The invisible illness

I had been waiting for time to pass, the way I usually did when it came to late afternoon. I felt exhausted at the thought of another day, sandwiched by another week, in the heart of another month, it disheartened me to see it all happen again. I sat at my office desk, blankly watching forward, searching across the 20-car lot at the apartment across from mine, still empty 2-years later. I really resonated with the dead brambles in the planters. The stems of what used to be daffodils heaved over the side of their box, staring longingly at the ground below, I knew exactly what that felt like.

My sympathy for those desiccated stems fueled my egregious interest in the new and gentle hand that reached out to grab them that afternoon. She gathered all of them in her palm and with a swift pluck uprooted them from the soil and for some reason seeing their stringy roots hovering midair made me gasp. I hurried towards my window, dying to see the wrist, arm, body, and face of the soft but severe hand capable of such power. All I managed was a glimpse of chocolate hair and a shivering curtain.

From then on, I became slightly obsessed. The C-shaped layout of our apartment building did not allow for my indifference, my office desk and its decorative plants relied on the natural sunlight streaming in from her Eastward direction. I found myself yearning for her movement again, unable to focus on the tasks hovering above my stagnant computer. I blew off all my appointments that week, claiming to have the flu. When she returned and planted the striking lavender stems a few days later, I was overcome with relief for I also felt reborn.

It began innocently, I only wanted to make sure she knew how to properly care for lavender. Did she know not to overwater? They were dry soil plants after all. I awoke at 7, with her, to try and track her plant watering habits. I learned quickly, in conjunction with my newly planted neighbors, that she indeed, did not know how to care for plants. Her habits ranging from sometimes watering multiple times an hour, to other times, only managing to spare the tail-end of her drink once per couple weeks, the purple petals flaked, and the thin stems withered in the span of a month and a half.

Strangely, as dead as those plants were, the novelty did not wear off for me. I found their dry hovering stems and disintegrating petals beautiful, the way perfectly placed dried flower assortments decorated fancy hotel bathrooms. I even began pressing flowers that I found on my way to the shops, inspired by the somber elegance of the way colors dulled to a point and then became frozen in time. But even hobbies like these, were contaminated with thoughts of her. There was always something, be it a flicker of light, a dance of movement, or an intriguing posture across the way. Soon it became vital that I work my day around hers, otherwise I would just sit in anticipation.

I gathered that she left in the mornings to go to some job, constantly rushing around with a black leather portfolio tucked underneath her arm. Luckily, she kept a constant schedule and so I could expect her back around 4 PM. I was able to live my life in the interim. I worked remotely doing entry level data management for a bookkeeping company and I was able to keep my hours consistent making sure to never leave after 4. Soon we had settled into a routine and in no time, she truly felt like my flat mate. I worked when she left, and we hung out when she got home. Without realizing, I began calling her Jenny in my daydreams. And then one day verbalized this during a worried phone call with my estranged parents where I mentioned a young working professional that had just moved in.

The conversation had proceeded like most others, at first they had been weary, distrustful of my ability to actually leave my apartment, but grew warmer as I told them how we watched TV together and read books side by side. I wished to dwell on it, but they were intent on focusing on my faults, as always. I only half-listened as they nagged me about my sleep and exercise, decisive in their disappointment that I continued to not do enough.

I had just ended the call and was allowing myself to recover from their grating voices by staring off into the space around me. I had been lost in silent introspection when I realized I was invisible.

Surrounded by midafternoon light, the floor to ceiling windows of Jenny’s apartment across from me, became dark and mirrored, displaying a reflection of my own apartment back to me. The yellowing exterior of the building framed the rectangular panes of my open office window, drawing attention to the crisp whiteness of the furniture stationed inside. I could not quite see myself at my desk, all I could make out were the outlines of oversized furnishings dotted with green life extending from plant pots. I waved, wondering if the movement would catch in the reflection, it did not.

