Tethered

The chair’s wheel squeaks familiarly across the plastic floor mat and the seat releases a sigh as I lower myself into the old cushion and pull up to my keyboard.

“Welcome back!” A usually serious voice calls excitedly from my doorframe. My boss. “We’ve missed you,” Johnathan opens.

My hand presses into my chest involuntarily as a quick pang strikes. I play it off as a gesture of gratitude. “And I’ve missed you all.” Another twinge of pain, deeper. I suck in a sharp breath and try to release it slowly. “I’m happy to be back,” I say through the sting.

It’s true enough, isn’t it? I am happy to be back. Happy to get back to a sense of normalcy, routine, independence, purpose.

“Well, you look great,” he says glibly. A platitude reserved for when someone thinks you need to hear it, whether or not it’s true.

I’m too tired to pretend to thank him for what is clearly a hollow attempt at cheering me up, but I don’t want to come across as rude or standoffish on my first day back, so I take a swig of coffee and nod with a tight-lipped smile.

“Anyways,” he fills in my silence, “lots to catch up on, but nothing that can’t wait until you’re settled in. Take your time. We’ll meet sometime today or tomorrow.”

As he turns to leave, a flash of red flickers in front of his polished shoes.

“Watch your step,” I warn, nearly spilling my coffee as I stand to stop him from tripping.

Johnathan looks down, examines the bottom of his pristine sole, and glances in a half circle around him before shrugging and walking away.

I must be seeing things. Clearly not enough coffee yet this morning…

The personal welcome-backs come in waves between a sea of unread emails. Even stopping for a thirty-minute break feels like I’ll miss another week’s worth of obligations, but it’s medically necessary, so I don’t have a choice.

As I finally delete the last of my junk mail, I push away from my desk and grab my bag, ready to spend my thirty-minute “break” working from my phone as I scarf down lunch in a private break room.

Zing!

A deep ache pulls from within my chest so sharply I get a wave of dizziness.

There it is again.

A flash of red shooting through the door. A long streak of light in a perfectly straight line coming from somewhere beyond the office hallway.

Pointing to my chest.

When I move to see where it is coming from, the light follows me, like it’s stuck to my shirt no matter how far I lean.

But that’s ridiculous.

Maybe I just need to eat something. Too much caffeine on an empty stomach and a long night of restlessness.

Trying to forget the light, I turn down the hall toward the private break room. For thirty minutes, the tightness in my chest lessens. Relieved slightly, but still present and sharpening again as I finish.

Where is this coming from?

I don’t have time for this.

The day goes on. I slog through emails old and new and organize my growing to-do list, unsure of where to begin. But I’m focused. Maybe even proud to do something productive for the first time in months. This is purpose. This is normalcy.

Ow!

A deeper twist in my chest, like someone has taken my heart and wrapped it in a ball of twine pulled tight. And sure enough, there it is again. This light that stalks me.

Only, it’s not a light.

My hand cannot pass through.

This is a string.

A single red thread attached to the center of my sweater. I push it, but it doesn’t break away. I pull it and the pain throbs deeper. Like the string has unspooled directly from the knot in my chest.

But that’s impossible.

I must be out of it. Tomorrow I’ll get a large coffee and a big breakfast. Hopefully I’ll actually get some sleep tonight. That’ll help.

Johnathan and I meet and he briefs me on all I’ve missed. Nothing out of the ordinary, which lightens the tightness in my chest. Everything here is the same. Expected. Normal.

No.

The string is still here. Even in Johnathon’s office. Stuck to my shirt, pulling at my chest. Impossibly straight and leading off beyond his window, beyond where my eye can see.

I race to the window and peer as far out as I can.

“Everything okay?” His voice is steady and patient.

“Don’t you see that?”

He joins me at the window, looking at the cars lined up on the streets below us.

“Looks like typical Monday rush-hour traffic.” He glances at his gold watch. “And right on time. Hey, you should head out for the day. We can finish up tomorrow.”

He doesn’t see it.

I back away slowly as the string pulls tighter.

In the hallway, I rush back to my office, the thread following all the while. It passes through windows and walls. I slam my door closed.

Still there.

Unbending. Unbroken.

The next day it’s still there. Following me to the bathroom, the break room, my office. I walk backward and forward and twist around, but it never falters. When I turn, it’s stuck into my back. I scratch at it from every angle, switch sweaters, even lift my shirt to find the string emerging from my skin with no signs of puncture.

Focus, Emily. Ignore it. Get back to work.

“Atta girl,” Ruth says with a wink as she passes my office. “First few weeks are the hardest, but keep focused and eventually it’ll go away.”

