Through Shattered Glass

by David B. Silva

  "Sally Fields? About the woman with all those different personalities?"

  "Yes."

  "It was a good movie."

  "Yes. But remember what happened when another personality had stepped in? She couldn't remember things. It was as if she had gone to sleep in the middle of making dinner and then suddenly she would wake up again and she would be somewhere else – at work, maybe – and it would be a different day and she would be wearing different clothes."

  "But she thought that's the way it was for everyone? I remember that. It was creepy."

  Not as creepy as the real thing.

  He couldn't ask his next question while looking at her, so he swung his chair around, and stared out the window at the mirror-glassed high-rise across the avenue from his office. The sun was above the building, shining in his face at an odd angle; otherwise he wouldn't have been surprised if he had actually been able to see himself on the other side. It had happened before, on a clear winter day, in the early afternoon hours. Not this time, though, and he supposed that was all for the best because it might have been too much, seeing himself where he knew he shouldn't be.

  "Have you ever noticed anything unusual about me, Bev? Times when I wasn't myself? Not just bad days, but days – or maybe only hours – when I seemed like someone you hardly knew?"

  At first, she let loose with a barely-audible giggle, no more than that, then followed it with something that sounded vaguely like an attempt to swallow the rest of her laughter. It had occurred to her, no doubt, in that short mini-second of a moment, that the question had been a serious one. "Ray, you're one of the most consistent men I've ever met."

  "Consistent?"

  "I've only known you for a few weeks, but yes, I'd say consistent. I know what to expect when we work together. I don't have to worry about temper tantrums or sudden outbreaks of egomania from you. We can differ on things and still respect each other's opinions – no hurt feelings."

  Wrong straw, he thought. You're grasping at the wrong straw. No Sybil here. This isn't about multiple personalities, it's about one personality. One badly frightened personality quickly losing touch with himself.

  "Ray, about the IPMs on Timescape ..."

  "You were right," he said in a whisper. "I think I'm beginning to understand that now. The world's spinning faster than when we were kids, when all you needed to sell breakfast cereal was some animated kid saying, `I want my Malt-O-Meal.' Now ... well, things are a little more complicated, aren't they?"

  "They don't have to be."

  "Don't they? I wonder how we slow them down, make them...

  (CUT TO)

  "... comprehendible?"

  Oh Christ.

  6.

  The room was pitch-black here and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness. Out of the shadows came a sound, a clickety-clicking that he recognized as the sound of a projector, and he slowly put it together in his mind. He ... they were in the projection room now.

  "What did you say?" Bev asked.

  "Uh ... nothing."

  "It works better now, don't you think?"

  "What does?"

  She glanced over her shoulder, her expression partially masked by the shadows, but even in the dark he could see the trace of a smile as if she thought he were joking with her. "Hey, I know you didn't want to do this, at least not initially."

  The Timescape spot. She's talking about the Timescape spot.

  "But you were right," he said calmly. He sat forward in the chair, feeling an arhythmic hammering in his chest. He wondered if his heart were beating faster, trying to keep up with the seconds, minutes, hours that were flashing by. And it felt as if just by wondering, his heart skipped another half-beat. "It does work better now."

  "I'm glad you think so."

  "Bev?"

  "What?"

  "I need to tell you something. It's going to sound insane, absolutely Atascadero out-of-my-mind insane. But I need you to listen, because I'm not even sure how much of it I'm going to get out." And he told her about the first time it had happened in his apartment late at night, and the second time in the subway station, and the third time when he had suddenly been at the restaurant with her, and it all seemed to blur together like a grayish-black nightmare that had only just begun. "Five minutes ago," he said finally, "we were in my office, and I was staring out the window wondering what you meant by consistent."

  Except for a soft intake of air, she was perfectly motionless in the darkness, not saying a word, not giving off a hint of what thoughts were going through her mind at that moment.

  "Bev?"

  "I don't know what to say."

  "You think I'm crazy, don't you?"

  "No, of course not." She had draped an arm over the back of her chair as he had shared his story with her, and now she swung the chair all the way around, face-to-face with him, as if she wanted to be able to read his expression in the dull, greenish-white glow of the projector. "Do you know what time it is now?"

  "No."

  "It's nearly five o'clock. The conversation we had in your office was this morning, almost seven hours ago."

  "Oh sweet Jesus."

  "Ray, we had a quick lunch at Mattie's, spent two or three hours in a head-banger over what to do to placate the folks at B.M. Myers, did a conference call with Jim Mathews at Timex, and have been hiding out in here for at least a couple of hours now. We've been together the whole time."

  "But I don't remember any of that."

  "Not a minute?"

  "Not since this morning when you told me things don't have to be complicated." He leaned back to flip on the light switch, because it was her face that was hidden in shadow now and he didn't like the idea of not knowing what she might be hiding. Instantly, the room went from dark to...

  (CUT TO)

  ... light, and he found himself back at his apartment again, sitting in the kitchen. A slight tremor waffled through his body. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to hold himself together. How long was this going to go on?

