Book III

The last couple sits engrossed in conversation across the small table, his left hand and her right touching in the center. They’re middle-aged and dressed nicely, too nicely for the restaurant. It’s probably their anniversary. You have to find it a bit sweet, people that age still in love.

Hovering just out of sight, my head swims as I realize that I’m back. I look to the kitchen door, to what I know happened, happens, whatever, just beyond. Bullets of sweat bead my forehead. I wipe them away.

He can hear my thoughts. I look for him, think I can maybe feel him, but if he’s there, he’s still small. Not if. He is there. I can’t start thinking that way. If I think I got away clean, I might—

He can hear my thoughts. Stop thinking.

Janet waves me over. She’s a tall, waifish blonde, the sort you’d expect to see as a hostess until she drops the facade and reveals herself to be a foulmouthed townie, which is probably why she’s the hostess of Pajino’s—the Italian equivalent of Applebee’s—instead of a fancier establishment.

She’s more than that. She puts a facade over the foulmouthed townie which is a facade itself, a defense mechanism to keep people at a distance because she cares too much too easily.

“Cody, are you okay? You got sort of woozy looking,” she says.

“Yeah, I’m okay. It’s just been a long day, I guess.”

“Okay, then let’s try to cut it short. Hustle them out of here.”

“What do you expect me to do? Tell them to leave? That wouldn’t go over well.” My lines come easier than I expect. I wasn’t in this moment a moment ago. I shouldn’t be able to pick this up. But a part of me was here a moment ago, and the two halves are both operating at the same time. Most people don’t remember what I’m remembering. They fall right back into the moment. That’s what he wants with me, and why—

Stop.

“Just loom over them. Look black. Blacker. That type, they’re terrified of ethnics.”

I shake my head in disbelief. This isn’t her. It’s really making me sad. “It’s unbelievable the things that come out of your mouth.”

“No, what you wouldn’t believe is what I’ll put in my mouth.”

I remember this conversation perfectly, or rather, it’s coming together exactly as my memory says it should, but I cut it short. I don’t have the heart for it. She waits expectantly for the loaded banter, the ironic flirtation that has become our standard mode of interaction, but I just look at the ground.

“Are you okay?” she asks again, but then the man puts cash in the black vinyl bill presenter and she pushes me toward the table and hisses, “Like the wind.”

He’s barely closed the cover when I take it and say, “I’ll be right back with your change.”

The couple’s eyes clear, gain focus on the rest of the world as I burst the little bubble that surrounded their table and they notice for the first time that the other tables are unoccupied

“Not necessary. That’s for you.”

“Thank you very much, sir. You two have a great night.”

Given thirty years, Madison and I might have become them.

Within a minute they’re out the door, which Janet locks behind them, saying, “Jesus Christ. Assholes think I don’t have anywhere to be on a fucking Friday night?”

I thought you were being ruder than usual. What have you got going on? jumps into my mind and almost out of my mouth before I can stop it. I literally open my mouth and shut it, then think carefully about what I’m going to say.

Janet has one eyebrow raised, expecting a zinger, and with an expression that says it better be a good one for taking this long.

“You’re a really good friend.”

She waits for a moment, expecting a punchline, then says, “What?”

“You’re a good person, and I think you should let more people see it. Not everyone, maybe. Most people don’t deserve it. But…” My face starts to burn. “I don’t know.”

“That makes two of us,” she says, but I can see through the wariness, confusion and tough front that she’s touched. Hopefully, after the rest clears, she’ll understand what I meant.

I look into her face, think back to what a wreck I was when Madison walked away from that party for no reason, when everyone looked at me with suspicion. Maybe we were just using each other, but I don’t think so. Not on her part, at least.

Why am I getting so sentimental? I have months before I need to return to the Burnout. If I want to spend them with Janet instead of Madison, I can.

Vertigo rocks me as contradictory thoughts fill my brain. I’m not going back to the Burnout, I’m going to the fryer.

Then I understand. I didn’t think that thought. He did, with my mind, and he got out of me the information he wanted. Now let’s see what he can do about it.

“Maybe you should skip the country club party tonight. You really don’t look good.”

“Thanks,” I say.

“No, I didn’t mean it that way. I meant that you’re hideously ugly.”

I wrap my arms around her. She hesitates a moment, then squeezes me back.

The life we had, the one where I used her as a stand-in for Madison, it wasn’t good for her. She’ll be better off without me, too.

“What was that about? You’re freaking me out.”

“Looks like there’s nothing to do out here,” I say, gesturing to the front house staff vacuuming and wiping down. “I’m headed for the kitchen.”

Through those double doors. The vertigo hits me again, déjà vu. I’ve done this a hundred times. A thousand. In my dreams. In my wishes. But this time, when I flip the switch off, it’ll be for good. I’ll walk away unburned and I’ll stay that way.

I know that’s not my thought, and you know that’s not how this is going down, you bastard.

So why don’t you tell me what is going down?

This thought finally isn’t in my voice. It’s Ouroboros. This is how he controls people. They think his thoughts are their own.

That’s how it works at first. Later on, once I’ve cored you out I’ll wear you like a flesh suit. Now what are you doing?

Steam heat has me sweating immediately in my itchy, polyester Pajino’s polo shirt.

“What do you need?” I ask loudly to be heard over the running water and clattering pots and pans. I swear the dishwasher must moonlight as a drummer in a death metal band.

“Dump and scrape the pressure fryer?” George says. He always talked to us front house people in questions. He wasn’t accustomed to this mingling of duties. But the manager of Pajino’s started as a dishwasher, and until everyone was ready to leave, no one got to leave.

You can’t resist for long.