“What will?”

Her eyes follow the long, straight path of the string until she’s staring at my chest.

A beat too long.

Then she looks up and meets my eyes with a soft smile. “The never-ending to-do list, dear. You’ll be caught up in no time.”

“Ah, yes. Of course. Thank you, Ruth. I’m looking forward to that day.”

My stomach flips.

Zing.

Nausea, accompanied by a new string. A sturdy thread pulling from my stomach and stretching the distance of the one above it.

This is ridiculous.

Wednesday brings the same pains, the same overwhelm, and yet another string.

By Friday’s department meeting, four threads pull across the room and off to the mysterious distance. Johnathan passes straight through them as he enters.

Maybe it’s just light. Maybe it’s my imagination. But I can feel each thread beneath my fingers, plucking them as they tug at the ache inside me.

“Hey, Diva!” Molly beams. “Ugh, I’m so glad you are back! These meetings were awful without you!”

I reach for my banana as another wave of nausea crashes over me and the strings pull tighter than they’ve felt all week.

Molly sits directly across from me. My collection of red twine passes through her forehead and chest, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

“Did you hear?” She leans in and covers the side of her mouth. “I’m being considered for a possible promotion,” she whispers with a muted squeak.

“Fantastic!” I use as much energy as I have left to lighten my face and smile for her. “You’ve worked so hard, you deserve it.”

“No kidding. Not to mention picking up some of your duties while you were out.” She shrugs. “Guess no one cares as much as us. Right, Diva?”

Zing.

A new thread shoots through her throat and stabs me in the chest. I’m so taken aback I almost fall out of my chair.

“Whoa… You okay?” Molly asks.

My answer catches in my throat as I pull myself back up to the table.

“All set, Emily?” Johnathan asks.

I stick my thumb up, still breathless.

“Great, let’s get started!”

It’s not real, I remind myself. Just a lack of sleep and an active imagination. I squeeze my eyes closed until I see stars and imagine the threads disappearing one by one.

“Emily?”

My eyes shoot open to see everyone staring back at me, including my red strings exactly as I left them.

When the meeting ends, I apologize to Johnathon for spacing out. “I’ve just had a lot on my mind.”

“Totally understandable. This was your first week back…” His eyes sink briefly, then he pops up with a smile. “I know you’ll be back to normal in no time.”

Zing.

Another thread.

The next week I try to ignore them. Shifting slightly to get more comfortable at my desk, turning my back to them to keep focused. But it doesn’t matter how much I sleep or rub my eyes or ignore them. The threads keep coming.

One after another after another.

Eight on Tuesday. Twelve by Friday. Twenty-three by Wednesday. Nearly thirty by the next week.

Stronger.

Tighter.

Pulling from my chest, my stomach, my throat.

I stop trying to count at thirty-seven.

Then start again at forty-one.

Each thread creates more resistance. Building my strength and depleting my energy.

I pull them through doorways. Tuck them under my clothes. Wrap them around my fingers and try to navigate them away from my coworkers so I don’t have to watch people walk straight through.

But all my efforts are useless. No matter where I am, the strings pull me toward the same point in the distance, stalking me in the dark and piercing me in the heart.

Soon I find red fibers everywhere.

One curled between the keys of my keyboard. Another circling the drain in the bathroom sink. One clinging to the split end of my hair.

I pluck it away.

Zing.

The pain comes from inside.

I stare at the strand between my fingers until I forget why I came into the bathroom.

No. Not why.

The word.

The thing I came in here to use.

I stare at the silver fixture over the sink.

Sink. Water. Handle.

Faucet.

Faucet.

I laugh at myself.

Clearly not enough sleep.

“Sleeping okay?” Stacey asks after several weeks back.

Of course I’m not. The little sleep I do have is interrupted by dreams of getting caught up in my threads. I can’t find a comfortable position when they are tugging on my skin and mind. I worry I’ll strangle my husband if I wiggle too much. I worry I’ll wake up and they’ll have disappeared and it’s all been one terrible nightmare.

“Oh, not too bad…” I lie, bracing myself for the new thread as it develops. At least I’ve come to expect when they appear.

She looks at me. No, not at me. Through me? Around me? It’s like she can’t meet my eyes. Probably looking at the bags under them. The split ends of my hair. The cracks in my nails. She can probably tell I’m lying, but we are all too busy to acknowledge what we know to be true.

“Well,” she sighs after a moment, “I don’t know how much help I can be, but if you ever need to talk, I’m here. Truly. I remember being in your shoes.”

A flicker of red flashes in front of her.

Great. Another new string.

I brace myself for the impact.

