Simkha took one of her birdseye-view landscapes off the wall of her little kitchen. She stashed the painting behind her wardrobe and pulled out a medium-small whiteboard she had stored back there. She measured a length of hanging wire and epoxied it to the inside-back of the whiteboard frame. As the resin set, she packed and stored the left-over food from the morning’s excessive breakfast. When the resin had fully attached frame to wire, she hung the whiteboard on the wall where the painting had been.
Simkha took a whiteboard marker out of her pen jar and began to write. She made a face at the dry marker, re-capped it, and inverted it so the ink would come out the next time she tried to use it. She tested out two more markers before she found one that wrote. She began to write.
> simkha needs to figure out
>
> 1. talitha
>
> 2. HUD i guess?
>
> 3. ෴????
Simkha cleared the whiteboard with a frown. Just what was she trying to figure out here?
After her breakfast-time meltdown, Simkha had asked for a little time and space to herself. She told her friends that she needed “to recover” and “to process everything that’s happening for long enough that I can use human words to talk about it.”
Simkha’s friends had agreed to go elsewhere after breakfast. Mika had taken Simkha’s request in stride, while the jocks had traded uncertain glances and raised brows.
“What about Tali,” Mika had asked.
“Fuuuck,” Simkha had said. “I keep forgetting she doesn’t speak English any more. I don’t understand it at all.”
“You weren’t able to figure out what she wants either?”
“Ughhh, no.” Simkha had felt so frustrated. “I guess… she got upset when I tried to take off this jewelry? And I think she’s a little annoyed by how badly my clothes fit her.”
Simkha and Mika had turned their eyes on Tali, who was once again rolling up the cuffs of the too-baggy clothes she borrowed from Simkha. The sight made Simkha’s chest feel weird.
Mika, by contrast, seemed to be sizing Tali up with a tailor’s eye.
“I’ll take her home.”
“Take her… home…” Simkha frowned and looked around the room. “You… you’re going to lend her clothes?
“Nah.” Mika had grinned. “I’m going to make Hrefna lend her clothes.”
Simkha had a conversation with Tali after that. While the conversation had involved more miming and gestures than actual words, Simkha was still pretty sure that Tali agreed with the basic gist of the plan. So Simkha stayed at her flat while everybody else left.
And now Simkha couldn’t concentrate on the task she had given herself because she couldn’t stop thinking about Tali. Her mind’s eye presented images of Tali and Mika chatting in her sewing nook, Tali looking through a closet with Hrefna, Tali chatting with the jocks while Mika measured her.
Simkha felt grumpy about it. Simkha felt… she almost felt jealous. But that didn’t make any fucking sense to her.
Like, Simkha would understand why she might feel jealous in other circumstances. For example, if she thought somebody would try to hook up with Tali. Simkha fully understood that she had a little crush on Tali. She thought she must have constructed it by taking memories of their childhood intimacy and stitching it onto Tali’s current hotness.
But even allowing for a crush, Simkha didn’t understand why she felt jealous. She had literally asked for everybody to let her be alone. She had basically asked Mika to find Tali better-fitting clothes. And Simkha wanted her friends to get along with Tali. Didn’t she?
But Simkha still felt agitated and itchy, knowing that Tali was so near by and Simkha was doing anything but finding her.
But Simkha needed time and space to think.
But it should be Simkha with Tali, goddammit. Just the two of them, sharing a dozen years of pent up bug facts, school stories, and silly little jokes that would keep Tali doubled over laughing for hours.
But if Simkha just ran after Tali, then she’d just make Tali feel suffocated.
But…
But…
But Simkha was going to get herself in trouble if she didn’t sort out her feelings.
> list of things simkha doesn’t understand
>
>
>
> 1. i feel jealous & possessive about tali
>
>
>
> a. i shouldnt feel this way, right?
>
> i. ive got no right to feel this way
>
> ii. tali shouldnt have to deal with my unreasonable feelings
>
> iii. how do i feel healthy feelings instead?
>
>
>
> b. why do i feel all jealous & possessive?
>
> i. childhood closeness +tali is hot now = frankenstein crush?
>
> ii. i thought she was my hallucination → i thought she was mine?
>
> iii. horny goblin simkha + tali is hot now = ????
>
>
>
> c. are the interpersonal power and control dynamics bad?
>
> i. she might not feel like she has a choice besides relying on me
>
>
> ii. does she have anywhere else she can go?
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> a. i cant know without talking to her
>
> iii. make her friends w/ my friends = she has other couches to crash on?
>
> iv. she might have tons of choices i don’t know about
>
> a. she kind of has magic?
>
> b. she must have some means for travel because where else did she come from?
>
> The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Simkha frowned and walked away from her whiteboard. She looked at her HUD, showing that her hunger was at eighty percent… maybe eighty-one percent of optimal. She let her eyes drift over the the people walking Walton St. below her flat.
Simkha was able to accept a certain amount of upheaval. She could just about fathom that Tali was real, especially after Mika and her new friends all agreed they could see and hear her. She could just about believe that her HUD was real because hey, it was some sort of technology and Simkha had studied 18th century penmanship instead of tech engineering.
But Simkha had no idea what to make of Tali’s apparent magic. Tali had to be magic, right? She had definitely let herself into Simkha’s flat the first time by a minor feat of time travel. She had rescued Simkha from that weird incident where she was wrestling her past self. She had made that jewelry levitate in the air, staying firmly rooted in space despite Simkha being crushed up against it. And she had repeatedly moved objects along that impossible axis.
Simkha blinked. Tali had moved objects along that impossible axis. And when Simkha tried it, she’d been able to move along that axis too.
