The Sugar Rush

By James Randall

I'm not going to write a synopsis of this novel. Forgive me. I will add one of my favorite scenes, though. I'm sure it’s missing italicized words, but you'll get the gist. It also ends after about 4000 characters, so, you know. I like to sometimes read it in the morning with a cup of coffee and pretend that I'm there with them:

She was sitting at the kitchen table somewhat somberly. She had thrown on a t-shirt and shorts and was waiting for the coffee to brew. Over the drip and steam of the pot, she heard a stirring from down the hall in the master bedroom. A few moments later her sister emerged.

“Hey sis,” she said yawnily, still wearing an almost obscenely large t-shirt that hung loosely about her slender frame, “you got that coffee on, huh?”

Claire nodded. Her sister’s boyfriend, Danny, had left for work an hour or so earlier, but Erica typically worked later in the day, especially on weekends, and tended to be more of a night person, anyway. This was still, in fact, rather early to see her up.

She walked over to a little window by the sink.

“Balls,” she said, for no apparent reason, in way, I suppose, of reply, and in a tone so matter-of-fact that it was as if she was simply announcing that the sun was shining or the wind blowing. She turned back to Claire.

“So, did that boy of yours sneak out early or something? I didn’t hear him this morning.”

“No,” Claire said emphatically, in almost the same beleaguered tone an adolescent addresses an embarrassing parent.

“He didn’t spend the night.”

“What?” Erica said surprised. “That was rude.”

“No, it’s not like that,” she said. “We haven’t, you know. . .”

Erica looked at her sister quizzically.

“Hold on, let me get this straight—you’ve been with this guy for, how long?”

“Since April.”

“And you haven’t saddled ‘im up?” speaking with a sudden western drawl. “You haven’t taken that boy out for a ride?” she asked, waving her hand in the air, imitating a bull rider while sort of gyrating her hips against the kitchen counter.

“Erica!—it’s not like that. . .” Claire responded. She was already feeling a little awkward about this particular aspect of her relationship with Tom, and didn’t know how to explain it to her sister.

The coffee machine beeped a few times to announce it was ready.

Erica giggled.

“I’m just giving you a hard time,” she said as she moved to the cabinet that held the mugs. “It is sort of strange, though, don’t you think?” She looked over; “You have a mug?”

“No.”

She pulled out two ceramic coffee mugs.

“You want Garfield or Cape Canaveral?”

“Um, Garfield, I guess.”

Erica poured the first of the coffee into the Garfield mug, then filled the other.

“Cream and sugar?”

“Sure.”

Erica pulled out the creamer from the fridge and brought it over to the table with Claire’s mug. She went back to retrieve her own mug and the sugar, which was in another cabinet.

“Well then,” she said, after returning and taking a seat next to her sister, “what’s on for today?”

Claire picked up the sugar and poured a little into her coffee.

“Tom invited me to a barbeque at his house. He and his roommate are having people over.” Then, after a short pause, she added, “Would you like to come?”

Erica giggled.

“No—well yea, but no.” She finished stirring together the ingredients of her drink and took a sip. She looked out the window behind Claire. It was a beautiful day, almost cloudless, and the sky was pale blue, as though still somewhat drowsy from the night before, masked in a thin haze. “I’m working in the afternoon so I probably can’t.”

Claire nodded her head, and made no further attempt to enlist her sister into her day’s plans.

Erica leaned back in her chair. Though in most respects probably as intelligent as her younger sister, or even

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Randall
• Release date: Jun 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9780998128207

James Randall

James Randall was born, like all people of character, in Danbury, CT, during the first presidential term of Ronald Reagan. He now lives to the north, in the mysterious hills of Litchfield County, with his wonderful wife and young daughter, a pair of well-contented cats, and, at any given time, about two dozen mice, who rattle around the drafty walls of the old house.

Book preview

The Sugar Rush

Copyright 2020 James Randall. All rights reserved.

Digitally prepared in U.S.A.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Prologue (some time in the early spring)

Friday, June 20th

Saturday, July 5th

Thursday, July 24th

Sunday, August 10th

Epilogue (early autumn)

The Sugar Rush

A neo-Victorian, allegorical novel, written primarily

in Modernist style, and presented in four parts*

* I should probably also mention: Recognized by the Cloth Lounge Chair

Literary Club, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as an official beach read

We love this book!

