Brain Chemicals

I don’t remember when the world changed—one day it was vibrant and full of color, and the next it was dank and grey. In whatever previous life I had lived, I wasn’t fighting to keep it. These days, someone is always watching. Listening. Planning. 

A sliver of space between the curtains and the blinds lets in the morning light, and I hold my breath as I peer through it. If I breathe, the curtains may move, and if the curtains move, the man who obsessively parks his black Sedan in the driveway next door will see me. He rolls in like clockwork in the evenings, just as I am vulnerably stripped to my boxers. He lets the vehicle idle while he sits in the driver’s seat, the backlight of his phone lighting up the cab while he steals a glimpse at my house and sends his reports of my whereabouts. 

I don’t know what he does while I sleep, but the Sedan cranks and he leaves in time for me to gather my daily things every morning.

Now, as I stare out across the small walkway, I see the driveway is empty. There’s no movement on the sidewalk, and after a few silent minutes, I decide that I must take the chance that no one is patrolling the streets today. It’s a costly gamble. If someone finds me, there’s no telling where they would take me. 

But I know I would never make it back home. 

I take deliberate steps towards my front door, carefully slide the deadbolt free of the doorframe, and noiselessly close the door behind me. I take more intentional steps away from the door, keeping my footfalls light in case anyone may be lingering. Waiting. 

I wear a coat, even in late July, hoping it will help conceal me in its folds. I reach into the pocket, withdrawing a small card tucked between some lint. 

Today’s date. Thirty minutes from now. An address I know like the back of my hand. 

Tiny beads of sweat pepper my hairline, soak my upper lip, and gather at the nape of my neck as I count out the thirty-two, men’s size twelve shoe steps between my front door and the rust bucket on wheels that is parked on the curb. On step number twenty-six, the ring ring of a bicycle speeding by on the adjacent sidewalk has me ducking my head out of habit.

Not the black Sedan. Not a street patrol. 

My sun-bleached beater squeals to life on my third attempt to crank it, and I take one last look around to confirm that I haven’t raised suspicions before creeping through the streets and into the dilapidated city. I park a mile away from my destination, just in case I’ve caught a tail on my way. There’s a meter cemented into the sidewalk, and my door swings into it before my fingers can wrap around the frame to catch it. 

I wince at the sound of metal-on-metal as several passersby look at me. I try to ignore them, hoping that a lack of reaction will keep them moving forward, or anywhere to keep their attention off of me. 

I train my gaze on the ground as I walk, careful to dodge the cracks that seem to split wider under my feet and threaten to swallow pedestrians into the abyss below. I briefly scan my peripherals, noting several more people who peek in my direction as they pass, but one in particular grabs my attention. 

His charcoal, tailored suit, as well as the upward tilt of his chin, attempt to give him vertical length, but he still remains a head shorter than me. His stature would give him speed, but if it came to it, my bulk would lend me enough strength to escape. The man is on his phone, sparing a glance twice in my direction between his response into the device at his ear. 

His conversation is about me, and his glances are a threat to my life. He knows about me, knows where I live, and likely knows why I am here. 

I divert my gaze back to the ground, picking up my pace until I meet a pair of blood red stilettos. We barely miss each other, and the woman wearing them interrupts her laugh midstream as she passes me. I feel her eyes burn a hole into the back of my coat as she continues chattering into her cellphone. The fabric melts, dripping off of my back like wax under a flame before a mangled noise escapes my throat. I hastily shuck the jacket off and let the scraps fall off into a black puddle behind me. 

Someone notices and reaches his hand towards me. An elderly man, an excellent disguise. Stuffed in his wrinkled fingers, I recognize the wad of tissue, the smell of chemicals wafting from it, and my side-step has me fighting to stay on my feet. If I can’t stay on my feet, I’ll be an easy target. 

I should abandon my destination. If I turned and went home now, someone would call and give me another date. Another time. Same coordinates. 

In the breath of time it takes me to consider returning to the safety behind my bolted door, the old man has circled back and his fingers tickle the back of my neck. I reach for them, to break them so they never touch me again, but I feel only beads of my own sweat. Pulling my hand away, I drag it down the front of my coat to remove the perspiration before stuffing it back into my front pocket and locking onto the instruction card there. 

I swing a right onto an abandoned street, my destination looming at the end of the city block. Trash litters the gutters and a stray tabby turns to look at me with a glare. I shuffle by it, straining to listen for a hiss to warn me that it is pouncing with claws bared. I make it past in one piece, barely able to capture a deep breath before the screech of tires echo off the walls of a side street. 

My eyes come unglued from the fractured concrete path before locking onto the quickly approaching black Sedan, its front bumper turning up into a snarl as it lurches towards me. My lips part, my heart rate skyrockets, and I sprint the remaining hundred meters to my intended address. My feet pound the ground and I push hard, despite the overwhelming weight of gravity trying to hold me in place. 

I clamor through the front doors of the building labeled Suite G and cross the tiled floor to a woman seated behind a plexiglass pane. A handful of people sit in leather upholstered chairs scattered around the room, and two of them look my way. I hastily shove my proof across the workspace towards the woman, wondering if everyone here has been summoned for the same reason, by the same person. 

She eyes me carefully as she takes the card, her eyes running across it to verify the date and time. She pulls a file from the top of a neat stack and opens it. I immediately recognize a thumbnail photo of myself on the top page, but before I can demand how her department knows who I am, she looks up with a disarming smile and asks me to verify my date of birth. 

I wet my lips, weighing my options between confirming her intel or returning to the street to face the black Sedan and its driver. My eyes dart back to the card still resting on the counter, and my heartbeat settles. 

The time. The date. Whoever summoned me here is trying to protect me. 

I mumble six digits in response and she directs me to take a seat with the rest of the people waiting. I pick a chair as far from anyone else as I can get, facing the doors. If someone finds me before I can find refuge, they’ll see my face first and not my back. 

I lose track of the time I spend waiting. There is brightly colored reading material that is out of place in the otherwise monochromatic environment. Occasionally, someone’s name is called and the room will lose a body, but no bodies ever return. When I finally hear my name, I am flooded with a mix of relief and doubt. 

This could be a trap. The plan to have gotten me all along. 

But I don’t have time to give credit to the fear before I am being ushered through a door and the hallway full of rooms beyond it. My head swivels from side to side, checking for any signs that any of the rooms have been keeping someone captive. 

I am corralled into the third room on the left, and after a brief pleasantry, the door is shut behind me. I move towards it immediately, jiggling the handle to find that it is at least unlocked and does not bar an escape. 

Taking account of the room, I find a singular, catercornered table covered in a thick strip of paper. A small step juts out of the bottom, a tripping hazard to my six feet of height. Hanging on the wall behind it is a variety of polished tools, and off to the side is a small washing station with jars of cotton balls and a stack of paper towels. 

Just in front of the paper towels, an enamel placard reads a familiar name that jogs my memory from a separate encounter a few weeks ago. 

I know this place. I know this person. 

Three knocks on the door peel my attention away, and I turn in a fog towards the figure in the doorway. 

“Hello, Mr. Kelvin,” she says. “It’s good to see you again. Tell me, how have you been doing on your new medication?”