The footsteps get closer.
This is the moment when my brain will short-circuit. That’s the third stage of being Unstuck. No one really knows why it happens. The prevailing theory is your mind finds itself in a quantum state, and can’t handle the load. Others think you witness the moment of your death. I don’t give a shit about the why of it. I just know the result doesn’t look pleasant: a glassy-eyed coma that’ll last as long as my body holds out.
The pressure increases. More blood. Maybe I’ll bleed to death first. Small victories.
In a moment I’ll be gone. Probably reality too. The timestream is broken and I’m the only one who can fix it but instead I’m dying on the floor. Sorry, universe.
I slip again, memories rattling around my brain like rocks in a tin can. Sitting in my bed, the smell of garlic and chili paste frying in the kitchen, wafting upstairs, turning something over in my hands that I can’t quite make out.
Except now I know what it is.
I feel it, the displacement of air, the gravity of another person, standing there, watching me writhe on this dumb blue carpet. Nothing I can do now. It’s over. But I’m not going to die on my hands and knees.
It’s time to face myself. Is there anything worse?
Because that’s the third stage. I know it now. Your timeline crosses on itself. You see yourself, and it’s not that your brain can’t handle the mental load. It’s that you can’t handle seeing yourself as you are.
And what’s worse than admitting who I am and what I’ve done? I’ve watched four men ready and willing to light a match that’ll burn down reality, because they can’t see how their own sphere of influence extends beyond themselves.
But am I really that different? I tore down the world around me because I thought doing that might cushion the sharp edges, but all I did was create more shrapnel.
With the last of my strength I push myself up.
Expecting to see myself.
But it’s not me.
It’s Mena.
SANGHA
For a moment, the briefest and most beautiful moment, the pain racking my body dissipates, and I know this is not a slip.
Mena is standing in front of me.
Her love like the warmth of the sun.
She looks so different, but the same. Her features glowing, blurring at the edges, so I can see who she has been and who she always was simultaneously. The most beautiful I have ever seen her.
The pain creeps back in and I try to speak, but my mouth is full of blood. She reaches her hand out to me and I take it. When she touches me I feel stronger, like she’s channeling energy through her skin. Giving it to me, providing me with the power I need to stand.
The whole time smiling like she was waiting for me and I was just running a little late.
“You’re dead,” I say, my eyes welling, throat growing thick. “You died.”
She takes my hand and turns it so my palm is pressed against her chest and I can feel it. That thump-thump that I would reach for on restless nights, running my hand across her sleeping hip and onto her chest, where the vibration of it would travel through her and into me and lull me to sleep.
“How can I be dead if you carry me in your heart the way that you do?” she asks.
“I don’t…”
The pain comes back. Stronger this time. Tearing at my head.
And I hear it again. The footsteps behind me. I can feel myself standing there. I can feel the pain and the anger and the rage that I have carried inside myself. It’s humid. It has a smell. Something old and festering.
But Mena holds my gaze.
She says, “I need to show you something.”
And she twists my wrist so that both of our hands are pressed to her heart.
I slip.
That buzz on my brain, the electricity making my muscles tighten.
It’s dark. I can see the outline of a person. I might be standing in front of a mirror? There’s a smell like soap, and hard, cold tile under my feet. I reach up and flick on the light.
The person I see in the mirror is not me.
It’s Mena.
But not the version of Mena I know, or even one that I’ve seen before. This Mena is just a child. Hair buzzed to stubble, but sloppy, like someone did it to her. I see her in there, those eyes, that heart. But they’re dim, like a fading star.
And in that instant I am struck by a feeling of regret and sadness that reaches my core, at seeing myself like this. This image in the mirror that does not at all reflect the person I am on the inside. It’s like suffocating slowly in a buried coffin. Wanting to claw my way out, and not knowing how.
I watch as Mena reaches her fingers up and touches her face.
There’s a banging sound, outside the bathroom. A woman screaming in Spanish.
Mena’s eyes well with tears. She digs her nails into her arm, raking it like she’s trying to tear it off, leaving long red marks on her skin.
And then I hear her voice. It’s not this Mena speaking. It’s her, but it’s coming from someplace else.
You don’t know what it’s like. It’s like you don’t have a future. Your body is so foreign to you, you don’t know what you’ll grow into. Who you’re going to be. The very idea of growing old in a body that doesn’t belong to you is horrifying. It feels like a life sentence for a crime you didn’t commit.
Mena reaches into the medicine cabinet and takes out an orange bottle of pills.
And worse, for your own mother to treat you like a monster for trying to be who you are.
Mena gives the pill bottle a little shake. It sounds full. More screaming from outside the door. More pounding.
When you met me, I did not look like this, did I? But if the Mena you knew could have traveled back in time to that moment, this scared little girl would have recognized herself. She would have known there was a future. She would have truly seen herself for the first time.
Mena, sobbing, taps a handful of pills into her palm.
Had I known I had a future I wouldn’t have tried to kill myself that day. Or all the other days after, until I was able to get away safely.
The room goes dark again.
I think, to spare me the sight of what comes next.
Probably to spare Mena, too.
And then we’re in the Art Institute of Chicago.
Except it’s different from the last time we were here. Empty of people. Just long, desolate, blank hallways. The only thing here is that painting, hanging in the vastness of the empty space. A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
Those little dots of color, those people standing on the waterline, staring off into the distance.
I can still feel the presence behind me, but there’s something about standing in this space that’s making my brain feel a bit more clear.