Doctor Crenshaw slid the file across the polished steel table with an air of resignation. "Miss Atborough, this is somewhat unorthodox. But, if you feel it will help..."
Julie took the file hesitantly and began to read through it for the third time. "Thanks. I know, um... that this is probably confusing to you." After a few moments, she squeezed her eyes shut and flipped the file closed again, letting out a taut breath of frustration. "Damn it. It just never makes sense."
"What do you mean?" Crenshaw opened his hands in a palms-upwards, half-shrug gesture that was probably meant to be placatory. "The facts in it are hard to dispute. You were found in shared housing after going missing from your home for five weeks, in the throes of intense hypernatremia. Blood tests revealed that you had very nearly overdosed on a powerful cocktail of phencyclidine and LSD, and you were completely psychotic and unresponsive." He shrugged. "It's not surprising that you don't remember any of this, but it's not as if it requires any particular strength of imagination to credit. Or are you denying that you consumed hallucinogenic drugs?"
Julie winced. "No. I..." she frowned, clenching her fists. "I don't know. I don't remember doing it, but like you said, that isn't surprising. I just..." Sighing, she looked around the room forlornly. "Six years. It doesn't feel real."
Doctor Crenshaw reached across the table and patted her hand consolingly (but with caution, she noted). "It's certainly unfortunate. But quite frankly, your recovery is nothing short of miraculous. The level of psychological impairment you displayed..." He shook his head. "To come back from that is extraordinary. To return to full functionality is astounding. But to do it overnight like you did?" Crenshaw chuckled. "It's quite incredible. If you ask me, you should be counting your blessings."
"I know." Julie shook herself. "I don't mean to be ungrateful. But imagine it were you. You're in high school, still two years out from college, working in a grocery store and trying to make the honor roll, and then -- poof, you're in your mid-twenties in the bughouse."
Crenshaw frowned. "You know we don't approve of that term here. This is a place of healing."
"Sorry. In a mental institution." Julie wasn't happy with how this conversation was going.
Doctor Crenshaw sighed. "I know you want to get started on getting your life back. But it's going to be a process, Miss Atborough. There are tests to be performed, certifications to be made, and requirements to be met. It won't be quick."
"Yeah. Yeah, you've told me." Julie wrapped her arms around her knees and curled up in the chair, feeling very small. "I just don't know what I'm supposed to do."
"You take it slow. One day at a time."
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You can do this.
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Six weeks later, Julie Atborough stood outside a dilapidated bungalow and gathered her strength. This is another step up, she told herself. One more step forward.
Perseverance Manor was one of the better class of halfway house, which meant that people hid their drugs instead of trading them openly and that you could actually get a job without having to trade sexual favors for an interview (most of the time). She bombed out of the first two postings within a week each, but the third was a relatively low-stress bagging job in a small organic grocery that she found she could hold on to. The hiring manager had been very up-front about her circumstances here ("we don't staff, ah, persons in recovery for cash-handling positions") but at least the place was quiet enough most of the time that she could avoid a panic attack. There were only three cashiers -- two part-time working mothers and Cliff, who just seemed to love customer service unironically -- but even with all that, she would definitely have never made it to the two-week mark if not for the cathedral.
It stood across the street, right where she could see it from her station, and the stained-glass window always caught the light in the afternoons (if it wasn't cloudy or raining). After a close call with a customer, she realized that getting fired would take away her chance to see it every day -- and that thought scared her much more than she had expected. So she controlled her emotions, swallowed her pride when customers were shitty, and put up with the thousands of small annoyances required to keep the job, all so she could stare at a colorful window. She was certain it signified something, but she wasn't sure what.
"Piss," said Cliff, startling her out of her reverie.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
She glared at the young man. "Excuse me?"
He pointed at the window. "Piss. That's how they made stained glass. No fancy dyes in the middle ages."
"Kids these days." Julie laughed, somewhat less than kindly. "Cliff, this is America. That church was probably built in the 1900s. I assure you, nobody peed on anything to make those windows."
He chewed on his lollipop stick, ignoring her. "Bet that's why priests are weird. Piss windows, drivin 'em crazy."
Julie's easy mood evaporated. "Easy on the C word there, Cliff."
He held up his hands in mock surrender. "Don't stab me, man. I just washed these clothes."
"Can't I stab you a little?" Julie rolled her eyes. "You know, on my break."
He sniffed. "Man, you wanna stab somebody, stab Clavin. Then we get the day off."
