Careless of me to get so lost, so quickly. Usually I revel in becoming lost, since it means I get to explore new places and learn new things and expand the map that lives and tosses and dances in my head, but today the map got rained on and it’s all soggy and the ink’s run together and nothing makes sense anymore. It frustrates me that I can’t find my way in this stupid backwater bog of a town, Bug Town, the worst town on the face of the world.

I hate it and I hate being here, but it’s my own fault because in the middle of the night I just left my house, bought a train ticket, and paced up and down the carriages while it bumped along the tracks to this garbage collection of plain blocky buildings with roads that go nowhere and muddy patches that suck your feet right in like an unknown family member’s unwelcome embrace. As soon as the train stopped I got right out and started walking through the rain because of course it’s raining, but this is more like a sweat than a proper slurry and it just annoys me while I storm through the rundown streets. I should have known better than to come to Bug Town when I was in a state like this, I should have known it would make my mood worse rather than better.

Fuck this town. I hate it. I want it to go away, I want it to vanish off the map.

I stop in the middle of the street and fold my arms petulantly, though if I’m honest it’s more to keep myself warm in this dismal rain. I’ve never seen cars in Bug so I feel safe to stand here and the sidewalks are all just cracked strips along the side of the road. In fact, I’ve never seen anyone walking around the town, except when the hotel manager, the man I never saw blink, walked us to the train station on our last visit.

Fantastic thought that, our last visit to Bug Town. I feel myself souring like the dried skin over spoiled milk. I kneel down with my arms still around me and glare as hard as I can out from under my dripping brows. What am I doing back here? Why did I come back? What did I think I’d find?

What have I found? I’m in the middle of nowhere. I’m stanidng directly in the middle of the intersection, letting the rain chill me throughout and not caring. Small industrial buildings line the streets in front of me, like two story warehouses or something, I can’t tell because none of them have signs because Bug Town just likes to fucking mess with people. The street lights above me don’t work. I think the rain shorted out their circuits long ago, and now they’re just weird decorations strung across a street that never sees any cars. The pavement is cracked and chipped and I wonder what must lie beneath that’s tried so desperately to escape.

I don’t know how much time has passed when I feel a hand on my shoulder. My eyes were closed. I turn around and see the hotel manager, a man I named Noblink, looking real concerned with an umbrella over his head. Are you okay? he asks. You look like you’ve been out in the rain for a while.

The rain has grown stronger while I’ve been standing here and I’m soaked, but I don’t really know what to say to him. I know how precious every second of time is. It’s always been my SO I have to occasionally nudge to bring them out of a glazed-over trance, staring through a fold of space and pondering slow river thoughts, tumbling pebbles and curving ripple lines around any obstacle. They fell into that stupor much more often before our first visit to Bug; now they only fall into it when they’re looking at me. I wish they’d spend that time talking to me instead of thinking about me, though it never used to make me self-conscious.

Noblink waves his hand in front of my face and I realize with a start I’ve fallen into the same kind of reverie. I only shake my head, unable to come up with words for this fugue I’ve found myself in.

Come on, Noblink says, and helps me up. He grabs me by the arm as though he knows I can’t feel my fingers anymore, and he looks concerned as though he knows how little my numbed digits matter to me. He wraps a towel around my shoulders and I feel the hotel logo bump against my wrist. I can get you to the cafe where my brother’s working, he says as he shares the umbrella. You need to get warmed up.

The jazz bar looks exactly the same as my first visit here; beige, plain, boring, full of people who seem like they have nothing better to do than sit at their tables and stare into their mugs of tepid liquid all day. Grey storm clouds rumble threateningly over my head as I take my seat, though I don’t know why they bother with the forewarning since they’re already tossing little ice-cold daggers of rain down into my scalp and my shoulders. It just can’t help raining everywhere I go in Bug Town, can it?

The person across from me lowers their newspaper and regards me curiously. I know how I must look, hair like a drowned rat, huddled in a hotel blanket sitting stiffly on the edge of the seat. I’m not looking at them, so all I see is a faded purple cap and skinny arms in a turquoise coat.

