From the moment I set out from my uncle’s cabin, I hoped to find a place like this. It’d missed it so much—wrapped in the cozy cocoon of cigarette smoke and whiskey fumes. It had been years.

The La Condesa Cantina and Sports Bar was in a predominantly Latino neighborhood on the edge of downtown San Antonio. I tried to get the attention of the man working behind the bar for a second beer, but all he did was shoot me a stern glare. The bartender, like everyone else in this place, stared intently at the TV. Some sort of game show. I shrugged and helped myself to a bowl of salted peanuts.

I’d had my fill of television some years back, and my eyes didn’t linger long upon the set mounted up near the ceiling. Just some guy with a preacher’s wig—some famous person I’d seen before but who I couldn’t place—and he was energetically encouraging some people to play a game of chutes and ladders. Well, that’s what it looked like. When the show broke for commercials, the bartender finally came over.

He poured another beer and set the mug in front of me.

“Yeah, we don’t do that, cabrón.”

“Pardon?” I asked.

“We don’t interrupt Serpientes y Escaleras. That’s what we don’t do.” The bartender nodded in a manner that I understood to mean I’d used up my one free pass.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m not familiar with the show.”

A moon-faced man with a bad haircut who sat on the stool beside me pivoted around. Other than myself, he was the only Anglo customer in the bar.

“Not familiar with Serpientes y Escaleras?” he said loud enough for everyone to hear.

The bar fell silent.

“I’m not,” I said, wondering how large a blunder I had made choosing this place. “I just came into town.”

The bartender looked at me with suspicion.

“I’ve been in the mountains these last few years,” I added.

The bartender softened, now curious. “From the mountains? We hardly ever get travelers.”

The moon-faced man grinned.

“Dang, Stranger,” he said, “but you’re in for a treat. Maiden voyage on the good ship Serpientes y Escaleras.”

The patrons, as one, hissed for silence as the logo for the show came back up.

My eyes went to the television. On the screen was a striking woman with high cheekbones, severe eye makeup, and lipstick of the darkest red imaginable. She stared intently into the camera. I knew her. I was sure of it.

“Yes, sir,” Fran whispered to me. “Look upon the miraculous Saligia Jones at her finest!”

Saligia! Of course. And the man in the crazy wig…could it really be Silverio Moreno? Then the camera cut to him standing behind a candy orange Fender Rhodes electric piano. Yes. It was really him. My old friend, Sy.

But that was impossible.

Or was it?

I’ve never cared for game shows, so I can’t provide any critical insight. It seemed to me more convoluted than it needed to be, and I was confused by pretty much all of it. It appeared to involve mind-reading. I think.

The show ended when the big lighted game board indicated that one of the two contestants had landed on a special square. The flashing light that represented his game piece slid down the snake or chute or whatever and won with a great deal of noise and excitement.

But because this was a game of moral arbitration (I guess), the winner was awarded life everlasting in paradise, and the loser was to be sent to hell or purgatory. Again, I think I have it right, but I’m not positive.

I hadn’t been giving much scrutiny to the rules. Mostly I was watching Sy and Saligia. I had previously seen them perform, but never on a game show.

The one thing about the show that got my attention was the very ending. The winner was taken to a door. Door Number One. The loser, to Door Number Two.

The doors were both opened so that the contestants could be escorted inside. Then the doors were closed. Dramatically, I’ll admit. Though it’s hard to make the closing of doors dramatic.

And that was it. Music played, audience, cheered, lights flashed.

Credits rolled.

The end.

What a wasted opportunity. I mean, I knew a bit about visual story-telling in general, and television in particular. If the point of your show is that the winners are magically spirited away to heaven, and the losers, hell, then you really should have a moment when those doors are opened back up to reveal them to be empty.

But that never happened.

It would be like a magician peering down into his upturned hat and saying, “yep, the rabbit’s in there—just take my word for it.”

The crowd at La Condesa had no problems with how the show ended, however. They were cheering and banging on the bar top like they’d just seen the most amazing thing ever.

Their excitement allowed me to make my exit unnoticed.

###

It had been a few years since I’d been drunk. Even a bit. I stepped out of the bar, marveling at how still the night was. I knew this neighborhood from years ago, when my grandparents lived in San Antonio. I’d come here during the summers when I was a teenager, darting down the alleys with the local kids, eating pan dulce on the porch of the abandoned house across from the tire repair shop, drinking beer at night along the creek, reading in the downtown library, second floor, at the table near the air conditioner vent.

My grandparents were long gone. But the neighborhood appeared much the same. Even the La Condesa Cantina and Sports Bar—though back then I was too young to have ever caught a glimpse of the interior. These quiet streets seemed untouched by the years. Or by the Changes.

I stood there, on the sidewalk beneath the lighted sign for La Condesa. I realized I was savoring this warm wave of nostalgia. I knew that once I started walking through the city I would soon begin to encounter those disconcerting remainders and reminders of the Changes. However, in this moment, this peaceful moment, I could pretend that they had never happened.

Pretend that the world of my boyhood was still here.

I heard the door to the bar open behind me. Once the game show had ended, the television was shut off. So now the place had become move lively with drunken laughter and music from the jukebox.

“Disappearing back into the night, Stranger?” asked the man who had been sitting next to me. “Maybe returning to the wilderness?”

I’m no fan of nicknames, and Stranger made me feel like some vaguely sinister character out of a Howard Hawks western. But I saw no point in introducing myself to a man I’d likely never see again.

“I appreciate a man who can step away from the bar after just a couple of drinks,” he said. His tongue fumbled with some of the words, and he seemed to have enough presence of mind to find that amusing. “As you can see,” he added with a smile, “I don’t always manage to do so myself.”

“I don’t know anyone in town,” I said. “I need to start looking for a hotel before it gets too late.”

Earlier when Nora and I had arrived in town, we crawled unnoticed out of our secret compartment. She had dramatically hugged me, insisted that we meet Saturday “at high-noon in front of the Alamo,” and she vanished into the crowd of well-dressed people getting off the train. Without much difficulty, I found a tiny shop near the courthouse which advertised cash for “gold jewelry, gold coins, and gold teeth.” I was relieved to sell off a couple of my coins for a substantial wad of folding money. More than enough for a good meal, some new clothes, a couple beers, and now, hopefully, a place to sleep.

“Not much of a call for hotels,” the man said. He looked at the sky, lost for a moment in his boozy sway, like a dandelion in the breeze. “Folks don’t go traveling these days,” he said softly.

“I saw a few people get off a train today,” I said. “They looked like tourists to me.”

“Oh, that magnetic train.” He shifted his head as if trying to focus on something out beyond the horizon. He gave up and lowered his gaze. “It caters mostly to rich weirdos who’d want nothing to do with likes of us. Besides, they usually stay at La Vida Tower.”

“That’s a hotel?”

“Sort of. They do have rooms to rent on the lower floors, but they don’t come cheap. So, unless you have a fortune and a hankering for deep tissue massage and chocolate fountains at the breakfast buffet, I’d not bother.”

“Massage at a buffet?”

“What? My goodness but you’re all hayseed and fireflies. The big city’s going to eat you up! There are some good and cheap hotels around. Not for travelers so much. Mostly to accommodate temporary bachelors, tossed out on their tails by womenfolk. Poor naifs such as myself. So, Morris my man, follow me to where there’s always a vacant room or two.”

I allowed him to lead the way. As we walked down Dolorosa Street, he rattled on about how he wished he, too, had run off to the mountains as the Changes swung into high gear.

“Everyone—well, most everyone—seemed to become less and less disturbed and confused as the world became more disturbing and confusing. They fell into a fog. Not me, though. I believed—well, at first—that I was going crazy and those others, they were the sane ones. I started drinking then. Kind of my own special brand of fog. But then I began to encounter the occasional person whose mind seemed to reach up and above the fog. Not a one of them knew what was going on, but they sure weren’t pretending nothing was going on. Well, I take that back. There were a few who claim to know what’s going on.”

“I’ve meet a few,” I said. “Prophets and gurus.”

“Yep. There’s a group led by a fellow used to be a cellist with the symphony. They’re holed up in the Bexar County courthouse, and worship this levitating futon. Since the Changes began, it hasn’t once touched the earth. It floats in the basement foyer, untroubled by errant breezes or those who clamber upon it.”

“I once had a stegosaurus eat a sugar cube from my palm,” I said.

“We’ve all seen an eyeful, we have. Some of us…well, we have our theories and speculations and we gather together. We’re certainly not so public as those Futonians at the courthouse. Or those free love fanatics down in Poteet.”

“Poteet, you say? That a town?”

“Those of us with a more inquisitive bent, we meet in the shadows—so to speak—where we can exchange ideas, all in attempts to understand this fog of the mind which blew in with the Changes.”

He stopped and tilted back his head to look up at the tall building across the street from us.

“Is this where you live?”

“Far from it.” He chuckled. “A whole world of difference between my humble home and La Vida Tower.” His turned to look at me, and he lowered his voice. “During the Changes it vanished. The whole building. One day it reappeared. The same, but not quite the same.”

“Chocolate fountains, right?”

“What? Oh, yeah.” He pointed up. “At the top, that’s where they make Serpientes y Escaleras.”

“But we’re not going there,” I said. “Right?”

“Shh!” he hissed. He grabbed my shoulder and pulled me into the deep shadows of an alleyway.

Through the glass panels of La Vida Tower’s revolving door, we saw a woman pushing her way through and then walked out onto the sidewalk. We watched her until she disappeared around the corner of the building.

“It’s her,” Fran whispered. “The newest star of Serpientes y Escaleras.”

“The girl who was wearing the red dress? You sure?”

“There are amazing things which go on at the top of that building. Things much more important than some dingy floating futon. I don’t know much, Stranger, but that much I do know.”

“Please,” I said, “call me Morris.”

“And you can call me Fran,” he said. “Short for Francis. Come on. Let me introduce you to the sad bachelors of the Omega Hotel.”

I was tempted to ask Fran to wait. Maybe the grand man himself, toupee and all, would come down as well. I was curious. From what I had seen on the television screen, Silverio Moreno was looking quite healthy. And I thought I killed him years ago.

We do not talk as we are escorted up the darkened stairway, but the measured shuffling of all our shoes fill the tight space. At the top, Ed pushes open the doors and we continue our assent toward the light.

Most of the people around me seem subdued, drowsy. Some even forget that they are climbing steps or walking and Valerie politely reminds them to continue.

We, the audience, enter the studio. If I can believe what they tell me, I am part of the audience of a TV show. For me and Stacy (who is back at the end of our group), this is our first time, our first show. As the others take their places in the tiered rows of chairs, I find myself seated on the third row.

Valerie and Ed talk to a short woman holding a clipboard. Above our seats is a booth with a large window facing what I can only think of as the stage. Two men in the booth bend over a console, pushing buttons and moving knobs. I see the lights above changing in intensity—the those lights which do not shine down upon us, but on the stage.