Foreword

I guess you’ve just got to be honest. When you read this text, it’s like two bridges of lightning coming together.

Well, maybe.

It’s about me, if I’m honest. What you’re reading. But written with the hope that what is true for you in your own private heart is true for all.

Maybe every story comes down to a struggle with yourself. I mean, think about when characters fight against a society, or against another person, will they ever be satisfied? Even if they win, they’ll just start looking for some new opponent to battle. But how do you defeat yourself? And to tell that story, it must be personal.

Imagine you and I watching everything, in this giant Truman Show-esque dome, sitting beside each other, spectators of what’s going on inside my head, but everything symbolized to the point where it actually starts to kind of look like the world, that anything we see could be about you—that we’re in your head, too. Actually, maybe that’s the bridges. I’m not sure.

But you have to be honest, at least somewhere. The book is a machine for you to make deeply personal, if you want, with both of us out here in this reality, presumably. Then. . . the gaps are filled in with images and details and feelings from your own experience. In a way, even darkness holds something true for all—what you put into the darkness and what I put into the darkness may actually be the same thing, even if they don’t look exactly alike. Fleeing and scattering when exposed to the light.

So I guess it’s weird, because it’s a third person narrative and still I’m talking to you.

That is weird.

Anyway, this is one of those books that took a long time to complete. I’d think it was almost done and then some new avenue coalesced or revealed itself, which then made it so another part needed to be reworked, you know, for balance, and on and on. I’m not entirely convinced it’s even done now, but I feel like it’s time to stop tinkering with it.

I want to tell a story about now—the kind that everyone can experience. The kind that I can turn to you and talk about at this exact moment. But it’s not such an easy thing to do, obviously, since I don’t know what you’re thinking about or how you’ll interpret these words, and, even if I did, you would still have to go into the story to see what’s happening, and then, well, it does take place at some point in time—and the world around you keeps changing, and for the work to stay alive and new it surely must change, too, at least in some way. As the author, wanting to keep dragging it into the now, to create a visceral experience of this immediate, exact moment now for the reader, at some point you have to let it go. It becomes frozen in time, everything in it subject to the whimsical alterations of its contemporary context. Even if you’re partially successful, the memory of now is forming, sailing against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Well, the idea for the novel came to me in the summer of 2007 when I was a commercial salmon fisherman living on a small island in Alaska. The dates that head each section are accurate for 2008 and 2014, and generally I see that as the time period during which the story takes place. I mention this since I’d prefer if readers didn’t put too much of present events into the characters and outline, etc. But I guess you’re going to do what you want to.

I have a fascination with frame narratives. The narrator is me, I suppose; he doesn’t really explain himself—though maybe here, in this foreword, and who knows, maybe this itself is a part of the novel. Almost like the place in our subconscious when we’re waking up, still asleep enough to see the dreams clearly, but awake enough to start forgetting what we just experienced.

I keep revising it with the hope that maybe it will have the intended effect on readers. I don’t know. Perhaps no piece of literature ever perfectly manifests its author’s intention. But as whatever it was that drove me to do it and keep at it for all these years begins to dissipate, like smoke vanishing into daylight, I’m starting to wonder—should I have kept going? I wanted to polish away the barriers to the experience, but what if I’m unleashing something? Having escaped, I’m almost worried in some ways. This is a dangerous book.

The headings would have worked for 2020, as well, had it not been a leap year. Perhaps that’s a sign.

My sincerest and best wishes for you,

- James

There is no exercise of the intellect which is not, in the final analysis, useless.

- Jorge Luis Borges

I like them to talk nonsense. That’s man’s one privilege over all creation. Through error you come to the truth!

- Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

"[B]ut God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what

is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in

the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are."

- Paul, 1 Corinthians 1:27-28

"Oh sugar, ah honey honey,

you are my candy girl

and you got me wantin’ you."

- The Archies

Prologue (some time in the early spring)

It was the kind of day that was sure to make someone sick. After months of being bundled up indoors, with the sun shining over thawing patches of earth, the trickling sound of tiny rivers flowing along the edges of the road, young people dressed in a variety of layers, from t-shirts to sweaters, squished by as they walked on the grass, releasing into the air a pleasant odor.