Hey, they say in a voice that seems naturally soft and warm, do you need a hot drink or something?

I jab my finger at the bar where the hotel manager is already talking to the creepy bartender. It’s covered, I mutter. But thanks.

My tablemate nods but doesn’t return to their reading, instead rolling up the paper and putting it on the seat next to them, watching me like I’m a fascinating TV show. Their gaze sparks some deja vu in me and pisses me off. They sip a coffee as something hot is brought to me by the manager, who, despite the fact that I’ve never seen him blink, is looking real concerned for my health. My brother at the bar’ll take care of you, he promises. Anything he brings you is on the house. I have to go though, I have to stay at the hotel. Will you stay here ‘til you warm up?

I shrug, but he doesn’t leave until I finally mutter yeah okay. The muted tremolo of the unseen jazz band drifts out the door with him, foglike. The dagger rain from the indoor clouds sluices down into my cup. I drink hot chocolate with something like brandy or irish cream, I’ve never been a drinking type so I don’t know for certain.

So, my tablemate asks as I sip at my drink, what brings you back to town?

That brings me up short. How do you know I’ve been in town before?

I heard about it, they answer. It’s a small town. Word got around.

Did it? I make my voice frosty and am satisfied to see them shiver.

How’s your partner doing? they ask eventually.

That really brings me up short and my cup slams into the table. Excuse me?! I snap at them. Who do you think you are, asking me about them?

That makes them recoil, but they seem more startled than intimidated. They shrug a little. Well, they say in a quiet voice, your partner seemed… upset, when you two were here last time. I was curious to know if they were doing okay now.

My anger evaporates and I wish it wouldn’t, it was a welcome distraction. I hunch over my chocolate, retreating into the hotel towel, keeping my eyes fixed stubbornly on my cup. I don’t want to talk about my partner. I don’t want to talk to anyone. What the hell is it your business? I finally snap at them, since they haven’t stopped staring at me.

You must care a lot about them, my tablemate says, still in that infuriatingly soft voice of theirs. You came with them to keep them safe and you followed them everywhere around a town you hate. You were there for them. My tablemate cocks their head to the side slightly. Why aren’t they here now for you?

Fuck off, I say, and my tablemate recoils like it was unexpected.

There’s silence except for the pathetic waft of jazz coming up from somewhere and the clack, clack of rain picking up. I sip some more from a cup that seems to be cooling too fast. The bartender is keeping an eye on me and I don’t know if I’m grateful or irritated by the attention. There are people in the rest of this cafe, right? Why are we the only ones talking?

I’m sorry, my tablemate says finally. I was out of line.

Damn straight, I mutter. I settle a little more into my towel, thinking the interaction is over. Instead a hand appears over my coffee cup. My name’s Cal, they say. I should have introduced myself.

I stare incredulously, first at the hand and then at the person sitting across from me, and I finally get a good look at them. The purple cap from before is barely hanging onto a head full of curly sheep-like brown hair, waving all over a chubby face. Thin-framed glasses float on their nose. My SO would have called their face beatific or something grand and poetic like that. To me it just looks childish.

The hand is still there in front of my face, and even without my moldering temper I would have no idea how to respond to this interaction. My name has always been a contentious subject. I’m always thinking of new things to change it to, when I find a word that seems to comprise my entire being, like acorns picked from every tree in a forest, but inevitably that sense of rightness fades, acorns mold and turn to dust, and I have to pick a new one. The last name I picked was Delford, but I haven’t gone by that since the last time I came to this town, three weeks ago.

So I just silently reach out from my towel robe and shake Cal’s hand, without a sound.

Cal withdraws their hand and looks oddly chastened.

The bartender, who I’ve never really seen take a breath, finally comes over and replaces my cold cocoa with hot. It’s a little more cinnamony now, no alcohol, and the warm drinks are loosening the knot in my neck, the one that’s been keeping my face all stiff and forced. I can’t help but relax, as much as I wish I could stay in the rotten mood. The downpour slackens.

So, Cal says eventually, brightly, obviously trying to restart the conversation. What brings you back to town?

