He stops and scowls. He’s only making things worse. He’s happy here. He’s happy with what he has. He should really let this go.
THE PROBLEM is that he can’t.
Because he gets to the store and goes to the back and there’s a shipment of new books stacked in brown boxes that he doesn’t remember ordering and doesn’t remember getting delivered. He knows he has invoices, and he knows they’re filled out, and he knows they have his signature on the bottom, but truth is, he can’t remember doing any of it.
He laughs. It’s a hollow sound.
“This is another event,” he says to absolutely no one.
AND THERE are so many of them, now that he thinks about them. And he thinks about them quite a lot. Some get through. Others get lost in the haze.
Who delivers the food into Amorea? To the general store? To the butcher? To the diner?
Where does the trash go when it’s picked up off the streets on Tuesdays?
Why are there no chil##&*#? (Little people, he thinks. Born to big people.)
(He used to be able to speak that word. He knows it.)
Why is there no h&*&##? (Medical place, he thinks. Where the chil##$*# are born.)
Why doesn’t anyone drive a #&*&&? (Four wheels, he thinks. Windows and doors.)
Why does no one come to visit Amorea?
Why does no one leave Amorea?
But then he thinks, Why would anyone want to ever leave Amorea? Regardless of the state of his mind, he knows that this place is a little slice of heaven, that this town is the greatest place on earth—why would he ever want to leave?
But what if they did?
He wants to ask these questions to everyone he sees, but he stops himself, knowing he’s just going to make it worse. No one else seems to have these questions, and all he can hear is Doc saying, There are subsets to schizophrenia. Did you know that? It’s not all the same. There are types, Mike. There’s paranoid schizophrenia, which causes you to question things that you didn’t question before. Like the Commies are listening in on every move you make. That the people you love are actually spies against you. They’re irrational, these thoughts. Of course they are. But they can cause abnormal behavior because the schizophrenic will hold on to them like they’re real.
So no, he’s not going to ask these questions.
(Why? that little voice asks, that little voice buried underneath all the questions. Why won’t you ask? They are valid questions. Don’t you want to know? Don’t you want to know what’s going on?)
(He does.)
(He doesn’t.)
HE DOESN’T like to keep these things from Sean, but he has to. There’s nothing he can say to Sean that won’t sound crazy, and he can’t hurt him like that. He won’t. He thinks of distancing himself from Sean, but he doesn’t know if he can do that. Even if all the rest of the world is slowly crumbling around him, Sean’s there with him. He’s got to hold himself up so he doesn’t bring anything down onto the both of them.
HE’S IN the diner. Sean’s at the lunch counter, filling orders. He must know Mike’s looking at him, because he glances over and winks. It’s a quick thing, a saucy thing, and more than one person sees it and whistles, slapping the tabletops.
Mike blushes because that’s what he does when someone acknowledges them for what they are.
Outwardly, everything is good. He’s smiling. He’s laughing. He looks better rested, right-o, daddio, because he’s making himself go to sleep earlier, he’s making an effort to not draw questions.
Last night, right before he dropped off to sleep, he heard voices coming from the den. Martin, the fat thing that he is, didn’t even react.
There were two voices this time. He could hear bits and pieces that seemed to filter in and out.
“Meatbags… not a single thing… doing it for them… it fucking creeps….”
“It’s weird… like… here, you know? I don’t like being in… long time….”
“They… eyes. You know? It’s all in… eyes. What are they… do?”