DP FICTION #103A: “Every Me Is Someone Else” by Andy Dibble

edited by David Steffen

I’m seeing me in hospice. My mother. That me.

No. She. I have to remember. She’s in hospice, and I’m her son. I’m a son going to see his dying mother. I can do this. It’s not so hard to pretend. There are others. They aren’t me. Every me is someone else.

Although pronouns always seem like figures of speech. Except I. I always fits, and me.

I can fake it. I can pretend. But my mother—she’s a telepath too. I can shut her out, but what son does that? I can do this. What kind of son doesn’t go see his dying mother?

Room 301. It must be in the other wing. Past the kitchen where there’s a stainless-steel vat of some awful toffee pudding. It’s disgusting, and I’m not even sure which of my mouths is eating it. The yellowing wallpaper in the hallway has a nautical theme—reefs and waves and kids building sandcastles. They aren’t me. There’s no mind in paper, no me. If only every me were paper.

What kind of son wishes his mother were paper?

I’m a medical assistant coming down the hall in polka dot scrubs. I’m walking on the other side, glancing at me. 

No, she. But a different she than my mother. It’s hard to keep track. Each is like an organ, involuntary functions only. My therapist says thinking like that is egotistical, but how am I supposed to care about others, when others is just something I tell myself?

It just seems so irresponsible, to assume other minds inside other bodies, to extrapolate from my own case. How weak is that? It’s a sample size of one. I had to take statistics, even though I’m a grad student in humanities. Other minds seem so made up.

I remember my name is Laeticia, and I have to pass meds to six residents in the next five minutes. My other name? Her name, even though she doesn’t have a nametag on, and she’s been working a double shift because a co-worker called in sick, that I have been, and I try to smile for me but don’t mean it, and I don’t mean it. I am Laeticia.

Laeticia is someone else. I’m Josh. I’m Joshua.

It’s helpful to frame people as bodies, even though my therapist says that deprives them of dignity. Bodies are distinct. They don’t overlap. Perspectives get confused. Bodies don’t get confused, even when I’m not sure if I’m remembering or mind reading.

My mom is a body in room 103. The wallpaper above the door is an octopus, all orange arms and suckers. Must be a coincidence, or a bad joke. Octopuses are bad news for telepaths, and not just because I’m allergic to seafood. They’re crowded, like me. 

Before I turn into the room, I see my mom from her own eyes: wasted, blue veins, yellowish skin, a bed sore beneath my left thigh. The fan directly above me circulating air. I haven’t bathed and smell like it. Time has set in.

I smell like death.

I recoil, violently away. My mind, our mind, me. Her mind is there, me touching me, trying to hold on, saying, Why aren’t you open to me? I’m your mother. Privacy is for deadheads. No, don’t speak. Why do I have to ask? Why aren’t you open to me? What’s wrong? What’s wrong?

I open myself to her, a sea parting. I turn into her room, and see her, her seeing her, seeing me. Me seeing me.

It’s me dying. There’s no her, not her dying. How could another die?

There’s disengagement. My mother in bed isn’t responsive. She hasn’t been since my stroke. Her stroke. A mind is deep, withdrawn and scuttling on the bottom of a shivering sea, crying for me to see, to see and acknowledge her in her separateness. Not separate as bodies are separate. There aren’t thoughts for it. There’s me.

There’d been such expectation. I cannot speak, but we can speak, mind-to-mind. That should be enough. It should be.

But I am just me to me, crowded on every side. I’m not afraid for her, her dying. I’m afraid for me. Hiding would’ve been kinder.

What kind of son doesn’t believe his mom is someone else?

***

Bao

Before my first session with Joshua, I replace the Georgia O’Keefe prints of desert flowers on the wall behind my desk with people living life: a potluck in early autumn, an older couple embracing, a toddler elbows-deep in birthday cake. I want to get off on the right foot. Joshua’s prior therapist hadn’t worked out for him.

I offer my hand as Joshua comes in. He taps my mind with his mind, and waits for me to return the telepathic greeting. I shake my head.

“I thought we—err, you—were a telepath.” He says you like the word is a conspiracy he isn’t sure he can share. “There was a form at the desk.”