It must have been something to do with the depth of my person on the other side of the window, perhaps I was simply too far into the room for the reflection to catch me. I stood and walked right up to the glass, craving to see how she saw me, hoping it would give me some indication of what I looked like. But despite being pressed up against the glass, there was a glaring absence of my lumpish figure, too long and too wide, the emptiness stole all breath from my lungs. Usually on midafternoons like those, I could catch a sweet and brief still-frame of my reflection pitying me from her coveted position across the parking lot, perched on her furniture.

I gesticulated again, expecting some type of flash in the tinted glass, not a single light beam was disturbed. I looked down at my hands, still solid, they left an oily residue where I pressed them on my window. I reached down to stroke the waxy cuticle of one of the massive Monstera leaves basking in the glowing sun when a flicker caught my eye. Across the way, a great green leaf lightly wavered in my apartment as if a gentle breeze had just passed through. I shook the plant, watching in horror as the leaves suddenly came alive.

Backing away from the window slowly, I nicked my hip on the corner of my desk. Dread twisted my stomach as I followed the swaying contents in the reflective surface, a cup full of pens clattered to the floor. I turned and ran full force towards the bathroom, anticipating sickness.

I clutched at the ceramic basin of the sink, crying hot tears onto the void of my reflection in the shiny metal faucet. The tears slipped down and created a salty stream of their own, I had truly morphed into nothing but a specter of my apartment. I could sense the mirror above my nonexistent shoulders, it dared me to look up and confirm my nightmare.

As I hunched, shoulders straining to my ears, I was suddenly reminded of the old Victorian widows left to haunt cold 18th century castles for eternity. Was I the modern version, a 26-year-old recluse working from home? Was I freshly dead or had I simply not been living? With defeated hiccupping breaths, I stumbled from the bathroom back towards my office desk.

The fallen pens lay haphazardly atop each other, a snapshot of a time I wished to get back, a time before I confronted my non-existence. I resumed my position at my desk as if nothing happened and opened a new browser window. I was not sure what to type, but somehow my fingers found the keys without my instruction, as they usually did. Interestingly, the disconnect between my body and mind seemed to survive despite the disappearance of the latter.

“Coping with invisibility” yielded 1,500,000 search results. Much of the advice from pop-psychology blogs boiled down to, “reach out to friends and family”, which I found exceedingly annoying, as most invisible people had already lost that opportunity. To humor these well-meaning authors, I tried to imagine what a conversation with my parents about my predicament would sound like.

“Hi mom and dad” I would begin, “hope all is well. I am not so well. I appear to have lost my physical form.” I would be able to hear the eye roll through the phone and would most likely find myself curling into my invisible core as their voices inevitably raised on the other end.

“I just don’t understand,” they would snap, voices gaining momentum, “you’re 26 years-old living a fake life through your computer”. A pause, punctuated by a deep exasperated sigh, their way of reminding me that this conversation was stale.

I imagined at that point I would try to pipe up and state with serious conviction that no, I truly had lost my body, only to be interrupted halfway through with another shrill, “I just don’t understand you”. The power of their voices pushing my words and thoughts out of existence. Reaching out to friends and family was not an option.

After clicking through dozens of useless articles, I found myself on a BBC webpage titled,

“7 things I would do if I were invisible”, the list appearing below a picture of some floating glasses. The author mused about standard tomfoolery like messing with friends, sneaking into secret meetings, and disappearing from unwanted situations, and despite myself, I managed to have a little giggle at the thought.

The mild amusement I felt when picturing myself throwing a decorative crystal vase across my mother’s living room, heavy stone sailing past her terrified face, ignited a tiny flame of confidence within my chest. It dawned on me that I could do whatever I wanted with no repercussions, as I no longer had a physical body to punish.

Relief swelled at the thought of, no longer pretending I was oblivious to stranger’s eyes lingering on my sullen face with sad curiosity as I did my weekly trip to the shops; No more pitiful smiles of encouragement as I stuttered to keep a conversation with the cashier. There were no rules for an invisible person in a visible world. And whether it was the lack of material or psychological weight, I stood from my desk feeling lighter than ever. I approached my window and assessed the parking lot below me.

