The Prelude

4:44 AM

inspired by the film, Everything Everywhere All At Once

The Aftermath

The light pulsed like a failing heartbeat. Bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder when his eyes opened. A scarf draped over a ceiling light turned everything amber, and the floor stuck slightly underfoot. A speaker sat on a chair and made the chair legs tremble. A cup landed in his hand while someone laughed in his ear. A hand slid across his back. He took a sip and winced ( it was sugary, cheap, but strong enough to sting), but swallowed anyway. Each time he drifted toward an edge, someone pulled him back in with an arm around his shoulder or fingers around his wrist.

“You’re good,” a man shouted, face shiny with sweat. “You’re with us!”

The man tugged him forward, and the crowd sealed around him, airtight. He laughed when other people laughed, nodded at jokes he didn’t hear, danced because standing still made him noticeable in the worst way. He kept his cup raised. He followed a girl with glitter on her eyelids toward a hallway where shoes lined the floor like a spill and jackets piled in corners. At the bathroom door, the girl turned and looked him up and down.

“Who’d you come with?” she asked.

He opened his mouth. His mind offered nothing. Behind her, a voice from inside the bathroom, “We’re full.”

The girl shrugged, stepped inside, and shut the door.

Someone shoved past with a hissed “Move,” and his heel caught on a shoe. He stumbled. A coat hook snagged his sleeve, ripping the fabric with a dry tearing sound, and he looked down at the split seam while heat spread across his face. In the living room, a guy with a red cup bumped him hard enough to slosh a drink down his chest.

“Watch it,” the guy snapped.

“I—sorry.”

The guy’s eyes traveled over him, then past him. The guy turned away mid-sentence to speak to someone else. He stood with his shirt soaked, sugar drying sticky against his skin, while the bass hit his ribs and his gut twisted like wrung fabric. The walls breathed him in and out, boxing in his lungs. The amber light stretched into streaks. He reached for something solid and found cold metal. The spin slowed. The music collapsed into a thin ringing.

He spilled onto tile, face close to the floor, breathing hard. When he pushed himself up, his shirt was gone, and one shoe was missing. His shoulder strained when he moved. He ran a hand over his face and felt stubble where his skin had been smooth, saw his eyes sunken in the brushed metal reflection of the washing machine. He lifted his hand and found faint lines at the corners of his fingers—creases that didn’t belong to one night.

Three front-loading machines lined one wall, their brushed metal faces dulled by fingerprints and scratches. Around the handles, the metal was worn brighter, polished by years of palms. Above them, a blue digital clock hung slightly crooked: 4:44 AM.

He stood while the tile pressed cold through his socks. A stained ceiling tile above showed a hairline crack running corner to corner, darkened where moisture had seeped in and dried. The air was warm in the wrong way—used, smelling like soap that had tried and failed to cover something older. Somewhere underneath the electrical buzz, something low and wet sounded once.

He walked to the second machine, where the drum moved with a harder rhythm. Through the fogged glass: daylight flashes, a long counter, people in line, a uniformed figure leaning forward. The smell coming through the door wasn’t alcohol but disinfectant, old paper, and the sharp sting of nervous sweat. He pressed his palm against the glass, felt it vibrate with contained voices, and opened the door.

A crowded office with low ceilings and fluorescent panels hummed overhead. The air was dry, recycled. A line of people stood behind a rope barrier with a sign near the front: APPOINTMENTS ONLY in thick black letters. Another sign taped crookedly to the wall: NO EXCEPTIONS.

He stood behind an older woman holding a folder to her chest, her hands trembling, the folder worn at the edges. She smoothed the paper with her thumb. At the counter, a clerk sat behind glass with a small speaker, eyes on a computer.

“I’m here about my benefits,” a man said, holding a baby on his hip, the baby’s face flushed from crying.

“Next,” the clerk said, eyes still on the computer.

“I’ve been trying to call—”

The clerk looked up with an expression flat as concrete. “If you don’t have an appointment, you need to leave.”

“I was told to come in. I was told someone would help me.”

The clerk tapped a laminated sheet on the counter with one finger. “Appointments only.”

The baby started crying and the man bounced the child. “Please. We don’t have heat.”

Behind him, the line shifted while people murmured. A security guard near the wall straightened, one hand moving to his belt.

The older woman in front of him whispered, “They did this to my sister.”

The man at the counter tried again. “I just need—”

The guard stepped forward and put a hand on the man’s shoulder.

The man flinched and said, “Don’t touch me.”

“Sir,” the guard said, voice calm. “You need to leave.”

“You’re going to put us outside?”

The guard tightened his grip.

