I thought of stepping through, but I was already there.

I stood not too far away, wearing the same smock and pants of the ward’s other inhabitants. That version of me studied the back of his hands, which moved rapidly over open air, as if putting together an exceptionally large puzzle. I was talking out loud, yet calmly, to no one. I strained to listen to what this “other-me” had to say. Once I tried, the words he spoke became so clear I didn’t need to focus at all.

“Put it together, put it together, put it together…” the other-me said, over and over and over again. A mantra.

The door to the bathroom slammed shut and I jerked my head away from the vision. I turned off the water.

“Crystal?” I said, not too loudly, but loud enough so she would hear me if still inside the bathroom.

There was no response. I clenched the split in the blue curtain with wet hands, paused to take a breath and steady my nerves, then jerked it open.

The bathroom was empty.

A fluffy green towel sat on the counter. Next to it, folded neatly, was a T-shirt and what looked like track pants. A pair of athletic socks lay balled-up next to the clothes.

I grabbed the towel, began urgently wiping myself down. When I was relatively dry, I stepped from the tub and went to the closed door. Quietly as I could, I pushed the button in on the knob, locking it.

After I finished drying off, I picked up the T-shirt, put it on. I glanced into the mirror. I could still see the Blue Ward rec room hovering behind me, past the curtain, past the fallen tiles.

There was a heavy knock at the bathroom door.

“Hold on!” I yelled, trying to sound stable. Unshaken. Sane.

I put on the pants, then sat on the toilet and pulled on the clean, warm socks.

The banging on the door came again. Louder, more insistent. Violent.

The clothes, I noticed, were a perfect fit.

I stood up and studied the mirror. I stared at myself. I leaned in slowly over the countertop, watched in amazement as my two sets of eyes drew closer, closer together. Soon, our faces were only inches apart. My breath fogged the reflection.

The doorknob twisted, rattled, but held. There was giggling from beyond the door. The shuffling of feet. Another hard series of banging fists, a pounding so forceful that the door shook in its frame.

I ignored the pounding, ignored the voices. I stared hard into my own eyes, forced myself to focus. Pieces floated and fell like rain drops through my mind. I thought, put it together, put it together, put it together.

Over the reflection of my shoulder I could see the wall of white tiles was back where it had always been. I closed my eyes and let out a choked sob, rested my forehead against the cool glass. A hot tear ran down my cheek. I opened my eyes. The face in the mirror smiled.

You know who I am, right?

Come close and I’ll tell you…

The door burst open with a crash.

I’m me.

FRAGILE DREAMS

1

WHAT’S IMPORTANT RIGHT now, he thought, straining to study himself in the warped bronze plating of the elevator walls, is that you remember to breathe.

He pinched the knot of his grandfather’s favorite tie, tugged down his newly-dry-cleaned dark blue suit coat, tightened his grip on the handle of his attaché, and lifted a hand to smooth his gel-slicked hair.

He thought again of losing the handkerchief in his suit pocket. He touched the top of the square fold Diane had worked so hard on. “It’s sexy,” she said, but he thought it might be too much. He leaned closer to the wall, looked at each of his bright blue eyes closely. He didn’t see circles, at least not obvious ones. He hadn’t been sleeping well. Money was becoming an issue, Diane restless, the school loans a burden with no foreseeable relief. Without a job...

He stopped the train of negative thoughts before it could build steam. He stepped back to the middle of the elevator, turned away from his reflection to face the doors.

“Fuck it,” he said out loud, and allowed himself to smile. A warming lump of confidence expanded outward from his belly. He exhaled, there was a distant ding, and the polished metal doors slid open with the soft sound of a broom swept over a clean floor.

The firm’s address was listed as a Suite, but despite the line of doors to his left indicating other businesses – accountants and other legal offices primarily – Baskin and Associates took up a majority of the entire fourth, and top, floor of the downtown Burbank building. As he exited the elevator, his polished black Oxfords sunk into a rich green carpet, soft music was heard from invisible speakers, and a gold-and-glass reception desk the size of his Prius loomed from his right, pulling at him like a magnet. He stepped up to the desk and the slim brunette sitting behind it, her expensively-framed eyeglasses tilting up to him, her wide dark eyes sending a quiver though his spine.

They must use a modeling agency, he thought to himself, and almost smiled again, then thought better of it. He rested the tips of his fingers on the spotless glass ridge of the crescent-shaped desk, lightly cleared his throat.

“Matthew Calvert. I’m here for an interview,” he managed, then did smile, albeit apologetically. “With Mr. Baskin,” he added, leaving her eyes to scan the surface contents of her desk, as if an appointment ledger or sign-in book awaited his mark.

The receptionist had sucked-in bronze cheeks bookending glossy lips that made Matthew think, rather oddly, of two fat babies lying back-to-back, covered in blood. She tapped something into her keyboard, her languid eyes searching a hidden screen. When she flicked her head back to Matthew, he flushed, realizing too late he’d been caught staring. She smiled, though, and he relaxed, as if he’d passed some mysterious test.

“You’re early,” she said, and Matthew wondered if there was a degree of flirt in those pretty hazel eyes.

“Yes, well, traffic wasn’t too bad,” he said, trying to sound casual and failing and knowing he was failing. “The 101 was wide open for some reason, so...”

She held his eyes another beat, as if considering, then swapped one smile with another. This one more officious. “It’ll be a few minutes. Would you like water or coffee while you wait?”

Matthew was about to reply that a bottled water would be lovely when he felt a vibration thrum through the plush green carpeting, a vibration strong enough to tickle the pads of his feet through the thick soles of the shoes. The receptionist’s smile didn’t falter, nor did her eyes leave his own. He looked at the floor, then back at her – as a fellow human this time.

“Did you...”

His thought was truncated by a loud, bottomless rumbling, as if God were clearing his mighty hallowed throat. This time the floor beneath Matthew shifted, and he was forced to take an unsteady step.

The receptionist felt this one, springing up from her desk and stepping backward, her tight skirt and high heels making it an inelegant movement. She eyed her desk in horror, as if the glass monstrosity had bared crystallized gold teeth and snapped at her.

She glared at Matthew, almost accusatory. Things grew quiet. Matthew spotted other movement around the office, saw heads bobbing behind eye-level office windows set within clean white walls. A young lawyer emerged, minus his suit coat, from a nearby copy room, looking up and down a distant hallway, seeking assurance, desperate to share his fear. Somewhere deep within Baskin and Associates, something heavy fell with a thump. From another unseen area, a husky-voiced woman yelled an obscenity, as if she’d been badly hurt.

Matthew and the receptionist faced each other, the desk between them an abandoned lifeboat, the ink-green carpet beneath their feet a calming sea after an eruption of storm. Matthew smiled at her reassuringly, almost amused by the affect the earthquake had on his anxiety. Perspective, he thought impulsively.

“That was a big one,” he said calmly, his nerves iron now, testosterone and the realities of the world’s true dangers steadying him.

The receptionist was not smiling, and still looked off-balance. Her pinned hair had come disheveled; one sweeping dark arc lay forlornly along the side of her face. She opened her mouth to speak – Matthew had just enough time to notice how very white her teeth were – when the building was slapped hard enough to knock people to the ground. The world beneath him began shaking with a mad, volcanic violence, as if they were stuck inside a snow globe being throttled by a malicious child.