Everything centers on that stage—we in our seats, the lights above, and three large cameras, mounted on heavy chromium casters.

This stage is the only place in the studio not tangled with a clutter of cables. Two ornate, upholstered chairs have been placed toward the back wall. On that wall hangs what looks like a game board. It is decorated with whimsical depictions of snakes and ladders. The surface of the board is an opaque plastic. I notice that there are lights behind that surface. Periodically one will pulse or rapidly change color. I realize they are being triggered by a man with close-cropped hair standing behind an electric piano on the stage. He has some sort of electronic device connected to the game board. He must be important, I think. He’s wearing a rhinestone embellished gold lamé jacket. He is about fifty, though quite boyish. He smiles with an amazed, yet relaxed sense of satisfaction which sets him apart from the others, who anxiously rush about. When he is done testing his equipment, his eyes idly rove about the room—the studio, they keep calling it—as his hand drifts into a drawer in a little table beside him and comes out holding a Marathon candy bar. This strikes me as the most disconcerting of all the things I’ve seen since leaving that little white room. I know for a fact that those candy bars were discontinued in 1981…and that year has passes a long time ago.

Is it a prop?

I watch as he unwraps the candy and begins to eat it.

So, exactly what year is this?

From a door on the side of the room, Michael and Rose enter. Rose wears the same red dress I saw earlier. Michael has changed into a semi-formal and simple two piece blue suit.

Rose sees me. She waves and smiles.

I nod back.

I wonder if I’m that distinctive looking that she could spot me so fast. Maybe it’s my shaved head.

There are five rows of five seats. Each one occupied by those of us who have our rooms downstairs.

Twenty-five members of the studio audience.

Is that a lot?

In the studio I can see three large clocks, one on each wall not given over to that garish game board. All of the people who work here constantly look up to check the time. Seven p.m. is only a few minutes away.

Valerie climbs the steps and leans over toward me. She reaches out and takes away the cardboard container I had forgotten I am holding.

It’s been an eventful day, and I hope my absentmindedness is connected to exhaustion. It’s frustrating enough not having full access to my longterm memories, but the thought of losing my working memory is truly frightening.

“It looks like you’re all done with your juice box,” she says with her motherly smile. “Stay put in your seat. You’ll be receiving instructions from us in a second. If you need a bathroom break, raise your hand. But, once the show begins, no one leaves until Myra says we can.” Valerie points to a short woman walking across the lit stage. She clutches a clipboard and wears a headset with an attached microphone. “She’s the boss lady, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Live TV is so exciting!”

Ed walks out on the narrow section of floor between the first row of seats and the slightly raised stage. The people in the audience raise their heads and look at him, so I do as well.

“Okay, everyone, we’re all excited for another week of Serpientes y Escaleras, am I right?” I see him glance nervously toward a scowling woman in a tailored pantsuit who stands off to the side. I hear scattered applause from the audience. Am I supposed to clap? To a show based on the children’s game of snakes and ladders? And why do they refer to it by the Spanish name?

“Let us try that again, shall we? And not just for me and Valerie. We also have an important visitor—one of our top Network executives.” He lifts up a black box with an antenna and a large button. He takes a deep breath, and then shouts: “We’re all excited, am I right?” He pushes a button and suddenly a sign comes to life above us flashing the word: Applause.

Not wanting to stand out, I begin clapping along with everyone else. Ed’s grin grows and he lifts his arms higher. The crowd increases their energy, so, I clap harder and even cheer along with some of the more enthusiastic people around me.

Ed pushes the button again and the sign goes blank. We fall silent.

His grin melts to a satisfied smile. He holds his remote control box to his breast with both hands.

“That was wonderful,” he says. “Really wonderful.”

Valerie steps beside Ed and beams up at us. “Could I have August and Stacy stand up, please,” she said.

I get up and feel nervous when everyone looks at me. Stacy sits on the front row, but she seems to have forgotten her name. A man beside her whispers in her ear and helps her to stand.

“These are the newest members of our audience,” Valerie says. “Potential contestants, just like everyone else. Let’s make them feel at home, how about that?”

Valerie turns to Ed and nods. He pushes the button again, and everyone applauds loudly. Even me and Stacy.

I hope they tell me more about what is about to happen. If I get chosen—for what, I still don’t know—can I refuse?

Ed turns off the applause sign.

“Guys,” Valerie says, looking from me to Stacy, “you can sit back down.” She looks around to make sure she has the full attention of the audience. “Okay, everyone, what I’m about to say is mostly for August and Stacy. But don’t start feeling cocky! The fact is, we can all use a refresher, especially after the two days off. Ed?”

Ed holds up his black box.

“Once the show starts,” Valerie continues, “you just sit there, watch the action on stage—because sometimes the camera is turned on the audience! You never know. And sometimes you will be expected to clap and cheer. But only when Ed pushes the button. Shall we try that again?”

Ed nods. He extends a finger and slowly presses the button.

Applause.

I know my part now, and I do my job along with with everyone else, clapping and cheering. I have to admit, it is rather exciting!

When the sign stops flashing, and we quiet down, Valerie explains that for the two audience members who will be chosen at random, their job will be even simpler.

“If you’re one of the lucky two, all you need to do is sit on stage, one each in those comfortable chairs.” She points to the stage.

They do look comfortable, prominently situated in front of that large board with the snakes and ladders.

The people in the seats around me are leaning forward looking at those chairs with covetous hunger. They want to be chosen. I still have no idea what happens when someone wins, but now I’m even more concerned with what happens to the person who loses.

“Two minutes, everyone!” shouts the short woman with the clipboard.

“The two lucky souls,” Ed continues, “will get to watch momentous scenes from their lives acted out by our Readers. Imagine that!”

Two people step on stage. Those two I met in the wardrobe office.

“Rose and Michael,” Valerie says, “have special abilities. They can read your minds! Guided by the great Saligia Jones, of course, the real psychic powerhouse on this production. So, for those fortunate two, just relax and let the rest of us do the work.”

“No acting skills needed from any of you guys,” Ed says to us.

“But don’t worry,” Valerie adds. “Everyone working on this show is a trained professional and impeccably discreet.”

I look over as the man in the golden dinner jacket places a white pompadour wig on his head. And suddenly a woman appears from behind a curtain. She has raven hair plaited and piled atop her head and wears a tight black gown that goes all the way to the floor. After she steps on the stage, she transitions through a few tai chi poses while muttering: “A proper copper coffee pot,” over and over and faster and faster until I expect her to collapse.

“Well, we’re out of time, gang,” Valerie says to us. “Myra is starting the countdown.”

Myra, that short woman with the clipboard, begins to count backwards from ten.

The woman in the black gown positions herself at a lectern at the front of the stage. The man with the white wig begins to play an energetic tune on his electric piano. Ed pushes the button on his box and the sign flashes for us to cheer and applaud. The technicians standing at the three cameras all shift, leaning in attentively to their machines.

Myra is no longer calling out numbers, so I assume we are now broadcasting live.

The man at the piano leans down and shouts into his microphone, his voice carrying over the music.

“Serpientes y Escalerrrrrrrrras! Welcome to the fast-paced game show of virtues and vices, successes and setbacks, where you can climb the ladder to the pillowy clouds, or take a scaly, snaky ride deep into the unforgiving swamp.”

He stops playing and stands up straight. He smiles toward one of the cameras. I see that a red light glows on top of it.

“I’m Silverio Moreno. Thank you so much for letting me into your home. Let’s get right to the show you tuned in to watch. But first we need to chose two lucky people from our studio audience. Take it away, Saligia Jones!”

The woman in black takes a deep breath and seems to fall into a trance.

Then, as if a jolt of electricity has surged through her, she stiffens with arms straight out to us. Her head pivots as she looks at the end of the front row. She says: “Kyle!”

It’s a sensitive and quiet young man I recognize from the lounge. He sits up in his seat and rapturously clasps his hands together. Ed moves in with smooth precision and places a hand on the man’s shoulder. Kyle rises to his feet and follows Ed.

Saligia Jones shifts, and points again. Her finger is directed toward me.

“Gertrude!” she shouts.

The old woman next to me lifts her head and looks around, her face is a study in pleasant puzzlement.

“That’s right, Gerty,” Valerie whispers as she reaches past me and helps the woman to her feet. “It’s your time, isn’t it?”

Kyle and Gertrude wait at the edge of the stage. Michael and Rose step forward and bring them into the light and the view of the cameras.

Silverio reads some inane facts about the two contestants from notes in his hands. That is, after riffling through them to give the illusion that this whole thing hasn’t been planned in advance. But I’m not believing it.

I take a moment to review my sudden cynicism. It arises from two pieces of factual information. One, there is no thing as psychic powers. Two, televisions shows are, by their nature, not true.

So, not so much cynicism. Just simple reason.

Gertrude and Kyle are seated in those comfortable chairs, with Rose and Michael standing behind them. Beside each chair is an odd metal pole about four feet tall with a glass globe on top—suddenly those two globes come to life. One lights up green, the other, blue.

“Saligia selected you first, Kyle,” Silverio says. “So, you’ll go first. As you see, Michael is playing for you. So, Michael, please pull the lever for Kyle.”

Kyle looks overjoyed. He leans back and watches as Michael grips the pole beside his chair—the one with the blue light. Michael pulls at the pole like it is the lever of a gigantic Las Vegas slot machine. When he releases the pole, it snaps back to its upright position and everyone in the audience (including me) look up at the light game board. A series of numbers begin to randomly flash in quick succession. They slow. And stop. One number remains.

“Seven!” Silverio shouts. He looks to the game board, as do we all.

A pulsing disc of light makes its way across the squares. After it advances seven spaces, I wait, expecting something to happen. Nothing does.

“Your move, Gertrude,” Silverio says.

Gertrude looks over at the mention of her name.

“What?”

Gertrude reaches out toward the lever with tentative and confusion.

Rose moves closer to her and smiles graciously.

“You just let me do it all, sweetheart,” Rose says softly to Gertrude.

I remember Valerie saying that today is Rose’s first day in front of the cameras. I am impressed with her confidence. Rose pulls the lever for Gertrude—the one with the green light—and then lets it go.

The numbers, again, dance about on the screen before stopping.

“Five!” Silverio shouts. He watches excitedly as the green light moves across the game board until it ends it journey on, not a square, but an oval. There are several ovals, but mostly squares.

The oval lights up, revealing the word Despair.

“Well, that’s one of our more popular words, right Saligia?” Silverio says.

“It is,” she answers, somehow managing to inject a great deal of depth and mystery into those two short words.

“So, my dear,” Silverio continues to Saligia, “use your extraordinary gifts to delve into Gertrude’s memories for something that relates to despair.”

Despair. That word certainly is beginning to resonate with me.

Saligia returns to her trance state. Her eyes remain open, but the lids droop a bit. Her shoulders drop slightly to give the appearance of relaxation. Her arms move out from her body as if freed from the constraints of gravity. And, ever so slowly, the woman moves across the stage the way one wades through calm water. She comes to a halt directly behind Gertrude. She lowers her opened hands over the woman’s gray hair and begins to move her long fingers in the air, inches from Gertrude’s head. Her wriggling fingers make me think of jellyfish tentacles.