“I’m a weak telepath who was a much stronger telepath.” I can still sense strong emotion, the kind that’s normally plain. But it’s enough for the state. I’m on the Telepath Therapist Registry and have to get “consent for telepathy” forms signed by my patients before I can meet with them.

Joshua doesn’t pry. That’s good. Strong telepaths often become dependent upon their talent and never develop social intelligence. Most likely, he’s Type 2—his talent broke out in adulthood. Although it’s uncommon for Type 2’s to struggle with boxing, distinguishing mind from mind. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Joshua. I’m Dr. Luo, although feel free to call me Bao.” He shakes my hand. “Before we begin, I need you to promise me you won’t try to read my mind.” I think I can keep him out, but there shouldn’t be confrontation between us.

“But telepaths are open with us, with one another. Privacy is for deadheads, non-telepaths, I mean.”

“No, it’s not like that,” I say. “You could learn sensitive information about my other patients, and it’s important we trust each other, that we operate on a level playing field.”

Joshua frowns again. I think he expected to communicate mind to mind, that we could work his issues out purely in thought.

“I’m not sure I can do that,” he says.

Is he really so strong that his mind can just wander into mine? “Saddie, come here, girl.” My golden retriever pads over from her plush doggie bed and sits next to me. “If your thoughts wander, just focus on Saddie. She’d love for you to get to know her.”

“Alright, how do we begin?” Joshua asks as he holds his hand out for Saddie to sniff.

“I understand you’re a graduate student in Buddhist studies. The referral I have says that you TA’ed a course and gave all your students the same grade. Do you want to talk about that?” The referral also says that he only responds when addressed in the first person, but he’s past that.

“I was embarrassed, I guess.”

“Why embarrassed?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Joshua says. He’s frustrated enough for me to get a whiff. “Can we talk about something else?”

“Sure, what do you want to talk about?”

Frustration again. I gather he wants to be led more than I’ve been leading him. “Can we just start again,” he says.

“That’s fine. Next week. We don’t need to discuss everything at once.”

On his way out, he bends to pet Saddie on the neck, where she most likes to be pet. “I’m a good dog?”

***

Joshua

Bao offers me the gliding chair when I come in. Saddie perks up on her mat in the corner with the eucalyptus plant. “Come here, girl,” Bao says. I like dogs. My mom likes dogs too, which makes sense. But occasionally there are cat people. Occasionally, I’m a cat person too. 

“About grading my students,” I say. “You asked about that?” You is the hardest pronoun. It’s archaic, like thou, but everyone thinks it’s fine. “The thing is, we shouldn’t pretend, especially when it comes to morality. If a choice only impacts me, this-me, sure I can just go through the motions, but when I’m grading I’m supposed to be honest. I shouldn’t just make up distinctions I don’t believe in.”

“But don’t you think morality requires an understanding that there are other people?”

“Maybe, I just know it shouldn’t be based on lies.”

Bao says, “When I was a telepath—a stronger telepath—other minds were as plain as day to me, like colors in a rainbow. But telepaths don’t all see the mind the same way. Telepathy didn’t solve philosophy of mind, it just made it more of a social science, more based on interpretation and case studies than on neurology. So I think it’s fine to act from uncertainty, to act even supposing you’re wrong.”

“That just seems, disingenuous, I guess.”

“I can respect that. While we’re being genuine, I’d like to know your reason for coming to see me because I don’t think it has to do with your graduate student funding.”

I figure it’s time to trust Bao. He’s only me after all. “My mother is dying, and I went to go see her. But I knew that I was only afraid for myself. She knew, I mean. I knew that she knew. I—I mean she—was there so thin in that bed, like a bird, and I could only think about me dying.”

“So you want to see her again?”

“I should. I’m her son. But if I go, I’ll just disappoint her again.” 

“Your mother’s also a telepath?”

I nod. “She’s non-responsive in other ways, but she can still communicate.”

“Have you considered only opening a part of yourself? I think she would appreciate you trying, an honest effort goes a long way.”

“Not for my mom. She’s very principled, doesn’t appreciate half-measures. She was really vocal in the telepath civil rights movement. We didn’t have much of a relationship when I was young. She was busy, and I hadn’t broken out, and she wasn’t sure how to connect with a deadhead.”

“I see. Are you willing to tell me how much time the doctors have estimated she has?”