The large man with the missing leg was posted in his regular spot near the first-floor door, he inhaled cigarette after cigarette, putting out the butts with the left wheel of his wheelchair. He stared into space the way I often did and snapped to attention only when the door beside him opened or closed. Jenny never acknowledged him in her comings and goings, but he certainly noticed her.

In fact, just that morning, I had been watching from my living room, peering downwards with a coffee in hand and anticipating Jenny’s consistent 7:30 am departure, when I noticed the smoking man glancing impatiently at the door. I knew the exact source of his impatience, as I had mirrored this action only minutes before in response to an uneasiness at the clock creeping towards 7:45.

I, however, had a vantage point that he did not, I could see a flash of her rushing figure bouncing from bathroom to kitchen back to bathroom. She had overslept. I pictured her swearing under her breath as she tugged through long hair with a shiny brush while simultaneously trying to gather the spread-out papers on her kitchen table. She had been positioned at that kitchen table pouring over those documents almost all night, they were probably the reason for her late start. I would know, since last night I had fallen asleep on my couch situated parallel to her kitchen table. I had been watching her work well into early hours of the morning when I had drifted off into a sweet dream, where Jenny and I were in the same room, my soundly sleeping body a mere 6-feet away from hers. I awoke a couple hours later at 6:30 am, sticky with sweat and forced to peel myself off of my living room couch. It was then, that I had made a coffee and situated myself at the window, ready to observe the separateness of the lives being lived around me.

When she had finally left this morning, me, and the man in the wheelchair both visibly relaxed. He continued to erode his lungs and I collapsed into my desk chair ready to address the looming work emails waiting patiently in my inbox. It felt like so long ago and seemed impossible to me that mere hours had passed since I had managed to live life blissfully unaware of the shock about to devastate everything I knew. I could not believe that this morning I had sat at the desk currently behind me stressing about work deadlines, it was laughable now.

The midafternoon sun began to wane and the mirrored property of Jenny’s apartment windows slowly dissipated, inch by inch. I do not know how long I stood at the window pondering my invisibility. But the longer I stood, watching the one-legged man smoke, the more persistent my horrible idea became.

With every person that passed through the door on his right, a fervor swelled in my stomach like a balloon. Nervous excitement propelled my featherweight body away from the window and towards the door of my apartment. I was floating through the hallway, down the stairs and through the parking lot until I halted dead in front of the wheelchaired man. The smoke from his mouth warmed my bare arms and his far away gaze chilled them again, goosebumps rippled at the surface of my skin, intensifying with every moment that he did not acknowledge me.

I crouched to meet the gaze that went straight through me. His eyes were milky and bloodshot, they met mine as he exhaled a sour puff right into my face. Up close he was more withered than I expected, I always assumed him to be in his late 30s but assessing the depth of the wrinkles that parted the skin of his forehead, he must have been at least 50. I reached forward, my hand hovering above the pock-marked skin of his cheek.

Truthfully, I had not anticipated my primal urge to touch him. My invisible hand waivered up and down in a space of only a few inches, my mind fought my muscles every inch they grasped forward. Surely, he would register my touch because despite being invisible, I was still able to grasp things, my mind wandered to the reflection of my flitting Monstera leaf.

I was about to glance up to my apartment in curiosity, questioning if one could see my plants from down here, when very abruptly, a deep cough shook his body sending his head into collision with my hovering hand, I quickly withdrew.

In awe, I watched my own shock play out on his features. His eyes became alert as he swiped forward towards me, in a deep voice warbled with cigarette smoke, he exclaimed, “what the fuck? Who’s there?”

Years of anxiety had made me very alert and receptive to my own reflexes, I just managed to dodge his violently swinging arm. And as I jumped back, I was overcome with a sickness deep in my intestines. I watched in helpless distress as he grabbed desperately at the air in front of him. His wheelchair teetered dangerously at the violence of his movement. He called out to no avail and an invisible tear rolled down my invisible cheek, as there was nothing I could do but step to the side.

I should have used this horrid interaction as a checkpoint. Normally discomfort sent me deep inside myself to a place rife with overthinking, but my new invisibility somehow also concealed my morals. I stood by the door watching the man in apathy. He is a creep too, I reminded myself. I drew comfort in reminiscing about his pathological attentiveness to Jenny’s schedule. His wild confusion and fear were things I would wish upon myself, we both deserved it. And neither of us deserved her.