Saligia freezes. With a slight nod of satisfaction she uses both her hands to lift something invisible up into the air. I notice that the entire audience is riveted to the thing that isn’t there that Saligia holds. She pulls it apart, like moist bread, and drops a portion of that nothingness atop the heads of Michael and Rose who walk up to her for these odd nonexistent “gifts.”

A quiver passes through both Michael and Rose. I suppose we’re to believe that they too are now in a trance.

A spotlight drops on the center of the stage. The rest of the studio falls into blackness. Saligia recedes into the shadows as Michael and Rose step into the light. They position two folding chairs so that they face one another. They sit.

Michael takes a breath and looks with concern at Rose.

“Gertrude,” he says to Rose. I suppose they’re playing parts, now. Rose is the contestant, Gertrude, and Michael is…?

“What’s up, Mr. Brodart,” Rose, well, Gertrude, says, her voice taking on a youthful zeal—not in keeping with Gertrude’s somewhat advanced years. Is this supposed to be some time in Gertrude’s more distant past?

“We here at the Cowgirl Emporium were so excited when you came to us as a fresh young girl a year ago.”

“I’m glad to hear,” she says. “Everyone’s been so nice, and—”

“What happened to that girl?”

“Excuse me?”

“That girl who knew how to charm the tourists. To sell these rustic curios and chuckwagon tchotchkes like mad. Oh, my! When you knotted your neckerchief and cinched up the chin strap of your straw hat, there was not another shopgirl could touch you. It’s a fact.”

“Okay.”

“And then it all went away. The long lunches. Tardiness. Forgetting to charge sales tax. Alcohol on the breath. And I have to confess, I suspect you to be using the weed.”

I think this must be intended as a humorous interlude. But when I look around, I see no one in the audience nor any member of the production crew laughing.

“The what?” She displays the eye-rolling scorn of a spoiled teen girl.

“The Mary Jane. You know, the loco weed. Look, I am no doubt out of touch with the lingo you young folks use these days, but we can’t have that here.”

“But I work hard alphabetizing the scented candles. Every day I put mink oil on the bullwhips. I even convinced those scientists from Finland last week for the hydrology convention that the Yellow Rose pralines are locally grown peyote buttons.”

“You what?”

“Sold every one of them.”

“I couldn’t be sorrier, Rosie. But I’m gonna have to cut you from the herd. There’s no changing my mind. Your replacement’s been hired.”

Michael, or Mr. Brodart, stands and steps into the darkness.

I can’t see Rose’s face. She hangs her head and I wonder if she’s still in character.

“You needed that job, didn’t you, Gertrude?” It is Saligia’s voice. She’s somewhere in the shadows with a microphone.

Rose’s looks up. Her eyes are wet. She nods her head.

“You had rent coming up on your apartment. And you couldn’t go home could you? To you parents.”

“No,” Rose croaks.

“With your father in jail and your mother who knows where, the bank took away the house you grew up in.”

Rose drops her head back down. Her shoulders heave as she silently sobs in the chair.

“You had that spare key, didn’t you, Gerty?” Saligia asks as she steps into the light and approaches the seated Rose. “And that night you let yourself in to the shop you got fired from. You knew the combination to the safe. But how could you have forgotten the alarm? Did you want to get caught? Because that’s what happened, right?”

“Ouch!” Silverio cries with obvious relish. “So, Saligia,” he says in almost a whisper. “Tell us the verdict.”

The lights come up. Rose shakes her head as if coming awake.

“Serpientes? Or escaleras?” Silverio lowers a hand down on his keyboard so that a minor chord drones at low volume.

On the game board two images flash alternately. A snake, and a ladder.

“Be it a snake, or be it a ladder?” he continues. “Because it seems to be a clear case of a snaky setback for Gertrude. Bad behavior prompted by despair.”

Gertrude, who has been watching Rose intently, now looks away, first at Silverio and then at Saligia. The only word I can think to describe her expression is bafflement. Is Gertrude disturbed by the liberties these actors are taking as they pretend to portray her life with their improvisational antics? Or has her memory suddenly come back and she has just witnessed the most unlikely of scenarios, that mind-reading is real and she has just witnessed a silly situation from her past brought to life?

I think I might turn and ask my neighbors in the audience for clarification, but when I see his transfixed visage so engrossed by the action on the stage, I realize I will learn nothing. I return my attention back to the show.

“It seemed such a dark time for our lovely Gertrude,” Saligia says, looking across at the real Gertrude. “Arrested, tried, and convicted. But it was in prison that our wayward girl turned her life around. For it was there she took a job in the kitchen and began a lifelong love of the culinary arts. When she was released she opened her own very successful restaurant. So, no. I can’t accept any snaky setback. It’s escaleras!”

The image of a ladder appears on the game board. “Climb that ladder, Gertrude. Climb!”

Gertrude furrows her brow, and it looks like she’s about to stand. Michael moves behind her and whispers for her to stay seated.

The green light zips up the ladder. Gertrude’s game piece has advanced well beyond that of Kyle’s.

The applause sign flashes and we all clap and cheer.

“Triumph over despair!” Sy cries out over our racket.

“Kyle, your turn,” Silverio says when we, the audience, calm down. “Michael, pull his lever!”

And so it continues. This vile mockery of a game. Dismantling the lives of the contestants and capriciously passing judgment.

What sort of hell have I been sent to?

It was my favorite part of the day. Just before showtime. Some performers dreaded it, some loved it. But I guarantee you, we were all addicted to that nervous but very focused energy that comes from the cocktail of high-octane agitation and the potent percolation of neurochemicals throughout the gray matter. When it all flowed freely, you were unstoppable.

Booted into action by fear, elation, a sense of amaranthine immortality!

It also made most members of my tribe insufferable. But, as they say, it got the job done.

Half an hour before we went live, and I was already ensconced at my station on the studio set behind my vintage 73-note Rhodes piano.

I stood there watching the show-before-the-show: all those rituals of the performers and the technicians as they preened and prepped. Even after years in the business it still fascinated me.

Many who worked in industry quickly take refugee on the leeward, jaded side of show biz. How sad!

Myra, our floor manager, was one of those types. She had polished her jadedness until it could cut. In her case, it served a crucial need—Myra was the stern adult surrounded by willful, inattentive children. Thank god I didn’t have her job. Can you imagine? Me?

Myra kept things running smoothly and on time. If it wasn’t scribbled on her clipboard, it simply didn’t exist.

But, I wonder. Should I bother to describe someone not crucial to our story? And, also, did I just commit some dreadful narrative blunder by outing Myra as a minor, supporting character?

No matter. I’ll plunge ahead. Give some thumbnail introductions to the other people working on my show. Don’t worry too much about who’s who. It’ll all fall together eventually.

Our lighting and camera guys were fairly interchangeable. I’ll help the reader out here and not even bother with their names. They never made much of an impression upon me, anyway.

I had more of a soft spot for Hal, our director. Hal reminded me of my father during his final years, when drink became his only dependable pleasure. A shallow pleasure, to be sure. Hal, like my father, was warm and confiding when tipsy, and awash in penitent remorse when hungover. Both men also kept their heavier evening bouts with the bottle locked neatly away in solitary indulgence. Of course, even when relatively sober and on the job, Hal remained up in the tech booth—pretending to busy himself with equipment—and thus one might completely overlook the man.

I glanced over and and watched as the hair and makeup team fussed with their brushes and spritz bottles. Such dour expressions on their androgynous faces. And why was their hair so flat and lank? Was it intentional? They looked like they played in a Velvet Underground tribute band and had spent the night at an airport sleeping in chairs. Was it any wonder I had forbidden them from rouging my cheeks or teasing my hair? And when I say hair, I mean, of course, my white pompadour wig which I could prep with double-sided toupee tape and position perfectly on my head in seven seconds flat.

Adjacent to the hair and makeup table, flanked by racks of clothing, Raul perched on his stool. With nimble and fastidious fingers he was hand-stitching the hem of my sequined jacket where it had snagged, only minutes previously, on the edge of my music stand. Ah, Raul, my wardrobe wizard!

In the past, I had handled my own outfits, just as I now manage my hair and makeup. I mean, I have been dressing myself since I was a tyke. However, Raul, well, he gets me. He has a flair that makes my own choices timid by comparison. Imagine a hypothetical (but very plausible) scenario where I showed up wearing Merlot velveteen harem pants and a two-tone ruffled Bellamy shirt. Raul would favorably appraise the ensemble. High points just for that! Then, so softly, suggest: “Nice, and it does make an impact, but what would you think if we were to add….” And he would produce some additional gewgaw or garment that, when placed upon my person, would cause everything to harmoniously snap into perfection. Things that defied all the rules of aesthetic harmony would somehow, under Raul’s hands, hum and purr with an inner contentment. If there existed somewhere the perfect polka dot cummerbund that would compliment a pair of tartan socks in the tricolors of the Italian flag, that man knew where to find it.

Raul glanced my way with a smile and held up five fingers. Five minutes and he’d have my jacket ready.

And then that horrible Ida Mayfield swanned by, eclipsing Raul.

She was like a rat someone had decided to treat as a pet. Scampering here and there, sniffing and licking and dragging its genitalia over the flatware—just generally spreading who knows what all over the place.

And judging. That’s what Ida was doing. Looking for flaws in the way we did our show…so that she could take her opinions back to her bosses in LA, tell them what a bunch of amateurs we were out in Texas.

She made her way slowly up the tiered seating where our studio audience would soon be placed. I half expected her to check under the seats for chewing gum.

Now that I think about it, Ida Mayfield did not so much resemble a rat. Her body shape was all wrong. Maybe a mantis. But a mantis doesn’t scamper. It stands in the open, reaches out, pulls you in, and mechanically and methodically eats your head until only an oozing stump remains.

For the sake of convenience, let us just say a rat-mantis hybrid.

“Behind you, Sy,” Raul whispered, having come up behind me. His words pulled me from my musings.

Raul had trained me well. I immediately dropped my arms down and moved them out from my body. In a fraction of a second, Raul had me clothed in my vibrant, impertinent jacket. “Dress bravely,” he had once told me. “Clothing should be unapologetic.”

Once Raul had headed back off to his cluster of rolling garment racks, I eased open the drawer on the table beside me and inventoried the contents. The hard candies were in abundance. But the chocolate was running low. I made a mental note to restock.

My mother would be appalled. Not for reasons of nutrition. No. It would be because I had everything alphabetized, left to right. From Animal Crackers, to Zagnut. Mother abhorred those who embraced order.

I selected a piece of candied ginger—the miraculous rhizome that is packed with beneficent flavonoids essential for a healthy spleen.

