Alex pressed her back against the rear of the dark janitor’s closet and slid into a squat. Her eyes darted across the sliver of light reflecting off the lab’s wax-polished tile floor beneath the door. The high-pitched hum of silence droned in her ears.

She waited. No shadows disrupted the strip of light. No sounds pierced the silence. Alex relaxed, sat cross-legged on the floor, and retrieved a plastic cross with a vial protruding upward from where the two beams intersected.

She stuck the long end of the cross in her mouth, exhaled, pinched the ends of the crosspiece, and sucked. The coppery vapor washed across her tongue and down her throat. Her body convulsed to rid itself of the burning in her lungs, but she fought against the cough and inhaled the rest of the vial.

Fireflies swarmed her vision.

“No... way!” she said, panting and dropping her hand to the side, sending the plastic cross clattering into the darkness as the Brilliance broke her blood-brain barrier. “I... know... Italian and—”

“Is someone there?”

Alex swallowed the end of her sentence and held her breath.

The squeak of cheap-soled loafers chattered across the lab floor towards the door. Alex pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them as a shadow began to dance along the wavy glow beneath the door, growing darker with each footstep.

Alex shielded her eyes as Sebastian Scott twisted the knob and pulled the door open, flooding the closet with a fluorescent glare. His Ramsey Research Scholars Program badge hung from a lanyard around his neck, sporting a photo of him ten years younger and thirty pounds lighter.

“What are you doing in here?” Sebastian said.

“I have a migraine, so I—“ Alex said, rubbing her eyes. “The dark helps.”

Sebastian noticed the expended plastic cross on the floor and stooped to retrieve the inhaler.

“What have you done, Alex?” Sebastian said, clicking his tongue. “Huffing Brilliance? You could be expelled from the program for this.”

Alex staggered to her feet and tried to snatch the cartridge away from him through the fireflies.

“Ah, ah!” He said, jerking his hand away.

“Give it back, Sebastian!”

“Or what?”

“Samonakuba, omai ha chiimu kara hazusu.”

“What is that, Japanese? I don’t speak Japanese.”

“Oder du fliegst aus dem Team.”

“I don’t speak German, either.”

“Or, you’re off the team,” Alex said as confusion charged across her face.

“Wait! You suck down a top-secret, experimental, mind-enhancing drug, violating every ethical process and safety protocol, and think I’m not going to report it?”

“I won’t let you blackmail me.”

“Blackmail? Never. I’m only pointing out your lack of options, Alexandria; you can either step down, hand me your position, and stay in the program, albeit at the bottom, or you can be expelled, and I may get it anyway. I think my offer is generous,” he said, smirking. “Don’t you?”

“It won’t help you, Sebastian. There’s a reason you weren’t selected to be the project lead. You’re a cog, not a motor. Just let it go.”

“That’s why I’m going to hang onto this,” he said, patting his pocket, “You’ll help me succeed.”

Alex grabbed her head with a wimper and slid down the wall to sit on the floor again as the drug unlocked her mind.

“Ah, poor, perfect Alex,” Sebastian said with glee. “Can’t you handle the idea of finishing college as a nobody?”

Alex moaned.

“No accolades?”

“Shut up, Sebastian!“

“Reduced to an *et. al.* on our team’s research papers?”

Alex gasped for breath. Her pupils began to dilate, nibbling first at her irises and limbal rings before swallowing her sclera whole, leaving her eyes looking as if they were filled with ink.

“O... K... You win. I’ll... call—”

“Wise choice,” he said, tugging at his badge.

Alex pulled her phone from her pocket, tapped the screen, and held it to her ear.

“Hello, Professor Maddox? This is Alex,” she said, glaring at Sebastian as he bounced from foot to foot in anticipation. “I... I took Brilliance. It works.”

“Do you know how to beat a blackmailer?” Alex asked as she ended the call and slipped her phone back into her pocket. “You take away their leverage.”

“Wha—? You’ll... You’ll be asking people if they want fries with that, Alex!”

“I doubt it, considering the vast amounts of funding we’re about to receive. You didn’t think of that, did you, little cog?”

Sebastian grabbed tufts of hair in both fists and screamed in frustration.

“Oh, you won’t be needing that anymore,” Alex said as her eyes cleared. She stood and made a come-here gesture with her index finger. The spent cross ripped through Sebastian’s pants and flew into her hand as she pushed past him and exited the closet.

A flutter on my forehead interrupts my evening ablutions as I remove my tab collar and set it on the counter. I lean into the mirror and stare at the lone hair, a graying sentinel defending the forgotten frontline of a hair battle I lost long ago.

I discharge the holdout with a pinch and tug, then grab my toothbrush from its cup next to the mirror. Instead of my reflection grabbing the copy of my toothbrush on his side of the glass, however, he reaches through the surface and grips my hand in his.

