Chapter Thirty-Six

Natalie nodded to the driver and closed her door. The taxi veered back into the main flow of the traffic. The inside of the cab smelled of sweat, pine freshener, dusty old leather, and of the driver.

Natalie looked at the city outside the window and felt her stomach knot more and more. All was not how it should be. She wished she could define the trouble as everything looking unreal. Unfortunately the opposite was the case. Everything was far too real.

More real than it had any right to be.

The sky looming over the buildings, the buildings looming the pavements… the nightmarishly irrefutable trees, the depressingly corporeal pedestrians, the terrifyingly substantial streetlights…the sickeningly indubitable pavements...

Without any warning all these sensory properties had grown to vibrate with a disturbingly authentic inherent existence, a clammy nauseating realness, which for some reason pushed and strained at Natalie and made her feel like a small, helpless child.

As if unnoticed to herself, she had managed in the years of her life to construct some sort of parallel reality, based on certain points of the world as such, but nevertheless a dream.

Smoke and mirrors.

An intricate fabric, which she had weaved on top of her environment, an additional layer which she had begun to believe was the world itself.

Now, today, the world seemed bared—her lovingly weaved cloth swept off by something, an accumulation of somethings. Gone was that veil that made contrasts gentler and objects less imposing.

The emperor was naked and was not a soothing sight.

This was the world in high-definition.

Natalie felt a choking sensation and realized that her own right hand was squeezing her throat. I must be terrified, she thought. What work? What responsibilities? What elections? What Natalie the genius?

Natalie the train wreck more like it.

I need a doctor, she informed herself, I need a pill to make this go away. I want be like I was before. I don’t want all this to be like that anymore.

“Did you say something, lady?”

Oh God, I must be talking aloud. “No, no... I mean yes. Yes, I was. I changed my mind. We have to go back.”

With a shrug, the driver changed lanes, heading towards the nearest U-turn. The journey back took forever.

The streets were teeming with machines handled by nervous drivers on the verge of being late for work.

Natalie was desperate to not be late for home.

As if some infernal clock was counting down the minutes before her collapse.

What form her collapse could take was unclear, but it generally felt either like she would explode in some manner, torn apart by her internal pressure, or that she would crumple inwards, crushed by the outside world.

Of course, at times less abstract visions flashed past: her heart stops; she swallows her tongue; her smoker’s lungs finally collapse; her brain seizes up and turns her into a vegetable; a fantastically powerful seizure wrings her out like a wet towel, crushing every bone.

And the pedestrians...

My God, Natalie thought, am I a creature like this too? I must remember, whatever I do, to not look at myself in the mirror once I get home. If I’m like that I simply would give up.

Back in her bed, completely covered by her blanket, Natalie lay on her back hugging her knees. A sticky terror throbbed insidiously not only inside of her, but outside of her as well.

The whole world pulsated with the terror and she pulsated with it.

Before she escaped to the comparative safety below her blanket, the very walls seemed to house unspeakable loathsome things, ‘forces’ maybe. Tottering on the verges of visibility, they converged on her even as she entered her bedroom.

In spite of these presences, she tried to read a book, a bestselling urban-paranormal-sleazepunk-romance. Instead of submerging into the story, she only saw the sentence structures and the pathetic attempts of the author to create and maintain characters.

Five minutes was the best she could do, until finally there was no more time to lose before the unthinkable terror would arrive. She took final refuge in that safety cocoon that every child knows and uses. The mighty blanket, which now sagged from all sides, held her in a protective embrace.

She tried to divert her attention by stroking her clitoris but it didn’t work. She couldn’t concentrate.

She tried again, putting a finger into her mouth, then squeezed her breasts slightly. In desperation she pulled at her own hair and gave herself a little slap. Nothing.

Nothing worked.

Maybe nothing will work, she thought, and the tension jumped another level. Maybe nothing will ever work. Maybe I will remain like this forever.

After another half-hour, she lifted one side of the blanket slightly and peered at the world outside. It was still cold, sinister, and completely evil in its lack of point.

She knew she would probably lose her position with Eberstark, and maybe Blonski too. Who would tolerate a worker that keeps not showing up?

Tight now this knowledge was insubstantial; it barely flickered on the fringes of her immediate fear.

The left side of her chest hurt like from a dozen tiny needles.

With a helpless whimper, Natalie massaged the hurting place.