I looked over and watched as Valerie and Ed, our audience wranglers, exchanged a few words with Myra before they headed down to the Processing Lounge to collect their charges. They looked after the well-being of those delicate souls. But they also were responsible for the energy level in the room. The emotions of our studio audience—down to each and every individual—must be managed to perfection. Their applause and gasps of surprise was what conveyed the entire show’s tone. My music could only do so much.

It wouldn’t be long now. Our studio audience would soon be quietly filing in through the double doors, having come up from their dormitories on the floor below. I cannot overstate the convenience of keeping an entire studio audience on the premises. I should have thought of it years ago.

To some it might seem unorthodox. But I suppose it wasn’t too far removed from keeping chickens. Just make sure they have enough food and water. Don’t allow them to wander off. Keep the bathrooms stocked with soap and toilet paper—though that was not so much a chicken thing.

Our audience never complained nor threatened to riot.

There were no shivs hidden beneath pillows.

All was as it should be.

The dead should be peaceful, right? Of course, they should also remain dead. But somehow each of our guests had been inexplicably reconstituted back into a live human being and magically deposited upon a chair in one of two tiny yet very special rooms on the 28th floor of La Vida Tower. They came to us with no instructions. No packing slip, no invoice. What else could we do but build a game show around them? It’s what we TV people do. Don’t judge.

We protected them. Not just with locked doors. But also by making sure they never learned that they had died. One of the obvious benefits of their amnesia (a fortuitous side-effect of their mysterious transportation) was that it forestalled any sort existential crises that, you know, might result from that sort of shocking revelation. Didn’t want one of them to freak out and jump from a window.

Like what happened on Wednesday. That dramatic and tragic…can we call it an escape attempt?

The less said about that incident the better!

Dr. Lydia Hetzel was supposed to be responsible for the emotional and spiritual well-being of all the guests who lived on the 28th floor. I could tell the pressure was getting to poor Lydia.

As showtime approached, she was standing in a corner, out of the way, with hands clasped to keep from biting her nails. Once our audience arrived and had been seated, I knew her eyes would be ceaselessly scanning those reconstituted individuals, vigilantly looking for any danger sign. Though I’m not sure how suicidal ideations in the dead might present.

Hollywood couldn’t have provided a more perfect overwound psychiatrist. A fragile, brittle stick of a woman, Lydia’s pale skin edged toward albino. She wore her fine blond hair in a bun high on the back of her head so tight I don’t think she was capable of closing her eyes all the way. I once wondered if she were to let down her tresses might there be one of those cinema moments? You know, “Why Dr. Hetzel…you’re beautiful!” Those thoughts ended the day I walked into her office without knocking as she was rebunning her hair. She looked like a spider in a cheap wig.

But today, even though her hair and tailored white medical tunic were all wrapped up and buttoned down, it was obvious to me that were Lydia to forgo her morning decaf for a cup of the real deal, it’d be all over. I for one hoped never to be around when that bent and bulging door that barely held back her trembling tangle of neuroses finally gave way. I imagined it would resemble when some poor sap opened a prank can of peanuts and dozens of spring snakes flew out—and when the hammering hearts returned to normal, everyone’s first thoughts were: those snakes will never fit back in there!

Perhaps that all came out cruel. It was not my intention. I am very fond of Dr. Lydia.

She has an important role in this tale, so I should be forgiven candidly sharing my personal assessment of the woman. For the sake of the narrative.

Michael—currently our senior-most Reader—also has an important part to play in this story. Be prepared to see more of him in many chapters to come. Though, I must confess, I’m not a fan of that little toad. And as such, I’m at a loss of anything nice to say about him. Let me think. Ah, yes. He had very nice hair. And he did an admirable job of maintaining it.

This brings us to our other Reader.

Not Bianca. You have no reason to be introduced to her. After her acute psychic tailspin, she was awarded a year’s salary and carried off to a sanatorium on the quiet side of town.

I’m speaking, of course, about Rose.

Could she be the true hero of this story? I wonder. I, of course, assume it must be me. But I’ll leave it to you to figure that out as things develop.

Ever since Rose first walked into La Vida Tower, I knew she would show us great things. I had to wait, though. For weeks she mostly fetched coffee, filed paperwork, and edited all those typos from Michael’s interoffice memos.

But with Bianca out of the picture, we all would finally see Rose shine as our newest Reader.

You might be wondering why Rose fascinated me so much.

Sure, she was smart and inquisitive. But there was also her secret agenda. Secret is always the best kind of agenda, am I right? I sniffed it out at the very beginning. You see, Rose had a brother, once. He died. And that little fact convinced me that Rose had answered our help wanted ad with the desperate hope of being in the studio when her beloved brother was resurrected as a member of our studio audience.

Rose might be wily, but I was wilier.

It had been tough for me to watch Rose try and make sense of the goings on in the locked suites and rooms of the upper floors of La Vida Tower. You see, the true nature of our very special audience members was only given to employees on a need-to-know basis. Some HR nonsense imposed by the Network. So, Rose was stuck with vague conjecture about how the show really worked. That, along with whatever she was able to glean from her snooping. But now that she was part of the inside circle, with her own master key, I got to watch as she skulked around whole new parts of the building hitherto off limits. It was still her first day with all-access, but already her Nancy Drew game had been kicked up several notches. And she was relentless.

I wasn’t sure if I should be the one to tell her that the portals didn’t work that way—the chance of her brother popping in on us at La Vida Tower was, while not strictly impossible, astronomically unlikely.

For now, I was happy to watch her prowl. And to watch her premiere performance on the show! I was one hundred percent certain she’d amaze us all. If Lydia was correct and Rose had astonishing psychic gifts far beyond the previous Readers, maybe I could finally begin work on realizing my own secret agenda.

Time to get my head back in the game. How long had I been rolling about in the wallow of sorrow and self-pity? Silverio Moreno, I reminded myself, you are destined for greatness. Now shine, sir. Shine!

Things were looking up!

Myra breezed by to give me the ten minute warning until show time.

She pulled back the curtain of Sal’s hidey-hole to make sure our hostess had heard as well. I caught a glimpse of my Sal as she nodded from the shadows. She spent the half hour before we went on air engaged in her steadfast rituals behind the sheet she nightly tossed over the fire sprinkler pipe overhead. Hidden back there, in the dim light, dressed in her custard-colored kaftan, she playing endless games of three-pass Klondike. Every so often she could be heard muttering some vocal exercise tongue-twister. Lately it had been something about Fiona and her Carrara Ferrari. Any minute, I knew, Raul would slip back there and help Sal into her costume, followed by the androgynous twins to freshen Sal’s face and lacquer her hair with an heroically toxic volume of Aqua Net.

Of course, I had my own little rituals. Tinkering with the equipment in my cramped announcer’s station. My electric piano, my microphone, various over-ride switches for the electronic game board. If I felt particularly funky, I’d tune up my left-handed Gibson ES-335 that supposedly once belonged to Cesar Rosas.

Tonight would be a good show, I could feel it. I rummaged around in my snack drawer and selected a banana. Gotta keep the potassium levels up. I looked around the studio and watched Michael and Myra conferring with Rose.

I opened up a manila folder atop my piano and flipped through a sheaf of papers. It was the personnel file of one Rosalinda “Rose” Aguilar. I nabbed it from Lydia’s filing cabinet. There were the results of Rose’s psychic profile tests—that 1200 Fitzroy score. And a bit of family history (with a paragraph about that dead brother, Lionel being his name). Precious little in the way of employment history. A degree in Communications (which I’d try not to hold against her). And absolutely no experience in front of a camera or an audience.

No matter. I had confidence in her. Besides, she contrasted so well with Saligia. Her youth, her, optimism, and that perfect red dress.

As that thought rolled through my mind, Raul stopped by Rose to make sure the zipper pull of her dress was tucked out of sight before he disappeared behind the sheet to attend to Sal.

I dropped the banana peel into the little wicker basket hidden by the piano. Rose paced at the back of the studio, trying to prepare herself for the sort of performance which preparation really won’t help with at all. Nerves be damned! Her style and pluck would carry her through. I was sure of it.

God, I’m a shameless voyeur.

I told myself to breathe. Bring the air in for a full count of ten, hold it for a couple of beats, then out, pushing it low from the diaphragm. But I noticed I wasn’t as nervous as I had expected to be. It was still half an hour until airtime, and I stepped back out of everyone’s way, there in the studio, and tried to imagine how I’d feel once I was in front of the camera.

I reminded myself, this is where I wanted to be. Here in the heart of Serpientes Y Escaleras. To uncover a mystery that had been gnawing at me, keeping me up at night. True, I assumed my work at La Vida Tower would remain of an administrative nature; but, regardless of which side of the camera I stood, I had made it to the place where the answers to that mystery were certain to be found.

In the beginning it felt like I was an undercover investigative reporter, finally putting my college journalism classes to use. But at some point I came to feel like I was a spy. Betraying those around me. That dull throb of nervous guilt eventually transformed into a disturbing sensation of shame now that I had been elevated above my trainee status.

It was made worse by the fact that I liked these people. Especially Silverio and Saligia.

The day had been so long already, but I felt like it was only now just beginning.

Could it really still be Monday? It seemed like ages ago when I arrived at work this morning. Dawn had not even broken. I walked in the revolving doors of La Vida Tower a full hour early. Wouldn’t you? I mean, it was my first day as an Associate Producer.

In this business, one should arrive before the posted time—the general rule of thumb was 20 minutes early. But today I was more than a little unnerved.

I was supposed to be on TV this evening, as a—and I can’t believe I’m using these words—featured performer!

I really should have told Aunt Marta. When she tuned in tonight, she’d get a surprise. A major surprise. I hoped she wouldn’t choke on her tapioca pudding.

They’d given me Bianca’s office, but had not yet taken her name off the door.

The room was down a corridor had been off limits to me in the past, and as I’d never seen the offices of the Associate Producers, I didn’t have any expectations. When I stepped inside I was surprised to find it not much bigger than a closet. The desk took up most of the room. In a corner sat a potted ficus tree, spindly, plastic, but at least the leaves were clean and glistening. A soft glow of early morning sunlight came in through a window which was mostly blocked by a pair of filing cabinets. I flipped a switch on the wall, and two fluorescent tubes overhead washed the room in a yellow hue.

Not much, but it was mine. My own office!

I slipped behind the desk and sat in the only chair. The desktop was empty but for a square bundle wrapped in butcher paper. Beside it sat a lavender envelope, with my name written in small, neat letters.

I opened it.

Dear Ms. Rose Aguilar, welcome to the longest day of your life. You should find a parcel from our wardrobe department containing your outfit for the show tonight. Go ahead and wear it for the rest of the day to get used to it. Three words of advice. Trust No One. And for God’s sake, have fun! Sincerely, Silverio Moreno.

How cryptic.

The package from the wardrobe apartment had a red dress that was certainly not the sort of thing I would have chosen. The hemline wasn’t particularly high. No racy décolletage. Nothing like that. But it did, well, cling. And the dress didn’t have shoulders to hide my bra straps. This meant I had to put on the strapless bra that came with the dress. I’d never worn one before, but it proved easy enough to get into.