I shrug. “Months, maybe less.”

“Hmm, what animal minds have you read?”

This again. “My last therapist had me try crows, chimps, even dolphins. Each was different, but still just me, like backstage on National Geographic.”

“Have you read an octopus?” says Bao.

“No, octopuses are dangerous for telepaths, aren’t they?”

“Oh yes, an octopus is why I’m not the telepath I was. But I think it’s our best shot, if you’re willing to take the risk. Are you?”

“I guess,” I say. “Telepathy hasn’t done me much good.”

“Getting burnt out, like I did, isn’t common. I wouldn’t suggest this if it was, but I want you to think seriously about what not being a telepath would mean to you. If connecting with your mother is what’s important to you, not being a telepath could be a setback.”

“I don’t think I’m going to just outgrow how confused I am. There was so much frustration, disgust even, with me. I couldn’t even acknowledge her without getting tangled up in myself. I couldn’t move beyond the immediacy of my own death, if that makes sense. Is there another option, something that might work fast?”

I already know there isn’t.

“No,” says Bao. “Everything else will be a process.”

“What makes you think an octopus won’t be just like all the animals?”

“The otherness of an octopus’s mind isn’t something you can interpret away. You’re confronted by it.”

***

Bao

I call Samuel, a friend from my roaring twenties, when telepathic skill wasn’t a protected category in anti-discrimination law, and work for telepaths was often underground. Samuel owns an aquarium. Or rather a glass-concrete home he converted from an aquarium, his way of getting around laws against owning exotic pets. 

“How’re you, Mindfuck?” he says. I hate that name, but once upon a very high time, I picked it.

“Can I borrow Harriet?”

“Whatever for? I thought you were done with the Games.” He means Mind Games, high-stakes competitions where telepaths try to tease out what the other guy is up to.

“It’s for a patient.”

“Didn’t think shrinks did lobotomies.”

“You know it’s not like that.” Samuel had bet on me in the Games, on Mindfuck. I’d made him a lot of money, until the end when the target was an octopus. Its mosh pit mind was the last mind I read in detail, but it’s not like it fried my brain.

“Don’t think anyone knows the real downside. That’s why I keep Harriet around. Telepaths keep their distance.”

“Listen, he’s on a timeline, and there’s nothing else fast that hasn’t been tried.”

“Fine, although I need proof that your malpractice insurance will cover this if it goes sideways.”

“Thank you,” I say, relieved. I had no Plan B. Aquariums don’t keep octopuses anymore because of the danger. A surprising number of people have telepathic ability they aren’t even aware of and chalk it up to intuition.

***

Joshua

Bao said that I wouldn’t be able to keep the octopus out, that telepathy is like breathing for them. It’s how they organize themselves. 

He hadn’t been exaggerating. Never been good at keeping thoughts in one body. No resistance, no greeting. Privacy is for deadheads. Drowning. I’m drowning. I’m?

There isn’t glass between us. There isn’t water. I’m breathing water. I have two thousand fingers. How many brains? Each sucker moves separately. Like a finger.

Arms in my brains. My arms have brains? Our arms have flourishing brains. They’re changing color, for camouflage. And we’ve never liked crab so much, have we? But we thought we were allergic to seafood. Ha, I’m an octopus allergic to seafood.

That isn’t right. Reading is supposed to be all surfaces and reflections. That’s what made me continue in Buddhist studies in the first place. The raw perception that mind is not a substratum. There’s nothing of a soul, none that we’ve seen. It’s just momentary thoughts, arising and collapsing into nothingness. Memory isn’t a vault, even an empty vault. It’s just what’s being remembered.

Reaching out, pulling down. Embracing myself again, wanting to know more. Arm in arm in arm. There’s no surface tension, we’re deep, like angler fish deep. Deep memory, intentions, the wavering behind, all the roiling behind consciousness. We’re probing: A threat? Have crab? Fish? Help us escape?

The inner voice is not one voice. We know that now. I had selected one voice and superimposed it on others: I’m a self. We should be too. But telepathy is how we coordinate, arms and head and beak and mouth. We are a swarm, passing messages, whispering.

I am an I—this helped us along, helped us pretend. I am an I made all the fissures in self incongruous. Remembering lives that don’t quite square with us, reading them, contrasted with the persistent sense that I am a unity, an I. We could hypothesize an I that is you.

