Seeing is Believing
Most people are blind to life’s distractions. Normal people can move smoothly from one task to the next, allotting each one exactly the attention it needs. They don’t see how dirty the cabinets are or how tall the pile of mail has gotten. They can create a meal plan, make a shopping list, and then promptly start cooking at five every day, totally circumventing a Hunger Meltdown.
Wendolyn didn’t have that.
Wendolyn told herself, “it isn’t so hard to wash one load of laundry before bed, just one.“
Invariably, she had to wear dirty underwear at least once before she managed to focus enough to sort Mount Laundry into Molehills of Laundry. Then they became Clean Molehills, piled higher and higher into baskets until getting dressed required a careful expedition with climbing equipment.
Like their feral cousins, dust bunnies had a tendency to breed and overrun you if you gave them a moment’s peace. I just have to stop, get the broom, and sweep them up, Wendolyn reminded herself. She pretended she was a witch, cackling as she rode the broom back to the cupboard beside the garbage can.
From there, the Leaning Tower of Dishes generally caught her attention. Either she would think, “there are three more dishes until it becomes the Pile of DishShards,” or “I have to wash a few dishesnow.” Emptying the rack of clean, dry dishes beside the sink and filling it up again was just enough to stave off catastrophe.
Wendolyn’s inner voice was usually optimistic: “It’s just a few pieces of mail to sort, then you can eat dinner at the table.” Or, “if you just make space on the bookshelf, you can use the couch to siton.” Wendolyn could see the problems. She never seemed able to finish a task. Sometimes, she couldn’t even decide where to begin. So she did it all at once, interrupting each solution when she saw a new problem. Around and around she went, putting out each little fire before it caught, coiling the spring in her chest tighter and tighter.
Nothing she did, no matter how committed she was, no matter how firm or how kind her inner voice was, seemed able to keep her home orderly enough for her to rest. Wendolyn stole a nap wherever she could, invested in excellent under-eye concealer, and routinely read on the sheepskin rug while she wolfed down another microwave meal.
One night, her inner voice said, “it would be so easy to sleep righthere.”
Wendolyn didn’t want to wake up with burrito sauce in her hair. It was a real low point when that happened. I just have to put my dishes in the sink, she thought, and then lay back down and enjoy the giant pillow that I love because it is soft flannel, and pull up my grandmother’s wool blanket, and sleep right there, with my book.
It was only eight, but her body felt so heavy.
“I’ve been so good. I was on time to work every day this week, with no stains on any of my T-shirts. I wore clean socks every day. I deserve to rest.“
She didn’t have the strength to argue with herself. Maybe other people—normal people—wouldn’t be proud of that. It wasn’t an achievement for them. The effort felt colossal to Wendolyn. She felt hollow. Her hands and feet grew cold as her body prepared to turn off. Her voice echoed in her own head like it was in an endless cavern.
Rest, rest, rest.
Wendolyn gave in.
It was the best sleep she had managed in years.
Wendolyn woke before her alarm rang. She couldn’t find her phone or tell what time it was. Light in a shade of electric red that she rarely rose early enough to enjoy streamed through the window. All the aches of getting old and doing crazy things like sleeping on the floor with your book were gone. She had relaxed, really relaxed.
When she raised her eyes to the bathroom mirror, Wendolyn froze.
She didn’t look awake or refreshed at all. She dragged herself forward with arms out like a zombie.
Wendolyn poked her cheek. In the mirror, her head lolled to the other side.
She tried washing her face. The warm water was the perfect temperature on the first try. The soap smelled sweet, like coconuts. It left her skin dewy and refreshed. Mirror Wendolyn licked her lips and yawned but slept on.
It’s just sleepy eye goo. I’ll put some eyedrops in to wash them out.
Mirror Wendolyn rubbed at her eyes and rolled over, out of the frame.
Wendolyn’s chest tightened. She didn’t know why.
It feels so good to rest, she reassured herself. It’s the easiest thing in the world.
