Went outside today. First time in three days. Thought the air would help. It didn't. Grocery store, 10am, I'm moving through the aisle got my list, got my head down, been in here a while reach for the last box of whatever, hand comes from the left some guy, mid-fifties, suit, takes it, doesn't look, just steps around me like I'm furniture, like I'm not even there I watch him walk away and I'm just — standing, staring at the back of his head thinking about the way he moved too efficient, not a wasted step, like every motion grooved into a pattern optimized for something I can't name I put my basket down and left and I don't feel ashamed because you would've done the same if you'd seen what I've seen heard what I've heard, watched what I watched on that screen cashier said "have a good one" when I passed the door I said "you too" and then I thought about it more what does "you too" mean when you don't know what they are I made it to my car and sat there staring at the stars in the middle of the day, no stars, just sky and I'm asking it a question it refuses to reply Subway platform, downtown, 12:15 woman on the phone standing right next to me someone asks her something, simple question, what's the time she pauses — one beat, maybe two — before she replies now I know how that sounds, I know how that reads but you don't understand the nature of the thing I've seen the behavioral analysts described integration so complete that the tells are microscopic, buried under everything a pause before an answer that should come automatic a blink that happens slightly late, a smile that's mostly static she said "it's quarter after" and she smiled and moved away I watched her get on the uptown train and I couldn't say with any certainty — I couldn't say for sure — whether the feeling in my chest was paranoia or something older, something accurate, something that knows before the brain catches up and confirms what the body shows I rode three stops past my destination going nowhere just watching faces, watching eyes, watching who wasn't there Barbershop on Lenox, tried to decompress my guy Carlito, fifteen years, I trust him best he's cutting my hair, talking ball, talking regular things and I'm nodding in the mirror watching everything the kid in the waiting chair — maybe nine, maybe ten reading a magazine, hasn't looked up since I came in I've been here forty minutes, Carlito's almost done that kid has not moved once, has not looked up at one single thing that happened — door opened twice, phone rang somebody's music from outside, none of it, nothing rang through whatever that kid was locked into sitting there and then he looked up — straight at me — in the mirror, dead stare one second, maybe less, back to the magazine like it didn't happen, like he didn't just — I mean Carlito said "you good?" because my whole body went still I said "yeah I'm good" and I left him a fifty dollar bill I'm walking home now, taking the long way back hands in my pockets, keeping my eyes on the cracks in the sidewalk because if I look up I'll start again and I can't start again, I been starting since then since the broadcast, since the retraction, since the forty-eight hours I documented, since I understood the weight of what it means to know a thing you cannot un-know to walk through a world that looks the same but isn't, though I passed my building super, nodded, he nodded back held eye contact maybe half a second, I tracked the exact duration, filed it, cross-referenced it against the behavioral data, the integration, the evidence and I stopped myself right there on the stoop I stopped myself because my super's name is Marcus and I've known Marcus for eleven years and if I can't trust Marcus I can't trust anything and if I can't trust anything I'm already gone I stood on those steps for twenty minutes. Just standing there. People walking past. All of them. Every single one. I couldn't go in. I couldn't stay out. I just stood there in between thinking about how normal everything looked. How completely, perfectly, unbearably normal. ... Marcus held the door for me when he came back out. Smiled. Said "you been standing there a while, you alright?" I said yeah. I said yeah I'm good. I went upstairs and locked every lock. Everybody.
