“You have the kind of tenacity a pit bull could admire,” Brad said, “or a prize-fighter – always jabbing that same damned spot, right over the left eye, especially after you open up a cut. Although that probably isn’t fair. I’m not convinced you’ve opened up a cut just yet. Can’t say as I’ve agreed with any of your angry-girl sex paranoia. Please don’t take that the wrong way, though. I’m not trying to be mean, or an ass. I just find myself less guilty than charged.”

“It’s okay that you think you’re innocent,” Liz said. “Hitler probably thought he was a nice guy. Most evil people don’t think they’re evil. They just think others don’t get them. Nobody is a villain to themselves, except in the movies. But movies aren’t real, other than documentaries. But in a documentary, nobody would think they were evil. They’d just think other people were evil. It’s sort of like how hell is other people. Bad is other people, too. We’re all good guys, to us.”

“Y’know, that’s a little bit like farts,” Brad said. “They only stink when someone else makes them.”

“I was making a valid point,” Liz said. “You don’t have to be disgusting.”

“Sure, I don’t have to be,” Brad said, “but I do try to spice things up. Someone has to prove you right, after all. Or maybe they don’t, man. I really don’t know at this point. Sometimes I think that you could be the last person on Earth, and you’d still have the same world view. You’d condemn our ghosts for ethereally peeking at your unmentionables, y’know?

“You’d make a good interrogator, I think. You and my mom. You’d be great because you just don’t let anything go. Nobody steers you off of your path. My mom’s a different deal. She has a knack for asking the most bizarre questions, like weird tangential crap you never would’ve thought to ask. If your story is made up, you’re screwed, because there’s no way you would’ve covered all the bases she’ll think to touch on. It isn’t even, like, malevolent, or deliberate. Her mind just meanders along the strangest paths, man. Gets curious about stuff nobody else in the world wants to know.”

“For someone who is so offended about his mother, you certainly seem eager to bring her up,” Liz said. “Since you’re so protective of her, maybe you shouldn’t introduce her to our conversation.”

“Well, I hadn’t really thought I was defensive,” Brad said. “My protests earlier were mostly, like, a philosophical stand. For mothers everywhere. I was, y’know, championing their cause. Hurray for mom! Something like that.”

“My mom said I’d grown into an accident,” Ethan said. “That was, like, harsh.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” Brad said, “but, yeah, it doesn’t sound nice. When’d she say that to you? When you were a kid?”

“Four years ago,” Ethan said, “right before they shipped me off to Outside Found.”

Brad wrinkled his brow, concentrating. “Don’t you mean Outward Bound?”

“Nope. It was, like, some illegal knock-off, in Mexico. Cheaper. They, like, closed it, because this kid died. He, uh, fell off the zip line, onto a rock. Sounded like someone dropped a dozen eggs onto cement, man. They said later that you’re supposed to, like, have a harness and stuff when you zip-line, not just, y’know, grab some handlebar.

“Dude was all scrawny, too. Used to be a junkie before his folks shipped him off. Could barely hold a baseball bat, or anything, so trying to dangle like that maybe wasn’t the coolest thing for him. I wasn’t really his friend, but I still felt bad. It was a harsh thing to watch.

“Counselor made him get on it. Dude didn’t want to. Didn’t like heights – or counselors, or the whole damned camp. But he sorta got his revenge. That counselor’s still in a Mexican prison. Last I heard, he was begging the parents to press charges back home, so maybe they’d extradite his ass. It’s pretty funny when you’re actually trying to get charged with a crime, y’know? He was a dick. Hope he stays there a while. Becomes some Mexican drug dealer’s girlfriend while he’s there, or maybe gets shared in the shower.”

“Wow, Ethan,” Brad said, “I think you just blew your conversational budget for the week, man. You need a water or anything?”

“I’m okay, man,” Ethan said. “You don’t have to, like, make it into a joke.”

From Ethan, that was a harsh rebuke. Brad was mollified. “I didn’t mean it that way. You’re just sorta quiet. More cabinet than speaker. In a world of blather, you’re refreshing. Like a hummer before breakfast, only different. So it definitely wasn’t supposed to be an insult, or a joke. Well, maybe a joke, but a good-natured one. Y’know?”

“Whatever, man,” Ethan said. “You always say one thing too many. That’s how you get in trouble.”

“Hell, probably,” Brad said. “I’ve tried installing a regulator on my mouth, but the damned thing sticks open most of the time. Needs a new spring or something. Or maybe I just need a girlfriend to discipline me, knock me back into line. Kinda take me on a fixer-upper-boyfriend basis. Isn’t that supposed to be eternally popular with chicks? And if I’m not a do-it-yourselfer, I don’t know who is.”