She could get dressed, eat a real breakfast, and still make it to work early. Maybe she could get through the inventory she had wanted to finish two weeks ago. Finally, she would be able to talk about books with customers.
What day was it? Tuesday?
Wendolyn got on her hands and knees to search the living room for her phone. It wasn’t in the cushions of a comfortable-looking forest green wingback chair. Her couch was—
—but I’ve never owned a couch, she thought. I’ve always owned this chair, just like my grandmother’s wingback, only clean and new and velvet.
Wendolyn’s hand went slack in the space between the cushion and the arm. She loved green, and she loved wingback chairs.
Yes, I’ve always loved this chair, she told herself.
Wendolyn caught a glimpse of herself in the front hall tree. She rolled onto her other side, muttered wordlessly, and nestled deeper into the crook of her own arm.
How strange. But I really am hungry. I should eat. Everything is better with a full stomach.
Wendolyn made coffee and two eggs, scrambled, with cheese on a toasted bagel. She hesitated over the sink. Her forehead creased, and her mouth turned down. It was empty.
Had she even dried all the dishes last night and put them away? When had she done that?
It will be so easy to keep the sink clean now, she thought. So easy to wash my dishes and dry them and put them away, nice and neat, right where they belong.
The dishes were arrayed in tidy ranks in the cupboards. Wendolyn dried her plate and mug and set them into the empty slots. She washed the pan, spatula, and fork but left them in the drainboard to dry. Even though oh, but it would be so easy now to keep the kitchen really spotless popped into her head, followed by I can relax when everything is neat.
After she rinsed away the suds, Mirror Wendolyn sagged in the stainless steel basin of the sink.
The key to recognizing a dream was to really see the small details and not let her brain filter out any of the edges.
She would be sure she was in her childhood bedroom, only the hallway outside was too long or the trees outside were tropical instead of deciduous. She would be having lunch with her best friend, only she had never met the person sitting across from her. The railroad tracks by her old school were on the wrong side, and a cow with wheels was rolling up and down them.
Little things like that.
Wendolyn counted the steps up to her room. Ten, just right.
Yes, ten, ten exactly, that’s how many there have always been.
Wendolyn’s chest constricted. She was certain that she hadn’t had stairs in her house yesterday. Wendolyn considered what to do, in the middle of the landing staring fixedly out into her backyard. She counted the whitewashed fence posts and tried to stop shaking.
She hadn’t lived in a house yesterday. Except she had a strong feeling that she had lived in this house since she was a little girl, in the same room, even though her room had been a ghastly shade of pink that she had always hated, with a door on the other side from where it was now.
Something skipped. The world flickered in front of her eyes. And then, her room was as it always has been. Just not pink.
My room was never pink; it has always been this lovely blue that reminds me of the sea.
It was a lovely blue. If Wendolyn closed her eyes, she could almost hear the susurrus of the waves. She had bought the paint, but she couldn’t remember the feel of the roller, taping up paper over the baseboards, or the new car smell of drying paint, or the way the water from the roller spattered the sink like watercolors from kindergarten.
“Oh, but we did do all that,” Wendolyn thought.
And suddenly, she could hear the rip of tape and the crackle of paper. The smell of the paint overwhelmed her, as though she had only just done it yesterday. There were even flecks of paint on her hands, which was odd since her room had always been blue.
Wendolyn took deep, steady breaths as she crossed to her walk-in closet. It smelled of the special soap she used to wash her grandmother’s silk scarves in the sink. Her breath hitched when she saw all the lovely racks of blouses, and blazers, and skirts, and trousers. Beautiful, beautiful things, all in neat rows. In the top drawer of her mahogany wardrobe were cohorts of real silk stockings, the kind with the seam. The pair she chose sighed as she unfurled it.
Wendolyn almost gave up right there. She didn’t let her mind linger on the fact that she had never owned a girdle or garters in her life. She wished she had her phone to look up how to wear one.
I do it right every morning, she thought to herself.