I was zipping up the back of the dress when Michael walked in. Unannounced.

He leaned against the desk and watched as I smoothed the fabric along my hips.

“Wardrobe?” he asked.

“You could have knocked.”

“It’s show business,” he said. “Nothing I’ve not seen before. A perfect fit. Raul only needs to see you once, and your measurements are locked into his mind.”

I put on the shoes. Thankfully they had low heels and some pleasantly squishy insoles.

“So, how do I look?”

Michael stepped back. He tapped a finger on his lips for a moment, then nodded.

“After hair and makeup do their magic on you before airtime, I think you’ll look fine.”

I had to assume that was Michael’s attempt to appear as the practical-minded mentor who—all things considered—had more important things to do than to educate some clueless girl.

He looked at his watch. “Let’s do a quick tour. I understand you have your key. But there are a few places you should have some, well, context, before you go charging about, exploring sections that used to be off limits. Like the Processing Lounge. Unfortunately, we’re pressed for time. Lydia wants you for some intensive Reader training sessions. It’s going to be a chaotic day.”

If Michael could play a role, so could I. I squared my shoulders and gave him the best approximation of the Brave Smile seen so often on awkward ingenues in those old screwball comedies Aunt Marta loved so much.

“Understood,” I told him.

“This isn’t just grabbing coffee and filing reports, or whatever you used to do, Rose. You’re in the big league now. It’s up to us all to shine this week. We’re under scrutiny by the Network brass.”

Michael’s a type. I’ve read about them, even met a few. These people need to be seen as important to those they respect. I have no doubt that Michael would have thrived in Stalin’s Russia. The naive and the needy can always find a place in cynical environments, such as despotic regimes and show business. They think they’re climbing to positions of power, but they will never be allowed to ascend that high—they’re too useful as tools for those who hold real power. Yes, naive and needy. Now, with Ida lurking around, Michael had found the perfect person to cozy up to. He was already polishing that particular Network brass.

###

It was a short tour. I found little opportunity to ask any questions because Michael would quickly move us on to another part of that formally off-limits domain. I now knew that, yes, the audience from whom we selected our daily contestants for the show lived in little apartments—more monastic cells, really—on the 28th floor. Each of their rooms opened onto the fabled Processing Lounge. It was a multi-purpose suite: a game room, library, and dining hall, complete with a full-service kitchen, staffed around the clock. Who would have guessed! And not just for the audience. Now I knew where so many of my co-workers went during lunch while I sat in the lonely breakroom with my sad carton of yoghurt I brought from home.

The audience members behaved as they did when brought to their seats for the live broadcast. Subdued and accommodating. From some of what Ida had said the previous day, I no longer could entertain the fantasy that these people were actors paid to live here, constantly on call. I would have asked Michael for a straight answer, but how to even phrased the question?

After we made a quick visit to the wardrobe department, I turned to go down a corridor where a sign pointed the way to Arrivals, but Michael told me we didn’t have time for that.

Instead, he escorted me through an unmarked door into a darkened room.

When the latch clicked behind us it took a moment for my eyes to adjust enough to realize we were in a rather large room. It made me think of visiting the aquarium as a girl. But instead of illumination coming from a huge lighted fish tank, the room was lit by a long window.

Michael headed to the middle of the room where Dr. Hetzel and Ida Mayfield sat on a sofa. But I was drawn to that window. It didn’t look out onto the city below. It was a window on an interior wall and on the other side was a small room painted white with nothing in it but an adjustable chair like what they had in a hair salon.

I knew that Dr. Hetzel and Ida, and maybe even Michael, were engaged in a conversation behind me, but I hadn’t been paying attention to their words. When I finally turned away from the window, Dr. Hetzel called me over.

The entire room was painted black and it was hard to judge how far away the walls were. I moved silently across the deep pile black carpet. Michael had taken a seat on the sofa between the two women. That was when I saw that Saligia was also in the room with us—she was dressed, as usual, in black, so I hadn’t noticed her at first. She sat in an armchair in a shadowy area of the room with her head down and was busy at work knitting.

Ida watched me approach.

“Your star pupil,” she said to Dr. Hetzel. Ida then picked a manila folder off a low coffee table. I stood there, looking at the photograph stapled to the outside of the folder. It was me. But I didn’t recall anyone ever taking my picture when I was wearing that blue jacket. As Ida flipped through some pages in the folder her nose wrinkled with displeasure.

“Have a seat, Rose,” Dr. Hetzel said.

There didn’t appear to be much room left on the sofa, but then I realized Dr. Hetzel was pointing at a chair behind me. It was so dim I hadn’t even seen it. It resembled that barber style chair on the other side of the window and it had been situated so that it faced the sofa, not the window.

When I sat in the chair, there was something familiar about how it felt, the give of the seat cushion, the support to the lower back. Then it made sense.

I had been in that room before. The room on the other side of the window. I had sat in that other, similar chair. But that white room didn’t have a window.

That explained why I didn’t recognize it from this vantage point. Until today, I had never before been in a room with a window so long as the one in this room. But I had been in a small white room with a single chair that had a very long mirror—a mirror that ran the length of the room.

The day I came in for my job interview, I had been seated in that other chair on the opposite side of the window. It never occurred to me that the huge mirror was one of those two-way surveillance mirrors. It seemed laughably obvious now.

What a thing for a spy to discover. That she had been spied upon. I wondered how many people had been in this big dark room at the time of my job interview.

Though, as job interviews went, it was far from standard. It was just me and Dr. Hetzel in that room. She had paced back and forth, holding a notebook, asking me a series of what I thought unusual questions. Was that the Fitzroy test?

Another memory of that day came to me. I had been wearing that blue blazer. Did someone take that photo of me through the mirror?

At the sound of a door opening, I turned and saw Myra walk into the room, clutching, as always, her clipboard.

She nodded at me as she walked over to Saligia.

“I see Rose’s hoodoo training sessions have begun,” Myra said.

Myra was the production floor manager of Serpientes y Escaleras. She couldn’t be over thirty, but because she darted about like she was forever two minutes behind schedule, she seemed much older. Frazzled and not too happy about it. She was small, wiry, and kept her frizzy red hair in check beneath a black paisley kerchief. Most people were afraid of her, especially Michael. But she always had a smile for me.

As she and Saligia conferred over some point of production, I realized Ida had lifted her head from my folder and was glaring at me.

“Is this what’s considered appropriate office attire these days?” Ida asked. “Form-fitting red dresses?”

Without turning away from Saligia, Myra said, loudly: “Wardrobe. For tonight’s broadcast.”

“Still,” Ida protested. “Rather bold for our audiences. A bright red dress?”

“The dress stays,” Myra said, not looking up from her clipboard. She had finished her business with Saligia and began walking back to the door.

Ida cleared her throat. Myra stopped and turned, an eyebrow raised.

“Young lady,” Ida said, her voice taking on a brittle edge. “We’re not going to get along, are we?”

“That would be entirely up to you, ma’am.” With that, Myra turned and left the room.

Saligia had been watching this unfold. As the door shut, she looked at me with a pained expression before returning to her knitting.

Then another door opened.

This time it was the door into the that smaller room. I twisted around in my chair to see. Through the window I watched as Valerie entered, leading one of the subjects. One of the audience members who had on the white cotton scrubs most wore when not dressed for the show. Once the man had been seated in the large padded chair, Valerie walked up to the window—well, for her it was a mirror. She pretended to be fussing with her hair, but she covertly held up her thumb and winked to us.

She exited the room, leaving the man in there, alone.

Ida put down the folder and looked through the window at the man in the chair as he stared expressionlessly at the ceiling.

“Those zombies give me the creeps,” she said. Then she turned to Michael. “Don’t we have a meeting scheduled about this time with the Marketing Department?”

Michael nodded. The two of them departed.

We had a Marketing Department?

The day was filled with surprises.

Once the door clicked shut, Dr. Hetzel stood and crossed over to the window and gazed into the classroom. I walked over to join her.

We were so close, Dr. Hetzel and I, that our shoulders touched. I noticed that Dr. Hetzel was bobbing her head, just slightly, to the clicking sounds of Saligia’s knitting needles.

“This is why we are here,” Dr. Hetzel said in almost a whisper. She lifted a hand to indicate the man in the chair. “For them. And it’s all because of Saligia.”

At the mention of her name, Saligia stopped knitting. But when she realized Dr. Hetzel wasn’t speaking to her, the clicking of the needles returned.

“You will no doubt remember the test we gave you on your first day,” Dr. Hetzel said to me. “If you hadn’t scored high enough, you’d have been let go. But you did well. Better than we could have hoped.”

“And people were watching?” I asked.

“Pardon?”

“When you interviewed me…gave me that test…whatever. People were watching through this window?” I reached out to touch the glass.

“Saligia was here. Watching. Helping you. She’s the conduit. The proximity is useful for her. Others? I can’t remember. Maybe Sy.”

“He was,” Saligia said quietly over in her darkened corner.

“So this is real?” I asked. “This psychic stuff?”

Just what sort of doctor was Lydia Hetzel? And what did that make Saligia? Conduit?

“Saligia has a gift,” Dr. Hetzel said. “She can see into the minds of our contestants. See things about their lives they may no longer even know themselves. She can then broadcast these impressions into the minds of very special individuals, such as yourself.”

“But I’m not special.”

Dr. Hetzel laughed. She pointed to the man in the other room.

“He’d probably say the same thing. But the both of you are very special. Very special, indeed. In different ways, of course.”

“Okay.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“Rose, we’re going to move fast for today’s session. We should have begun your training right after hiring you. That had been the plan. An understudy, as it were, if Michael or Bianca had to take a sick day. Or, well, what happened last week. But, here we are.”

“And him?” I looked to the man in the other room.

“He won’t feel a thing,” she said. “But you will.”

“Meaning?” I didn’t like the sound of that.

“Saligia will select memories from our subject in the adjacent room, and then she will do what she does every night on the show. She will push those thoughts, images, memories directly into your mind, Rose.”

Well, that seemed unlikely. But I did my best to appear agreeable.

“Should I sit?” I asked, making my way back to the chair I had been sitting in.

“No time for the beginner sessions,” Dr. Hetzel said. “Keep on your feet. Just the way you’ll be doing it on the show. Saligia, if you could dip into the mind of our subject, um, it’s Carl, right?”

“And me?” I asked. “What do I do?”

“Relax,” Dr. Hetzel told me. “Don’t allow your mind to dwell on any one thought. Be receptive.”

I relaxed my shoulders. Dipped down my head. Took a deep breath and straightened my back, chin lifted up, hands limp and down with the palms opened and waiting.

I was about to ask for further instructions, when I heard myself gasp.

It all rushed into my head at once.