Flapping in the still for all intents and purposes cold breeze were several sheets of paper stapled to a bulletin board outside a stone dormitory several stories high. On one salmon colored piece was written the following:

Wanted: Roommate to share an old house that’s not haunted. Low rent. Split utilities, cable, internet, etc. Pets by a pet by pet basis. Call Russell

Then, almost as an afterthought, was handwritten:

—in Danbury

and then a row of numbers at the bottom, two or three of which had already been pulled. A young man in his mid-to-late twenties, dressed conservatively, stood looking at it, his fine, dark hair blowing strands side to side along with the rustling paper. He tore one of the tabs off, put it in his breast pocket, and thought, in passing, how the sheet bore a peculiar resemblance to a skull that was missing several teeth.

Friday, June 20th

The South Street house was built at the end of the first decade of the 1900s, back when Danbury was still the hat producing capital of the world, and it stands in that gray area between Danbury and Bethel where the two towns blend together in such a way that you’re never really sure of exactly where you are. The layer of colonial blue paint on the exterior, bubbling and starting to crack over decades of different colors, was shaded by a couple of large, old maple trees, and if you were standing on the street you could see the cellar doors peeking out from the grass.

Morning light, mixed with shadows, was swaying over vacant chairs on a screened-in front porch, and through the living room, not quite making it to the staircase up.

It was dim at the top. The sound of water running inside the bathroom was followed by silence. The door opened. A young man with fine, dark hair walked out.

This was Tom Rybarskis. He flipped the switch by the stairs, which sent a flash of light and a pop—

It was dim again. Tom glanced up. The glass fixture above seemed somehow aloof, considering.

Something came back to him in the flash—an image, or a face or a room, all condensed and, well, it’s hard to put it into words.

The floorboards creaked as he descended.

The walls of the stairwell reflected the sunlight from below, only faintly. He’d been dreaming. Usually that didn’t matter, but this was tantalizing enough to stop him in the middle of his daily routine, which was unusual.

When he was younger, those images were free to roam Tom’s mind. He wanted to discover something hidden in dreams, and bring it back with him to the waking world. But the more he tried the more his dreams consumed his life, a filmy lens that grew darker and darker each day as he would move groggily past the images surrounding him re-imagined in his head. Then, at night, return to the void. Eventually he chained everything like that up.

On a clear morning like this, however, with the air on the cooler side of perfect, a lively breeze outside, it was almost forgivable that a mind would want to continue along the path a dream had laid out for it, still sort of pondering the images that remained.

Splashes of sunlight trickled up to the base of the stairs, and receded. They were more like memories, actually.

Elaborate bouquets everywhere. The overwhelming smell—certain flowers had always reminded him of her wake. White petals, of lilies, gardenias, covering the walls, surrounded by people in black, in a forest of legs.

The network of shadows rolling over the living room moved in a continual hypnotic motion; the breeze outside would pick up for a moment and the trees would shake, then calm again in a gentle whirling.

He could see it, under bright track lighting. The casket, open, a crowd parted to both sides as though inviting him forward.

Light was streaming in through the sunroom. Tom gazed blankly at it, past the pantry, fridge, etc., in the narrow kitchen that lined the back of the house.

A young man standing by the sink turned.

"Good morning." He smiled with a face that seemed amazingly awake.

What’s on for the day, my man?

Tom took in a deep breath and released it slowly.

Well, I’m going to work, of course.

Russell, the other young man, sort of groaned.

Ah, that’s no fun, intending to be sympathetic.

I don’t really mind it, flatly.

No, no, he quickly corrected himself, glancing at his roommate; I mean it’s definitely a good thing.

Russell was facing the window to the backyard, where the grass was beaming in the morning sun.

It’s Friday, though, right?

Mm.

Well, hey, at least you got that going for ya! Tom started to bring his eyes over, but before he could respond Russell continued; What do you have on for tonight?

Tom kind of shook, then straightened. He went to the pantry with an efficiency of movement that might have made someone think he was in a rush. It wasn’t his intention to aimlessly wander his subconscious. He was still, however, clearly in his own head somewhat.

I have a date, actually.

"Really. . . ?"

Mm, he responded, fishing out of the pantry the same thing he did every morning.

