The Place by Zachary Dein Reisch

The Place by Zachary Dein Reisch

There are only so many patterns a human face can have. Was that guy in the booth on the right, eating the dripping sandwich, the same guy I put in jail two months ago for driving drunk? He got out last week and might want revenge on the prosecutor who tried him. Was that woman at the bar, drinking a beer, the same woman I was about to charge with distribution? She could end the case by ending me.

Probably not.

But maybe.

A hand rested on mine. I jumped. I’d been so absorbed in my thoughts that I hadn’t seen anyone approach.

“Hi,” the waitress said.

She appeared to be in her forties, like me, and had a round, kind face. My breathing slowed. Then I looked down at our hands. I must have looked pretty rough if she’d felt compelled to calm me through physical touch. That sort of thing was probably against employee policy.

“What can I get you?” she asked.

Her hand stayed on mine. It should have been creepy but wasn’t. It had been years since someone had intentionally touched me for this long. I relaxed.

“Just a burger and a water,” I said.

My voice was hoarse. That happened to me sometimes after a panic attack, and I’d just had a small one. They were happening more and more. Pretty much every time I went out in public for extended periods. I kept trying because the internet said exposure therapy was the best cure for mild agoraphobia, but I wasn’t making any progress.

“Sounds great. Be right out.”

She smiled at me, and I tried to smile back. I think it came out more as a grimace.

I stared unfocused at the padded booth seat across the table. The back of my neck itched. Was someone behind me?

I looked back. Nothing suspicious.

Eventually the waitress returned with my water and food. Meat juice ran down my chin

as I stuffed my face.

After inhaling a few bites, I realized the waitress was sitting across from me. Her hands were beneath the table.

My heart sped up again. Why was she sitting there?

“I guess you were hungry,” she said, smiling.

“Yes,” I murmured.

I wiped the grease from my face with a napkin. My eyes darted to the door. I could probably get there in under ten seconds. But if she had a gun in her hand, out of sight underneath the table, I wouldn’t even have a chance to leave the booth.

That’s how Carolyn died.

Doing paperwork at the desk next to mine one day, shot in a restaurant the next. I blinked hard, trying not to cry.

The waitress’s nametag said “Rian.”

“I hope you don’t mind me joining you,” she sighed, bringing her hands out from under the table and resting her chin on empty palms.

No weapon, then. I relaxed a bit.

“I just got off my shift. You look like you could use a friend, figured I’d wind down here for a second.”

Maybe she was just being kind. Before Carolyn died, before I couldn’t stop looking over my shoulder, I would have appreciated that.

Taking another bite of the burger, I asked Rian how she pronounced her name.

“Ryan, like the guy’s name,” she said.

I nodded.

“I’m Matt.”

“Nice to meet you, Matt.”

I didn’t know what to say next, so I continued eating. Then I pointed to the fries on my plate. If she was thinking of killing me, I could at least make her feel guilty about it.

“Do you want any?”

“Sure, thanks.”

She grabbed a couple and nibbled on them.

“Finish that burger and let’s get out of here,” she said. “I need to show you something.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“What kind of something?”

“It’s a place that might help you relax.”

I blushed. She laughed.

“Not that kind of place. It’s . . . a spot where I like to meditate.”

The scared part of my brain screamed to get up and run. But, for the first time in a long time, that voice wasn’t the loudest. The kindness in the waitress’s eyes said that she was on my team. And I badly needed someone on that side of the ledger. Besides, if she did kill me, at least I wouldn’t need to worry anymore about dying.

After I finished eating and paid the bill, Rian led me outside. She wore a purple winter coat and matching mittens. We walked down the street. I stayed a couple feet behind her, ready to run if something weird happened. Well, if something weirder happened.

“Just through here,” she said, turning into a narrow alley. It was dark, and I could barely see.

I hesitated.

“Come on,” she said.

My scared brain screamed again to turn back. Why would she possibly want to bring me down there?

But another part of me itched to go in. Itched, maybe, for Rian to be the killer I’d been terrified of since Carolyn’s murder six months ago. Everyone in the office said that her killing was a one-off thing, an unhinged abuser she’d helped prosecute. But that wasn’t the point. How many unhinged abusers had I put in jail? Dozens? Hundreds? These people had the desire and means to kill me, and they’d be out there even if I quit. I didn’t have the strength to leave town, change my name, start a new life.

So, I was trapped. The only way out was for my worst fears to come true.

I walked into the alley, running my hands along the grimy walls to stay oriented.

“Need to get through this gate,” Rian said.

Something clanked and squeaked. We resumed walking.

I brushed the hair off my damp forehead. The air felt strangely warm given the winter weather.

Everything spun. I couldn’t see because of the darkness, but I could sense the vertigo.

“Rian, what’s…”

I hunched and covered my eyes to protect them from sudden brightness, then screamed.

Rian put her arm around me and whispered into my ear.

“It’s okay, Matt. We’re here. Open your eyes whenever you’re ready.”

After a few moments, I looked.

We stood in a field. My shoes were gone, and the grass whispered against my ankles. The blue sky whitened as it reached the horizon.

“Where are we?”

Instead of answering, she ran.

“Come on!” she shouted, looking back.

So, I ran, too. I wasn’t in especially good shape, but here I had an endless amount of breath and speed. I flew across the unchanging plains until I reached Rian’s side. Then we ran together.

It was as surreal as a dream. But I knew I was awake because the wind burned when it whipped my face. Not that the burning bothered me. Nothing did.