Even though it took her three tries to force the little rubber head of the clasp through the metal hole and her seams were not straight, she didn’t contradict herself. She tried not to think. She would feel better when she got to work. The silk slip whispered around her thighs, and the matching blouse floated on her shoulders. The wool skirt wasn’t even scratchy.
Wendolyn used the mirror to line the sweater clasps up at the collar.
When she pinched her thumb, the world briefly went dark, like someone had flicked a switch.
Then Wendolyn was frozen in front of the wardrobe, her hands at her neck. Mirror Wendolyn exhaled a long sigh of annoyance. Wendolyn couldn’t hear her mirror self, but she recognized the look on her own face.
The second her hand touched the front door, her thoughts surged up.
They don’t really need me. Especially if it is Tuesday. My clothes are really too nice for work. But I like wearing them. Except the heels, no one likes heels.
Wendolyn glanced down. A pair of low-heeled camel oxfords that she did not own nestled between her sandals and her boots in the tray beside the door.
I don’t have to put on shoes. I can enjoy my books right here. I don’t have to go anywhere at all today. It would be so easy to sit and relax for the whole day, now that the house is so neat.
She let her hand fall. If she could find her phone, she would call in sick to work.
Oh, they don’t care about that, she thought.
Wendolyn sank into the new wingback chair that she had always owned and really looked at her living room. All her books were neatly organized by their genre and author according to the Dewey decimal system. They were all books that she definitely owned. She could summon up the used bookstore or library sale or package where she had adopted each one. The little tags with the catalog number were in her handwriting. The sky was just the perfect shade of blue, like a robin’s egg.
No, it was orange. She had been awake for an hour at least and had no idea what time it was, but it shouldn’t still be orange.
“I’m awake though,” she said out loud.
A thought in her own voice but that she did not think snapped, Yes, perfectly awake.
Wendolyn’s hands were shaking so hard she almost couldn’t pick up a book. It took her more than one try to open it. She moved her eyes over the page. She wasn’t really reading the words. She was trying to think without being interrupted.
In the antique cheval mirror, a strand of drool spooled down to connect her face to the page. When she slid her hand down to turn the page, it slipped over the edge just so. A stinging red ribbon opened across her thumb.
The world melted away for a blink.
Then it rose right back up.
A chill raced up Wendolyn’s spine, and all her hackles stood to attention.
Wendolyn slid her eyes carefully down to her feet without turning her head.
The floor was not there.
Her neck and shoulders held her rigidly in place. She slid her eyes toward the kitchen, then the foyer, then up to the ceiling. A dizzyingly infinite void hovered at the edge of her vision in all directions, just where she would have to turn her head to see clearly.
Wendolyn sat very still. She made her lips turn upward and part. Her expression could probably be mistaken for a smile. Mirror Wendolyn opened her mouth to the heavens, like a hungry baby bird.
Wendolyn ground her teeth as rage boiled up in her chest, dissolving the fear.
The edges of the world blurred.
When it returned, Wendolyn realized she had clasped her hands so tightly that her nails bit into her palms. She could feel the ridges and sharp edges where she picked at the cuticles. Wendolyn was certain that if she looked, they would be pristinely smooth and polished.
What was that? the Voice asked.
With her own voice! Inside her own head!
It only took a moment for Wendolyn to decide what to try next. She was so startled by the firm sense of purpose that she dropped the book. It hit her foot, and in the searing moment of pain the void welled up.
Wendolyn fixed her mind firmly on puppies, kittens, rainbows, butterflies, flowers, hearts, unicorns, balloons–anything. If it rhymed, better. Rhyming tended to interfere with her ability to think of anything else until she had completed the couplet.
The Voice purred wordlessly.
“I think I would like a nice cup of tea,” she said.
Yes, the Voice cooed, tea. I like tea. It makes me feel nice and cozy. A book is perfect when I have tea. I can snuggle up under the warm blanket with my book and my tea.
Suddenly, a white blanket was draped over the back of the comically enormous chair. It felt soft and wispy like a cloud.