It took far too long for the first-floor door to open again. A mother holding hands with a toddler exited the building and called out a polite hello as she passed the wheelchaired man. She paused at his side, with her back to me, and remarked,

“Me and Maddie just came by to visit grandpa before dinner, turns out he was sleeping.”

The wheelchaired man let out a jolly laugh. “You have a good one Cherie,” and then he quickly added “you too Madison” while leaning down to address the toddler.

The toddler shyly waved and after a gentle bump from her mother’s hip she added in a small voice, “bye Frank”. He sputtered a coughing laugh at this. It appeared that after Cherie’s passing, he seemed to relax again. He reached into a deep bag on the side of his chair and pulled out a new packet of cigarettes.

He tapped and extracted the first cigarette while I slipped through the door. I had grabbed the handle as Cherie exited and had held it slightly open as she passed, hoping to not freak her out as it hovered open a half of an inch. My muscles strained against the forceful metal, but luckily, neither Cherie nor Frank had noticed the lack of a closing click.

For a couple of moments, I watched Frank smoke from the other side of the door. I felt giddy about my new vantage point. I had finally crossed the threshold into Jenny’s part of the building and was overcome with a sense of elation. Maybe now that I was invisible, I would finally have the courage to do all the things I wanted to do.

I traced my hand along the hallway wall as I descended deeper into the building. I already knew exactly where Jenny’s apartment was, this half of the building was simply a mirrored layout of my own. Where I would usually turn left, I veered right, stomping up the same flight of cement stairs that she traversed every day.

My breath hitched as I approached her door. 234 in dull golden numerals. I put my index to the 2, tracing it slowly as I pawed above the doorframe with my other hand. A silver glint descended before my eyes, landing on my bare feet with a tinny clang. It was such an obvious place to store a key, I wondered if she had purposely left it there for me to find, an invitation into her world.

I did not move to pick it up, my neck whipped to the side sending my attention down the hall suddenly distracted by a draft rushing from the stairs. Wind barreled towards me, cool air sent all hair up and out from my skin, I could feel it brushing against my invisible clothes with every deep shaky breath I took. Nothing appeared to have moved around me, and yet the remnants of the chill racked my spine.

I slowly bent down with stiff posture, my muscles still hyper alert and anticipating movement from the darkened doorways that lined her hall. I grabbed the key with a shaking hand and guided it to the lock. My tremorous wrist made contact between key and lock almost impossible. The key jangled as it hit the metal mechanism, etching my fervent attempts into the plated surface. The severity of my shaking increased in proportion with how many attempts I took. Soon I could barely even hold onto the key, my sweat slicked fingers slipped against its metal, driving it into my palm whenever I positioned it forwards.

The desperate frustration that plagued most things I attempted to do, left me with limp muscles. Exhaustion melted my arms and the key fell again. Invisible or not, the fact of the matter was, I maintained the same unbalanced mind perched atop a spinal cord that had failed me time and time again. I looked down at the sickly pallor of my skin covering pathetic bloated hands that were unable to hold onto anything important. I wished they were invisible to me too.

I barely registered that I was crying again, maybe I had never stopped. I leaned my forehead forwards against the coolness of her front door, at least I did not have to worry about anyone seeing me, and asking in a voice gentle with fake worry are you alright? Or even worse, can I call someone for you? I hated that. I hated it so much that my psychiatrist, back when I had needed him, had written my workplace a recommendation that I be allowed to work from home just to avoid those types of people. And I had been okay ever since.

From where I stood, pressed up against the border of our lives, I could smell vanilla and lavender. I inhaled harder, it wafted around and through me, reminding me of the moment I had seen her delicate hands and serene smile glow as she planted those lavender stems in her planter box. That had been a miraculous day, for those stems had given me purpose right when I had needed it most. I mused at the key, allowing my thoughts to become contaminated with the calm of lavender. This would be the best way for us to meet.