“Women aren’t supposed to rescue men,” Liz said. “It’s the man’s job to rescue the woman. Haven’t you ever seen a damsel in distress?”

“Hey, man, I’m liberated,” Brad said. “All about the dude in distress. It’s only fair, if we’re gonna undo years of stereotypical behavior, right?”

Brad felt something pinching his ass as he spoke. An absent-minded brush of the hand dislodged a bent paper clip. He examined it angrily, and then flicked it to the carpet like some offending booger. His eyes then swam back towards Liz. “Free your mind, man. Girl power?”

“It’s like you try to shoot words at something until you win,” Liz said. “That’s not a very good way to communicate.”

God chose this moment, of the many, many available to Him, to smite Brad.

The world spun. Sweat burst out all over Brad’s body. A strange song, reminiscent of some manic Saturday morning cartoon, began to play in his head. An overwhelming sense of deja vu came over him. This scene, for all its blandness, was somehow a profound hiccup in the fabric of space-time. At least for Brad, and his personal path through the universe. He saw, somehow superimposed over what his eyes told him, a weird flash, like a pre-recorded snippet of manically edited video. Nothing he could really catch or describe, just a brief mass of sensory overload.

The music played, Brad swayed, and in his head, there was an electric sense of recognition, as if he’d been here before. In a weird sort of way, it wasn’t just that he’d been here, it was that he’d set this scene up himself. Like he’d played some weird practical joke on himself. The sensation was not without a certain smug sense of satisfaction. In particular, the sense of recognition – of having found a memory long lost – felt, somehow, like a great accomplishment.

As far as “Eureka!” moments went, this one was rather horrific. It was all very metaphysical, deep, somehow profoundly meaningful, in spite of the fact that Brad had no idea on a conscious level of what the heck was happening. He still, somehow, believed that this moment was of immense importance not just to him, but to the universe at large, and even his spiritual existence. Hence, his mere physical existence quickly shifted to a secondary consideration.

Brad began, ponderously, to fall. First one buttock, then the other, lost its grip upon the table. The carpeted floor moved slowly to catch him, and some part of his mind suggested that it would be a good idea to throw some arms out and arrest the fall. The overwhelming majority, however, argued instead that this moment had already happened – that he was just along for the ride. In point of fact, he couldn’t do anything about what was happening no matter how hard he tried. So why try? More to the point, he’d designed this moment himself. So why fight it?

Liz and Ethan both stared at him. From their point of view, it looked quite a bit like Brad was having some sort of massive stroke or aneurism. His eyes were bugging out, his skin was flushed, and the sweat was an absolute torrent – well above the steady-state trickle Brad normally demonstrated in the balmy offices.

Brad struck the floor with a jiggly plop. He lay there a moment, sucking in air with a tortured, frightened whistle. His pupils narrowed to thin points, and circuit breakers in his mind began to pop with showers of mental sparks. He could feel his pulse with every beat. It was like his blood had temporarily turned to battery acid and was now being forced, rapid-fire, into his arms, legs, chest, and head.

The moment went on. Inside his head was this odd clarity, a conviction that this moment was more real than mere reality. What’s more, not only was this moment one he’d experienced before, it was somehow part of a vast, cosmic game. A humorous game, but one with a nasty edge to it. The sort of physical comedy that sent you to the hospital. For whatever reason, he, Brad, had selected this time, place, and memory as one of his own, personal portions of the game. Living the memory, in some bizarre fashion, was the manner in which the game was played.

It made no rational sense. But rational thought means nothing when your gut is screaming the validity of something at you. As a strange sort of abstraction, Brad now understood religious fervor. If it was anything like what he was feeling, he was sure it was possible to believe just about anything. Still, he’d kind of appreciate it if the world would go back to its old reality. This new one sucked.

“You can’t do that on the floor,” Liz said. “And if you think it’s funny, it isn’t.”

Brad stared back at her, unable to link her words with the symphony in his head. Distant voices were laughing, part of the soundtrack which accompanied his deja vu.

“Dude, that floor’s kinda nasty,” Ethan pointed out, watching with vague interest.

Compared to most days at the office, this one was a cut above. Liz seemed to be weighing her options: Did she take Brad seriously, and show some concern? Or did she simply continue with her present tack, and find his behavior highly unprofessional?

“I’ve never heard of anyone having a seizure at work,” Liz said. “You’re supposed to do that at home. Are you having a seizure? Or a stroke or something? If you don’t stop it, we’ll have to tell a supervisor. They might even have to call the police. This can’t be normal.”