Wendolyn filled a pot and turned on the stove. She watched the roiling water burst and slosh in the pot. She couldn’t quite keep her mind focused on brown paper packages tied up with string or warm woolen mittens.
Now, I shouldn’t be too hasty, the Voice pleaded.
The Voice no longer sounded like her at all. It sounded like water dripping in vast underground caverns. It sounded like shadows slithering beneath your bed as you tried to peek.
“I will count to ten,” she said out loud.
At three, the Voice said, Don’t you like it here?
At five, We have all our things.
At nine, I didn’t say we, I said I. Icould be so happy here.
Wendolyn smiled coldly and said, “Ten.”
Before she could plunge her arm into the water, there was a screech like glass breaking, like a startled dinosaur, like an angry cat.
All at once, Wendolyn could see her apartment. It wasn’t bright, but it was clean. Mostly. No one could call it tidy. Her books were stacked haphazardly by the order in which she had already or wanted to eventually read them. There was even a small pile directly on the cushion of her worn but cozy couch. The kitchen sink smelled, but she had remembered to take out the trash, and all the dishes were clean in the rack.
Wendolyn let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding when her phone alarm labeled “NO REALLY GET UP” lit up the screen and made the little box dance.
“I don’t suggest you try that again,” she said. “Or I’ll use the pins in my sewing box under my fingernails.”
There was a strong sense of slinking and sulking and scuttling.
Wendolyn made breakfast again. This time, real breakfast that was actually there. She would be late, her phone told her, but only by about ten minutes. She would be wearing yesterday’s jeans and T-shirt, but they were clean.
Wendolyn left the pan on the stove. She decided to walk and be fifteen minutes late. The edges of the world remained complete in the corner of her eyes. Mirror Wendolyn smiled back at her from the windows of each car she passed.
Most people are blind to life’s distractions. Normal people can move smoothly from one task to the next, allotting each one exactly the attention it needs. They don’t see how dirty the cabinets are or how tall the pile of mail has gotten. They can create a meal plan, make a shopping list, and then promptly start cooking at five every day, totally circumventing a Hunger Meltdown.
Wendolyn didn’t have that.
Wendolyn told herself, “it isn’t so hard to wash one load of laundry before bed, just one.“
Invariably, she had to wear dirty underwear at least once before she managed to focus enough to sort Mount Laundry into Molehills of Laundry. Then they became Clean Molehills, piled higher and higher into baskets until getting dressed required a careful expedition with climbing equipment.
Like their feral cousins, dust bunnies had a tendency to breed and overrun you if you gave them a moment’s peace. I just have to stop, get the broom, and sweep them up, Wendolyn reminded herself. She pretended she was a witch, cackling as she rode the broom back to the cupboard beside the garbage can.
From there, the Leaning Tower of Dishes generally caught her attention. Either she would think, “there are three more dishes until it becomes the Pile of Dish Shards,” or “I have to wash a few dishes now.” Emptying the rack of clean, dry dishes beside the sink and filling it up again was just enough to stave off catastrophe.
Wendolyn’s inner voice was usually optimistic: “It’s just a few pieces of mail to sort, then you can eat dinner at the table.” Or, “if you just make space on the bookshelf, you can use the couch to sit on.” Wendolyn could see the problems. She never seemed able to finish a task. Sometimes, she couldn’t even decide where to begin. So she did it all at once, interrupting each solution when she saw a new problem. Around and around she went, putting out each little fire before it caught, coiling the spring in her chest tighter and tighter.
Nothing she did, no matter how committed she was, no matter how firm or how kind her inner voice was, seemed able to keep her home orderly enough for her to rest. Wendolyn stole a nap wherever she could, invested in excellent under-eye concealer, and routinely read on the sheepskin rug while she wolfed down another microwave meal.
One night, her inner voice said, “it would be so easy to sleep right here.”