A daydream that had worked its way into a plan is what led me to her door. Before losing my physical form, I had accepted my life to be an exercise in separation. There was no way I could ever maneuver myself in space in way that those around me would still feel comfortable. Whether it be an uncontrollable clench of my jaw, a thought that I accidentally said out loud, or a question I asked met with a weary smile, my presence unnerved others. I knew this with certainty, a conclusion I had come to from countless attempts of casual conversation throughout my teens and early twenties.

And so, in the absence of conventional communication, I thrived. My friendship with Jenny had been my longest relationship to date, with both of us feeling content in our distanced comradery. I grinned, trying to keep a wide smile inside myself, still not really registering that I was invisible, my sudden joy could not startle anyone anymore. I thought of the time I was sure we had seen each other. A deep night in the middle of December. A time where two people would usually go home to families. We each kept our lights on throughout the eve of Christmas, and each drank heavily, filling and dripping glasses of red wine. Alone but not really. My stomach fluttered at the remembrance of when our gazes had met. Searching across the dark piled snow, undistracted by dancing flakes, we had seen each other. A kindred spirit somewhere across the barren midwestern sky.

I grabbed the key and slipped it in with ease. Thoughts of Jenny protected me from the disorder of my mind, and when I pictured her, it shut my thoughts down, acting as a much-needed factory reset. I pushed through the door, completely consumed by the sound of my heart galloping, squeezing blood up and into my ears. When finally inside, immediately, my eyes were drawn to the floor to ceiling windows opening up across the parking lot. The sight froze my muscles, I stood rigid again, convinced I could feel another draft.

My vision began to blur, the trademark fuzziness that encroached on the borders of my thoughts, crept closer to the forefront of my mind. Something about seeing my home, the deep green leaves of my plants fanning forward towards me, I began to float away. A trick I often employed when I felt dissociation threatening to carry me up, involved use of my fingernails. Locked on the view of my only safe space so far away, I extended my thumbnail onto the back of my hand pushing down hard enough to pop the surface of my skin. Instant relief brought my movement back, as warmth gathered from my invisible organs towards the surface. Seeing my own apartment, a Monstera plant with a quizzical branch up, a desk overflowing with empty coke cans, made me feel like I was trapped inside a TV.

Motionless for too long, I almost began to slip away again when crunching below my feet stole my attention from the window. Shards of colorful debris turned to powder under my weight, the remnants of whatever garbage adhered to the sole of my foot, mixing with the thick layer of dust I had picked up from moving a couple steps through her apartment. The floor appeared swirling grey in my wake, I watched the dust settle and as it fell down something inside me came up. Bile burnt the sides of my throat, retching up the particles I had just ingested.

My heart was working too fast for the dust glazed air to effectively sustain it. I wildly searched for an explanation. An exploded vacuum cleaner, old boxes from storage, the space appeared to be filled with everything but. Some of the colorful debris I had stepped on earlier rolled away from my feet, scattering cheap beads from a broken necklace across the grey-stained carpet. The beads settled at the bases of tens of plastic bags strewn across the room, one filled with a tangle of snake-like wires, another toilet paper rolls, a third, folded cotton t-shirts. There were so many, and I was completely surrounded by their hunched forms.

My vision warped and it appeared that the smoke-stained walls of Jenny’s apartment stretched around me, extending upwards into a dome above my head. The walls met, trapping me inside a jar filled with thick unusable air. Static air had such a distinct smell. It was sweet with the organic decay of old half-open wine bottles and dead lavender stems. The sweetness expanded in the hot thickness of afternoon sun, turning the atmosphere into a blanket that I currently tried to shove down my throat. I had to swallow my oxygen, my diaphragm wiggled erratically, trying to reject the coated air.

When my chest began to heave, I knew I needed to open a window. The familiar confusion accompanying numb hands and toes threatened my focus.

I tore forward, ignoring the distorted walls, to the window. Wrenching it open, the outside air felt sharp in my coated lungs. I heaved forward, dangling above the lavender I had admired for a full year, only to notice that the petal shape was off. Small delicate horns, up close actually looked broad and disjointed. I rubbed a petal between my thumb and index, this was not lavender. An imposter, toxic and unrelenting, Jenny had planted a Midwestern weed, blue false indigo.