My brain tried to feel disoriented and scared, but something kept it from acting up. The bad thoughts and fears couldn’t cluster to the front like they were used to doing. They stayed scattered around with the rest, no bigger and no smaller. I experienced life in the space between my thoughts. I had forgotten that such a space existed.

There was a single puffy cloud in the sky.

“Isn’t it remarkable?” Rian asked, hair streaming.

I nodded.

“I haven’t felt this way in years,” I said, thinking of the days before Carolyn’s death.

Although, come to think of it, had I ever felt this free?

As we sprinted, I sensed small animals scurrying alongside us. Their tiny paws pounded the earth; their whiskers bristled against the grass, and the grass shifted color as we ran.

We fell off a cliff.

My hand grasped for Rian’s as we plunged toward water below. Our small rodent companions spread hidden wings.

I wasn’t scared as my feet plunged into the warm pool. I couldn’t be.

The underwater world was as spectacular as the plains above. I could breathe easily and see clearly. Small fish schooled around us.

There was a cave ahead, embedded in a sand wall.

The familiar anxiety rose. I didn’t want anything to do with that cave, but Rian was leading us straight toward it.

She looked back at me. Her eyes were huge.

“I’m sorry, Matt,” she said.

“No!”

I tried to pull away, toward the open sea, away from the cave filled with worry.

Then I stood on a crowded street with tears freezing on my face.

I looked at Rian, who still held my hand.

“How –” I started, not knowing how to express the profound loss I felt. “How did — Why?”

She licked her dry lips. Her eyes were still enormous. Terrified.

She let go of my hand, then turned her back and disappeared into the crowd. I tried to run into the alley but met a brick wall instead. It was gone.

& & &

Later that evening, I lay in bed, reached my arm toward a crack in the ceiling, and imagined climbing through it. Maybe it led back to the magical place Rian had shown me. I planned to stake out her restaurant the next day to see if she brought someone else there. I needed to get back so badly. My anxiety was even worse now that I’d experienced life without worry.

There was a knock at my door.

I rolled out of bed, literally, then groaned to my feet and creeped to the peep hole.

It was Rian. She looked around and picked at something on her arm.

I wondered briefly how she knew where I lived. Mostly, though, I didn’t care, so long as she brought me back to that place in the alley.

“Hi,” she said after I yanked the door open. “Can I come in?”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

I stumbled backwards into the apartment, remembering too late that I was wearing nothing but boxers. My face flushed, but Rian didn’t seem to notice. She sat in the one chair that didn’t have crumbs on it. I sat on the bed. She stared at me.

“Matt, I know you want to go back.”

Her voice wavered.

“Yes,” I said.

She crossed her legs and bounced one foot startlingly fast.

“You can’t.”

The bottom dropped out of my stomach. It hadn’t occurred to me that Rian was here to keep me from returning.

“I know it’s hard,” she continued. “I know you feel like you need it.”

It wasn’t a feeling. It was the truth.

“But listen. If you go back, you’ll never get out. And all of this will have been for nothing.”

“But –”

“No. Listen. I broke all the rules by bringing you out of there. I guess I had enough. I’ve given hundreds of people to that place. Maybe thousands, I’ve lost track. Something broke inside me, I can’t explain it, but I made my choice. I saved you. Now I’ll suffer the consequences, whatever they are. I’m not that place’s first guide, and I won’t be its last. But you have your freedom now. Your true freedom. Take it. Please.”

She lunged forward and grabbed my hand in both of hers. She was feverishly warm.

“Please, Matt. Don’t go back there.”

She stood abruptly and went out the door. I sat in my boxers, numb. Showing me that place and then taking it away was the cruelest thing anybody had ever done to me. I wished Rian had killed me instead.

I lay down in the bed and reached toward the crack in the ceiling until my shoulder hurt.

& & &

The next morning, I hunkered down in a coffee shop across the street from where the alley had been. Around noon, a man in a suit walked up to the brick wall, trailed by a middle-aged woman. The alley reappeared. I didn’t see it happen, but one second it wasn’t there, the next second it was.

I scrambled off my stool, nearly knocking it over, and ran across the street without looking. A car almost hit me, but I didn’t care. I already felt lighter as I entered the dark alley. The man in a suit was pushing the gate open. His eyebrows raised when he turned around and saw me.

The vertigo didn’t overwhelm me this time, and I didn’t scream. But I still covered my eyes against the light. Sand tickled my toes. I opened my eyes and saw that the grassy plain was now a desert. The cloud was still there.

My thoughts drifted apart like shifting continents. I floated in the waters they left behind.

“Hey!”

I looked back and saw the new guide with his companion, who wore a goofy grin. I briefly wondered what had happened to Rian, but the worry quickly disappeared.

“Who are you?” the man shouted.

I ran.

Small creatures scurried next to me again. The sand changed colors as I picked up speed. I was happier than I’d ever been, more relaxed than during my first visit. I couldn’t even remember how . . . what was her name? Carolyn? How she’d died. Wasn’t the sky nice?

After minutes or years, I flew off a cliff.

I would have screamed if I had been capable of panic. As it was, I fell happily into a void of white, sterile emptiness. My brain couldn’t respond emotionally. It understood logically, though, that the place had swallowed me.

I thought, “This is a beginning.”

And it was.

Because I’m still falling. And, thank God, I’m never going to stop.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Zachary Dein Reisch 2024