This is an excerpt of a short story I have been working on called “Fake.” The piece takes place in a tech-oriented parallel universe and questions the authenticity of relationships and society’s interpretation of mental illness.
I’d met him on a Sunday.
And at my favorite coffee shop, no less.
I spent all day at that café, nestled in a corner and scribbling tirelessly in a leather-bound journal. Perhaps for most, spending a lazy Sunday in a quiet café would be charming. Almost picturesque. But I felt the day’s labor like a horizon carrying the weight of the sun at twilight, and the four lattes that I had consumed did nothing to calm my fervor.
Scratch. Erase. Tear. Scratch. Scrawl. Tear. Rip. Scratch.
By noon I was hyperventilating. For a brief moment I looked up, away, above the dancing letters on my page, and caught the barista giving me a curious look. Then, a smile. Bright white and alluring, a sharp contrast from the yellowish pages I wrote on. The pages.
Scratch. Erase. Tear. Scratch. Scrawl. Tear. Rip. Scratch.
By three in the afternoon my eyes were glazed over, and I was not sure if it was from the sickeningly banal task of writing for so many hours or if it stemmed from my genuine hysteria. I figured it was the latter, because soon I felt the tears fall. Tears.
Tear. Scratch. Scrawl. Tear. Rip. Scratch. Scratch. Erase.
By six I was a robot. I did not need to see myself to know what I looked like. Deadened eyes. Glossy hair tied back and slipping out of its ponytail. Freckles. Tanned skin. Deadened eyes. Flushed cheeks. Glistening brow. It was hot. Hotter than it had been when I got to the coffee shop that morning. I looked over to the barista again and briefly registered that there was a different person in the place of the man with the glowing smile. A woman this time. I watched her pour milk into a mug through the stuffy air. It was hot.
Scratch. Erase. Tear. Scratch. Scrawl—
“Hey.”
I startled. An unfamiliar man was sitting in front of me. Perfect posture. Crooked glasses.
“Hey,” he said again. “I noticed you were writing something.”
I stared at him. Of course he noticed that I was writing something. It was obvious. Mainly because I was writing something. “Yes.”
“What are you working on?”
I said nothing. If I said something, I would crack like a porcelain doll. I would obliterate into dust. I would freeze so intensely that—
“Are you okay?” The man looked concerned now, whereas before he seemed almost . . . hopeful?
I looked at him then. I really did. He was something straight out of an ad campaign. His skin was olive-toned and smoother than mine. His hair was sandy and coiffed. His lips formed a perfect bow and pout. It took everything in me not to cringe at his irreproachable figure. He could have been eighteen or twenty-eight.
“What do you mean by ‘okay’?” I finally responded. I closed my journal for good measure, in case his eyes drifted to the words. The words.
Scratch. Erase—
“I mean,” he said, cutting me off from . . . what? I was so delirious that I could not remember if I had actually started writing again or if I only thought I was. “I mean, I approached you because I thought we were the same. But now that I see you, I wonder . . .”
“The same?” I questioned.
“The same,” the man confirmed. “I saw it when I first walked in. Our eyes. They’re the same. They’re the eyes of our people.”
Deadened eyes.
His explanation was strange. I rapidly deduced two possibilities: The first was that he was in some type of cult that sucked the souls out of its members until they looked like vacant-eyed sex dolls. The second was that he was hitting on me. Either way, the man was bizarre and timeless and, though he was beautiful, something about him was unnatural. I feared if I kept speaking with him my parents would next see my face on the side of a milk carton.
So I didn’t. I continued writing. It didn’t take me long to realize that the man was still sitting there, with his impeccably straight back and steady gaze and horn-rimmed glasses. When I glanced up at him beneath my lashes, he didn’t seem bothered at all that I had ignored him. He quickly caught my eye before I could look away.
“It’s the Super Bowl today.”
“It is?”
“That’s why there’s so many people here. This place turns into a bar after six.”
“I know that,” I said irritably. This was my turf. My favorite coffee shop. I had just spent ten hours in this caffeinated death trap and this man had the nerve to tell me that it turned into a bar at six? As though I had not already included that in my plans for the day. As if I would have forgotten that crucial detail.
He recoiled. “Sorry. I just wanted to let you know. Because, um. You seem like you’re still using this place as a café.” He gestured toward my coffee.
“That’s none of your business.”
“I know.”
“I’m dying in here.”
“I know.”
Maybe we were the same after all.