A plant from my past, I could still see it vivid in my memory reaching for me through the cracks of the barred first floor window. I had watched the plant for weeks on end as it maintained its growth, snaking upwards somehow undeterred by the gravel and metal. I reached down into Jenny’s planter box then, grabbing a handful of the dry stems and crushing them in my fist, making sure that these ones were dead. I let the pieces go, some fell onto the wheelchaired man’s head below me.

I continued to hang there. The yeasty soil, wet from last night’s rain, smelled the same as the inside of her apartment. It filled my mouth with an overproduction of saliva, I begged my body to get it together. I desperately wanted to get away from the overripe sweetness, but I feared reentering the apartment would disorient me again. I felt stranded on an inflatable raft deep in the roiling sea, all I could do was fixate on the horizon and surrender myself to the ride.

Over the edge of the planter, I peered at the scalp of the wheelchaired man, thin black hair stuck out like an oxidized scab. I craved the bitterness of cigarette smoke and so I leaned forward a bit more. I wished I had stayed outside with him. Maybe lived out the rest of my invisible days on my own perch. One that was not above, but amongst, like him. Perhaps that should have been my strategy all along, desensitize people to my freakish existence. Allow for them to see me in a non-threatening context, a place outside, where they could run if needed.

I wondered if the toddler from earlier might be able to stomach me. She had not shied away from Frank, somehow her bright innocent eyes were able to face the cold deadness in his. She had not cowered behind her mother in response to the gristle around his mouth and the high-strung vigilance of his character. Would she continue to say hello as she grew into a teen, slipping out of the building on her own, forced to pass his leering figure.

I had initially assumed Frank to be an unwanted product of communal living, but as the door below me whooshed open again, a young man called a friendly hello as he approached, just as everyone else before him. The new man’s orange head bowed as he spoke to Frank, and while I could see neither face, the tone of their voices sounded like they spoke while smiling at each other.

“Jordan?” Frank sputtered back at the hello.

My eyes narrowed; I could not control my annoyance at Frank’s indifference. How could it even be possible for him to forget a name when he did nothing else. When the man confirmed that he was in fact Jordan, Frank leaned back in his chair. His shoulder blades relaxed, and his hand held steady as it pointed his lit cigarette towards the ground. I felt like he was showing off.

“How’s it going?” Frank asked with casual fluidity.

I repeated this under my breath trying to match his cadence. Jordan said something in response that I could not hear over the loud engine of a starting car. The green station wagon continued to roar, now idling a few spots away from them, almost in the center of the parking lot. Its sputtering filled the air with gasoline, a welcome distraction from the nausea-inducing wet soil that festered under my nose. I missed their last words to the noise.

Abruptly, Jordan straightened. He backed away from Frank, making his way through the lot. Now a couple steps away, he paused and glanced backwards. His gaze fell on Frank but then slowly travelled up. I froze as we met eyes. Words strained against my slack jaw, I searched for a way to call for help, but I remained as insignificant as a gust of wind. He turned on his heel and walked away. The idling car followed, revving in acceleration once it hit the street.

The sudden silence made me take notice of my core, which shook from the strain of trying to keep myself hovering above the soil of the planter box. I rested my wrists on the windowsill for support, the metal cut deep into my skin reminding me again of the place with the imposter indigo and the windows adorned with metal bars. My life had once again come full circle and it was becoming clear that I was bound to live in constant disappointment.

Just like before, I would be forced to watch those around me succeed while I still stood at the start-line confused of the rules. Back then, it had been a newly arrived roommate being granted outdoor privileges within the week, while I worked tirelessly for months on end, unable to shed my one-on-one nurse to patient status. And now, a brutish one-legged man who screamed at my touch, garnered the all the friendly attention of everyone who passed him, while when I moved, a wake of mocking whispers followed me wherever I went.