Wendolyn didn’t want to wake up with burrito sauce in her hair. It was a real low point when that happened. I just have to put my dishes in the sink, she thought, and then lay back down and enjoy the giant pillow that I love because it is soft flannel, and pull up my grandmother’s wool blanket, and sleep right there, with my book.
It was only eight, but her body felt so heavy.
“I’ve been so good. I was on time to work every day this week, with no stains on any of my T-shirts. I wore clean socks every day. I deserve to rest.“
She didn’t have the strength to argue with herself. Maybe other people—normal people—wouldn’t be proud of that. It wasn’t an achievement for them. The effort felt colossal to Wendolyn. She felt hollow. Her hands and feet grew cold as her body prepared to turn off. Her voice echoed in her own head like it was in an endless cavern.
Rest, rest, rest.
Wendolyn gave in.
It was the best sleep she had managed in years.
Wendolyn woke before her alarm rang. She couldn’t find her phone or tell what time it was. Light in a shade of electric red that she rarely rose early enough to enjoy streamed through the window. All the aches of getting old and doing crazy things like sleeping on the floor with your book were gone. She had relaxed, really relaxed.
When she raised her eyes to the bathroom mirror, Wendolyn froze.
She didn’t look awake or refreshed at all. She dragged herself forward with arms out like a zombie.
Wendolyn poked her cheek. In the mirror, her head lolled to the other side.
She tried washing her face. The warm water was the perfect temperature on the first try. The soap smelled sweet, like coconuts. It left her skin dewy and refreshed. Mirror Wendolyn licked her lips and yawned but slept on.
It’s just sleepy eye goo. I’ll put some eyedrops in to wash them out.
Mirror Wendolyn rubbed at her eyes and rolled over, out of the frame.
Wendolyn’s chest tightened. She didn’t know why.
It feels so good to rest,she reassured herself. It’s the easiest thing in the world.
She could get dressed, eat a real breakfast, and still make it to work early. Maybe she could get through the inventory she had wanted to finish two weeks ago. Finally, she would be able to talk about books with customers.
What day was it? Tuesday?
Wendolyn got on her hands and knees to search the living room for her phone. It wasn’t in the cushions of a comfortable-looking forest green wingback chair. Her couch was—
—but I’ve never owned a couch, she thought. I’ve always owned this chair, just like my grandmother’s wingback, only clean and new and velvet.
Wendolyn’s hand went slack in the space between the cushion and the arm. She loved green, and she loved wingback chairs.
Yes, I’ve always loved this chair, she told herself.
Wendolyn caught a glimpse of herself in the front hall tree. She rolled onto her other side, muttered wordlessly, and nestled deeper into the crook of her own arm.
How strange. But I really am hungry. I should eat. Everything is better with a full stomach.
Wendolyn made coffee and two eggs, scrambled, with cheese on a toasted bagel. She hesitated over the sink. Her forehead creased, and her mouth turned down. It was empty.
Had she even dried all the dishes last night and put them away? When had she done that?
It will be so easy to keep the sink clean now, she thought. So easy to wash my dishes and dry them and put them away, nice and neat, right where they belong.
The dishes were arrayed in tidy ranks in the cupboards. Wendolyn dried her plate and mug and set them into the empty slots. She washed the pan, spatula, and fork but left them in the drainboard to dry. Even though oh, but it would be so easy now to keep the kitchen really spotless popped into her head, followed by I can relax when everything is neat.
After she rinsed away the suds, Mirror Wendolyn sagged in the stainless steel basin of the sink.
The key to recognizing a dream was to really seethe small details and not let her brain filter out any of the edges.
She would be sure she was in her childhood bedroom, only the hallway outside was too long or the trees outside were tropical instead of deciduous. She would be having lunch with her best friend, only she had never met the person sitting across from her. The railroad tracks by her old school were on the wrong side, and a cow with wheels was rolling up and down them.
Little things like that.
Wendolyn counted the steps up to her room. Ten, just right.
Yes, ten, ten exactly, that’s how many there have always been.