I sip my cocoa some, then sip some more. I’m staring into the woodwork of the table. It’s an old table, wood cracked and soft, carved initials on the side, fingerprinted napkin holders, old-fashioned wooden salt and pepper shakers crusted with flakes.

I don’t know, I whisper.

Cal seems confused at my answer. I can’t tell if they can tell how much I’m confused too.

I sip my cocoa. As soon as the cup reaches the table it’s moving back up to my lips, my mouthful barely swallowed.

Everything was fine, I say. I hear how clipped and toneless my voice is as I try to explain. They were so much happier after this visit. They’ve reached a whole ‘nother level of happy. Like they’re at peace. And nothing really happened, you know? But they’re just so… alive now. All the time.

Cal’s hands are laid on top of each other and they’re leaning forward, eyes on me. The members of the cafe I’m sure are listening too, since we’re the only ones talking, but every gaze aside from Cal’s is directed at their tables. The bartender refills with more cinnamon cocoa. The music playing couldn’t be called jazz anymore, it’s something low and ambient and soothing.

Was that a bad thing? Cal asks when I haven’t spoken for a while.

I feel myself tensing up again. It shouldn’t have been. It really shouldn’t have been. All I want is for the person I love to be happy, right? I made the trip here with them because I was afraid for them. I love them. I blurt that suddenly, baldly, and realize I have no idea if I said the other thoughts out loud. I make sure to enunciate them now. I love them, I say again. I’m happy they’re happy. I… I should be, right?

The cafe is quiet.

But you’re not? Cal asks.

I grip my cup and feel a sudden desire to smash it on the floor and scream. I don’t say anything. My limbs feel all tangled like I’m knotted together.

I love you but it’s like you’re a different person now and I can’t recognize you - no, that’s not it. I love you but it’s like you’re always rubbing this happiness in my face - no, no. But you’ve changed so much so suddenly, you haven’t changed so bad in all the seven years I’ve known you - but it’s good change, isn’t it? I can’t say that. I love you but why did you leave me behind - they’re still here, still there, back at the apartment, maybe still in bed where I left them this morning. You left me behind - I left you behind - I’m sorry - what the hell am I sorry for?!

I feel the rain. It’s raining indoors. It’s raining indoors because of course it fucking is. The jazz falls down with the rain, spiraling harmonies descending into guttural rhythms.

The table splits like a broken altar. The lamps all dim and darken but light hisses out from under every face. My eyes melt out of my head. I clench my fingers around my coffee cup and flesh sinks into porcelain. I feel my shoulders hunch back and dissolve into ashy powder. Forks and knives all impale through my stomach and the decanter at the bar scoops me out, the towel tightens and suffocates my arms, I’m the strangest one here, here among the dead. A man in a raincoat wishes me happiness and I tell him happiness is impossible, it’s a contradiction in this world, a contradiction in me. In everyone.

A man in a raincoat - no, someone in a raincoat looks up from their table. What’s left of my scooped-out heart creeps into my mouth and drips off my tongue. It’s my SO, my partner, the one I love. They’re looking at me from under the raincoat. The cafe is flooding, but they’re looking at me.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Their lips move. They’re telling me three things with three different voices. I listen raptly through the rain, as hard as I can with my broken body. I love you, that’s the first one. A wish for happiness, the second one. The third one…

Hey? Hey!

I wasn’t dreaming, it wasn’t a dream; but just like that I blink and they’re gone, the one I love is gone from the table; they’re still back at the apartment. I feel Cal seize my hands and pry them out of the coffee mug. Come back, they say, I lost you for a minute.

I withdraw one hand and mechanically pluck one of the spoons out of my torso. Lost me? I ask, and my voice scares even me. You don’t even know me. You just met me.

Cal has tears in their eyes and I don’t know why. I don’t know where you went but you went somewhere else, someplace deep and dark, they whisper. Listen, you don’t have to stay down there. You’re confused and upset and frustrated, but you don’t have to work it through alone.