But the struggle is gone now. What is you to us? We are not alien. The otherness is already inside. These words are not just a mystery, gawked at from the outside. They’re madness driven upon us, like a screw. That madness holds us together, keeps us sane. We are Laeticia. We are Bao. We remember. We are everyone—all voices synchronized.

What is another to us?

What is our mother to us?

We wish to know the answer. Ignorance is threatening. Sharks and eels eat the ignorant. But I—that abstraction, that monolith, that tight unity we no longer have use for—does not want to give an answer. It calls itself Joshua. It wants to hide that part of itself. It is selfish, covetous.

But we are not shark. We are not eel. We believe this. There is no reason, just as there is no reason for our arms being us—but still we go about believing it. Once when we were young, a shark tore our arm off and swam far away. The arm was still us, for a while—and then it grew back—but the shark never was. This we believe.

We believe we are not Joshua.

She turns, swims away. Sprays ink in the water.

I am Joshua. Not Laeticia. Not Bao. I am not my mother. They’re away, far away, separate.

I recall that, in some Buddhist traditions—some Mahayana traditions with all the bhumi levels and bodhisattvas with swords, the kind that always seemed like sophistry to me—the idea is that ultimately there are no distinctions. Distinctions only arise in the mind, and ultimately, even the distinction between minds and not-mind is a convention. Even mind breaks down under analysis. Even analysis breaks down.

Someone who realizes this, truly realizes this and is enlightened, doesn’t just dissolve into the ether, they don’t shed their connections with other minds. They return to everyday life and adopt its conventions. They put on everyday experience, like a freshly laundered suit. Not because everyday experience is real and other experience is not. Because they feel overwhelming compassion to help others realize the truth they experienced. So to teach, they reassume the same conventions that everyone believes.

Strangely enough, I think that’s what the octopus does when it approaches a mind and disengages to go about other business. There’s no reason for me to be different from her any more than there’s reason for her arms to all be the same mind. Each has its own brain. Each has autonomy. But because of evolution or some knack, she just assumes these are her, others are not. She has no principled reason. It’s not the way of things. It’s her way.

I think it can be my way too.

***

Bao

Joshua and I convince his mother’s hospice that we need to check her out, even though she’s actively dying and non-responsive, at least to anyone that isn’t a telepath. It doesn’t help that the only van Joshua could rent on his grad student stipend is a real rust bucket.

They recommend against it, strenuously. But they don’t have any telepaths on staff, so eventually they just go along with the idea that Joshua knows what is best for his mother. Though he has to wave his power of attorney in front of their director of nursing before she backs off. She insists that none of her staff will drive the van, which is precisely the point. The point is for Joshua and his mother to be alone. Undisturbed. Just two people.

I drive the van. I’m very good at not disturbing telepaths, at keeping them out. Playing Mind Games as long as I had will do that to you. I drive out of town, to green space between soybean fields after the suburbs taper off. There must be wildlife about, deer and field mice and gophers and worms, but this is the best we can do. Joshua never suggests it is less than enough.

Joshua and his mother are two people together, saying goodbye, mind to mind as telepaths do.


© 2023 by Andrew Dibble

3189 words

Author’s Note: This story was inspired by my interest in the problem of other minds: How can we know minds other than our own exist? (Answers range from “We can’t” to “We can, and other minds can know our mind better than we do!”). The problem is especially interesting when considering minds of the radically other, like octopuses. The Buddhist studies angle came out of discussions I had with a professor in graduate school about whether certain Buddhist philosophies, like the Middle Way of Nagarjuna, are coherent or are meant to be.

Andy Dibble writes from Madison, Wisconsin, and works as a healthcare IT consultant. He has supported the electronic medical record of large healthcare systems in six countries. He holds a master’s of theological studies from Harvard Divinity School as well as degrees in computer science, philosophy, religious studies, and Asian studies. His fiction also appears in Writers of the FutureMysterion, Sci Phi Journal, and others. He is Articles Editor for Speculative North and edited Strange Religion: Speculative Fiction of Spirituality, Belief, & Practice. You can find him at andydibble.com.