Brad quivered more violently. The mention of police made this entire scene unbearably dark. He was afraid that one of two things was happening: One, he was going batsh–t crazy, or two, he had actually descended into some sort of hell. In either circumstance, the arrival of the police would signify a massive turn for the worse.

Brad struggled and shook his head, or thought he did. The motion, when combined with the generalized convulsive nature of his current physical behavior, was rather hard to distinguish. A corner of his brain did manage to take a moment out to observe that he was licking the soiled, institutional carpet of the floor. An order was passed to his nervous system to retrieve the aforementioned tongue and safely stow it away in the mouth.

“You need to stop it,” Liz said. “Right now.” She actually stood up, and seemed on the verge of shaking a finger at him.

Brad felt the spasm of sensation continue to wash over him. Along with the weird soundtrack was another sound, one at sort of a baseline level. It was a continuous hissing noise, sort of like the sound of a respirator mask, like when you get nitrous at the dentist’s office. Colors darkened and deepened, became much more vivid. Everything around him, though, seemed like it was also growing thin, as if he could punch straight through the walls or floor, if only he could somehow pick himself up and/or achieve the miracle of deliberate locomotive power.

The sense that he was caught up in some weird game also continued. The game was ruthless, and he had absolutely no idea who or what he played against. He wondered why he’d pick Liz and Ethan to be his pawns, and part of him, seeing the vague smirk on Ethan’s face, found that image horribly threatening.

Was Ethan in on it? Ethan’s bemusement had seemed, in the past, just to be part of who he was – a harmless lack of respect for the gravity of any given situation. Now, though, it seemed like more, like maybe he was playing the game with Brad. And given that Brad was flopping on the floor like a hallucinating dolphin, while Ethan sat serenely at his desk, grinning down at Brad’s plight, Ethan was clearly in control of the game. Heck, maybe Ethan had somehow given Brad the memory in the first place. A power one didn’t normally attribute to slackers.

Which led to only one conclusion: Ethan was the Devil.

This discovery came as a most unpleasant surprise for Brad. Along with it came a mental onion image, of memory inside memory inside memory. This moment was, clearly, one he’d experienced before – but now he remembered experiencing it somehow while he dreamed, at home, in his apartment.

So Ethan, as Satan, had the ability to implant new memories in Brad’s mind while Brad slept. This meant that Ethan was scary. Brad’s apartment was scary. Sleep was scary. And, of course, this terrible moment was, as had already been established, pretty scary.

The only good news Brad could find anywhere within range was Liz. Because she was here, and not a part of things, Ethan was restricted in just how malevolent he could be. Brad was sure of it.

“I’m going to go get someone,” Liz said, worry beginning to replace annoyance on her face.

Brad stared up at her, eyes wide. She may as well have just said, “I think I’ll bring in the Gestapo now. It’s time for your torture.”

“No!” Brad managed. Liz was startled, and even Ethan seemed unsettled by his word.

“And just why not?” Liz demanded, arms folded, looking down at him.

Brad felt the moment begin to weaken for the first time, as if his own outburst had somehow bumped the needle out of the mental track it had fallen into. Saying, “No!” hadn’t seemed like part of the memory. Ergo, there might be some way out of this trap. Plus, it was desperately important that Liz not leave.

“I’m gonna be okay,” Brad managed, somewhat slurring his words, and pistoning one massive, meaty arm under himself as he spoke. “I just fell down.” These words didn’t have the same definitive, moment-escaping quality his earlier words had. Still, they were better than silence.

The intensity of the episode could best be described as coming through him in waves. Those waves still surged, but they weren’t as strong now. Or maybe it was more like he’d reached the shore and could push against them better with his feet anchored in the sand.

Whatever was happening, Liz was Brad’s only way out. She was the lifeline for escaping this moment. Plus, she didn’t seem mad at him. Which was, now that he thought of it, something of a first. Normally, his very existence seemed to offend her somehow. Why it was that they were de facto friends sort of escaped him.

“I, uh, think I need some help, though,” Brad said. This next part was tricky. The physical effects began to fade a bit as the deja vu also began to drop away. In its place was the nasty conviction that it’d be back soon enough. Ethan, being Satan, clearly wouldn’t have settled for just one moment of suffering. In fact, there was probably an endless one just around the corner – all it needed was for Ethan to get him alone somehow.

He needed company. Innocent bystanders to keep Ethan at bay. There weren’t many available, what with the office being largely on vacation. Having insulted Marion, Brad was left with very few avenues of escape.

In a weird way, the situation made his choice pretty easy. He could either find some way to hang out with Liz, or he could spend an eternity twisting under Ethan’s malevolent thumb. Like standing on a crumbling ledge, there wasn’t much to do: Jump, or die.

Brad jumped.