A memory as clear as if it had happened a minute ago. But not to me. It was a memory of that man seated in the barber’s chair. It was when he was a boy. Maybe twelve. It was summer, and the cicadas buzzed like race cars roaring around a track. The boy was launching himself off the bank of a river on a rope swing hung from a tall cypress tree. He swung out far over the water and arced up high before slipping free and flying through the air.

It was like I was living it myself.

I was breathing hard and grinning like an imbecile. I even felt a trickle of sweat making its way along my neck—but it wasn’t my sweat, nor was it my neck.

“Clarence,” I said to Dr. Hetzel. “His name is Clarence.”

And I felt the joy of landing in the cool water of the river.

“You take to it well,” Saligia said. I could hear the clacking of her knitting start back up again.

I had never felt anything like that before. It was like discovering a new sense beyond hearing and seeing and the rest. My whole body tingled.

Clarence. I leaned in closer to peer at him through the window.

He sat there, in his chair, staring into space.

Dr. Hetzel had it all wrong. He wasn’t special, really. So very ordinary. But he was special to me! I had just lived a little piece of his life!

“But who are these contestants?” I had so many questions. I didn’t know where to start.

“We don’t have time to get into that today, Rose. This is a unique situation of accelerated training. In brief summery, there are two things we do on this show. One is to provide entertainment for the television audience. The other is connected to metaphysics—there really isn’t any better word—and it is all very complicated. Suffice to say, you’ll learn it all as have the rest of us have, at your own pace. The thumbnail description of our work here is that we provide entertainment, overtly; and we provide a necessary service, covertly. A service for our contestants. They are very special people, indeed. Try and keep them in mind when you’re on camera later in the evening.”

This remark got a sharp laugh from Saligia.

“Lydia, dear,” she told Dr. Hetzel, “I can guarantee that Rose will be unable not to keep the contestant in mind while the show is happening.”

“Ah,” Dr. Hetzel said. “I suppose you’re right.” Then she turned to me. “Let’s get back to work. Again, relax. Receptive.”

That was how I spent the next three hours until the lunch break.

And then it was back to it, with another audience member seated in the chair in the white room.

###

Finally, I was truly a part of this show. And as I paced at the back of the studio trying to calm my nerves before we went on air, I felt I was getting closer to some real answers to my questions. I had been in places on the 28th and 29th floor of La Vida Tower I had never been allowed before. I even had lunch in the Processing Lounge with members of the audience and many of the show’s staff.

Now I could go anywhere. Open any door. Snoop about unimpeded. I still couldn’t believe my good fortune. I found that my hand had crept up to my chest to feel the outline of my master key I now carried with me everywhere. I just wish this silly dress had some proper pockets so I didn’t have to tuck the key into my bra.

Of course, there was still so much I didn’t understand. But I had to clear my head. The broadcast would begin in thirty minutes. That’s what Myra had just shouted out. I could do this. I looked down and was encouraged to see that my hands weren’t trembling. The fact was, I had seen hundreds of episodes of the show. I knew what to do. And I was surrounded by the best in the business. They wouldn’t let me down. It would all go fine…if I didn’t vomit.

I realized I was looking forward to seeing Clarance. After our sessions earlier, I felt an overwhelming intimacy toward him. Like family.

Of course, he had no idea what all I knew about him.

And then it hit me.

Was I as transparent to Saligia as Clarence had been to me? Was she listening in on my thoughts right now? My schemes? My snooping?

I turned to stare at the curtain in the corner of the studio. She’d be sitting behind it right now, waiting for the show to begin.

I let the words form in my mind clear and measured and precise, as if I were speaking to a visitor from another country.

Please, Saligia, don’t tell anyone why I’m here. I can’t lose this job. I can’t!

I couldn’t believe I just did that.

There was something comical about it. Or, more to the point, there would have been something comical to that Rose Aguilar from this morning—that earlier version of me who had been ignorant to the existence of psychic abilities.

###

A heavy wind had come in around sunup as I was breaking camp and it pushed away the clouds that had been dogging me for the last two days. I was glad to find the temperature climbing.

I had spent the last four years living quite rough at my uncle’s hunting cabin snug at the tail of a box canyon in the Jemez Mountains. Finally I decided to venture out and see what was going on in the world. This had been prompted by a trio of hunters who I encountered while out gathering pine nuts. They insisted that the Changes had ended and, though the world had not returned to normal, things in general had settled down.

How much the world at large had changed, I was still uncertain. I’d been following a series of metal towers supporting high voltage electrical lines for ten days and had yet to reach a city or even the most meager settlement.

And yesterday, just as I was looking for a place to set up camp, I realized my trail had ended. Just where I expected to find another transmission tower, there was nothing. Not even any wires overhead. Well, there wasn’t exactly nothing. What I found was a cluster of stone statues. Huge, elongated heads. The sort one expected to encounter on Easter Island.

To the best of my reckoning, I was supposed to be in New Mexico’s Tularosa Valley. I wasn’t sure if the heads had been brought here by the Changes, or the New Mexican countryside had been transported to the South Pacific. From the mountains all around and the ubiquity of the cactus, I had to assume I was still in New Mexico.

This morning, the heads were still there, a reminder of that chaotic world I had withdrawn from.

After stuffing my bivy bag into my rucksack, I decided to continue my hike along a dried water course.

After about an hour, with the sun still low to the horizon, I came upon two people at a clearing tending to a campfire—a father and daughter on a camping excursion into the desert. I accepted their offer to share their breakfast. We pooled our resources. The man prepared a thin porridge of corn and rice, which soon was bubbling in a bent aluminum pot over glowing coals. And I pulled out a few fistfuls of the granola bars that filled half of my rucksack. They had been purchased before the Changes, and though I found them quite serviceable, I hoped neither the man nor his little girl took the time to look at the printed sell-by date.

The girl, who couldn’t have been more than ten, smiled as she tore open one of the bars. “Mine has chocolate!” she said.

“Nice that it’s finally warming up,” the man said to me. “We were pretty chilly last night. Name’s Randall. That’s Tulsi.”

“Morris,” I said.

“We’re on a camping trip, Morris,” Tulsi said.

“Her mother and I used to camp all the time,” Randall said. “This is the first time out since—”

“Mom died,” Tulsi said.

“I meant to say, since the Changes. Her mother passed before the Changes—I wonder what she would have made of them. Anyway, here we are. Don’t know why we didn’t do this sooner. Things have been stable for a few years. Is that your experience as well?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I confessed. I wasn’t used to talking, and so my words came out in a halting fashion. It’d get better, I knew. “I’ve been off the grid for some time. Living in the backcountry.”

“I heard some people did that,” Randall said.

“I know what you are!” Tulsi said. “You’re a hermit.”

“The Changes threw a lot of people into unease,” Randall told Tulsi. “It was a time of insecurity.”

“It was.” And I had to laugh. “But I loved it. At first. Like a party. Something new. Every day. Wonders unfolding.”

“Oh, wow,” Randall said with a laugh. “I’d forgotten. That was the name of a TV show, wasn’t it? Wonders Unfolding.”

“It was exciting,” I said. And it was. “Even the awful stuff.”

“Exciting?” Randall shrugged. “Guess so. But Tulsi and I lived around a lot of religious people. They all thought it was the end of the world.”

“The end of the world, that’s so silly,” said Tulsi. “It still all around us,” she added, spreading out her arms.

“We had it good, I suppose,” Randall said. He used a bandana to hold the hot cooking pot so he could eat from it. “We lived for a while with Tulsi’s mom’s people. They’re Mormon. I guess that makes us Mormons, as well.”

“Nope. Now we’re apostates.” Tulsi spoke the word with a note of pride.

“That we are. But back then, we were living in their self-sufficient community. Growing food. Solar power. Plenty of water. Comfortable, I suppose. But we left them. Nowadays, we’re in a little town, just a few miles down this creek bed. I work at the school there. Not many kids, so I teach them all. Every grade. Every subject.”

“Me, I’m in the farm fresh egg business,” Tulsi said. “Five hens, laying like machines.”

“Just a few miles, you say?” I asked.

“Well, you’ll want to be cautious,” Randall said. “At the halfway mark, there’s this—”

“Crater,” Tulsi said. “Right where Roswell used to be. Got scooped up one day, with all the people. Poof! Gone.”

“Some say Socorro. Or Las Cruces.” Randall shrugged. “You know, back when the Changes had everything moving around. These days the old geography books are out the window, so people say. Anyway, it’s more a trench than a crater. You’ll want to go around it. Follow the perimeter. You try and go down and across, it’s a bear. All cracked and crumbling rock. We made that mistake.”

“It was a fucking nightmare,” Tulsi said, drinking the last of the soup.

“Don’t mind her,” Randall told me. “I’m afraid those are my words. She doesn’t usually talk that way.”

“I’m not sure yet where I’m headed,” I said. “Just trying to find my bearings.”

“Our town’s called Great Falls,” Tulsi said. “Nothing great about it. And you’d think there be some waterfalls there but there aren’t.”

“There’s a train that comes, through,” Randall said. “And it’s a doozy. Some sort of magnetic levitation stuff. Boy, it goes fast.”

“A magnetic train?” That sounded promising.

“Crazy world we got us these days. Some of us are just getting by on soybeans and bullion cubes, others are zipping around on the trains of the future. The construction crew pushed through town without so much as a howdy, laying about a mile of track a day.”

“Could have bought some of my eggs,” Tulsi said. “But they didn’t.”

“There’s a depot where the train stops every morning at 11:03. Never thought to ask how much it costs.”

“You know,” Tulsi said. “Because we’re not rich assholes.”

I left them with about a dozen extra granola bars and continued along the creek bed. It wasn’t long before I crested a hill covered in a meandering clump of low-growing junipers and found myself looking over the blasted gouge of which the man and his daughter had spoken. It was an impressive sight, but if, indeed, a town once had nestled down there, it couldn’t have been too large. The elongated oval was maybe a mile wide by three miles long.

Like those stone heads, it was another reminder of the Changes. I had removed myself from all of that madness. The cities appearing or disappearing, the rearrangement of the constellations. Or the more localized chaos, such as discovering you car keys had transformed into a wasp nest or your racist potbellied barber had woken to discover himself now a slender Asian woman.

It was all coming back to me as I made my way amid the mesquite and the cactus to the edge of the hole, and began the long detour around the perimeter.

###

Great Falls wasn’t much to look at. One paved street ran through town, with some dirt roads randomly radiating out, leading to small wooden frame homes. The buildings along the main street were mostly two-story red stone structures, well-kept, with clean windows advertising clothing shops, cafes, and a hotel with a long iron balcony. I saw no evidence of automobiles. There were a few people riding horses. But for the most part the people were walking, keeping to the sidewalks, and they smiled pleasantly at me, as they headed to work to begin their day. As small as the town was, there were more people than I had seen for some years.

In the middle of town, the rail tracks Randall had mentioned crossed the main street. The tracks shone as bright as chrome and were curved, resembling two tubes, half buried in the ground. They ran away from town in both directions, all the way to each horizon.