“You should have kept that, Todd,” he says, caressing the back of my hand with his thumb. “Three or four more and you’d have a fine combover.”

“WhooaaaAAHHH!!!” I shriek and yank my hand away.

“You have a point. It’d be a mediocre combover at best. Still—”

“You—” I say, rubbing my hand.

“—I’d find it adorable.”

“You . . . you shouldn’t be here.”

“Of course, I should,” he said, pushing his other hand through the mirror and leaning on the sink. “How else could I ask you out?”

“Ask me . . . what?”

“Out. I mean, how long are we going to moon over each other through the glass without making a move?”

“A move? No! I’m not—”

I grab him around the wrists and try to push his hands back into the mirror, but my fists hit the surface and refuse to go through, leaving his hands flapping on my side of the glass.

“You’re not what?” he asks.

Before I can answer, he leaps to sit on his side of the counter and then spins his legs and scoots his bum around until he’s perched on my edge of the vanity.

“I can’t go out with—” I say, retreating and cornering myself against the back wall of the bathroom. “—I’m a priest. My congregation would apostatize if they saw me on a date with . . . well, with me.”

My reflection springs off the counter, steps towards me, and places his hands on my shoulders.

“We’re lonely, Todd,” he says, his gaze penetrating mine. “Let me stay.”

I meet his gaze for a moment and then drop my eyes.

“I admit,” I say with a sigh, “this is the best conversation I’ve had in these quarters—”

“It’s the only conversation you’ve had here, Todd. It’s a suite of seclusion.”

I look into his eyes again. My palm moves to caress his face.

“—but, the risk to my career,” I say, staying my hand.

“We’ll pretend we’re twins,” he says, leaning in, mouth parting. “Nobody will suspect.”

I close my eyes and hold my hands up in defense. He pushes through and kisses me, holds me.

“No!” I say, eyes still shut. I shove him away, breaking the kiss. “I’ll know.”

I open my eyes. My palms are pressed against the mirror. My reflection is staring back, mimicking my every move. The taste of Windex fills my mouth.

For a look behind the scenes, check out my Inkwright, Inc. blog.

I grab the foil-wrapped hot dog and sprinkle a handful of change into the food truck's tip jar. As I turn to exit the line, I crash into a woman and her kindergarten-aged daughter waiting behind me. Smooth.

After steadying the daughter and mumbling an apology, I stroll to my ancient convertible and slide into the driver's seat. I unwrap my bun-less, Keto-friendly hot dog, but before I can take a bite, freckles of reflected green light explode from the sweaty beads of oil covering its surface.

I notice my hair lifting, strand by strand, in the rearview mirror, as if I'm hugging a Van de Graaff generator. Static spreads across my body, and I feel myself levitating out of my seat. The beam of light engulfing me rips my hot dog from my fingers. I watch, powerless, as it shoots into the sky.

I grab the wheel and stretch the sun-crusted seatbelt across my lap to tether myself. Decades of food crumbs, faded receipts, and forgotten change float up from under my seats.

The beam intensifies, and the weight of the car, buckled across my lap, threatens to rip my legs off. Just as I scream out in pain, the beam stops, and I plop back into my seat. My eyes dart around to see if anybody witnessed my ordeal, but nobody seems to have noticed.

I scramble to get my keys out of my pocket, determined to escape while I can.

The young mother and her child step out from under the food truck's awning.

I shove my keys into the ignition, heart pounding.

The daughter's hair begins to stretch upward, and she lets out a bleat as her feet leave the ground.

I turn the key in the ignition.

The mother screeches and grabs her daughter around the waist to anchor her to Earth.

I pump the gas pedal to coax the whimpering engine to life.

The mother's feet leave the ground.

I curse, pop the buckle of my seatbelt, leap across my seats, and race towards the girl and her mom.

The mom's feet are waist level when I arrive and shove the two out of the beam. They fall to the ground, but my momentum isn't enough for me to escape with them. I soar upwards, screaming past the tree tops and into the clouds.

As I clear the top of one of the lower clouds, I see a hovering disk the size of a large serving plate. A verdant beam, shimmering from a circular door at the bottom of the ship, pulls me in. My head enters the opening, but gets stuck a little above my ears.

Incomprehensible clicks and wheezes rattle through the ship and into my skull. Soon, I hear a velvety computer voice say, 'Language confirmed,' and the alien sounds transform into English, revealing a rant about perspectives and miscalculated scales. The ship takes off with me dangling below, a screeching abductee wearing an unidentified flying sombrero, rocketing into the unknown.

Dennis W. Charon III pounded on the weathered frame with the ulnar side of his fist.

"Good morning, sir," Dennis said, unbuttoning his peacoat. "Can you please come out? It's time to go."

Christopher peeked out from under the bronze disks shading his almond-shaped windows, saw the lanky man, and jerked his head back out of view.