But none comes.

Instead, something in my chest loosens.

The strings sag.

Only slightly. Barely enough to notice.

But for the first time in weeks, I can breathe without feeling them pull.

Stacey smiles, squeezes my shoulder, and walks away.

I try to recreate the feeling over the next few days.

“You’re doing great,” someone tells me.

Tight.

“Everyone goes through an adjustment.”

Tighter.

“You’ll feel like yourself again soon.”

Zing.

Another thread.

I’ve had it.

I race as quickly as I can to the private break room, lock the door, rip off my shirt, and grab the strings.

One by one.

Nothing.

I grab a handful.

Tug.

Pain tears through my stomach.

I let go.

Something moves beneath the skin.

No.

I step closer to the mirror.

A thin red filament surfaces beside my belly button.

Then another.

I pinch one between my fingers and pull.

Ouch!

The strand slides from me.

Not into me.

Out.

Another follows from beneath my ribs.

Another from the center of my chest.

I should stop.

Instead, I pull harder.

Three more fibers slip through my skin without blood or puncture, winding themselves into the mass already stretched across the room.

My knees weaken.

The threads aren’t attached to me.

They are a part of me.

I yank at the bundle with both hands, desperate now, and more strands peel out. From my stomach. My chest. My throat. One tangles in my hair and comes loose with a clump wrapped around it.

The more I pull and tug and fight, the more of me stretches across the room.

Fifty threads.

Sixty.

A hundred.

Too many to count.

They twist together, winding around one another until I can no longer tell where one ends and another begins.

I’d been calling them strings because I didn’t have another word.

But strings are loose things.

Strings can be dropped.

Cut.

Left behind.

This thing is anchored somewhere inside me and somewhere I cannot see.

A tether.

But to what?

Where does it stretch?

Why is it pulling?

I need to know.

I shove my shirt back on and race out of the break room, following the tether as best I can. Following as it travels in a perfectly straight line through walls and people I cannot walk through.

Outside, the path becomes clearer, though it cuts between buildings and rush-hour traffic.

I don’t care.

I shove through people. Dash between cars. A horn screams behind me.

The tether pulls harder.

Not looser.

Tighter.

For weeks I’ve been fighting against it.

Now, for the first time, I stop.

The pull nearly knocks me forward.

So I let it.

I follow.

And then I see another.

A thin red line trailing through the passenger window of a car beside me.

Then another.

A woman at the crosswalk has three braided loosely beneath her coat.

Two women pass me on the sidewalk, their strands crossing without tangling.

An older couple eats an early dinner beside a restaurant window. The woman’s tether is faded nearly white, frayed in places, but still there.

Across the street, another woman leans slightly backward as hers stretches tight enough to hum.

How could I have missed them?

The more I look, the more appear.

Flickers of red between buildings. Strands beneath tables. Threads disappearing through doorways.

Some taut.

Some slack.

Some thin as hair.

One stops only inches from a woman’s chest. Thick and bright red, but somehow disconnected.

Then, through the crowd, I see a woman holding a tether that isn’t hers.

She has wrapped both hands around it while the woman beside her rests against the brick wall.

For a moment, the line between them sags.

Slack.

I think of Stacey.

I think of Ruth.

Ruth.

Of course.

I search the crowd behind me, but there are too many people. Too many strands.

The tether jerks.

Pain burns through my chest.

I’m tired.

So tired.

I don’t know what waits at the other end or if I want to.

But I know what happens when I pull away.

I look down at my hands. Red fibers cling beneath my nails.

Another strand slips from my wrist and joins the tether.

The tether pulls again.

This time, I don’t fight it.

I let it take my weight.

And I follow.

——

The chair’s wheel squeaks across the plastic floor mat and the seat releases a sigh as I lower myself into the old cushion and pull up to the keyboard.

Whoa. The chair is stuck and reclined so far I can barely reach my mouse. I’ll have to put in a maintenance request for a new chair.

But first, I need to catch up.

My new office has been rearranged and cleaned since my promotion and Emily’s sudden departure. It’s kind of wild being in here without her, surrounded by her old furniture…

It’s so lonely here without that diva…

The chair catches when I try to roll closer.

“Seriously?”

I look down.

Something red is wound around the wheel.

Thread.

A lot of it.

I bend beneath the desk and pull.

Ouch.

A sharp pain stabs me in the chest.

I sit up too fast, smacking my head against the desk, and press my palm over the spot.

When I look down, a single red strand hangs from my sweater.

I brush at it.

It doesn’t move.

Huh.

Must’ve snagged something.

I don’t have time for this.

Just ignore it and get back to work.