Hummingbird

  I returned to consciousness reluctantly, trying to swim back into a dream in which I’d been wandering through an enormous glass-walled hotel in search of my missing head. Sunlight pushed at my eyelids. I gave up and rolled out of bed. Kim was out in the sitting room, pumping her arms as she walked in place with headphones on. I sat down on the couch and stared at her until she took the hint and turned off her MP3 player. “What’s up?” she asked.

  I felt like I hadn’t slept in months. One of my hands quavered uncontrollably, as if I’d had a stroke. “I think …” I said. “I’m losing my mind.”

  “Oh?” She started to walk again, leaving the sound off.

  I told her everything, about the blackouts, the leaps in time, the jarring returns to the present.

  Kim frowned, as if to say, I’m listening, but her gaze kept wandering off to a spot just over my shoulder. I was struggling to convey just how real the visions felt when she interrupted with an impatient flick of the hand.

  “That happens to me all the time.”

  “What? No, I don’t think you understand how vivid—”

  “No, I get it.”

  “It’s a sensory experience. I smell things. Feel things.”

  “Right.” She looked at me like I was a naïve child, describing the most common phenomenon in the world.

  “That happens to you all the time.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “But—”

  She walked faster, her hand edging towards the MP3 player hooked over her waistband.

  I shook my head. “Forget it.”

  The walls were slightly off-kilter, as if the apartment had been dismantled and hastily reassembled while I slept. I heard the faint rhythm of Kim’s workout music start up again. There would never be a better time to end things. One simple, unambiguous statement and it would be over. But before I could say a word, a hard jolt brought me into a new space, a smaller, dimmer space lit by strings of Christmas lights. A naked, middle-aged woman sat beside me on a futon, smoking a joint and studying me with detached interest, as if she intended to paint me. Feeling simultaneously heavy and weightless, I tried to sit up. I’d never smoked pot before and was fascinated by the way one green light on the wall flickered whenever I asked it to. How the rhythmic song on the stereo had been skipping for the last ten minutes. Even in the dim light, even drunk and high, I could see that my companion wasn’t beautiful. Her teeth were blocky and yellow, her stomach rolled with fat and sagging with age. But her pale green eyes had a trace of kindness in them, a glimmer of a real person, a person I might have been able to love.

  “It’s okay,” she said.

  A meaningless noise left my mouth and dissolved in the air.

  “Don’t fight it.” She rested a hand on my arm. “Let it take you where you need to go.”

  We were both naked, but I couldn’t remember having sex. I looked around for my clothes as the skipping song came to an end and another one started, a tinny synthesized melody against a slow driving beat. I tried not to panic about my complete loss of coordination, or the fact that someone else was crouched in a corner of the room. A boy. Arms wrapped around his knees.

  “What is it?” the woman asked.

  “He’s watching us,” I whispered.

  “Is he?”

  “Do you see him there? In the corner?”

  She took one last hit on the joint and set it in a little ceramic ashtray, then wrapped a silk robe around herself and went over to the stove on the other side of the room. The burner clicked and she put a kettle on. “Tea?”

  I shook my head, still watching the corner. All this felt familiar, like it had happened many times before. Chad Temple’s face appeared over the small body.

  “Do you know him?” the woman asked.

  I nodded.

  “Is that a good yes or a bad yes?”

  “A bad yes,” I whispered.

  “Would you like me to make him go away?”

  I nodded again, then flinched as she flipped a switch. Light flooded the room, thrown from a bulb on a wire. The dingy room had little in it besides the futon. In the corner, Chad had transformed into a step stool draped with a peach-coloured bra.

  “Okay?” she said. The harsh light revealed the woman’s thick makeup, her scarred hands, the stubble on her calves. But her movements were graceful, and she didn’t seem the least bit self-conscious.

  I wrapped a blanket around myself. “Okay.”

  The woman shut the light and came back to the futon. “How old are you, sweetie?”

  “Twenty-four,” I said, still watching the corner.

  “Do you want to tell me your name?”

  “I … No, I don’t think so.”

  She shrugged. “Okay. Sometimes it’s better that way.”

  Chad had reappeared, his adult head on the body of a child. “I’m still seeing him,” I said. “Is that normal?”

  “Who wants to be normal?”

  “I do.”

  “Well, that’s a shame.”

  All at once, I felt inexplicably sad. The marijuana amplified the emotion and the alcohol loosened my grip on it. I started to cry, quietly at first, but soon I was sobbing.

  “Well, that’s no good,” the woman said. “Come here.”

  She gathered me into a hug and I leaned against her, choking back a rush of aimless grief. The woman stroked my hair, hushing me, and I sobbed into her chest until the kettle started to buck and whistle.

  “I need to get that,” she said, gently.

  I dropped my head to my hands, sick and ashamed.

  “Sure you don’t want tea?” she asked. I shook my head and wiped my eyes. She brought her cup over and gave me a tired smile. “Where are you from, sweetie?”