I found the train station. It clearly was built long before that new, magnetic rail system. I climbed the wooden steps and walked along the platform to where an overhang offered shade from the growing heat of the day. Adjacent to the station building was a large wooden water tower covered with a dull galvanized metal roof.

The windows of the depot were curtained, and on the door was a sign which read: Open at 10 AM. I saw a clock on the wall inside that showed it to be nine-fifty.

I sat down on one of the benches in the shade, alone. It struck me how quiet this little town was. The wind managed a weak, thin whine. Far off in the flat desert, a dust devil began spinning, growing, giving a spirited dance, as if it had a waist and shoulders, and then it slowed and dissipated into nothing.

I heard the boots on the wooden steps and turned to watch a slim middle-aged man approach. He must be the station agent. The man wore black trousers, work boots, with the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up to his elbows. He greeted me with a curious but encouraging smile as he unlocked the door to the depot office and motioned me in. As I stepped inside, the agent turned around the sign so that it now read Open.

He walked to the far end of the room and sat behind a large wooden desk. He pointed to the one other chair in the room, so I took a seat across from him.

I noted that his desk was immaculate, devoid of the sort of clutter one might expect from the day-to-day clerical duties of a train station.

His intense grin had me feeling uncomfortable. He must have noticed.

“Please, please,” he said. “You’ll have to excuse me. I do believe I’m rather giddy.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“A stranger in town is a rare occurrence. And, well, I don’t get too many visitors to my office.”

“I met the school teacher,” I said. “Randall, and his little girl. They were camping out in the desert. Said I could find a train in this town.”

“I know him well,” he said. “And how wonderful that one of our more upstanding citizens sent a customer my way!”

“He said that there is a fast train which stops here.”

“Indeed. We’re at the halfway point between Los Angles and San Antonio. Well, what’s left of those cities. I understand that they are smaller these days than back before the Changes. But I hear you can still find the La Brea Tar Pits, the Alamo, places like that. The train’s an express, with no stops between, except our humble hamlet. It’s three hours to San Antonio. But if you head the other way—to Los Angeles—it takes about two days. Same distance, they say. But there’s some sort of time-warpy place deep in the desert. The world is full of wondrous things, as they say, but still, we persevere. I should point out that the train does go further beyond the Alamo city. It stops at New Orleans. And it heads out to some large city hundreds of miles beyond that people insist on calling Baltimore, though, as I understand, the place is filled with Roman ruins and everyone speaks with an Australian accent, so, well, it’s anyone’s guess, eh?”

The agent pointed out the window. “My job is to oversee that water tank. These maglev trains need plenty of water to cool their engines. Nuclear something or other. So I have to oversee a team to constantly harvest ice from our glacier.”

“Glacier?” It seemed unlikely for such a thing to be found in the desert, but who was I to doubt the man’s words.

“Yes! Some places might have their storied tar pits or their fabled rose windows, but we have our magnificent Great Falls Glacier! I hope you have time to hike out and see that magnificent frigid blue wall of ice that never melts!”

“How tempting,” I said, not wanting to commit myself. From what Randall said, the train would be arriving soon.

“Our crew loads the chunks of ice into our water tower where they melt so that the water is ready to siphon into the train on its daily stop.” He paused and his face took on a more serious expression. “That’s the bulk of my job normally. But, technically, I’m also expected to provide tickets for passengers.”

“Technically?”

“Two years on the job, and I’ve yet to sell a single ticket!”

“Well, I hope I can be the one to change that,” I said. “How much? Not through the time warp.” It did not sound particularly safe. “The other way. San Antonio.” I hadn’t been there since I was a kid, but I had fond memories of the place.

The agent leaned down and opened a drawer. He lifted up a large buckram-bound book and blew from the front cover a thick film of dust. As he opened it and flipped through the pages, he muttered pleasantly to himself the names of various chapter headings and sections, until, finally, he stopped.

“Fares. Here we go.” He ran a finger down a page. “Eight hundred dollars. That’s quite a bit, isn’t it?”

“What do people use for money these days?” I asked.

“I can’t imagine I’m in any better a situation to answer that question than yourself. In Great Falls, it’s mostly bartering.” The agent laughed. “Well, that’s not strictly true. Also gold. That’s what the porter on the train pays me. For the water. And I use it to pay my crew.”

“Good.” I fished from my pocket an Austrian 100 Coronas gold coin. “Will this cover it?”

The agent picked up the coin, weighted it in his hand, and placed it back on the desk. “More than enough. The problem is, the porters on the train will refuse to allow you on. This came up last year when one of my employees, who won big in our lottery, wanted to take a vacation. The porter turned her down flat. No reason given. I suspect they have no use for us simple country folk in the big cities.”

That was unfortunate. I asked if there were other options for travel.

“Not so quick, my friend,” he said. “You see, I have a dilemma. Providing a ticket is, indeed, part of my job. I can sell you a ticket, even print one up, but, when it comes to getting you aboard….”

He looked down at the surface of his desk, lost in thought. He lifted his head and looked at me with a mischievous smile.

“Sir?” the agent asked, his eyes roving over me. I can’t imagine I was much to look at, unshaven, unkempt, and dressed in a threadbare ensemble that could only technically be called clothes. “How intrepid a man are you?”

###

Nora was her name, and she had been talking nonstop for almost an hour as we waited under the dripping water tower, a cool, sheltered place, where the puddles in the sand never got larger, evaporating at the same rate as the water droplets fell.

She was maybe thirty, but wore her dusty gray coveralls as a child might, fussing with the zippered pockets, rolling her sleeves up and down, never quite satisfied, and at least once every five minutes she’d undo the buttons at her throat to pull out the old style pocket watch she wore around her neck on a length of twine.

She explained how she worked for the station agent with her brother, and two teenage boys who were cousins of hers. She made it quite clear to me, “we’re all related here in Great Falls, and there’s probably a joke in there somewhere that could place us in a poor light, but facts are facts.” In detail she told how they would use sledgehammers—“me, I’ve got some muscles under this outfit”—giant chisels, and a two-man crosscut saw—“the old misery whip”—to collect ice from the glacier and bring it to town on a two-horse cart.

“You’d think all that would be the worst of the job,” Nora said. “But getting those chunks of ice, none smaller than a dog, up there….” She pointed to the tower overhead. “Well, that’s when you’ll hear me cursing up a storm. Back before the Changes, I was the fleet manager at a car dealership along the interstate. Both of course gone—business and highway. Just gone! You’d not have recognized me. I wore pantsuits. Ha! And now you look just like me,” Nora laughed, pointing my way. I had been given a similar gray coverall.

“When that maglev rolls in, we need to look sharp. Don’t be standing mouth agape—‘cause it is a sight, no lie—it’ll come in fast and quiet, it makes a sound like a hundred people whispering. And it’ll come to a stop there, where the shadow ends. There’s a little hatch we open on the side of the train. It’s the coolant monitoring station. No one’s ever in there. I’ll snake the water hose inside, snap the coupling into place, open the valve, and let gravity do the rest. Goes real fast. The train has some sort of suction device, like a thirsty kid sucking on a straw. When it’s had its fill, it starts beeping at me. Then I shut off the valve, uncouple the hose, and close the hatch. Guess that sets off some sort of sensor, ‘cause the train just takes off. But today, if we play our cards right, there’ll be a passenger getting on at Great Falls station. Until then, your job is simple. You don’t have to do anything. Just keep out of my way. You’ll stand behind me, holding your clipboard. You’ll look like my boss. Ha! You’ve been promoted!”

When the train zoomed into sight, it all happened like Nora said. I wasn’t prepared for how impressive the whole thing was. It was segmented into cars like a traditional train, but the engine and the rest of the cars were tall and thin, appearing unstable, but it never swayed an inch, not side to side, not up and down. It floated, levitated, about six inches above the tracks, and when it slid to a halt, it just sat there, on some invisible shelf.

“You heard the whispering, right?” Nora said, as she hefted the coil of canvas hose, just like firefighters use, and dragged it to the train. “Creepy, but, you know, weirdly funny. I like to think it’s all those rich people on the train nattering away about pedicures and Bananas Foster.”

“So,” I asked, looking down the sleek silver flank of the train. “How many people are on these trains?”

“If you were standing further back, you could count the cars.” Nora stopped and shot me a glance. “Pretend to look at the clipboard. You’ve supervising me, remember? They might be looking down at us through the windows. Anyway, there’s the engine, this one here.” She opened the hatch by pulling out a recessed lever and sliding the little door aside. It was maybe four feet by four. Nora slipped inside, pulling the hose behind her. She continued talking.

“There’ll be the engine, followed by seven cars. Always the same. One is for freight, supplies, whatever. No windows, so that’s what I think. One is the dining car—and it’s taller, with an observation deck on top. The rest of the cars are for the passenger cabins. I count faces at the windows sometimes. If I had to guess, I’d say you could fit fifty, maybe sixty.” There was a thud followed by a metallic click, and Nora stepped out. She walked over to the little shed at the base of one of the water tower’s legs, where the hose was kept, and turned a large metal wheel one full rotation. I watched the canvas hose go from limp to taut as it filled with water.

“So, I’ll be riding in that room?” I asked, pointing to the open hatch. “You sure no one will find me there?”

“That I do not know. But you’re resourceful, right? Or, as my boss said, intrepid.” Nora put her hands on her hips and smiled. “If some porter comes snooping around you can give him a judo chop, truss him up. Or maybe a bribe. Oh, I know! How about sweet seduction?”

“These trains use atomic energy?” I asked, changing the subject. “That true? Is it safe in there?”

“Probably no worse than standing next to a microwave,” Nora said with a shrug. “Hey, whatever happened to microwaves? You know, that’s what cheeses me off most about the damn Changes. I was never given any say in what stayed and what didn’t. I’m happy there are no guns any more. But no microwaves? Where’s the reason for that? I’ll tell you. None. No reason at all. You know what I miss more than anything else? Instant oatmeal cooked in a microwave oven. Told my mother that once. Saw it all flash across her face. You know. Oh, where did I do wrong? My baby will never land a man.”

A soft beeping noise emitted from the hatch, and, after turning the metal wheel back into the shut-off position, Nora climbed back inside the train. She released the hose, tossed it out, and stepped back onto the sand.

“Now it’s your turn,” she said.

She motioned me inside the hatch. I squeezed through. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. There was a dim orange glow coming from an electronic control console. The room was tall enough to stand up in but no bigger than a closet. Not too tight for the three-hour ride. Nora leaned in and handed me my rucksack.

“Here’s where I throw a monkey wrench—maybe—into your plans. I’m coming along as well.” She pulled herself in and slid the hatch closed behind her. Immediately the train accelerated, pushing the both of us off balance and onto the floor. Nora shrieked with laughter, but then caught her breath, untangled herself, and took a seat on the floor against the wall.

“It’ll take them a while to figure out where I disappeared to. But my brother will figure it out. He knows I’ve been itching to take the train to the city.”

It seemed I had become a spy.

Not that it had been my intention. I just sort of slid into it.