No one spoke for a moment, so Russell continued.

So who is the lucky young woman?

Tom set the tube of oatmeal down, resting his hands on the counter.

Well, we met at a. . . I don’t know what you’d call it, a public area at Yale, at the end of winter, and, uh, spoke there. . .

He returned to the oatmeal and removed the top; and, well, that went well, of course, but it was very, professional, and, um, he paused to pour the content into a faded Pyrex bowl, then she friend-requested me shortly thereafter, and we have been in contact ever since.

Russell was beaming. Well, that’s great! Where you taking her?

Tom stood straight again and looked to the ground, clearing his throat.

There’s a, small Hungarian place off of Franklin Street. I thought I would take her there.

Ah, Russell said, nodding his head slyly, I know that place. Nice little intimate setting there, huh?

Hmp, yea. He opened the fridge and bent to look inside. Somehow the opalescent lighting gave objects an aura of playing on in his dream. Some had been moved around since yesterday, so he began to rearrange. The carton of milk had a chill to it.

There was something unusual behind the water filter jug.

Hey. What’s this?

Tom reached for it.

Russell looked over. In Tom’s hand was a mushy and entirely brown chunk of banana.

Seeing the thing, Russell became still.

They were silent.

I’m sorry. Russell’s eyes went from the fruit to Tom. His face was sober, then suddenly he grinned. It was delicious. So sweet and so cold.

He let out a little snuff, then began to almost kind of giggle, like he’d really amused himself.

If it’s any consolation to you, it really couldn’t be helped. He glanced down at the frayed dishrag in his hand, and renewed moving it over a half-wet dish. I was about to eat Honey Nut Cheerios the other day, and, well, I’d already poured the bowl, so—

Tom dropped what remained of his daily morning banana supply unceremoniously into the trash, stopping Russell, who looked like he was about to say something more—he opened his mouth but almost immediately closed it.

Tom looked out the window beyond the sink. There were shadows on the faded sides of the cabinets playing with the light. He let a breath out slowly through his lips.

On top of everything else wrong with the situation, bananas do not belong in the refrigerator.

"I am sorry—I’ll go to the store right n—"

No, Tom stopped him again, putting his hands up. His tone was rigid, but it almost always was, his thoughts being kept in line like pieces on a chessboard in a game between masters. He let his hands down and turned to Russell. Don’t worry about it.

Like many people, Tom didn’t exactly love it when things didn’t go as planned, but it had kind of already been that sort of morning and, as it turned out, he was not as irritated as he first expected to be. This was not his opponent. Actually it was sort of strange—he was kind of glad he didn’t have to eat the stupid thing. Like, if he felt anything, it was relief.

"I’m sure I can enjoy my breakfast without a banana," and attempted a smile.

There you go. Russell turned again to the sink. I’ll buy some more today.

Tom put the water filter jug on the counter. Russell continued

"So, anyway, what about this date? Does she have a name?" somewhere between teasing and true earnest.

Claire.

Russell nodded his head. Claire, he repeated, taking in the sound of it.

He turned to Tom.

Well, I wish you the best, cordially bowing his head a little.

Thank you, Tom responded, attempting Russell’s tone but somehow missing it.

Let me know how it goes.

I will, and pressed start on the microwave.

He stood looking beyond the spinning oatmeal. What Tom didn’t mention was that this would actually be his third date with Claire Hutchinson, the 26 year old sociologist from suburban Massachusetts he’d met towards the beginning of spring. Claire phoned him last Thursday to say that she would be in the Danbury area today, and asked if he wanted to get together. This was a pivotal moment in their relationship, he knew it, a kind of make-or-break date for them, and he did like her, and being so caught up in speaking with her at the time he sort of just said yes.

Now, for reasons that weren’t quite easy to distinguish, he was regretting it.

The microwave beeped a few times and then became still. Tom lifted the steaming oatmeal out with a potholder and brought it to the kitchen table, where a newspaper from the previous day waited. Behind him, part of the wall had, at some point over the years, been taken down, and opened to the living room. He pulled snuggly into his spot.

Russell leisurely assumed the seat across from Tom. He took a sip from his coffee, looking out at the kitchen and living room, sitting sideways to the table.