  My tears receded as abruptly as they’d come, leaving a cool blankness in their wake. I felt under the blanket for my clothes.

  “Did you grow up around here?” she persisted.

  “No. I … Sorry, have you seen my pants?”

  The woman smiled, as steam writhed above her cup. “You know, I wasn’t sure if I should tell you this, but I went to that bar tonight looking for you. Not someone like you. You. And here you are, sitting on my couch. Isn’t that funny?” She gazed at me intently. “We were like two magnets, sliding together …”

  I had no memory of meeting the woman or making my way to her place. She seemed to have conjured me there, like a witch in a fairy tale. A cool draft swept over me and I shuddered. The step stool in the corner was just a step stool again. My limbs remembered how to move. I groped around the legs of the futon.

  “What’s wrong?” the woman asked.

  “Nothing. I’m just cold.”

  “Why don’t you have some tea?”

  I nudged something furry under the futon and pulled my hand back. The kettle whistled again. I looked around and saw that the stovetop was empty. Fear pricked at my scalp. The woman muttered something about magnets, how stubborn they could be. She lowered her cup to the table in slow motion. The whistling grew louder, higher in pitch. Then in a flash, I was on top of her, wringing her throat with both hands as she flailed and clawed at my back, her face going dark. I jerked out of the vision. The whistling had stopped. I hadn’t moved. The woman was still in the process of putting down her cup, but she looked stunned. Her free hand went up to her collarbone. “I think …” she said, “you’d better leave.”

  “Why?” I said. “What did you see?”

  She got up and opened a door onto a narrow hallway.

  “That’s not me,” I told her. “Whatever you saw, that’s not who I am.”

  In the light from the hall, I spotted my clothes balled up under the futon and grabbed them, quickly hauling them on. “I wouldn’t hurt you,” I insisted, as if the woman had contradicted me. “These things, they just come. I don’t know why …”

  The woman remained at the door, saying nothing. I grabbed her by the arms and slammed her up against the wall. The scene collapsed. I was still standing on the
opposite side of the room. I couldn’t have possibly touched her.

  “Hank!” she called, an edge of panic in her voice.

  A thick-necked bald man appeared in the doorway. “Everything all right?”

  “I want this boy to leave.”

  “You heard the woman,” Hank said.

  “I didn’t do anything!” I shouted. “I didn’t touch her!”

  Hank stepped into the room and the woman stopped him with a hand on the arm.

  “Look,” she said to me. “I feel for you. I really do. But whatever you need, whatever you’re missing, you’re not going to find it here … So this is what’s going to happen. I’m going to count to three and you’re going to get the fuck out of my room.”

  “But—”

  “One.”

  “I just—”

  “Two.”

  I hurried past her into the hall, turning to ask, almost desperately: “Do you still want to know my name?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t.”

  She shut the door, leaving me alone in the hall with Hank, who shrugged and gave me a look that was not without sympathy. “Go home,” he said. My eyes were stinging. I wove down the hall to the front door and half-fell down the stoop. The sidewalk was dry but I felt like I was stepping in puddles. I hugged a streetlight and patted my pockets. No wallet. No keys. I did a slow turn, squinting at the surrounding buildings. The effort of remembering what door I’d come out of was too much. I vomited on the street without warning. Two women in short skirts went “Ohhhh!” and cackled as they passed me by. I staggered to an empty payphone booth at the end of the block. Every number I’d ever committed to memory scrolled through my head as I picked up the receiver. After a long moment, I set the receiver back down. There wasn’t a soul in the world I could have called for help.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The apartment had never been neater: counters gleaming, the clutter gone, the recycling and trash in their designated receptacles. The previously bare walls had been filled with amateurish but original renderings of brightly coloured doors. The bathroom was spotless, a red toothbrush resting against mine in a glass on the sink. The bedroom was just as neat, dirty clothes in a hamper, the comforter on the bed, perfectly square. The telephone beside me rang and I picked up cautiously, with the tips of my fingers.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m on my way home,” Kim said, as multiple dogs barked in the background. “Have you eaten?”

  “Um … I’m not sure.”

  “Oh boy. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  Strangely apathetic, I sat half-dozing by the telephone until it rang again.

  This time a male voice greeted me.

  “Just a friendly reminder. Eight o’clock at the university.”

  “The university?”

  “That’s right. I assume you’ll be leaving fairly soon? If you’re taking a cab, remember to get a receipt.”

  I stood up to clear my head and bright spots bloomed on the wall.

  “I’m sorry, who is this?”

  “It’s David Cavendish.”

  “The agent?”

  “Ye-es.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m just a little … under the weather.”

  “Felix … You’re not trying to back out on me, are you?”

  “No,” I said, surprised by the aggression in his voice.

  “Good. I know it’s not your favourite thing to do, but it’s necessary. Two hours of your life and it’ll be over. I’ll find you when it’s done.”

