“Wendall,” she said. “You’re alive.”
He hesitated. She wondered if he remembered any of it. If anyone here did. There was an awkward quiet in the shop, and indeed the entire block, as the remnants of unacceptable memories faded.
Maybe it was all her imagination. Maybe Vom and the hedgehog were all just figments of her own deranged mind. It seemed more sensible to believe she was insane than that she was living in a universe filledwith monsters that no one else saw.
Diana considered Wendall sitting before her. She never would’ve thought it, but he’d proven himself to be a good guy. And even if it was only in her imagination, she still thought he deserved a chance to prove it.
“Wendall, I’d love to go to the movies with you,” she said.
“Yeah… about that,” he stammered. “I’m pretty busy the next few weeks, but I’ll check my schedule and get back to you.”
She reached for his hand, but he recoiled.
“I have to get going,” he said, “but I’ll see you later, I’m sure.”
He ran out the door without a backward glance. He was in such a hurry he steamrolled over an old lady.
He remembered, and he wasn’t the only one. Nobody was looking at her. More than that. They were deliberately not looking at her. She had become something else to be ignored. Like the crumbs of rubble littering the floor or the spiderweb of cracks running through the shop window or the miniature hedgehog clone skittering across the floor. Bits and pieces of a not-quite-undone reality.
Diana’s head hurt. The world was both too bright and not bright enough. Everything smelled funny. Her bagel tasted weird. The air blown by the ceiling fan scraped against her skin. She was aware of everything now, and everything seemed alien and unpleasant.
She threw away her bagel, dumped out her coffee, and walked out of the shop into a strange universe she could no longer call home.
CHAPTER SIX
The farther Diana walked, the more alien the universe around her became. She noticed more and more oddities. Like a tenstory building that floated a few feet above the ground. Or a dog with a human face being walked by a human with a dog face. Or the swelling and contraction of the pavement under her feet in a nearly imperceptible way, as if it were built on the back of a giant, slumbering monster.
That was what was so maddening. She couldn’t rule out any possibilities now. She’d never been a contemplative soul. Like most people, she had usually been too busy living her day-today life to dwell on deeper mysteries that she was certain she’d never understand anyway. She had just taken most things on faith and trusted that someone would figure it out.
Now she’d discovered the human race was little more than a mass of microbes squirming on a thin slice of reality they foolishly labeled “the universe.” The revelation that there was nothing special about humanity didn’t shock her. Not specifically. She’d always been cynical about that sort of thing. The idea that reality was all too big to even quantify in any meaningful way didn’t disturb her much either. Except, deep down, she’d assumed there was some inherent logic at work. Like ricocheting molecules congealing into planets and stars, dogs and cats. At least that made sense, even if it w’t very comforting. At least it put things in neat little boxes with neat little labels that she didn’t always understand but could rely on in terms of familiarity.
Too bad it had all turned out to be bullshit.
Instead she found herself in a world where everything was possible, without a mental filing cabinet into which she could collate her perceptions. Everything was one giant heap, too big to be swept under the rug, too noisy to shut the door on.
Too much imagination had never been a concern for Diana, but with her new perceptions a switch had been flipped. She envisioned the universe as being run by tremendous, godlike butterflies looking down on their creation and debating whether it was shiny enough to keep or whether they should just throw it away and start again. She pictured everything as a dream. Her dream. A never-ending fantasy that would start all over once she died. Over and over again. Or maybe it was the opposite. Maybe she was just a phantom in someone else’s fantasy world. Hell, she might have been a robot for all she knew.
Every possibility, no matter how disturbing, inconceivable, or downright stupid seemed feasible now. She cursed every single Twilight Zone episode she’d seen for planting the seeds of schizophrenia in her brain. Although it wasn’t technically mental illness if you were more aware, your sense of reality more expanded. Or maybe it was. Maybe all this was just her addled mind snapping, and she was just alert enough to realize it. She wondered whether you could be crazy and know it at the same time. Then she got pissed when she realized any answer she reached would be suspect by its very nature.
Diana mumbled to herself, targeting the first object for her annoyance that came to mind. “Screw you, Rod Serling.”
She paused, stopping before her apartment building. She hadn’t meant to come back here. She’d merely been walking without paying attention.
But here she was.
There was something comforting about the place. Something terrifying. Most terrifying was how comforting she found it. Like she belonged here now.
She entered the building, and everything suddenly felt better. The world outside was a strange, monstrous realm. The world inside was just as strange. So why did she find it less bizarre, less jarring?
The door to West’s apartment opened, and he stuck his head out. “Hey, Number Five. Can you bring me that package on the stoop?”
Having just passed the stoop, she hadn’t noticed a package. A glance over her shoulder showed a box wrapped in brown paper sitting behind her. She couldn’t have entered without tripping over it.
“Hurry it up, Number Five,” said West.
When Diana turned to pick up the package, it had disappeared. She walked back to the open apartment door and said, “It’s gone.”
“Better not be,” replied West with a snort.
From her vantage point the package was back in iplace. She walked toward it, each step taken with care and deliberation. With each step the package became lighter and lighter until it was transparent—then, just when she was within reach, it faded away. She walked back down the hallway, and when she reached West’s door the package was back.
He swaggered over to her. “Well, where is it?”
“It keeps disappearing.”
“Are you thinking about something else when you reach for it?”
“Something else?”
West’s heavy eyebrows furrowed. “You can’t think about picking up the package while you’re picking up the package. It’ll hear you coming that way.”
She nodded, more to herself than to him. “Maybe it’d be easier if you just got it yourself.”
He frowned. “That’s no good. It knows me too well. Can smell me from a mile away.”
So could she, but she refrained from suggesting a bath might be in order.
“If you don’t get that package, every living thing in Barcelona is going to die,” said West.
She believed him. Not just because she was in a state of mind to believe anything and everything, but because he said it so matter-of-factly, as if commenting on an annoying weather prediction. Oh, darn, the picnic is going to be ruined. Fiddledee-dee.
He vanished into his darkened apartment.