You don’t know me, I repeat, then louder. “You don’t know me.” I feel suddenly short of breath for the way I speak the words. It’s as though my voice suddenly became more real, more tangible, but I can hear myself in it less.

To keep from speaking again, I only think to myself, there’s only one person who might know me and I ran away from them for suddenly being happier than me.

Cal wipes the tears from their eyes, then stands. I think I know, some, they reply softly, coming around to my side of the table and kneeling down, so earnest. I don’t have to know all you to know I care.

My cocoa is too far away to sip and in any case I don’t want to get stuck on it again. I’m conscious suddenly of all the people here in the cafe, listening silently, listening tenderly, their regard and sympathy heavier on my shoulders than the hotel towel. I think they’re saying something to me, not with their voices and it’s awfully quiet, but I hear it nonetheless.

We’re here for you, Cal says, and they’re crying again.

I shrug the constricting towel off and stand up. My eyes are closed. I can’t look at all this… all this. I have to go, I whisper.

Cal tries to grab at my wrist, but I slip out of their grip and run to the door. I think I hear something about how it’s still raining hard outside and I’m leaving the towel behind, but it’s raining inside too, it’s been raining all damn day. There’s no escape from the rain.

-----------

It’s evening, and I’m still wandering around the damned streets.

I can’t feel my body anymore. I don’t know if that’s the onset of hypothermia, or if the raindrops are falling through me, the way they used to fall through my SO when they got upset.

Sometimes I try to think about what happened in the jazz bar, what Cal and the others were saying to me, but I can’t. It’s like the memory is repelling me, like two different magnets repelling each other. I can’t touch it. I’m afraid to.

I’m along one sidewalk and walking behind one of the taller buildings when my foot catches on an upraised turn of the sidewalk and I fall, I fucking sprawl across the soaked goddamn ground, and my thoughts screech to a halt as I gasp for a shriek, but water comes down my throat with the air and I can only cough and sputter for a long while. God damn, god damn, I hate this town, god damn, god damn, god damn!

Hello?

I hear someone’s voice and I look up to see a lump with eyes.

Are you okay? the lump asks, shifting slightly. That looks like a nasty fall.

I blink the water out of my eyes and realize what I’m looking at. It’s a person, a homeless man I think, wrapped up in a dark green raincoat leaning against a building. I could barely see them in the dark green shadows.

It’s full night now. I hadn’t noticed.

The homeless man distangles themself from their lumped-up position and walks over to help me up. My ankle is throbbing and it’s making me limp now, and I need their shoulder to support me as they help me over to the wall. It provides a little bit of shelter, but not much.

Here, they say, and I’m wrapped in a similar green raincoat. It’s not much, they say apologetically, but it’s all I’ve got. Can’t expect much from the dollar store, you know?

The dollar store. I’ve never seen a dollar store here in Bug. I’ve only ever been to the hotel and jazz bar, and I’ve seen no other places I’d want to explore.

I’m helped into a sitting position up against the wall and close to the homeless man, for warmth I assume, though the rain streaming off their raincoat doesn’t make them an optimal source of heat.

We sit in silence for a while, and I appreciate the silence the homeless man is offering me. At some point they ask for my pronouns, and I feel a sense of warmth touch me briefly. It’s rare for people to ask me that. I ask for they/them and the homeless man says he/him, though neither of us ask for names. I appreciate that too.

But this man’s kindness is reminding me too much of all the silent listeners in the jazz bar. I don’t understand how they could communicate so much without speaking or even looking up at Cal and I. How had I heard their silent support? Why would they offer that to me when it was me who messed everything up? I’m not worthy of their help. I created a problem where none existed. I don’t deserve anything from anyone.

Hey, I hear the homeless man break the silence and pull me out of the spiral. You still alive?

I nod, but realize he probably can’t see me. Yes, I answer. I’m still alive. You?

He chuckles, the cheery sound clashing against the clatter of the rain.

There’s another stretch of silence, but now, I don’t feel so alone. For a few minutes, I just focus on breathing in.

So, the homeless man says eventually, what happened, friend?

I blink. What do you mean? I ask, genuinely confused. There are so many things that have happened, I don’t know which one he’s referring to.