For several minutes the only sounds were from the road, and birds tweeting went through the room, and in quieter moments the leaves in the wind, especially when the wind picked up. Tom was in his newspaper, flapping the pages occasionally. Being trained with appearances, he was able to become almost invisible if he wanted to, so much so that, if we, like Russell, were only able to look at him on the outside, we’d have no idea what was going on in his head, his intellect allowing him to process things so deeply that he seemed to remove himself entirely from the physical world, sort of like when people are reading.

Patches of light were rippling in the kitchen, and glowed on the page. The newspaper had a story about a boy who got caught in the undertow of some rough surf while swimming off the coast. He was playing in the waves with a couple of siblings. Apparently he was knocked unconscious underwater, and by the time the lifeguards got to him he had drowned. Tom brought a spoonful of oatmeal up to his mouth. The reporter was echoing a warning from the state about beach safety.

The kitchen was pleasant, imperceptibly warming in the morning sun.

When done, Tom got up to rinse his bowl. A little gust of cool air kept pushing through the screen over the sink window as the water ran. Russell turned, and seemed like he was about to say something, but never did, and took a sip of his coffee.

After getting a glass of unsweetened grapefruit juice from the fridge, Tom drank it, and then absently shook out the glass into the sink, spraying tiny droplets of juice into the stainless steel basin. He began to open the dishwasher, but stopped and turned back to the sink. He washed out the glass, splashing water over the sides of the well worn steel to clear off any misbegotten residue.

Again he stopped.

He stood there for a moment, twirling the wet glass in his hand, staring through it, off into space.

Russell turned to Tom as he closed the dishwasher.

So, you’re off? he really more declared than asked.

Yup, Tom replied, picking up the newspaper on the table.

Well, have a good one.

You too.

They exchanged polite smiles as Tom walked into the living room, towards the front door, where the sound of shoes shuffling preceded the clattering of keys.

A moment later the door shut, and Russell was left alone, sitting with his coffee at the kitchen table.

Tom walked down a white, nondescript hallway with fluorescent lighting.

The building was clean, but old enough that, even on the bare walls, streaks and blemishes marred the otherwise sterile corridors. There was a constant sense of people, not exactly watching you, but nearby—this shadowy, unseen presence, lurking behind doors, around corners, down at the end of a hallway adjacent to yours—invariably disappearing if you turn to see it, which was only amplified by the knowledge of the armed guards surrounding the facility.

Tom fit in. There was a cold, almost military precision to the way he moved. A kind of intensity that—well, I wouldn’t describe him as a sculpted block of ice, exactly. Perhaps when you walk outside on a late fall morning, or early spring, at dawn, and the light glitters over the frost.

A coworker appeared down the hallway.

Her name was Jacquelyn, which he only knew from overhearing someone else say it. He’d never spoken more than a few words to her.

She was pretty, sort of rigid, but this seemed appropriate to him. Tall, athletic; her jet black hair was impeccably combed into a bun in the back. She moved with intention, hips bobbing in a black pantsuit professional and provocative undulations—her eyes were in his.

It was seductive. A glass skyscraper sparkling against a clear sky, sleek and powerful, the windows at the top inviting him up, further inside, where, behind a series of walls, in the dark, his image might forever be worshipped and possessed. The most subtle grin. Then she looked forward and passed by.

He glanced back. She turned and disappeared down another hallway.

He was almost prepared to follow. Her eyes lingered with him, like a cold stream trickling down a mountain. They say you can never really experience total silence, since you would hear your nervous system buzzing if you were inside a soundproof room, with your heartbeat. He was almost certain he could hear his getting louder.

Two enormous plate glass windows at the end of the hall, stretching from the floor to the ceiling and one wall to the other, let in the sun’s indirect, late morning light in two great gulps. They overlooked a few trees and part of the parking lot. Several feet away, past the immediate spread of natural light, with its bluer tone, the water cooler waited by the coffee machine with cups, sugars, milks, stirrers, all under a faint fluorescent buzz.

The young man who was there pouring a cup of coffee glanced at Tom.

Good mornin’, Tom. How aw ya?

He put the pot back on the burner. His dark auburn hair was slightly wavy but meticulously well kempt.

Tom examined his face for an instant. Friendly, but, as was typical at Alston, hard and polished, radiating precision and intellect, keeping what needed to be secret where it belonged. Calming, in a way.