Wendolyn’s chest constricted. She was certain that she hadn’t had stairs in her house yesterday. Wendolyn considered what to do, in the middle of the landing staring fixedly out into her backyard. She counted the whitewashed fence posts and tried to stop shaking.
She hadn’t lived in a house yesterday. Except she had a strong feeling that she had lived in this house since she was a little girl, in the same room, even though her room had been a ghastly shade of pink that she had always hated, with a door on the other side from where it was now.
Something skipped. The world flickered in front of her eyes. And then, her room was as it always has been. Just not pink.
My room was never pink; it has always been this lovely blue that reminds me of the sea.
It wasa lovely blue. If Wendolyn closed her eyes, she could almost hear the susurrus of the waves. She had bought the paint, but she couldn’t remember the feel of the roller, taping up paper over the baseboards, or the new car smell of drying paint, or the way the water from the roller spattered the sink like watercolors from kindergarten.
“Oh, but we did do all that,” Wendolyn thought.
And suddenly, she could hear the rip of tape and the crackle of paper. The smell of the paint overwhelmed her, as though she had only just done it yesterday. There were even flecks of paint on her hands, which was odd since her room had always been blue.
Wendolyn took deep, steady breaths as she crossed to her walk-in closet. It smelled of the special soap she used to wash her grandmother’s silk scarves in the sink. Her breath hitched when she saw all the lovely racks of blouses, and blazers, and skirts, and trousers. Beautiful, beautiful things, all in neat rows. In the top drawer of her mahogany wardrobe were cohorts of real silk stockings, the kind with the seam. The pair she chose sighed as she unfurled it.
Wendolyn almost gave up right there. She didn’t let her mind linger on the fact that she had never owned a girdle or garters in her life. She wished she had her phone to look up how to wear one.
I do it right every morning, she thought to herself.
Even though it took her three tries to force the little rubber head of the clasp through the metal hole and her seams were not straight, she didn’t contradict herself. She tried not to think. She would feel better when she got to work. The silk slip whispered around her thighs, and the matching blouse floated on her shoulders. The wool skirt wasn’t even scratchy.
Wendolyn used the mirror to line the sweater clasps up at the collar.
When she pinched her thumb, the world briefly went dark, like someone had flicked a switch.
Then Wendolyn was frozen in front of the wardrobe, her hands at her neck. Mirror Wendolyn exhaled a long sigh of annoyance. Wendolyn couldn’t hearher mirror self, but she recognized the look on her own face.
The second her hand touched the front door, her thoughts surged up.
They don’t really need me. Especially if it is Tuesday. My clothes are really too nice for work. But I like wearing them. Except the heels, no one likes heels.
Wendolyn glanced down. A pair of low-heeled camel oxfords that she did not own nestled between her sandals and her boots in the tray beside the door.
I don’t have to put on shoes. I can enjoy my books right here. I don’t have to go anywhere at all today. It would be so easy to sit and relax for the whole day, now that the house is so neat.
She let her hand fall. If she could find her phone, she would call in sick to work.
Oh, they don’t care about that, she thought.
Wendolyn sank into the new wingback chair that she had always owned and really looked at her living room. All her books were neatly organized by their genre and author according to the Dewey decimal system. They were all books that she definitely owned. She could summon up the used bookstore or library sale or package where she had adopted each one. The little tags with the catalog number were in her handwriting. The sky was just the perfect shade of blue, like a robin’s egg.
No, it was orange. She had been awake for an hour at least and had no idea what time it was, but it shouldn’t still be orange.
“I’m awake though,” she said out loud.
A thought in her own voice but that she did not think snapped, Yes, perfectly awake.
Wendolyn’s hands were shaking so hard she almost couldn’t pick up a book. It took her more than one try to open it. She moved her eyes over the page. She wasn’t really reading the words. She was trying to think without being interrupted.
In the antique cheval mirror, a strand of drool spooled down to connect her face to the page. When she slid her hand down to turn the page, it slipped over the edge just so. A stinging red ribbon opened across her thumb.