To your SO, he answers, and the warmth I’ve built up bleeds out into the dark air. I saw you and them walking past my spot the last time you two came here. They looked awfully perturbed, but you were all… calm. You were the calm one. Now you’re here, the upset one, but your SO isn’t here.

I think my jaw’s flexing, or maybe I’m clenching my teeth. Why is everyone asking me this? Why can’t they just mind their own business?

I don’t mean to pry, the homeless man adds. I’m just… I’m worried about your safety. If you have a place to go home, I can help you get there?

His tone makes it a question. I breathe deep to get rid of the lump in my throat, but it doesn’t work.

You want to know what happened? I finally spit out. Fine. I’ll tell you. Nothing. Barely anything. My SO went nuts looking in this stupid town for God. Who knows why? Why would they pick Bug of all places for God to spend his precious time? But we found him here all right. And he was useless, completely useless. He couldn’t do shit. And my SO almost melted away in the rain, in my arms.

As though it can hear it’s being talked about, the rain picks up, battering into my open snarling face. I can’t see the face of the man next to me, I only see water.

What happened then? he asks. I hear the words, but not the voice uttering them.

What happened then? I echo, shrinking deeper into myself, as much to escape the cold as to escape my own thoughts. I sang to them, I finally say. I sang the first song that popped into my head because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. And it…

My voice chokes on all the water. I cough and splutter to get it all out.

It helped them, I croak. They heard me and it made them better. I made them feel better when not even God could.

The ground begins to tremble before my feet. Something pulls its way out of the cracked cement.

They got better, I continue, my eyes on the creature coming out of the ground. They got better and stayed better after that. I’ve been singing to them every night for the past three weeks.

Another tremble comes from my right. In front of me, I finally see through the rain.

It’s a worm. Its head wavers uncertainly in the deluge before it slinks out onto the asphalt.

Is that a bad thing? The man asks, and I hear the echo of the question from Cal back at the cafe.

“No!” I shout, and I cough and choke and retch and nearly vomit. I feel my insides rotting and dying at the sudden utterance, different and worse than any way I’ve ever spoken before. The worms are crawling towards me.

Yes, I whisper, but that’s not what I want to say for real, because I’m not a bad person.

There’s a worm on my shoe. I can’t even tell what I’m saying anymore, I can’t tell if I’m speaking or thinking or if there’s no difference at all, if my mind has always been so transparent, if that was why my SO was staring at me so pensively the night before I left. I used to be able to see through them. I used to be able to see right through my SO, like they were a ghost, and I’ve been able to see them like that for all eight years we’ve been together. The past three weeks, they’ve never been so solid. How did they do it?

It couldn’t have been my singing. That’s just ridiculous. I’ve never even been in choir. I sang to them here in Bug Town, in front of God, because I was so scared they were going to disappear forever. It must have distracted them or something, because they were about to dissolve right away before I started. I wasn’t even that good, and I haven’t even improved at all since. How did just my singing bring them back? How is it keeping them back? How is my singing making them so damned happy?

Why can’t I do that for myself?

I feel a wriggle down by my feet. The worms are crawling over my ankles and several are burrowed into my socks. Some are wriggling their way up my coat.

I’m frozen. I’m petrified. I can’t think. The confusion seizes me.

There’s a hand on my shoulder. Hey, I hear the man next to me say, are you okay? Hey, give me a sign you’re still breathing.

I don’t want to move, don’t even want to turn my head, so I just inhale quickly to show them the movement of my chest. Worms, worms everywhere, through my clenched fingers, around my elbows, across my throat.

Talk to me, buddy, the man says urgently.

No. That’s not how they say it. That’s just how I’ve been hearing them. I’ve been hearing them wrong. I’ve been doing something wrong. I’m seeing something wrong. There must have been something I missed. I thought we had had so much in common. We stuck together because we were sad together. We were the only ones we could stand. But there’s something in them now that I can’t understand at all, something they’ve seen that’s changed their life for the better. We aren’t the same after all. They saw something that made them want to go on. They heard it. They… damn it, what changed for them? What was the turning point? What did they see that I did not?!