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MUSIC VIDEO DRILLDOWN #2: Never Really Over by Katy Perry

written by David Steffen

This is the second in a new series that I’m very excited about wherein I examine a music video by a well-known artist as a short film, trying to identify the story arcs and the character motivations, and consider the larger implications of things that we get glimpses of in the story. 

This time I will be discussing the 2019 fantasy film Never Really Over by Katy Perry about extreme measures taken to recover from depression after a breakup.

The film begins as a woman (Katy Perry) approaches a well-maintained bus stop on a country road marked with a modified yin-yang symbol that incorporates (cartoon-style) hearts in it. The heart sigil is a recurring motif throughout the film, visible from almost the first frame. She presses the call button at the stop and we get our first hint of the supernatural as the button exudes more heart-shapes into the air and in the space of another breath a VW Bus van arrives with another of the modified heart yin-yang on it. The van itself, besides its instant arrival, is notable in that it seems to run completely silently and its exhaust seems to be comprised of stylized sparkles–presumably this van runs very cleanly.

The van and its passenger are welcomed into a gated compound by people in loose, brightly colored clothing into a beautiful, grassy, tree-lined property, which appears to be a retreat or a commune. Alone in her spacious quarters, our protagonist laments “losing my self control, you’re starting to trickle back in” as she remembers the man from which she had a traumatic breakup from two years ago still isn’t over him. She is here for that express purpose, to recover from this traumatic event, but in these early moments she appears to be held prisoner by her longing for what was, gazing at a sketch of their matching tattooed hands and at the words “LET IT GO” etched in glass by her window as the other residents of the commune practice Tai chi outside on the lawn. “Cross my heart” she promises to herself that she won’t “fall down the rabbit hole”.

Their tattoos are a central and vital image in the story. His tattoo is in the palm of his left hand, and has a half-heart with a jagged boundary with the word “MISS”, and hers is the other matching half of the heart on her right hand with the word “YOU”. This seems an odd choice to me for a couple in love, since the entire message “MISS YOU” is only readable when their hands are together and the heart is complete, and when they are apart the half-heart is apparent but the words inside don’t form a complete thought alone. Even when they were together in the throes of love and at the tattoo parlor getting inked, were they even in that moment anticipating their breakup that they choose such melancholy sentiments that constantly remind them of their longing for each other and even more so when they are together and have no reason for such longing? Is this a hint at why they end up breaking up, that they are more in love with the idea of being together than they are each actually in love with , so that even when they are together their longing is still unfulfilled?

Soon she escapes from the isolation of her room and finds some solace in the social activities. Some of them are what you might expect at such a retreat (such as tai chi and dancing) while others appear somewhat baffling apart from being heart-laden metaphors for romantic struggle, such as tug-of-war with a heart-shaped hoops on either end of a chain. She also tries facial acupuncture and cupping therapy (with heart-shaped cups, natch).

But the most speculative of the therapies is the heart grove. Those participating in the heart grove wear devices around their eyes that look like eyeglasses but which harvest their anguished tears. These tears are then used to water the heart-fruits which are not only shaped like stylized hearts but actually throb with a “lub-dub” rhythm like actual hearts (but otherwise resemble apples). The heart-fruits have battles tied to the branches around them so that the fruit grows inside the bottles.

The next section is two scenes interspersed at intervals, though the ordering of the two is not clear. One shows our protagonist at a solemn campfire gathering, where a liquor has been made from the heart-fruits. One might expect that each person would drink from the bottle that they have personally tended, but before drinking they pass the bottles around, perhaps at random. Perhaps the best medicine for heartbreak is empathy, and drinking this liquor allows them to feel what the one who tended that fruit feels. After drinking their backs arch and they look up to the sky in what appears to be a spiritual epiphany.

The other scene interspersed with that shows our protagonist and her fellow residents dancing in a grassy field. She, for the first time in the film, appears to be genuinely happy and the entire dance centers completely around her (at turns joyous and sometimes boisterously grim as the dancers seem to mime self-harm in the form of stabbing themselves in the abdomen). It is never explained why she seems to suddenly be the center of all of the attention after having been a member of the crowd for the rest of the film proceeding this, but this question too may be answered by the epilogue where she is exiting the retreat compound alone on foot. Presumably she is believed to have been cured of her mental malady by the treatments she has received therein, and the gathering in the grass is meant to celebrate this and give her a joyous sendoff. Whether she has decided she is cured on her own or through consensus of others or some kind of authority at the compound is unclear, the question of who has organized this place and keeps it running is entirely unanswered.