Simkha grabbed a bracelet and pushed. She squashed it against her arm. She couldn’t find the right direction to push it in. She persevered, shifting her focus over and over just so. And then finally Simkha could see it again: a whole extra direction along a stubby little spatial axis. How was she seeing this? It looked unbelievably normal, matter-of-fact, and impossible to miss but for the fact that Simkha knew she couldn’t see it a minute ago.
Simkha moved her bracelet one way and then the other along that axis. Moving it in one direction made it feel thicker and get heavier. Moving it back in the other direction made it feel thinner and less dense..
This was fucking magic. What else could you call it?
But could Simkha claim that this magic dimension was real just because Tali and her HUD seemed real too?
Simkha sighed and walked back to the whiteboard.
> 2. does all this shit mean i’m not crazy?
>
>
>
> a. am i still hallucinating?
>
> i. something caused my past-me shower freakout last night
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> ii. what is this new dimension ?
>
> iii. learn to talk to tali = learn more?
>
>
>
> b. is this tali really the same tali i remember?
>
> i. no clue whether this is falsifiable
>
> ii. but there was no reason for my moms to forget her as a kid
>
>
> iii. but she doesn’t speak english
>
>
>
> c. i could be crazy in ways i dont know
>
> i. if i am, i might not be able to tell
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> ii. i don’t know how to get a doctor to figure it out for me
>
>
>
> d. my moms will definitely freak out when they hear:
>
> i. i can see tali again
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> ii. other people see tali again
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> iii. my treatment for psychosis might have been wrong
>
>
>
> e. i couldnt sit for my exam yesterday
>
> i. why?
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> ii. is it even a related issue?
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> iii. what happens when you fail a module?
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> iv. do i have to show my face to that professor ever again?
Simkha thought about how to test whether she was crazy. She thought her problem was that she was seeing magic. How could she falsify magic when the whole point of magic is that it does the inexplicable. She considered looking for a fantasy novel where someone dealt with this same issue. Maybe she could mine that for ideas.
She half-remembered hearing about a fantasy series with a main character who was sent to a world that he refused to believe was real. Simkha never actually read the series because it was supposed to include a significant amount of sexual violence and Simkha did not care to turn into a useless sad-sack for weeks. But what was that series called? Thomas something? Thomas Chronicle? Thomas Cormorant?
What about that series Katalepsis? Why had Simkha stopped reading it? She remembered a schizophrenic protagonist, a hidden magical world, and… oh. Right. It was spooky. It was too spooky for Simkha, at least. She had lost sleep over it.
Simkha tried to stop herself, but her occipital lobe had already recalled the mental image of a creepy giant sky-eye hovering over a blasted landscape and weird chupacabra-looking gremlin beasts. Simkha shivered and felt her stomach roil.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Think of anything else. Think of a pink elephant. Think about your surroundings. Think about that whiteboard. That wall. Fridge. Range. Counter. Tea. HUD.
HUD.
Right. This HUD was a major and confusing new development in Simkha’s life. She should think it through.
> 3. what do i do with my HUD?
>
>
>
> a. might be unexpected ways i could use this thing
>
> i. like, could my hunger status bar tell me anything more than “you need to eat” or “you don’t need to eat?”
>
> ii. help me track how much i eat?
>
> iii. does it just measure, or can it change my body?
>
>
>
> b. i need to get my other status bars working
>
> i. i will actually die of embarassment anxiety if i have to ask tali to calibrate “sex” for me
>
>
>
> c. what is all this stuff that isn’t status bars?
>
> i. i don’t understand these icons
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> ii. i can’t read anything
>
> iii. maybe i can teach the HUD english?
>
> iv. maybe i can learn… whatever language this is?
>
>
>
> d. why was tali so desperate for me to wear this HUD stuff?
Simkha chewed her lip. She couldn’t think of any other questions about this whole mess. She capped the marker and stepped back to look at her list. She had had to scrunch up her writing at the end because she was running out of room.
Simkha felt tired after the effort of puzzling out just which mysteries had made her feel overwhelmed. But looking at them written down on a list like this, she felt far less overwhelmed.
Simkha felt… pretty good. Her breathing was calm and steady. Her heartbeat was sedate and relaxed. Her muscles felt comfortably loose. She felt ready to talk about things. She should find out what the others were—
BZZZ…
Simkha’s phone burst into loud vibrations.
BZZZ, BZZZ, BZZZ, BZZZ…
Simkha wrestled down her instinctive panic. She snatched her phone off the counter. Leg Day was audio-calling her.
Simkha answered the call.
“Simkha, can you hear me?” asked Leg Day.
“Sure.”
“We lost Tali.”
“What?”
“Tali. We lost her.”
Simkha squinched her eyes shut and rubbed her face.
“How—no… where did you lose her?”
“Outside Last Bookshop. I had hoped she just went back to your flat.”
“No. She’s not here.”
Simkha’s heart was racing and the whole world felt bright and loud. But for reasons Simkha didn't understand, she wasn’t panicking either. She felt more serene and controlled than she ever did on a normal day. She must be having a fight or flight reaction. She saw her hunger meter jump up to ninety-five percent of optimal, then fall to fifty percent, then jump to one-hundred percent, then blink all the way down to three percent in less than a second.
“...”
“...”
“So, any idea where we might find her?”
“I’m on my way. Keep one person by the bookshop. Everybody else should look for her at pastry shops nearby. I’ll leave my flat door unlocked in case she returns.”
Simkha grabbed her keys, jammed trainers on her feet, and raced out the door.