas, but his legs refused the order. He was pinned to the dirt by a sickening realization: for the first time in his life, he was utterly, helplessly terrified.

The sound tore through the dark again, pinning a directional coordinate to his panic. Shame flared hot in his chest. He berated himself for freezing, furious that a mere noise could reduce him to this. Forcing a jagged breath into his lungs, Mike bullied his feet forward, stepping toward the black silhouette of the treeline. Every muscle braced for another demonic screech, but as he neared the brush, the noise shifted. It softened into a rapid panting, like an exhausted hound after a long hunt.

Parting the thick bushes, Mike looked down. A hyena lay flat in the dirt, blood oozing from a mangled cavity in its chest. Its ribs gave one final, desperate heave and went still. Looking closer, Mike noticed the forest floor was churned up by familiar paw prints. They were hyena tracks trailing away into the deeper brush. The pieces clicked together. It was just a rogue animal turned on by its own pack. The heavy, suffocating dread instantly left him, replaced by his usual strength. It was a bizarre sight to witness, but the mystery was gone. He turned back toward his tent, finally realizing that the only thing that had truly terrified him was the dark blank canvas of his own imagination.

He kicked his way back into the tent and told Tammy it was nothing. Then he ordered her to pack up; they were leaving. Tammy had already decided she was going to desert him while he slept, but tonight she’d missed her window. Tomorrow, she promised herself, pulling her pack onto her shoulders as they set out into the dark.

They marched through the night and straight into the morning, the dense canopy offering no relief from the rising humidity. By noon, the suffocating heat was dragging them to their physical limits. Their throats were bone-dry, and their muscles burned. Then, a faint rushing sound sliced through the heavy air. A waterfall. Spurred by the noise, they quickened their pace, tracking the sound down a slope until the trees parted. A narrow stream cut through the dirt, pooling into a basin of quiet, still water.

“I can’t do this anymore. I’m leaving,” Tammy said, the words finally breaking through her tears.

“You might not have noticed, but that’s exactly what we’re fucking doing,” Mike shot back, his voice flat. “We are leaving.”

“No! I am leaving You,” she choked out.

Mike’s face didn’t even twitch. “You don’t have to tell me. I’ve known you wanted out since I confronted you on the camping trip. You don’t actually care that I’m telling the truth; you just care that I might bitch about you in front of our friends. I know what’s going on between you and him. I saw it.”

Tammy’s eyes widened in sheer shock. “And that is exactly why I can’t be with you anymore. You never trusted me, and you never will. And now, because of you, we are completely lost.”

Mike didn’t answer. He ignored her completely, looking past her into the trees. He pulled off his bandana, dipped it into the still water, and squeezed. After wiping the sweat from his neck, he flicked the wet fabric away.

“Shut your mouth, woman. We are not lost. We are far from it.”

The red bandana sailed through the air and landed on a mound just past the brush. It settled atop a rotting pile of fabric. Dozens of bandanas, ranging from fresh crimson to sun-bleached, decomposed rags crumbling into the dirt.

Mike turned and stepped back onto the path, his feet moving with familiar, practiced rhythm. Tammy stared at his back, a hollow ache in her chest. She wanted to run, to sprint in the opposite direction, but the vast green oblivion terrified her more than he did. She took a deep breath, adjusting her pack. Tomorrow, she promised herself, and followed him back into the trees.