18.
 Mick felt a momentary sense of disorientation.
He felt strange, fragmented, puzzled. Empty. Yet pieces seemed to be rapidly and constantly falling into place. It was not something he could have explained to anyone, but somehow he knew that would never be necessary.
He walked along Bolton. There was nothing ahead. Then the intersection with Cartwright shimmered into existence. The night was dry and odorless one moment, perhaps a little warm. Then it became cooler, a little windy, and smelling pleasantly of night-blooming jasmine. The sky above was black and empty. Then a swath of stars appeared in it. No moon to dim the stars with its glow, and that was okay. Houses, trees, hedges, a man watering, all winked into existence as this world rebooted, reloaded, reinitialized itself. He walked along feeling good about everything.
He came to No. 14 Cartwright at Bolton & Cartwright. The house was dark and still. He fumbled in his pockets, but they were empty. No, a key appeared. He looked up again, and several lights were on. He heard music— he recognized the moody largos of Samuel Barber. The slow, measured piano notes punctuated his footsteps as he went up the stairs, one by one, each stair materializing in the dark just before he stepped on it.
He got to the top of the landing and it seemed he was in middle of nowhere. He could open and close his eyes, it did not matter—utter blackness surrounded him on all sides. A void, a vacuum emptier than space, for he saw no stars. Only the flickering false misfires in his brain, trying to process blackness as light. He grew dizzy and nearly fell backwards down the stairs. He closed his eyes, swayed, reached out—and grasped the solid whorled wood of the banister.
He opened his eyes and everything suddenly seemed normal. Almost. There was one last little bit of a thing that had to right itself, and he wasn't sure what it was, but it was important. Until it fixed itself, he felt a faintly soul-sick feeling of not-rightness.
He stood still on the second floor landing. There was the carpet, a worn Persian, little more than faded peach and blue and a dozen hues of brown. There was the wood floor, its fine members shiny in places, rough in others, gouged from old age. There was the table by the wall, and the big lace doily hanging down its sides, and the yellowish-glowing lamp with a brass base and a kind of sienna glowing ball for a shade. The parlor smelled of flowers and lemons and oranges.
"Come in," called the familiar steady pleasant voice.
He pushed the door open. It swung slowly open, and there sat Em in the wheelchair. No, it was the beautiful face of Monica. She smiled lovingly at him with that easygoing, loving, sweet, affectionate look. The white teeth. She was beautiful.
But in the wheel chair.
He gagged, feeling the not-rightness. He clutched at his throat, gasping for air.
"What's the matter, sweetheart? Did you walk too fast?"
She stood up, and that little thing righted itself, that one last detail that made their worlds seamlessly match.
"Look, darling, I found this wheelchair in the closet. I can't figure out for the life of me where it came from." She turned, looking puzzled at the wheelchair but pleased at his return. She wore his white shirt—too big for her—and through it he could see the crisp little tartan-style bikini. The petite, perfect 16 year old body, the ribbon candy hair, and the gorgeous face (he'd want to paint her again!).
"Oh Em," he said, "I had a long, long walk, and I'm so glad to be back."
The last fragment of his memories closed under the waves as Em/Monica, no, just Em, ran to embrace him. He hugged her small, tight body to himself and wondered why she had been talking about a wheelchair. There was no wheelchair and then he forgot that thought. Mick and Em shared a laugh and a kiss, as Mick with one foot pushed shut the door of their house at No. 14 Cartwright at Bolton.
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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