He’d been that man—standing under bad light with paperwork damp from his own hands, keeping his voice level so no one could call him a problem, watching the person behind the glass blink slowly and look past him. He pushed forward, past the rope.

“Stop.” His voice cut through the sterile room and heads turned. “Let him talk to someone.”

The clerk looked at him. “Step back.”

He didn’t move, and the security guard released the man with the baby, stepping toward him instead, body squared.

“Back up.”

Sight collapsed to a tunnel, and he pointed at the counter, finger shaking.

“You’re telling him to leave with a baby. You’re hiding behind a speaker and a laminated sheet.”

The guard grabbed his arm, but all he could notice was how dust hung in the fluorescent light. A silence followed his observations, and he realized the baby’s crying had stopped as if the room held its breath.

The first hit landed across his ribs and he stumbled into a snap of the rope barrier against his hips. He threw a hand out to steady himself, but the guard punched him again. This time, his shoulder slammed against the wall and his mouth filled with copper. He heard himself yelling, and two more guards appeared. One hooked an arm under his while another pushed him down. His cheek hit the cool tile, and he felt pressure between his shoulder blades.

“Stop resisting.”

The ceiling lights became scars across his vision while voices stretched and warped. He reached for anything solid, and his fingers closed around cold metal. The office sounds thinned into a dull hiss.

He spilled back onto tile in the bleach-smelling room, gasping, one hand pressed to his ribs where his side ached with each breath. When he tried to stand, his knees complained, stiff and unwilling, and he steadied himself on the machine’s metal face. A dull ache ran through his wrists. His hands looked different with skin looser across his knuckles and fine lines settled around his mouth.

He turned to the third machine. The glass was less fogged, cleaner than the others, the metal around the handle was polished bright. The sound inside was domestic—a phone buzzing, a microwave beeping, the clatter of dishes, voices that changed tone without changing volume. He opened the door.

A dining room that smelled like detergent and reheated food, with a long table holding stacks of papers: bills, forms, envelopes with blue stamps. A woman sat at one end scrolling on her phone, jaw tight, while two friends stood near the counter, whispering and laughing softly at something on a screen. He moved automatically, gathering papers into stacks, clearing cups, rinsing dishes.

“Did you send that email?” the woman asked without looking up.

“I’m doing it now.” He reached for his phone.

One of the friends smirked. “He always says that.”

The other laughed. “He means well.”

He forced a small smile and typed as they watched. His phone buzzed with another message, and he glanced down to see his name—not in a text to him but in a thread. The screen showed only a few lines before his thumb moved.

we need an exit strategy

how do we phase him out

he’s going to make a scene

His throat tightened and he scrolled, not wanting to, unable to stop.

he always does this

even she wants out

she asked me how to do it

He looked up and the woman finally met his eyes, irritation crossing her face.

“You went through my phone?”

He swallowed. “I saw—”

One of the friends stepped closer, hands up. “It was just venting.”

The other friend sighed. “We’ve talked about this.”

The woman set her phone down. “Can you not do this right now?”

He stood still, dish towel in his hand, wet and heavy, while a fork rested on the counter beside him, tines down, catching light from the window. The room’s edges sharpened, and blood pounded in his ears. He tried to speak and found no air while the world tilted off-level. His hands went numb at the fingertips, and the dish towel slid from his grip, hitting the floor. He took a breath. It didn’t go all the way in. He tried again. Time lagged behind his body—his lungs asking for air his throat couldn’t pull.

“I can’t—” The words collapsed.

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t start.”

He backed away from the table as his vision spotted at the edges, pressing a hand to his chest while nobody moved toward him, nobody touched him. The friends exchanged a look over his shoulder.

He stumbled into the bedroom attached to the dining room. A chair in the corner held a pile of clothes waiting to be folded. On top sat a soft piece of fabric, worn at the edges. The color struck him as familiar, but he couldn’t place the shade of blue. When his fingers touched it, his stomach dropped, and he gripped it, face pressed into the cloth, trying to pull air through panic. The fabric smelled of lake water and cold stones.

Behind him, someone laughed.

“See? This is what I mean.”

His lungs refused him, and his fingers clenched. The blue fabric tore under the pressure, seam splitting with a dry rip, and he froze, staring at the torn edge. He reached blindly for cold metal and found it.

He fell back onto tile in the fluorescent room, gasping, damp with sweat, still holding the torn piece of fabric. He sat up with ribs sore, shoulder stiff, joints complaining, and looked at his hands to see more lines, rougher texture, and small spots of discoloration. When he stood, his knees popped quietly.

He looked at the machines and found the room had changed. In the far corner, a lantern burned low behind glass, its flame steady and yellow, turning the machines into tall shadows. The tile drank the lantern glow. He picked up the lantern, its metal handle warm from the flame, and the light introduced depth to the scuffed floor.

