At last the door opened. A round face, a real face, the eyes swollen and distorted behind thick lenses, appeared in the crack.
“Oh, sorry, I must have the wrong room,” the man said, and the door closed with a click.
Moments later, a knock came.
“Yes?” Elvin called.
Muffled, “May I come in?”
“I suppose.”
The door opened and the same man appeared. He was short, wearing a plain white lab coat with oversize pockets, a piece of elastic cable dangling from one of them. A few black wires of hair crossed his bald skull. He walked with the air of a distracted man, rubbing his chin. “A most peculiar situation,” the man said.
“Excuse me? Are you the doctor?”
The man, who had been pacing in front of him like a lifer in a lockdown, stopped and looked up as if he’d forgotten Elvin were there. “Doctor? Heavens, no, and you should be grateful.” He leaned forward like a conspirator. “You wouldn’t want the doctor. Not in this place. No, not all.”
“Are you a patient?”
“No, I’m quite impatient. That’s why they sent me here.”
Elvin, who was used to suppressing confusion, only nodded. “This is one of those things we don’t talk about, right?”
“You mean, like on the outside?”
“Yes. Where we all have to pretend everything is okay and that birds don’t have teeth and snakes don’t talk and my wife doesn’t have worms in her hair.”
“We don’t talk about those things.” The man resumed pacing, his hands thrust in his pockets. Elvin looked at the floor and noticed the paint on the concrete floor was actually worn. This man, or others like him, had marked the route by miles of directionless trudging
“What things?” Elvin asked, trying to sound casual. He well knew what things. The kind of things one couldn’t talk about.
“You’ve seen them, of course.” A statement, not a question.
Elvin risked a glance at the clock. The second hand was moving, and perhaps had been all along. “Them?”
“The other things.”
“What other things?” Elvin thought about mentioning the television announcer with the pointy ears, but then he’d have to lump himself into the same category as the bald man. After all, in the mirror, his reflection had looked every bit as supernatural. And who knew whether such things were good or evil? In Overton, the lines not only blurred, they blended together into one gray, greasy tapestry.
The man stopped pacing and went to the door. “You know.”
As the door closed behind the man, Elvin stood. The clock had marked off seven minutes. Elvin looked at the worn strip on the floor. He stepped into the middle of it, turned and faced the bare wall. One step, two, three, and he was at the stack of cold concrete blocks. Turning, six steps the other way to the opposite wall. There was no future in it, and barely a present. He retreated to the chair.
After five more minutes, he went to the door and tried the handle. Locked. Gretta would be worried.
No. She didn’t worry about anything. Especially him.
He knocked.
After a moment, the door opened. It was the balding man with the thick glasses. “Yes?”
“May I come out?” Elvin said.
“You mean, may you come in?”
Elvin looked behind him. Come to think of it, the door had opened inside the room when he’d entered, and now it swung to the outside. He peered past the man, trying to remember what the hall had looked like. “I have an appointment.”
“With the doctor?”
“Yes. Where’s the nurse who brought me here? Can I see her?”
“I don’t know whether you can see her or not. What’s the condition of your eyes?”
“My eyes are fine.”
“That’s what they all say. I said it once myself.” As if to make a point, the man removed his glasses and rubbed the lenses with the hem of his lab coat. Naked, his eyes were milky and dull.
“What are you in for?” Elvin said. The man was obviously a patient of some sort. Mental breakdown, post- traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse. The options were unlimited.
“I’m in for life,” the man said. “This is Overton.”
Elvin had developed an itch just above his elbow. He scratched idly. Something fell to the floor. He looked around the legs of the chair. Scales, like those from a reptile, lay scattered like confetti.
“Ah,” the myopic man said. “You’re changing.”
“I don’t know where those came from.” In the small room, Elvin’s breathing seemed far too loud for his lungs.
“No blood under your fingernails,” he replied, nodding. “That’s good. There’s still time.”
Elvin glanced at the clock. It was stuck again, back where it had been when he first noticed it. At least it was still faceless. “Time for what?”
“Fitting,” the man said. “The doctor will be along shortly.” The man hurried from the room, the door closing firmly behind him. Swinging the wrong way again.
But which was the right way? In or out, doors worked both ways. Seeing or not seeing, the thing was the same. If your eyes were closed, and your pupils turned red, would you notice? Would they still be red in the dark?
He tried to stand, to run for the door, knowing it would be locked. Or worse, that it would open onto a world where the skins and faces and veils that disguised the monsters inside would have all fallen away. A world where Gretta had double rows of sharp teeth and a long, curling anteater’s tongue flicking behind them. One where the pigeons no longer pretended to wear feathers and gave way to rough scales. One where the dog at the end of a leash was now a dragon, snorting and roaring fire. Where the customers at the delicatessen wanted their meat fresh and raw.
With great effort, he forced his legs to stiffen and for gravity to yield. He stepped forward and found himself in the worn groove of those who had walked before. He walked in their footsteps yet again, going nowhere and getting there, time after time.
A knock at the door stopped him. He was two steps from the chair. Should he return and sit? Or would that be the expected behavior? If it was the expected behavior, would he be better off submitting to it or defying it?
He had no opportunity to decide. The door opened, swinging outward this time, the hinges on the opposite jamb now. It was the bald man with the thick glasses.
“I thought you said the doctor would see me now,” Elvin said, feeling awkward standing in the walking track.
“I see you.”
“You’re the doctor?”
“We are each a patient,” he said, fumbling in his lab-coat pocket. He pulled the elastic cord from it. “Would you please sit?”
Elvin eyed the door and sat. He could always call for help if necessary. But what would respond? The nurse with the twitching skin, which probably housed a thousand vermin beneath it? The snake-lipped woman in the waiting room? The dozens, thousands, walking the false concrete of Overton, hiding their true natures?
He sat. The doctor stretched the cord on the floor.
“Whatever you do, don’t step across this line,” the doctor said. He leaned close and raised an index finger. “Keep your head still and look at this.”
Elvin watched the finger ease back and forth in the air. He focused on the blistered whorl, skin that peeled itself as he watched, an absurd banana stripping away to reveal milk-white fruit beneath.
“Focus on the finger,” the doctor urged in a calm voice.