  I hung up and looked at my watch. The hands wobbled and tipped, before resolving at their fixed points. Six-thirty. I couldn’t seem to wake up. I wanted to put on coffee, but the cupboards had all been rearranged. I gave up and stopped in front of the fridge. A dog-shaped magnet held an advertisement for a reading at the university auditorium, featuring me and a number of other authors. Before I could even think to panic, the door rattled and in came Kim, wearing dramatic makeup and a feathery looking skirt. Her smile fell when she saw me. “You’re not dressed.”

  “Where are the coffee filters?”

  “On the microwave. Why aren’t you dressed?”

  “On the microwave? How am I supposed to find them there?”

  “Felix.”

  “What?”

  “Why aren’t you dressed?”

  “I’m sick.”

  Her face darkened. She marched into the bedroom and brought out a pile of folded clothes. It seemed easier to obey than protest, so I stripped off my sweatpants and T-shirt and put on the collared shirt and slacks that she’d chosen. As she did up my tie, I stood with my arms at my sides, transfixed by the fleshy bud of her pursed lips, painted a jarring shade of red. She grabbed a sport coat and loafers out of the closet, then wet her thumb on her tongue and wiped at something on my right cheek. I suspected there was nothing there, that she was licking her thumb and wiping again, just below my eye socket, to prove some strange point.

  “There,” she said.

  “I don’t want to go.”

  She took me by the hand and dragged me out of the apartment. An impotent ball of fury swelled in my chest as we rode the elevator down to the lobby, but when we stepped out the front door, I held her hand tightly, grateful to not be alone. The sun had fallen behind the buildings to the west, the sky a dusky shade of blue.

  “How many people are going to be there?” I asked, as a steady stream of cars rolled past on the street.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I can’t do this.”

  “Taxi!”

  “Please don’t make me do this.”

  But she’d already flagged down a cab and was handing the driver a card with the event’s location. In the back seat of the car, all the muscles in my stomach collapsed on a single stabbing point. “Kim …”

  She extracted a pill caddy and a bottle of water from her purse. The driver watched us curiously in the rear-view mirror as Kim shook out pills of different shapes and sizes. I swallowed them all and she patted my leg. “Close your eyes. I’ll see you in twenty minutes.”

  “I want to go home.”

  “Twenty minutes,” she said, firmly.

  I sat back and shut my eyes. My stomach lurched every time the car took a sharp corner. I was about to insist that the driver stop and let me out when a spigot in my chest twisted, and all the tension flooded from my body. I opened my eyes and looked at Kim. Whatever she saw in my face made her grin. “Better?” she asked.

  I nodded, intrigued by the sensation of my head going up and down.

  “Good. We’re almost there.”

  The cab pulled up outside the auditorium and we climbed out together, no longer holding hands. The student at the door gave me an identity card and directed me across the foyer to the event organizer, a man with a long face and prominent incisors, who narrowed his eyes as we approached.

  “Mr. Mallory?” he said.

  “That’s right,” Kim said.

  “Present,” I confirmed, listing to one side and catching myself.

  The man’s upper lip twitched, exposing his front teeth and I snorted. His nose began to lengthen and I laughed out loud.

  “He’s fine,” Kim said.

  “I’m fine,” I agreed in a strangled voice.

  The organizer looked unconvinced. “Things will be getting underway soon,” he said, tersely. “You’d better come with me.”

  The more suspicious he became, the more rat-like he looked. Nearly weeping with suppressed laughter, I left Kim to join the main crowd and followed him through a side door into the darkened auditorium, past a group of students watching a disaster movie on a small television. A building on fire. Stampeding men and women in business attire. A news ticker rolled across the bottom of the screen, and I realized that it wasn’t a movie. Somewhere in the world, this was actually happening. The organizer kept me moving with a forceful nudge, steering me over to the wings of the stage, where he melted back into the shadows. A handful of authors were mill
ing around, unaware that I’d joined them. From their subdued conversation, I gathered three things:

  1. None of them had taken a cocktail of unknown psychotropic drugs on the cab ride over.

  2. Armed rebels had just seized the American embassy in an obscure but strategically important Middle Eastern country.

  3. The sleeve of my jacket was on fire.

  I flapped my arm and the fire went out.

  “Looks like a good turnout,” one of the other authors observed. I smiled at her, before realizing that she was talking to the person next to me. For a brief moment, I was back in high school, raising my hand to Nikki Pederson in response to a wave that she’d actually—and obviously—directed at someone over my shoulder. The house lights dimmed and the emcee for the evening strolled out to the podium, dressed in black, his silver hair gleaming. As he began to speak, a hot wind blew across the stage and the spotlight became a sun, beating down through a smoky haze onto the shimmering face of the American embassy. Children with automatic rifles grinned down at me from the compound’s high walls. A distorted voice crackled through a megaphone, reciting a long list of names before compelling me to approach the flaming building. I moved through a grove of smoldering trees. The embassy appeared to be constructed of cardboard and glue, smoke pouring from its windows. Inside, someone was either shrieking in pain or furiously playing an out-of-tune violin. I climbed the steps to the front door and gripped an ornate handle. Then everything went quiet.