He turned toward the clock where the numbers glowed: 4:44 AM. The low wet sound came again. He walked toward the door and opened it while cool air rushed in, wet with soil and grass. The lantern light spilled onto uneven ground where, near the threshold, sat a fat toad, wide and settled, its skin bumpy and dark, glistening. It looked at him without moving, body heavy on the damp ground, croaked once—low, slow—went still.

He stepped around it. Outside, the ground rose and dipped while roots lifted the dirt into ridges. Moss softened some patches, slick with moisture, and wet leaves stuck to his socks. The air smelled alive with crushed greenery, cold water, bark, and wind moved through branches, brushing against his face. When he walked too fast, a branch snagged his sleeve and tugged him back. When he slowed, the world made room.

His throat burned whenever he breathed through his mouth, while his ribs hurt when he inhaled too deeply. His shoulder reminded him of the wall, and his hands still trembled. When his foot landed wrong on a stone, pain shot up his ankle, but when he adjusted, stepping onto softer soil, the pain eased. The ground was springy in some places and firm in others, while the wind cooled the sweat on his skin. The smell of damp soil filled his nose.

The sky exhaled darkness where stars held steady, and the moon sat low enough to throw a pale path through the trees. He followed it until he found water. A small lake appeared between branches, surface dark and still, reflecting the sky in broken pieces. The shore was crowded with pebbles—smooth, jagged, pale, dark.

One pebble caught the moonlight with its pale, oval shape and thin vein running through it, dark against the pale stone. He reached out and picked it up. It was cold and heavier than it looked. He clutched it tightly in his left palm, the torn fabric still in his other hand. He lay by the water’s edge and looked at the moon’s reflection through the sly ripples of the water.

---

Mutable

She stood at her bedroom window. The stars were out—more than she could count, more than she’d ever seen. Something pulled at her chest. Had been pulling for as long as she could remember. The wind outside seemed to pause between breaths, as if waiting for her to decide.

She slipped out quietly with bare feet on packed dirt. The ground held the day’s warmth underneath its cool skin while small stones pressed into her soles and made her step carefully. The air smelled of hay and animals and dry grass. The night wrapped around her without a sound, the whisper of her dress moving against her legs and the soft compression of earth under each step. The world felt vast and patient, like it had been waiting for her arrival. She walked along the edge of the path where the grass grew thicker while the wind moved over her arms and lifted the hem of her dress. The fabric caught starlight and held it briefly before releasing it back to the dark.

A boy from the neighboring ranch jogged up with hair sticking up.

“Where are you going?” he whispered.

She shrugged. “Just…walking.”

He fell into step beside her, barefoot too, pants cuffed above his ankles, and kept looking up at the sky. For a moment, neither of them spoke. The silence felt like something they were both holding, careful not to drop it.

“I like your dress,” he said, glancing at the fabric as it moved in the wind. “I’ve never seen that color before.”

She looked down at it and smoothed the hem with one hand. “It’s cornflower blue.”

He told her something he’d heard about stars—that some were already gone, but their light still traveled, still arrived. She tried to imagine something not existing anymore but is still seen. The thought settled into the quiet between them until they reached the lake.

The water lay dark and smooth, reflecting the sky, while the wind moved across the surface and made small ripples that broke the reflection into small smiles. The boy crouched and sifted through pebbles near the shore, hands quick, until he found one—pale, oval, with a thin vein running through it. The small click of stone against stone was the only sound.

“Here,” he said, placing it in her palm, “Hold this.”

He ran into the water, and the lake swallowed him to his waist, then his chest. He dove under, came up laughing, water streaming from his hair. The sound of his laughter rang out across the still surface, too loud, almost aggressive against the quiet that had held them.

“Come on!” he whispered-yelled, trying to lower his voice but unable to contain himself. “It’s not even cold!”

“We should go,” she said. Her voice sounded small.

He groaned. “Already?”

“We’ll get caught.”

He turned toward shore and started swimming in. The water around him made soft sounds, rhythmic and gentle, filling the silence with movement. Halfway there, his movement changed, and the smooth rhythm broke. He lifted his head higher, then higher, while his arms slapped the water instead of pulling through it. The sound was wrong—sharp, panicked, nothing like the gentle lapping from before. His mouth opened, a cough, then another, and he reached toward shore with one hand, fingers spread wide, until he vanished under the surface.

The water closed over him, and the silence returned, absolute and terrible. She didn’t move until someone grabbed her shoulders.

“Where is he?”

Her throat closed while tears came before words. She shook her head. When she opened her hand, the pebble sat in her palm.