I hear the man next to me curse and swat at the worms that are swarming across me now, over the plastic green raincoat, over my soaking shoes, burrowing in and under the coat and under my skin. I feel them in my chest and in my stomach and in the back of my neck and my head. I straighten and hear my muscles pop but the worms all stay in there, they’re not going away.

Talk to me, the man had said.

No. That’s not what the man had said. It had been, “Talk to me.”

So I talk. “I’m alive.”

And I gag and retch, and out of my mouth comes a pebble that falls out from between my lips and lands in my lap.

The man stares, and even through the rain I can see the fear on his face. You sound… different, he says. No, it wasn’t like that. It was, “You sound… different.”

It doesn’t matter. No. Wait. I take a breath and force it out, “It doesn’t… matter.”

Gravel trickles out from between my teeth. I don’t see any worms on my coat anymore. They’re all inside my skin. They’re burrowing in.

“You need help, buddy.” It’s easier to hear it correctly now, but it feels so hollow. So… empty. Maybe it’s the worms curling and twisting in my ears. “Do you have a friend here in town? I can get you to their house.”

I hack and sputter out my answer. “No. I don’t.”

There’s something I need to ask now. A longer question. It hurts so much to talk this way, but it must be worth it. This has to be the right way, it’s so different from before. “Do you know… where I can… find a… a… " I can't stand it. I can't stand this new way of talking. But I have to though, or I'll die, I’ll be eaten alive, I'll be the one to dissolve in this interminable rain, and there'll be no one to hold me together.

"Shelter," I croak, coughing up another rock. "No… no more rain."

There's silence from my companion for a long, long while, and fear begins to curdle in my gut, or maybe it's just a tangle of worms balling together in my lower intestines, hardening and compressing into boulders and stones and gravel. Is there no shelter? I thought, and felt myself shaking under the thin raincoat. Is there nowhere free of the rain? I remembered the stormy cafe, the dew dripping down the ceiling in the hotel. There has to be a place, clean and dry. Please, God. Tell me there is one.

At last, I hear the man's reluctant tones beside me. "...There's a place, yeah. A place in town where it never rains and it never will."

Such an odd way to answer the question. Such an odd tone of foreboding to talk about a place of rest.

"Where?" I rasp. Out comes another pebble.

I feel the man's eyes on me. "I don't know, man. You look pretty messed up right now. It's a dangerous place to be in. I don't want to send you there if you're gonna hurt yourself -”

Something punches me in the chest. Not a fist from the outside, but a fist from the inside, propelling me forward and to my feet. I don’t understand this feeling, but it makes me wheel toward the man and slam my arm across his neck. I can't believe my own actions. The terror I see on his face echoes the horror I feel at this knee-jerk reaction.

"Tell me," I say - demand? Plea? - and my voices breaks when I whisper, "Please."

My skin trembles. It must be from all those worms buried inside.

"There…" I hear the man's voice croak, and with a jolt I realize I'm cutting off his air. I throw myself back, so hard that I stumble and land on my tailbone and splash into a puddle that rips right through the thin raincoat and seeps into my jeans.

The man is pointing to a distant building, his finger shaking in the cold. "The abandoned warehouse," he says, his voice echoing down a tunnel so distant that the words barely seem to exist. "There’s a hole in the basement. The bartender’s brother watches over it. His other brother, not the hotel manager. He can take you down."

I want to apologize to him, but the rocks are stuck in my throat. I hurt him. I never wanted to hurt anyone. Never ever ever.

But I did, the thought comes unbidden, a whisper in the deep. I left my SO behind in the apartment, all alone. I hurt them just like I hurt this man. That's worse even than when I hurt myself with my actions… I'm dragging everyone down with me.

I scramble to my feet and run towards the warehouse, head bent against the rain. I don't care where this place leads. I don't care if it leads to heaven, purgatory, or hell. If it keeps me safe from these thoughts, and keeps others safe from me, that's all that matters. I'll willingly walk into hell if it means I'll get some rest from all this rain.