"I can see you in there, sir," Dennis said, pulling a rolled-up parchment from the breast pocket of his wool coat.

"What do you want?"

Christopher ran his hand along the last of hundreds of silver cords that once connected everything in his house as he backed away from the door.

"As I've already mentioned," said the man, breaking the umber seal on the scroll, "I'm here to escort you to your new dwelling across the river."

"I like this abode." Christopher clutched the opalescent cord dulled by a greenish-brown patina in both hands and bent the line into a nervous arch. "I'll fix it up."

"You can't, sir," Dennis said. He ran his hand along the sagging exterior, probing the frail support structure beneath. "It's scheduled to be razed."

"What?"

"Here, sir, please read this," Dennis said, holding one end of the scroll against a soft area and pushing on the other.

Christopher's domicile quaked as Dennis shoved the scroll through the exterior wall, throwing him back into a cracked leather club chair and filling the room with brilliant white light. Christopher clung to the silver cord with his left hand and buried his eyes in the crook of his right elbow, but the intense glow burned through his arm and blinded him anyway.

Just as the radiance threatened to consume Christopher, Dennis pushed the tail end of the scroll through the now charred spot in the wall. The ornate umbilicus clanked against the floor, and the scroll's sun-like glory dimmed and puffed out as it rolled across the hardwood, stopping beside Christopher's foot with a soft hiss.

"Please read the notice, sir. It explains everything," Dennis said, removing his bowler, running his fingers through the memory of hair, and plonking the hat back on his head. "Well, almost everything."

"Everything?"

"To be honest, sir, it doesn't explain much of anything," Dennis said, "but it does tell you what to do next, which is all that's important."

Christopher creaked forward at the waist, picked up the document, and unfurled the creamy-beige leather page as he settled back in his chair. Angelic cursive flowed across the scroll, emitting an aurora, making the text visible in the dim light that seeped through his cataracted windows.

Dear Mr. Cockburn,

Welcome to the Guild of Horologists, my son. Please accompany my chauffeur, Dennis W. Charon III, who will escort you to your new residence across the river.

Sincerely,

The Watchsmith

"You want me to move?" Christopher said, dropping the scroll to the floor.

"In a way, I suppose," Dennis said. "After all, sir, isn't being a horologist what you've worked for, even prayed for?"

"Well, sure—" Christopher said, pushing on the broad arms of his club chair to stand up. "—but—"

"OK, then cut the cord, and let's go."

Christopher gripped the silver strand to steady himself, sending waves through the line and shaking the peeling walls at each end.

"I can't go now," he said, shuffling towards the mantle at one end of the room. "What about my, uh—" he said, picking up a large walnut frame, varnished by years of handling, with a photo of a family dressed in smiles and matching denim. "—my daughter? What about these other two people? Don't they need me?"

"That man is you, sir."

"Ah, so it is," Christopher said, setting the photo down and staggering along the silver line, flitting his eyes over the mementos and keepsakes scattered throughout the room. "Still, I'm too old to start something new."

"Look, sir, you can stay here, clinging to your dusty past—your fragments of memory—and be razed to a state of damnation," Dennis said.

"Or?"

"Cut the cord and join The Watchsmith, sir."

"I appreciate your offer . . . Dennis, was it? . . . but, you see—" Christopher said, shuffling towards his club chair and its familiar cracks and lumps. "—whatshername sits there when I read her stories, and . . . and her . . . her mom . . . yes . . . that's where her mom sets my evening paper while I watch TV."

Christopher's foot came down on the unwrapped scroll as he neared the chair. Its umbilicus rolled under his foot, sending him crashing onto his back and smacking his head against the creaky oak floor. He rolled to his side, his lungs clawing for the air the fall had knocked out of them.

Another scroll lay on the floor beside his face, and a third one next to it. Five more lay sprawled behind those. He pulled a deep breath into his chest and pushed himself up with his elbow. Dozens of unfurled scrolls littered the room.

"What was your daughter's name, sir?" Dennis asked through the door.

"It's... uh—" Christopher rolled onto his back and hugged the worn cord to his chest.

"How many times have we had this conversation, sir?"

"I... I don't know," he said, tears streaking his cheeks.

"They're gone, Christopher," Dennis said, his voice gentle with compassion. "Come with me. Join The Watchsmith."

Christopher's hands shook as he pulled the silver cord into his mouth and bit through it, severing his last lifeline. The room exploded into excruciating exaltation.

When the light faded, Christopher found himself standing outside, next to Dennis W. Charon III and the body he had once called home.

"Excellent, sir!" Charon said, holding out his skeletal hand.

Christopher looked down at his body lying in the cypress casket, collected the bronze coins covering his almond-shaped eyes, and handed the obols to Charon.

"I'm ready to go," Christopher said, stepping onto the boat and looking across the Styx.