"I'm not stabbing our boss so you can stay home and smoke weed, Cliff." She smoothed her apron for what was probably the fiftieth time today. Idly, she glanced across the aisle, then gasped. "What the...?"
"Enh? You see a hottie?" Cliff spun and craned his neck, trying to peer over the magazine racks.
"Nah, nothing. Just..." Julie shook herself. The magazine whose front page had appeared to blare "YOU ARE DREAMING" now read "NEW AGE DREAMING" upon closer inspection. "I'm tired. Can't wait to sleep."
Cliff pillowed his head on his folded hands mockingly, then abruptly straightened up as a customer appeared and began to browse the gum in the impulse-buy shelves near the register. "All old people tired like you?" he muttered out of the corner of his mouth.
Julie sighed and tried to stretch her aching back. "Tired of your shit, maybe."
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Concentrate. Stay strong.
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It took her six months to get out of the halfway house; her sleepy job at the grocery gave way to a more stressful but better-paying gig at a restaurant, which kept her slaving over a grill for nine hours at a stretch but also allowed her to afford luxuries like hot food and a place of her own. It was no dream home by any stretch, being a roach-infested efficiency apartment, but she gritted her teeth, invested in insecticide, and made the best of it.
The days blended into each other with alarming rapidity, and her soul became weary of the treadmill of working to survive and surviving to work very quickly; it was barely two weeks before the nightmares kicked into higher gear. At first they were sporadic, but they quickly became a nightly affair; after a while, she started to plan on gasping awake in a cold sweat at 3 A.M and just scheduled tasks she hadn't been able to get to during the day for a half-hour of frenzied productivity before collapsing in exhaustion for another stint of agonized almost-sleep.
Tonight had been no different, and here she was, at 03:27, staring into the mirror and panting as the echoes of a half-remembered terror faded from her mind; something about razors, or a bathtub, or something. She could never remember. Splashing water on her face, she mumbled a mixture of complaint and malediction without putting much effort into it. She closed her eyes, praying for strength, and opened them to get started on her next chore.
Brush teeth. Right. She reached for her battered toothbrush, accidentally bumped it with her outstretched fingers, and watched with despair as it spiraled gracefully through the air and into the toilet. Wearily, she added "get new toothbrush" to her list of tasks for the coming day, then decided to just go back to bed; as she turned to do so, however, she was arrested by something unexpected in the mirror.
A crack in the floor, reversed, spelled out the word ENDURE. She blinked, reading it again -- no, that was definitely an English word being spelled out extremely clearly by the meanderings of weathered concrete; she started to sweat, wishing she had a camera. She turned around, hoping to at least trace the letters with a pencil, but as soon as she did so she could find no trace of them.
Fantastic. She should definitely tell Doctor Crenshaw about this, but that was not an idea upon which she was particularly keen; best case, it would mean another increase in her meds, but worst case it might mean another big step back in this process, possibly even a return to the institution, and she numbly doubted that she could survive that. Wearily, she decided on a less responsible but more immediate course of action, and opened a can of beer instead. There would be sleep one way or another.
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Don't give up.
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Weeks became months; before long, it had been a year. Late arrivals became missed shifts; missed shifts became write-ups, and write-ups became an insincere wish for success in her future endeavours. The landlord was not particularly sympathetic, and after two extensions she came home one day from job hunting to find her meager possessions in a trash bag outside the locked door to her apartment. She wished she could be surprised.
After some listless contemplation, she simply turned and walked away, leaving them behind; what did she want with that crap, anyway? Journals about thoughts she didn't want to remember, clothes she hated but only bought because she couldn't get anything better. Screw it. Screw all of it, in fact. She was done scraping and scrounging to maintain an existence she hadn't wanted in the first place.
She walked without seeing, without caring; numb to the cold and indifferent to the catcalls on the street. The steps down into the subway were sharp and painful even through her thin shoes. She stared into the darkness of the tunnel, waiting for the train -- to board it or to jump in front of it, she didn't know.
An hour went by, then two. She began to feel impatient; wasn't there supposed to be a train every fifteen minutes? In fact, come to think of it, weren't there supposed to be lights on down here? She half-turned, but the stairs were missing -- in shadow, or vanished. She felt sick, dizzy; the ground heaved and rolled like the surface of the sea.
She was falling; not through air, because it wasn't rushing at her, but through the lack of solid ground. She opened her mouth to cry out, but couldn't remember how. Everything faded, then caught fire.