Good morning, Fred.

Tom took in a breath, letting it out as he placed down a clipboard he was holding, and the newspaper, onto the table beside the water cooler.

I’m well. How are you?

I’m good, thanks for askin’.

Fred poured a packet of sugar into his coffee. He wore a white, neatly ironed dress shirt tucked into black slacks. After a short pause he looked at Tom.

Nice out there, huh? he remarked, motioning with a nod to the windows, a bit of New England twang on the word ‘there.’

Tom stopped pouring water into a small paper cup and turned. He’d been so, whatever—unaware in any more than the most abstract sense—it struck him suddenly that, indeed, it had been a beautiful morning, becoming a beautiful midday.

Yes. It certainly is.

The long, graceful branches of a willow swayed in a breeze, a piercing blue sky dulled somewhat by the glass. He took a sip.

I’m actually headin’ up to the game tonight, Fred broke in, you gonna watch?

Tom refocused and turned to his colleague.

Which game?

The Sox, man, picking something out of his breast pocket.

Tom leaned in slightly: they were two tickets for Fenway Park.

They’re playing yau Orioles.

Tom stood straight again and nodded as Fred slid the tickets back into his pocket.

Ah, I see.

Like many of his coworkers, or perhaps all of them, Fred gave off an air of distinction that seemed to distance him from anyone else. The two were friendly, but worked in different parts of the building and their relationship was limited to occasional conversations like this. Once, Fred had assumed for whatever reason that Tom, too, was a Boston Red Sox fan. Having grown up in northern Virginia, Tom mentioned he was a fan of the Baltimore Orioles.

Though perhaps ignoring the wide linguistic territory that the term fan seems to possess—the word having been derived from fanatic and his interest in the team, at best, only casual—Tom nevertheless appreciated the simplicity of small talk, whatever the topic—the weather, traffic—but especially the good-natured camaraderie of discussing sports. It was strangely freeing in a way, and he played along as though it all really mattered—like when Fred, who’d gone to Harvard, took every opportunity afforded him to chide Tom, the Yalie, about their respective teams during football season. Now, considering the unsolicited introduction of these weekend plans, Tom calculated what best to say next. Just as if a natural politician, he rarely wasted an opportunity to further endear himself to others.

I’m thinking that these must be difficult seats to get—

Ah no, Fred interjected, stirring his coffee, we’re pretty much sittin’ in New Hampsha, that same mild, regional flair on ‘we’re.’

With whom are you going?

Fred was quiet for a moment, stirring his coffee and looking at it, then taking a sip. He turned to Tom.

In way of response Fred shrugged his shoulders suggestively. Tom nodded. He knew the inner workings of the place well enough to know when not to ask any more questions.

Tom cleared his throat.

I understand both teams are playing well this year, yes?

Fred’s demeanor returned to strictly jovial.

Yea, but my Sox are playin’ a little bit betta, he said, nudging Tom playfully with his non-coffee holding elbow. Anyway, I gotta run—you have a good weekend if I don’t see ya—you got anything good goin’ on?

He was already posturing to make his move down the hall and Tom, who had been lulled into a false sense of escape from his anxieties, was somewhat blind-sided by his sudden inability to express the plans within this limited timeframe.

I, uh, hope so, he ended up saying, nodding slowly.

Well good, enjoy, Fred concluded with a smile, patting Tom’s shoulder as he passed by. He watched him as he walked down the hallway, stopping at one point to chat congenially, though somewhat loudly, with another man passing by.

It’s doubtful the question was meant as any more than a social courtesy, but it revealed a new problem concerning the nature of his relationship with Claire. He was lying to himself.

Dinner with a friend, was all he’d thought to say.

The red light encased in white plastic above the unlabeled door that Tom was standing in front of was on. He knocked gently. Sometimes several minutes would go by before anyone opened it. He had a key, but out of respect for the light he waited, being somewhat afraid that any brightness from the hallway, spilling into the darkness of the room, would sabotage the entire endeavor.

However, this morning the door opened almost immediately. A young man similar to Fred except for certain details of appearance peeked his head out and, recognizing Tom, nodded and opened the door fully.

Come on in, he said cheerfully enough, then, looking up, saw the light.

Oh, sorry about that.