  "Ray?"

  The sound of the woman's voice swam up from somewhere nearby. He opened his eyes again, feeling the muscles in the back of his neck tighten. The telephone was off the hook and lying in his lap. He raised it to his ear, listened.

  "Ray?"

  It was Sherrie's voice.

  "Are you still there?"

  "Sherrie?" He felt his throat narrow ever so slightly, and fought back a sob that was trying to force its way out. "Don't hang up! Please, for God's sake, don't hang up on me."

  "I'm not hanging up; I just got on. Are you all right?"

  "Yes. No ... not really. Hell, I don't know anymore." He sank back in the chair until his body felt as if it had melted into the soft, padded leather. "Where are you?"

  "At home. We got in about an hour ago. There was a delay taking off from Orlando, almost three hours. I thought if you didn't mind ..."

  Home?

  "... I'd keep Robin until tomorrow."

  "What day is it?" he asked.

  "Saturday."

  He stared down the hallway toward the living room. The curtains were drawn, but he could tell it was dark out. If the sun were up there would be a soft, golden-yellow glow washing in around the edges. Instead, he could barely make out the dark lines of the La-Z-Boy and the couch.

  "What time is it?"

  "A little after ten. Ray, did I wake you?"

  "No, no, you didn't wake me. But I want you to..."

  (CUT TO)

  "... come over as soon as you—"

  Too late.

  The receiver was gone.

  He stared numbly at his empty hand, first curling it into a fist, then prying it open again, grateful that he could feel the mechanics of the motion. But the phone ... it was gone now. So was the table, where he had been sitting. And the refrigerator, the stove, the plastic simulated wood-grained canister set on the counter. All of it was gone. Across the room from him, in its place, he found the fami
liar face of a newscaster on the television screen, and the couch up against the wall, and the ceiling-to-floor curtains open. He was in the living room now.

  Through the window, he could see where an orange-brown haze had settled over the cityscape. It was evening, he decided. City colors were always muddier in the evening.

  That was something he had never noticed before his separation from Sherrie two short months ago. But the day he had moved his last box of clothes out of the house, he had come here, and standing in the entryway he had looked out this same window. The world had been a dirty place that day. Dirtier than he had ever imagined it could be. It hadn't gotten any cleaner since then.

  Sherrie, he thought. I was on the telephone, talking to Sherrie.

  And what he had to do now was get her back on the phone again, get her to come over so she could stand right next to him, maybe even hold onto his hand when he closed his eyes and woke up somewhere else, sometime else. Maybe then she could tell him what had happened, if he were crazy, or if (as he had come to fear) the world had suddenly begun to spin a little faster while he was busy looking back at their marriage – hoping, praying, needing things to be the way they used to be. There is no going back. There's only going forward.

  He pulled himself out of the La-Z-Boy, all his weight on the arms, and before he had fully balanced himself, there was a knock at the front door.

  "Ray, are you in there?"

  It was Bev.

  He felt his way along the hallway, his legs inexplicably weary. It was not an easy task to keep balanced. That's because your gravity's changing, he thought crazily. He pulled open the door, and leaned heavily against its edge.

  Bev stared at him in silence, her eyes bright with surprise. "Jesus, Ray, what's the matter with you? You look awful."

  He glanced down and was madly amused to find himself dressed in a bathrobe and socks. The robe was open. He had an old pair of boxer shorts on underneath and a tee-shirt with a stain that looked like dried egg. "I'm sorry," he said as he closed the robe and tightened the sash around his waist.

  "Are you okay?"

  "I ... I ... don't know."

  "You haven't been in all week. I've been trying to get you on the phone. Don't you ever answer the damn thing?"

  "I do ... I was ..." He turned, and pointed weakly toward the kitchen. "I was just talking to Sherrie a minute ago."

  "Has she been to see you lately?"

  Lately? He realized he wanted to ask her what time it was, but hours didn't matter anymore. It was days and weeks and maybe even months that concerned him now. Lately? When was that? "I'm ... not sure. What day is it?"

  "You keep asking me that. Every time I talk to you, you ask me what day it is."

  "Well?"

  "Thursday, Ray. It's Thursday."

  His body slumped heavily against the door...

  (CUT TO)

  ... and he heard the phone ringing.

  Wherever he was, it was dark now. There was the luminescent glow of a clock face nearby – 9:56 P.M. -- and a sliver of light coming from somewhere behind him. It divided the darkness into two uneven sections: one on his right, which seemed to exist only a foot or two beyond him; the other, which seemed to stretch across an open area, through a doorway and beyond. He pulled himself up to one elbow, realizing suddenly that this was his bedroom and he had been sleeping.

  The phone rang again.

  He found the receiver and brought it to his ear without a word.

  "Ray?"

  "Yeah."

  "It's Sherrie."