In that final scene as she is walking along the road, the sparkle van passes by headed into the compound. She turns to glance back at it and she sees a tattoo hand with a fractured half-heart and the word “MISS” inside it. Her cured state appears to have been illusory in the face of seeing her beloved again, because she rushes to follow the van as the scene ends. This, combined with the title Never Really Over seems to imply that she will never be free of her heartache, that relapse is at any moment only one decision away, which in some ways mirrors twelve-step program philosophy such as AA–alcoholics never stop being alcoholics, the best they can hope for is to be “recovering alcoholics” who know that they can never allow themselves to drink again.

But the message of the end is overturned once again when you consider the image of the hand. The man’s tattoo shown in her flashbacks at the beginning is on his left hand, while this tattoo is on his right. One might wonder if perhaps this was merely an error in the film, that they showed a mirror image of the hand by accident or convenience. But, no, even this theory does not prove out, because the word “MISS” is not reversed, but the heart fragment itself is reversed.

Given these details it seems unlikely to be a mistake by the filmmakers, but then what is the meaning of this. It seems to be unclear and left up to the interpretation of the viewer.

Is it possible that the man has a tattoo on BOTH hands? Did he always have the second tattoo, or did he add that tattoo after the breakup? Is the purpose of the second tattoo to fit with the first one, to form the phrase “MISS MISS” in a complete heart? Has he since had a relationship with someone else whom he the “___ MISS” tattoo forms a complete thought? What thought would that be? “YOU MISS” perhaps? Or was this tattoo simply meant as a commentary on the meaningless of love and its sentiments in general, or an attempt to since his transporation into the commune suggests that’s not the case?

Or, is it possible that this isn’t him? Maybe there is some kind of social movement of the time that involves tattooing non-sequitor words-in-hearts on one’s hands? Or perhaps someone who knows about their relationship is sending in someone to trick her–but to what end? To lure her back into the commune and keep her there? To test her resolve and prove that she is not cured? I am curious what others think about the meaning of this because I am honestly not sure!

(Next up in the Music Video Drilldown series will be Bad Blood by Taylor Swift)

DP FICTION #43A: “Glass in Frozen Time” by M.K. Hutchins

I freeze time. The frothing soap suds in the sink become glaciers. Dust motes hang in the air like stars. And I move.

I catch Sadie’s plate of mac n’ cheese before it splatters to the floor. While I’m there, I wipe down the table, fix Sadie’s pigtails, then — what the heck — I run downstairs and start a load of laundry.

Then I’m at the kitchen sink, water streaming, motes spinning, and Sadie’s three-year-old voice bubbling merrily on. “— I so happy to go to my Nana’s house!”

“Me too, sweet pea.”

She tells me about her grand plans for the day, including raiding the freezer for cookies. In the middle of it, a wild gesture knocks her juice cup. I freeze time and catch that, too, before any damage is done.

A warm thrill spreads over me as I finish the dishes. Tiny catastrophes make other parents late, but not me. We’ll arrive on time and spotless.

At least in my own home, I can control all the variables.

***

Eli comes home late. I can stop time, but I can’t stop his limp. My throat tightens, just hearing the uneven thud-thump of his real and his prosthetic foot. How can he be safe in the field now? He can still turn invisible, but he’s not exactly stealthy anymore.

Eli doesn’t glare at me. He folds me against his chest and kisses my cheek. Like always. “Did Sadie have a good time at your mom’s?”

“Of course.”

Eli glances around the house. My immaculate house. I alphabetized the spice rack today and organized the picture books by word count, starting with Moo, Baa, La La La! and ending with The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.

But a frown creases Eli’s face. “I don’t think this is what the League had in mind when they gave you vacation time.”

“Mandatory leave time,” I correct, my breath twisting in my chest like an over-tightened screw. “Don’t lecture me again, Eli. I’m just…I’m just a little perfectionist. That’s all.”