You know I’m different from the others. They didn’t remember the deal they made. They didn’t know you’d dug in like a disgusting little tick. I do. You have no idea if you can take over someone who’s resisting you, do you? I’ve seen you. You’re sad and frail and pathetic. You can’t take me.

I am Ouroboros. I encompass my own beginning and end. I have lived for thousands of years. I will rip your mind apart.

I roll the grease pump into place beneath the pressure fryer just as my phone buzzes again.

As I twist the valve to release the hot oil with one hand, I take my phone from my pocket with the other. A few drops of oil splatter on me and I curse, and I remember what it feels like to burn. It makes my hands shake, the memories.

I calm myself, take a deep breath, glance at the text. It’s from Madison, of course, and reads, Aren’t you done yet?

I can feel Ouroboros spin inside my head at the text, at the reminder of why I made this deal, and I know what’s coming. Even if you’re right, you have to sleep. And when you do, I’ll take over. I’ll kill everyone you care about. I’ll spill that bitch’s guts with your hands. So do what you agreed to do.

I guess that’s what I needed to hear. I needed one more reason, one confirmation that this is the only way. Because it’s a goddamn horrible way.

I call Madison back instead of continuing the text argument I remember having.

“Are you out of there yet?” she asks immediately.

“I’m almost out of here. Babe, I love you. I love you so much.”

There’s a moment of silence as she switches gears from the passive aggressive argument I know we’ve been having all evening about whether or not I can leave early. “I love you too, Cody.”

“I know you do. I’m going to turn my phone off now so that I can concentrate. See you soon.” I hang up and shut the phone off before she can say anything else. I heard what I needed to hear. I don’t like that the last thing I said to her is a lie.

But maybe it’s not. Everything that’s happened seems too confusing to draw a meaning from, but if there is one, it’s that existence is more complex than I thought, that time is more flexible, that the human spirit can stretch the boundaries of the physical, and that maybe there’s something after this. Maybe I will see her again. I don’t know if I’ll get to the Heaven I never once considered a reality until this moment, but maybe I’ll see her again.

Heaven? Don’t be stupid. We can work something out.

Glancing over at the fryer, I see that the oil has all drained, exposing the accumulation of a thick crust of concrete-hard fried flour deposited on its insides. It can only be removed with the vigorous application of a paint scraper, which I grab. At this point, my phone would ring if it were on. It’s not.

“Hey guys, I’m not on the phone or distracted!” I shout loud enough to be heard over the din of a busy kitchen.

The clanging and talking stops as everyone stares at me in silence.

“That’s good, Cody. Thanks for the update,” George says, and everyone goes back to what they were doing.

I lean into the fryer to scrape.

Damn, I almost forgot to flip the fryer off again.

No, Ouroboros. I didn’t forget.

My knees go weak as it feels like someone turned on a garbage disposal in my head and dull, roaring blades are chopping through my gray matter.

And I find my left hand has crept down toward the switch, and I yank it back.

He can take control, and he’ll take it soon.

Cody, this is insane. We can make a deal.

I wish we could. I smell the coils heating up now that there’s no oil to draw away the heat, and I really, really wish we could. But I’m not going to live as the brain-dead husk of a parasite that has already sucked the life out of hundreds of people.

And you threatened Maddy.

I didn’t mean it, Cody, just hear me out.

My knees buckle, and I have to prop myself on the sides of the fryer until I can regain control of them. I feel him slithering through my brain, taking parts as his own. It was stupid pride that I didn’t think he could do this so fast. This is how he’s spent his thousand years.

This wasn’t the deal!

I had to get Maddy out, but I never intended to live as your puppet.

This isn’t you. I saw you, over and over as I lived Madison’s life. This isn’t you. You set up your future meticulously. Think of your future.

This isn’t me. I could have a great life still, the life I planned for so long.

I don’t know if that thought was mine or not. I won’t see her live her life. I won’t see her grow old. I won’t see what she becomes.

But I want to give her that chance. Now I know. This isn’t me? No, this isn’t who I used to be. Thank you, Ouroboros, for giving me this second chance.

There’s an acrid smell as the thin layer of oil on the coil nears its ignition point.

This won’t stop me. I’ll just go back to my own body. It’s a pointless, painful gesture.

No. You die with me. We both know that. All this horror ends here.

I’m gripping the sides of the fryer hard as my brain and body revolts. I’m shrinking inside myself, falling down a hole. I feel chunks being sliced away. But he’s too late. Is it too late for me, though? I don’t want to burn. I don’t. I don’t.

I hold fast.

This was my first lesson in the malleability of time. I think back to the first time I learned that suffering is the path to immortality, how Hell can be contained entirely in one moment. They’ll say later that I couldn’t have seen this, that I imagined it, dreamed it in my coma.

No, this time there won’t be a later. They said if I’d sustained any damage to my lungs, I wouldn’t have survived.

They said I couldn’t have seen this, that it would have happened too fast, but I see the spark spit into life on the heating element.

Ouroboros has given up on words and thrashes inside my skull, trying to wrench away control of my body. I hold fast, and leaning into the fryer up to my waist, I watch the spark turn into a tiny flame, travel the coils, leap to the walls. I watch the cauldron fill with unfurling petals of red, orange and yellow. I watch it swirl and dance as it rises, new gases igniting, buffeting the flame back and forth, my unfuture a blossoming flower in the wind.

This time, though, I know to search for a pattern in the chaos, and I find it. I find Madison and my fear dissolves as calmness washes through me. Not long ago, I thought the world only fuel for flame. Flame can’t touch what matters. Then I thought the world food for the primal serpent. The serpent quakes inside me. The world is Madison. I see her big, searching eyes, her little knowing smirk. I see her portrait in flames, and I’m going to her. I’m breathing her in.