  He closed his eyes, and in the complete darkness could feel his hands trembling, as if they belonged to a boy about to pin his first corsage to the bosom of a girl's dress. The last time he had seen her had been just before she had left for Florida with Robin. They had met for lunch in a little cafe off Market Street called Demercurio's, and talked about how things were going, her in her life, he in his. They had always been on good speaking terms, even as the strain of their two careers had sometimes raised their voices. It had been a pleasant conversation that time out, and yes – though he hadn't said so at the time – he had allowed himself the vague hope that some time down the road he would be able to move his things back home again. It was a hope he wanted to share with her even now, but he couldn't seem to get it clear in his head just how he should go about saying so.

  "Ray?"

  She had changed her hair style since their separation, cut it short in the front and brushed it away from her face, bringing out the soft slender contours of her cheeks, the bright innocent hazel of her eyes. She had changed other things as well. Started wearing bigger, bolder earrings like the pair with the black onyx stones. And she had used her own credit card to pay for their lunch at Demercurio's. But the thing that hurt the most was this: she had changed from an unhappy woman to a happy woman. He had watched it happen.

  "We're never getting back together again, are we?" he asked hoarsely.

  "You need help, Ray. You can't keep locking out the world."

  "Are we?"

  There was a pause – he had to give her that – a moment of consideration before she actually answered him. Then she said it: "No."

  He closed his eyes...

  (CUT TO)

  ... and began to cry.

  "Don't cry, Daddy."

  I have to cry. It's started now and I don't think it's ever going to stop.

  He took his hands away from his face, and she was there, standing in front of him ... his little girl.

  "Robin?"

  "I didn't mean to make you sad," she said. Sherrie was standing directly behind her, with her hands on Robin's shoulders as if she were trying to make certain his daughter didn't get too close. For her own protection, no doubt. Daddy hadn't been himself lately.

  He became aware of the tall ceiling overhead, of the three rows of tables, of another small group of people huddled together at the other end of the room. This was a place he had never been before.

  "Where are we?"

  "It's called Oak Ridge," Sherrie said. "It's a treatment facility."

  "Oak Ridge." He liked the sound it made. "Ooo--ak--rrr--idge."

  On the table in front of him, he noticed the cafeteria trays. Sherrie and Robin apparently hadn't been hungry. They had hardly touched their food: a little milk from an open carton, half a serving of apple sauce gone, and a few bites out of a hamburger that must have been Robin's. His own tray was empty, though he couldn't remember what he had had to eat. Then he started to cry again.

  "We've got to leave now, Ray."

  "You just got here."

  "We've been here all afternoon," Sherrie said. She had a look in her eye, as if her heart were breaking, and he thought she might join him in his tears, but she didn't. "We'll come back again next Sunday. I promise."

  "Promise?"

  "Yes."

  "I love..."

  (CUT TO)

  "... you," he said. Though he was somewhere else by the time he had finished the words. It was a small room. Two beds. A stale, unventilated smell in the air. He glanced around...

  (CUT TO)

  ... him.

  A different place.

  Robin was there now, holding his hand.

  "You haven't been shaving, Daddy."

  He stared at her. God, she was beautiful.

  "You should shave."

  "I'm ..."

  (CUT TO)

  "... sorry," he said.

  Somewhere new – no the cafeteria this time – and Bev was there. She was wearing the saddest face he had ever seen her wear. "Timescape opened with a weekend take of nearly seven million," she was saying. "They're happy folks at the production company."

  "Time ..."

  (CUT TO)

  "... scape?" he asked, and found himself sitting in a wheelchair outside on a flagstone patio, overlooking a grassy knoll.

  Sherrie was with him, holding his hand the same way Robin had held it, as if she were afraid she might lose him completely if she let
go.

  "It's a beautiful day, isn't it?" she said.

  "Please don't go away ..."

  (CUT TO)

  7.

  "I've got to talk fast because I don't know how long I might be here. A few seconds? A minute? Maybe an hour? Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between here and that other place. They can fool you if you don't watch them. One's right. One's wrong. It's confusing. Every once in a while I have to remind myself what day it is and where I live. And there's always the danger, I suppose, that if I'm not careful, I might drift a little too far from the reality loop. It's happened, I've heard, to some of the best of them."

  --Raymond Hewitt

  About The Author

  David B. Silva is the author of five novels. His first short story was published in 1981. His short fiction has since appeared in The Year's Best Horror, The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror, and The Best American Mystery Stories. In 1991, he won a Bram Stoker Award for his story, "The Calling."

  Other Books by David B. Silva

  All The Lonely People

  The Many

  Table of Contents

  Dave Silva: Person of Mystery

  The Calling

  Dwindling

  Ice Sculptures

  Dry Whiskey

  A Time To Every Purpose

  Metanoia

  The In-Between

  Empty Vessels

  The Hollow

  Nothing As It Seems

  Ice Songs

  Because I Could

  Alone of His Kind

  The Night in Fog

  Metastasis

  The Song of Sister Rain

  Slipping