Eli holds my gaze and speaks in his calm, rational voice — the one I’m used to hearing during mission planning meetings, not at home. “That isn’t all and it’s not a little. It’s not good for you or Sadie.”

Now he wants to bring our daughter into this? “Sadie’s safe. Of course that’s good for her.”

I slow time to watch his reaction: a tiny shift of his head, the tightening of the corners of his mouth. He disagrees, and he’s not ready to drop this yet. I wish he would. I let time flow.

“She’ll never learn to be careful or clean up after herself if you’re always making things perfect,” he says. “You can’t actually control everything.”

“I know.” But I can control my home. I have to be able to control something.

Eli lays a hand on my shoulder. “That card’s still on your nightstand, Allison.”

The card our League general gave me right before he kicked me out on mandatory leave. My throat constricts. “I don’t need it.”

“You ought to call,” Eli persists. “Go in.”

Eli should be the one having a hard time adjusting, not me. “You know,” I try to joke with him, “most people would be thrilled to have a spouse who never nags them to do the dishes. I can’t believe you’re complaining about a clean house.”

Eli doesn’t laugh. He holds me closer and strokes my hair.

***

I set down my water glass and get back to scrubbing the window track with a Q-tip. Soon, it will be as shiny as League Headquarters. No dead flies. No spots of grime.

“Thirsty,” Sadie declares, hopping down from the table and her crayons. Her feet patter across our spotless tile floor.

“Water, milk, or juice?” I ask, still bent over the window. It’s almost finished. Almost perfect.

The tinkle of broken glass and a sharp little “Ow!” cut through my ears and stab down at my heart.

Reflexively, I freeze time. I turn. My water glass is nothing but shards now between Sadie’s feet. A drop of scarlet blood wells up on her heel.

I am too late.

I freeze, too. My lungs refuse to work. Air becomes concrete in my lungs. My stomach tightens and tightens into a black hole. My tongue is a boulder, clogging my throat.

This isn’t a mission. There are no villains here. I should be able to control it.

But I can’t even hold onto time. It slips away. The glass skitters across the floor, Sadie turns her head, the motes spin.

But I am still frozen as panic crushes my throat.

Sadie turns her foot to look at the small gash. “Mommy!” she wails.

I can’t answer.

“Mommy!” she demands.

I couldn’t stop her from getting hurt.

Sadie plants two fists on her hips. “Mommy! You pick me up now!”

A thread of breath cracks through my throat, into my lungs. I can’t think straight, but I can obey her simple order. I pick up my child.

“To the sink!”

I step carefully around the glass.

“Wash it, Mommy.”

I wash.

“Now dry.”

I dry.

“Band-aid!”

I set her on the counter and pull the first-aid kit down from the cupboard. Sadie holds still while I smooth the bandage over the tiny, angry wound.

“Kiss it better.”

I give her a tiny kiss. She smells like soap and cotton.

Sadie pats my cheek, smiling. “Mommy, you are silly. Nana knows how to do all that without being tolded.”

“Tolded?”

“Yup. And she has kitty band-aids.” Sadie glances at the floor. “Do you need help cleaning up your messes? Nana helps me.”

“You make messes at Nana’s?”

She giggles. “When you go on your last mission with Daddy, I open all the paints! I paint me, I paint the walls, I paint the carpet!”

My mother didn’t tell me that. Maybe she knew I had other things to worry about, after that mission.

I grab a broom. I sweep up the mess. I make cookies with Sadie and then build towers of blocks for her to crash. I ignore the window track. As soon as I get her nestled down for quiet time with a few books, I pick up the card on my nightstand.

Emily Perez, LPC. The League’s recommended counselor for traumatic stress. My throat squeezes tight, but I imagine Sadie’s voice giving me instructions.

Pick up your phone.

Dial the number.

Wait.

Say hello.


© 2018 by M.K. Hutchins

 

Author’s Note: As a mom and as someone who daydreams about magic and super powers, this story came easily.

 

M.K. Hutchins regularly draws on her background in archaeology when writing fiction. Her YA fantasy novel Drift was both a Junior Library Guild Selection and a VOYA Top Shelf Honoree. Her short fiction appears in Podcastle, Strange Horizons, IGMS, and elsewhereA long-time Idahoan, she now lives in Utah with her husband and four children. Find her at www.mkhutchins.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 


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