He leaned over to flip a switch and the light went out.

We had someone in here this morning.

Tom nodded and smiled politely as he entered.

The man went back to work as the door closed behind him. To the one side the wall was crammed with clearly expensive desktop computers with large, flat screens that emitted a spectral light through the otherwise mostly empty room, a few filing cabinets standing in the shadows to the right of the door, with some boxes, and a table with a chair. The main attraction was straight ahead—floor to ceiling, wall to wall one-way glass that looked into two other rooms. The light on their stark white walls glowed in.

Tom put his stuff on the table and looked across the glass; a man was casually clearing a table and setting places in the room to the left.

Tom glanced down. He tapped the clipboard gently with the fleshy part of his finger a few times, then turned to his left. Four men were working amid the computers, monitors, switch boards, microphones, etc., a tall, exceptionally handsome man in his mid-to-late thirties with short, rumply blonde hair, dressed in shirt sleeves, was leaning over with his hand on another man’s chair, reading from a computer. His name was Vincent Gauss. He turned to Tom and nodded. Tom nodded back and gave a work-place smile.

We’re just running tests right now, Vincent said to him, we aren’t planning to have anyone in here until after lunch.

Tom put his hand up and nodded to express that this was ok, and Vincent resumed working with the other men.

Vincent was one of the main developers of this project. The other was Tom, who’d finished his first doctorate, in multi-variable fractal probability, in his early twenties, and had now added a Ph.D. in neuro-psychology that made him a particularly valuable asset to a company like this. Last October, he’d accepted a position at the Danbury branch of the Alston-Schreibner company, a research and development firm headquartered in northern Virginia, about a half hour outside Washington, D.C. The recruiter had offered Tom a position there—higher paying, actually—which he could have begun after finishing at Yale, but he elected to take the position in Connecticut, instead, and then remain there.

Tom sat down and pulled himself towards the table. Though not solely his, officially, the chair was generally reserved for him whenever sessions were being conducted. So it was typically empty unless he was there. Sometimes a piece of paper or a notebook would be on the table, but by instinctive courtesy people got up and moved to another station if Tom entered.

The work—which was well funded by the federal government through a variety of somewhat veiled channels—was very engaging, and he could usually focus regardless of the circumstances, losing himself in it, but this morning he’d been drawn away from his office to the observation room. A defensive move. He was convinced without much effort—it was because of the date.

He began rolling his knuckles on the table noiselessly, looking into the room behind the glass. Though he kept his equipment in his office, it was not unheard of to see Tom sit at this table for no apparent reason, and the people who worked in the room had become used to his mild eccentricities. . .

They were outside all day. A warm spring wind, even as the sun began to set over the wide meadow—the heat of her skin against his was more than enough to keep him warm, beside her on a blanket in the grass, her perfume a canopy pulling the two of them together—so close, he could almost feel the breath of her soul whispering to him in the silence.

She was quiet. The words lingered in the air. Five seconds. Ten seconds. She sat looking down, in the passenger seat of his car, her hands in her lap. It was nighttime.

I love you, too, she looked up into his eyes.

It was better than sex—better than anything. No way to describe it. She didn’t just say it to say it. She thought about it. Looking at him. Her face echoing again and again in the dark, the apparition whispering to him. . .

The metal of the tabletop was cool on his knuckles. He stopped. He turned to his hand, and spread his palm out. This was real.

It was one of the problems with never forgetting anything. You just kind of sit there with these ghosts all the time.

And, unlike rational thought, memories and images will sometimes pop into mind without any enticement by the thinker—in fact, even when you try to block them—and this morning continued to be haunted by several such instances.

He looked down at his hand. His fingernails were perfectly even. He had a couple of freckles here and there, which were hard to see in the low light, and a small mole below the knuckle to his thumb, out of which two or three short black hairs were growing.

He brought his other hand over and began rubbing the area around the mole, as though covering the imperfection, while looking through the glass into the observation room. His reflection was sitting inside, faintly, looking back at him.

He sat for some time continuing to ponder at the little table, notebook laid out at his side, hearing the surrounding noises, eyes in the empty, glowing room.

Through the screened window above the sink, reflections danced on the faded cabinets. A sparrow landed on the garage-shed in the back and hopped about for a moment, before flying