prompt: Write a story about a character who is experiencing glitches in their reality.
available at Reedsy
It was there again for just a split second, then it was gone. A flash in the eye; something off-kilter just a bit. I couldn’t tell what it was, but it made me think I might be losing my marbles. If I hadn’t been too nervous to try when it was offered in university, I would blame it on it acid flashbacks.
I pulled my hair into a ponytail and tied it with the spare band I had around my wrist. It served as an excuse to stand outside for a moment longer to gather my wits.
The reception had that sterile, cold, hospital feeling down, complete with the forced smiles of the young people in scrubs checking people in and answering questions. I approached the counter when the young woman there waved me forward.
“Hi. I’m Wendy, how can I help?”
“I have an appointment for an fMRI at three,” I said.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Celia Andros.”
After confirming my birthdate and address, she gave me a form to fill out while I waited. I filled out the rough outline of my medical history and wondered why I had to do it so often. My entire medical history was tied into this hospital, so they already had this information.
The waits for imaging weren’t like waiting for the doctor. They got me in right at three, had me out of my clothes and in a gown, lying in the machine by fifteen after.
While I was in the machine watching the images they showed on the screen above me, it happened again. The difference was, this wasn’t split-second. While I saw the machine around me, through it I saw the ceiling high above, crumbling. It was like seeing two films at the same time, one bleeding through the other.
There was a button under my thumb that I was to push if I noticed anything odd. I pushed it, I think. At least, I told myself to. Just as details in the ceiling were becoming clear, including the steady drip of black water from the edges of the tiles, the image disappeared and the machine and screen above were once again solid.
The fact that it happened during the fMRI might provide some insight into what was happening. My doctor already told me that I’m too old for the initial onset of something like schizophrenia, so she wanted to rule out a physical cause before doing anything that might exacerbate the situation.
I spent most of the ride home — and most every empty minute after — trying to decide which would be worse; something physical that may kill me any moment or something entirely psychological that would eventually see me sectioned.
Feeling sorry for myself, I stopped at the grocery on the way home for some nibbles. I picked up a large bag of crisps and box of herbal tea with chamomile and valerian. On the spur of the moment, I picked up a fizzy drink and an ice lolly.
The ice lolly and fizzy drink were gone by the time I’d got home. I sat in front of the telly, not paying attention to what was showing. At some point, I roused myself to put on a kettle and open the crisps.
It was between sips of the herbal tea that it happened again. The newsreader was going on about a pile-up on the M1, complete with live coverage of the traffic jam. I saw, behind the image or through it, the same stretch of the M1 broken, part of it jutting up as though the land had been lifted. A lorry lay across the change in elevation, burning.
The image faded after a few seconds and the story changed to one about some MP caught up in some ethics scandal…as if that was a news-worthy occurrence.
I continued to munch on the crisps, letting the sound from the telly fade to background noise. After a second cup of the herbal tea, I was tired enough to sleep.
Over the next few days, the episodes became more common and far more vivid. The scenes that showed beneath the everyday were all of destruction. Why that should be, I don’t know.
I walked to the corner shop, and it happened again. The shop entrance was elevated from the pavement, as though it was built on a kerb. I nearly tripped as I tried to step up into the shop. Then I realized that in addition to being lifted twenty centimeters or so, the shop I was seeing was in a state of total disarray.
To avoid the stare of the man behind the counter, I turned down one of the aisles and waited for the episode to end. When it ended, I still had after-impressions. It was as though some traumatic event had burned it into my brain.
I shook it off and picked up a fizzy drink and ice lolly. It was as I was paying for my purchases that I realized I didn’t know why I’d gone to the shop in the first place. Probably boredom combined with the stress of waiting for my doctor to call me in about the scan.
The call from my doctor came as I was heading home. She wanted to see me in her office first thing in the morning. She talked as if it wasn’t anything to be concerned about, but I wasn’t certain I believed her tone.
I sat in her office after a sleepless night. I was still undecided whether a physical or psychological cause was worse. She caught my wandering attention.
“Sorry, Doctor Mathis.”
“Celia, you can relax,” she said, “and please, just call me Sharon. We haven’t found a physical cause for your hallucinations. To start with, I’m going to put you on an anti-psychotic to see if we can get it under control.”
I nodded, realizing now that it was the worse outcome of the two. At least if it had been physical, it would be something I could point to and blame.
“Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been seeing. We can decide from there if we should involve the psychiatry department.”
I explained how the brief, vague flashes had morphed into views of destruction. I made sure to provide the vivid details of the latest episodes. It was then that another hit me. The doctor was both in front of me, and huddled beneath the desk, upon which the ceiling had collapsed, trapping her there.
Looking up, I could see the floor above on fire. Water sprayed from unseen fire hoses outside, washing ash down with it, turning it black. It took over, more real seeming than reality, as if reality was the bit bleeding through. As suddenly as it started, it stopped.
“Celia, are you well?” she asked. “Did you just have another episode?”
“I…did. It looked so real. You were trapped beneath your desk with the ceiling collapsed all around. The floor above was on fire, and water was spraying on it from outside.”
She just nodded and jotted it down in her notes. “You’re not having any thoughts of harming yourself or others, are you?”
“No, it just…it’s like I’m seeing another reality behind this one, or maybe another time.” I laughed at myself. “Sorry, Doctor M—Sharon…now I sound daft.”
“It’s fine, Celia. Promise you’ll pop by the chemist on the way home and get this filled. One tablet every night before bedtime. Don’t expect it to work right away, it needs to build up. And don’t skip any doses. I’ll set a follow-up appointment for two weeks from today.”
I nodded at her, took the prescription she’d written, and walked out. Anti-psychotics. I’ve gone ’round the bend, I thought, and I’ll be sectioned before year’s end.
As I’d promised, I took a detour to the chemist on the way home. It was only one stop earlier than my usual, so it wasn’t much of a detour.
Medicine in hand, I walked toward home. I had finished the big bag of crisps the day prior, so I decided to pop into the corner shop to get some more. Fried potato therapy.
A low, rumbling noise, like a train, came barreling toward me. The light poles began to sway, and the ground started to shake. Unable to stand, I dropped to my knees. The ground next to me, where the buildings abutted the pavement, rose with a deafening roar.
A few seconds after it started, it was over. Sirens called out from all over the city, and the streets were littered with collapsed brickwork from many of the older buildings.
I went into the shop. I had to step up to get in, and the scene was exactly as I had seen the last time I was there.
The clerk shooed me out and followed. “I’m not sure the roof will hold,” he said, “but I grabbed you an ice lolly on the way out. No charge.”
“You’re very kind.” I opened the lolly and looked down the street to my building. The entire facade was laid out in front of it, and my front room was open to the world. I pointed to it with a bitter laugh. “How do you like my interior-exterior design?”
That night, as I lay on a cot in a Red Cross shelter, I wondered whether to take the pills or not. The scenes from the news, including the upthrust that cut across the M1, the partial collapse and fire at the hospital — all of it — was just as I’d seen.
I tried to call Dr. Mathis, but most of the cell towers were down, and the ones that weren’t were overloaded. I told one of the aid workers to contact the firemen at the hospital and let them know she was trapped beneath her desk, but he just looked at me like I was barmy.
I decided that, for now, the pills could wait until it happened again…if it happened again. With the full realization that I had, somehow, seen into the future, I left the shelter for the hospital. I hoped it wasn’t too late for Dr. Mathis.