The disappointment weighed me down and my wrists felt like they might shatter under the strain. I propped myself up and peered over my shoulder at the greasy carpet underfoot. They had all lied to me. There was no place for me to exist in this world, I knew that for certain now. What could be left for an invisible person?

Light tapping noises coming from the front door made me jump, propelling my head deep into the top of the window. The spot of impact glowed with warmth, I brought a hand to my head and it came away streaked red. The throbbing kept me focused as I stepped down from the windowsill, eyeing the front door. Who on earth would be visiting Jenny at 3:30, her real friends knew she would not be home until 4.

The arrhythmic taps continued as I made my way forward. Dirt stuck to the sweat slicked bottoms of my feet. I tried to ignore it, but my vision rolled as I felt one of those plastic bags squish underneath me. I became trapped mid-step. I refused all movement, paralyzed by the fear of having to feel the bag again. My calf muscle burned as I waited.

The tapping paused and the silence became filled with shuffling from the hallway.

“Honey, we’re going to have to come in.”

An immediate tightness closed my throat. I pictured my invisible body hitting the floor in shock, gasping for breath but unable to signal for help. The new voices unaware that they had killed me, might trip over my body, but there would be nothing for them to do. I wondered if I would decompose.

The door opened very slowly, behind it, stood a man I recognized flanked by two strangers. He wore a suit as he always did when he accompanied me to the shops. A red lanyard hung at his chest swinging slightly as he stepped forward into the apartment. The three of them stood around me in a semicircle, likely intrigued by the invisible weight atop the filled plastic bag.

“Christie, you’re a little ways from home,” the man said.

I gasped, excited that they could help me get out of here. “How did you know?” I called.

The bag crinkled below me as my leg began to shake more severely. The women exchanged a look and one stepped to the side to give me some space.

The sound had distracted me. And when I looked down at my foot enmeshed in plastic and unexplainable substance, I felt the hiss of the valves of my heart. I had waited too long; my organs were beginning to shut down. My tongue, heavy with particulate, lost muscle tone as my spine methodically rejected my limbs. My mouth gaped like a fish out of water. I at least owed it to the man to warn him of the dead air. Sound tried to crawl from my throat, but all I could manage was a strangled wail. The room swayed in tempo with his lanyard. Somewhere deep underwater I heard,

“Christie,” the man was calling to me, “remember what we do at the shops”.

A weight pressed into my shoulder and I pawed blindly towards it. My vision was about to go and once I lost it there would be no way for them to find me. I managed to grasp onto something despite my spinning.

“What do you feel?” His voice was somehow still strong over the rushing sound in my ears. He had always been able to do that, ride above the currents that threatened to drag me under. He repeated the question and this time, I could match the voice to a point in space. My hand twitched in his direction and it met resistance.

“What do you feel?”

By the third time, I had gained some stability and could register his question. His voice accompanied a rearrangement of my hand, the limp muscle was being manipulated like clay. Who was doing that? I implored his question, what did I feel? Constant, soft, warm. I squeezed. Pliable but still hard. I squeezed harder and the surface gave under the tension. Slowly I registered a heat accompanied by pressure building in my other hand’s fingertips.

“Good, good, now tell me Christie,”

I could hear him clearly, but my eyes remained fuzzy. I could not tell where my hands were in space only that I knew them to be out there. And my legs were a lost cause, gone somewhere in the ether. The blood in my brain washed over the surface of my skull in waves, it pooled on my right and then transferred to the left, smoothly running down the inclined plane of my breath. I tried to lull my head backwards, to get some of that blood to parts that felt like they were desiccating. My ripe cerebellum, I could sense withering away. Halfway through my backwards tilt, a sudden jolt made me jump.

“Do you feel the ice cube Rhonda has placed on your knee?”

My eyes slotted into place, revealing the presence of one of the strangers crouched in front of me. She had removed the ice cube from the reddening spot on my knee and now dragged it along the surface of my shin. I had been too distracted to answer him and so he repeated his question.

This time, I affirmed. I began to realize what was happening.

Too tired to put fervor into my thoughts, I lamely asked, “am I invisible?”

His lips pressed together into a line. “How about we go to my office and have a chat?”