The world melted away for a blink.
Then it rose right back up.
A chill raced up Wendolyn’s spine, and all her hackles stood to attention.
Wendolyn slid her eyes carefully down to her feet without turning her head.
The floor was not there.
Her neck and shoulders held her rigidly in place. She slid her eyes toward the kitchen, then the foyer, then up to the ceiling. A dizzyingly infinite void hovered at the edge of her vision in all directions, just where she would have to turn her head to see clearly.
Wendolyn sat very still. She made her lips turn upward and part. Her expression could probably be mistaken for a smile. Mirror Wendolyn opened her mouth to the heavens, like a hungry baby bird.
Wendolyn ground her teeth as rage boiled up in her chest, dissolving the fear.
The edges of the world blurred.
When it returned, Wendolyn realized she had clasped her hands so tightly that her nails bit into her palms. She could feel the ridges and sharp edges where she picked at the cuticles. Wendolyn was certain that if she looked, they would be pristinely smooth and polished.
What was that? the Voice asked.
With her own voice! Inside her own head!
It only took a moment for Wendolyn to decide what to try next. She was so startled by the firm sense of purpose that she dropped the book. It hit her foot, and in the searing moment of pain the void welled up.
Wendolyn fixed her mind firmly on puppies, kittens, rainbows, butterflies, flowers, hearts, unicorns, balloons–anything. If it rhymed, better. Rhyming tended to interfere with her ability to think of anything else until she had completed the couplet.
The Voice purred wordlessly.
“I think I would like a nice cup of tea,” she said.
Yes,the Voice cooed, tea. I like tea. It makes me feel nice and cozy. A book is perfect when I have tea. I can snuggle up under the warm blanket with my book and my tea.
Suddenly, a white blanket was draped over the back of the comically enormous chair. It felt soft and wispy like a cloud.
Wendolyn filled a pot and turned on the stove. She watched the roiling water burst and slosh in the pot. She couldn’t quite keep her mind focused on brown paper packages tied up with string or warm woolen mittens.
Now, I shouldn’t be too hasty, the Voice pleaded.
The Voice no longer sounded like her at all. It sounded like water dripping in vast underground caverns. It sounded like shadows slithering beneath your bed as you tried to peek.
“I will count to ten,” she said out loud.
At three, the Voice said, Don’t you like it here?
At five, We have all our things.
At nine, I didn’t say we, I said I. I could be so happy here.
Wendolyn smiled coldly and said, “Ten.”
Before she could plunge her arm into the water, there was a screech like glass breaking, like a startled dinosaur, like an angry cat.
All at once, Wendolyn could see her apartment. It wasn’t bright, but it was clean. Mostly. No one could call it tidy. Her books were stacked haphazardly by the order in which she had already or wanted to eventually read them. There was even a small pile directly on the cushion of her worn but cozy couch. The kitchen sink smelled, but she had remembered to take out the trash, and all the dishes were clean in the rack.
Wendolyn let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding when her phone alarm labeled “NO REALLY GET UP” lit up the screen and made the little box dance.
“I don’t suggest you try that again,” she said. “Or I’ll use the pins in my sewing box under my fingernails.”
There was a strong sense of slinking and sulking and scuttling.
Wendolyn made breakfast again. This time, real breakfast that was actually there. She would be late, her phone told her, but only by about ten minutes. She would be wearing yesterday’s jeans and T-shirt, but they were clean.
Wendolyn left the pan on the stove. She decided to walk and be fifteen minutes late. The edges of the world remained complete in the corner of her eyes. Mirror Wendolyn smiled back at her from the windows of each car she passed.
About the Author
Elizabeth Nalepa (Liz) is a recovering academic with too many hobbies and too many cats. Born in Youngstown, Ohio, she still lives there with her husband, writing primarily fantasy and horror. She serves as a beta reader and occasional editor for Macabre Magazine. Follow her work at elizabethnalepa.com and life updates at elizabethnalepa.substack.com.