Maybe not a spy in the full sense of the word. I didn’t even know what real spies did. But it wasn’t like I’d be toppling governments, assassinating heads of state, or seducing diplomats.

All that was far removed from my life.

My life was ordinary.

As ordinary as the place where I went every Sunday morning, just before noon, to report on my activities of the past week.

The Omega Hotel in downtown San Antonio was what people used to call a transient hotel—maybe even a flophouse. I remembered they had those in the old movies I watched on TV when I was a little girl.

The Omega’s battered wooden door off the sidewalk was unmarked, but if you looked above it you would see the rusted sign no larger than a washcloth. The easiest way to find the Omega Hotel was to look for the Voyager 2 space probe embedded in the pavement of Soledad Street. It didn’t fall from the sky or anything. Just appeared there one day, during the Changes. Plucked from wherever it was, out beyond Pluto, and materialized in downtown San Antonio. I don’t know what makes if different from Voyager 1. And if you ask me, it seemed more likely it was some facsimile from the Smithsonian or wherever. But when the Changes were involved, “likely” was a relative term. I mean, things aren’t supposed to pop instantly from one place to another, regardless of whether that magical journey was two thousands miles or two billion miles.

So, once you located the space probe, there you were. When you stepped into the cramped entryway, there was nothing but a flight of squeaky stairs. At the top, on the other side of the swinging door, was the lobby of the Omega Hotel. My destination.

When I arrived, it was like any other Sunday morning. A bank of buzzing fluorescent lights illuminated the blue-green walls. It was almost cozy with several overstuffed sofas and armchairs. A few men could always be found there, dozing or flipping through outdated magazines. The residents of the place had come to expect me, and they barely lifted their heads in acknowledgment.

If my aunt Marta were to ever join me on my visits to the Omega Hotel—not that she had a clue about my life as a spy—she would scan the men snoring in the chairs and nod knowingly. “Nothing in this place but lechers and unshaven abuelitos,” would be her summation.

I sat in my usual chair in the alcove. Then I placed my wristwatch flat on the coffee table in front of me—this, however, was not my typical behavior, but today I needed to keep track of time.

As if on cue, Fran appeared from the hallway that led to his room. He liked to call the lobby his parlor. I guess it served as a more comfortable place to meet guests if you happened to live in a humble residential hotel with rooms that could barely accommodate a bed and a chair.

When he sat across the table from me, Fran’s eyes lingered a moment on my watch, but he didn’t say anything. Fran was in his forties. Thin, but with a big round face that was always smiling. He was younger, neater, and generally more personable than the other men who lived at the Omega. Clearly neither a lecher nor an unshaven abuelito.

Actually, Fran was practically family. I’d known the man all my life. I mean, he almost married Aunt Marta. And because, even before the Changes, my family had been reduced down to just two—me and Marta—that made “practically family” more important than some might think.

“You’re looking as radiant as always, Rosalinda,” he said.

I realized from how he leaned forward in his chair that he wanted to get straight to what he liked to call “the debriefing.” So I didn’t waste my words on small talk.

“Wednesday evening,” I said, knowing that was all he was interested in.

“That was a weird broadcast,” he said, nodding slowly.

He didn’t know the half of it. He wasn’t there. All poor Fran could go by was what he saw on the TV.

“So, what happened?” Fran removed a tiny notebook from his shirt pocket and pulled a pencil from where he kept it behind his ear. He sat back in his chair to await my report. “What really happened?” he added in a probing whisper.

He was playing it calm. But I knew he was anything but. His investment—me—was finally paying off.

You see, Fran got me my job as a lowly production assistant on Serpientes y Escaleras. Well, the official title was trainee. Someone he knew on the show pulled some strings. I had no idea who, but from the way Fran reacted to anything I told him about my daily activities at work, it was clear that this someone wasn’t sharing any information.

Fran considered himself a skeptic. True, he accepted the concept of the show—Serpientes y Escaleras—that somehow the dead had been brought back to life. The metaphysics didn’t trip him up. It was the why that activated his skepticism. Why had the dead returned? If you embraced the greater conceit of the show, the dead had been resurrected so that their past lives could be examined by the show’s cast of psychic actors. This did not sit well with Fran. He doubted something so important as the passing of moral judgement upon the dead would be given over to a TV game show.

What was really going on? Fran wanted to know.

My skepticism ran deeper. While the Changes had rewritten the definition of “impossible,” when it came to reading minds and raising the dead, I wanted strong evidence. True, I had gathered some information that hinted at such things, but if all of it was real, why was not at the top of my list. Mostly I wanted to know where. Where did those people—those people who had once been dead—go when they left the show?

“Okay,” I began. “You saw when the contestant screamed?” I knew Fran had. The entire town watched the show. And Wednesday night everyone saw something never seen before. A woman chosen from the audience just started to howl in pure terror. I was there in the studio and watched the crew scramble to cut the broadcast.

“Oh, I saw it,” Fran said. “The contestant was named Connie, right? She yelled like a gibbering banshee, and then she shouted out a few words. But those words were bleeped.”

“Yeah.” I leaned forward so Fran could hear my whisper. “She said, ‘I remember it now! I died!’ And we went straight to commercial.”

Fran’s eyes grew huge. He grinned.

“I knew it!” he hissed. “Clearly not a scripted moment.” He opened his notebook and scribbled a couple of lines. “And then what?”

“She ran off the set,” I said. “No one was prepared for that. Right out the door and into the hallway.”

“Go on.” He held his pencil at the ready.

“That’s it. I stayed in the studio. I mean, it’s my job.”

“But they brought her back.” Fran furrowed his brows and looked off into space in the general direction of a snoring abuelito slumped in an armchair. “I mean, after the commercial break, there she was.”

“Did you see her face?” I asked.

His eyes grew even larger.

“I did not.”

“That’s because they got someone else. A similar build. Matching outfit. But not her. Not Connie. They selected another woman from the audience.”

“Incredible,” he muttered as he wrote furiously. When he finished, he looked up, waiting for me to continue.

I shook my head and told him that was all I had.

He nodded and put his notebook back in his pocket.

I might be Fran’s spy, but I, too, had a need for answers—what Fran called my “deeply personal and secret agenda.” And because those were answers I could only get from the people on that TV show, we both knew I’d continue to snoop and gather information.

“You’re doing great work, Rosalinda,” he told me. “Just keep your head down, and your ears open.”

“Sure,” I told him.

“I noticed you’re keeping an eye on the time.” He pointed at my watch on the table. “And you’re dressed fancy for a Sunday. I know you’re not a church-goer. Got a date?”

Fancy? That was a stretch. I was in my normal work clothes. Khakis and a tan blazer that I tried to keep from getting too wrinkled.

“Someone called while I was still asleep,” I said. “Marta left me a note before she headed off to morning mass.”

I handed Fran the piece of paper with Marta’s curvy handwriting.

Rose, honey, your work called. They need you to report at noon. Today! Something about an emergency meeting.

“On a Sunday?” Fran sat up, excited. “That’s not normal.”

“No,” I said.

“Well, I can’t wait for our next debriefing! Now, you had better hurry off. And don’t forget. Head down—”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

Fran could be so single-minded.

###

Lionel used to laugh at me when I would put on a serious outfit, be it for school or work, and say how his little sister would never make a believable adult. I was doing my best to prove him wrong today as I walked quickly down St. Mary’s Street to La Vida Tower which rose from the heart of downtown San Antonio. I maintained my decorum, though I was breathing a bit heavy and I almost shrieked like a little girl when from out of nowhere a plastic bag flapped inches past my face like some spiteful bird.

When I pushed my way through the revolving doors on the ground floor, I checked my watch against the clock on the wall above the potted ficus tree.

On the elevator ride up, I flicked a bit of lint off my blazer, straightened my canvas shoulder bag, and reminded myself to stop slouching just as the doors opened on the 29th floor.

Why had I been summoned into work on Sunday? Were they firing me? Did they know about those “debriefings” at the Omega?

Miles was standing at a table behind his reception desk fussing with a coffee carafe.

“On the dot,” he said to me with a smile when I stepped from the elevator.

He looked so calm and in control with his dark blue jacket and tortoiseshell glasses. Now if only he would shave off that unfortunate attempt at a mustache, so sparse and wispy that it made him look like he was still in high school, though I believe he was about ten years older than me.

“What’s this all about?” I asked in a hushed tone.

“Special meeting. One of the Network executives has come out from Los Angeles to help us through this difficult time.”

“Los Angeles?” I hadn’t met anyone from, well, much of anywhere since the Changes. It seemed so odd to think that there was anything beyond San Antonio.

“You can take this and save me a trip,” he said handing me a tray filled with ceramic cups and the coffee carafe. He walked over and opened the double glass doors leading into the office suites behind his reception desk. “You’ll find them in the studio.”

Coffee? I had been called in to serve coffee?

Well, it was better than getting fired. And what better place for a spy than at an emergency meeting.

I hurried through the empty hallways. It seemed Sundays were quite a change from the chaotic bustle of the work week.

At the end of the dingy corridor I came to the heavy well-oiled door with the red sign: Studio, Enter Quietly. Luckily it was ajar and I was able to use my hip to push into the soundstage where five evenings a week we would broadcast Serpientes y Escaleras.

I stood a moment just inside the door, unmoving. I liked lurking in the shadows. Peaceful, intimate. Usually the place had every bulb in the overhead grid at high intensity. Colored lights strobing, applause sign flashing, music blaring, audience cheering.

Did they often have special meetings up here? On the weekends?

I noticed that a folding table had been set up in the center of the stage. A couple of the lights above had been turned on and they dropped dramatic pools of illumination down on the three people seated at the table.

A slim woman who I had never seen before sat at the head of the table giving serious scrutiny to some sheets of paper on a clipboard. She had on a tailored black pantsuit and wore her blond hair in a bob. Silverio Moreno sat in a comfortable slump, legs crossed at the knees. He stared off into the shadows. He wore a lavender paisley silk smoking jacket with black velvet lapels. Dr. Lydia Hetzel, who worked with the contestants, perched on the edge of her chair. She was a boney woman with perfect posture and even though it was Sunday, she wore her standard white lab coat and had her white hair up in a bun. I watched as she shifted her attention from Silverio to a shadowy form off in a corner. That’s when I realized Saligia Jones was sitting alone on a stool, arms and legs crossed, looking at the floor.

Were they waiting on me? Miles had said I was right on time.

I moved quickly in and slid the tray of coffee and cups into the center of the table.

The woman in the pantsuit snapped her head around in my direction. When she saw the coffee cups she immediately lost interest in me.

Silverio, however, smiled at me and pointed to a chair beside him.

I walked around the table and sat.

“She’s sitting,” the woman in the black pantsuit said. “Why is the coffee girl sitting?”

“Rose?” Dr. Hetzel said, noticing me for the first time. She raised an eyebrow and seemed as confused about my presence as was I.

The woman in the black pantsuit leaned further across the table than I thought was possible to better read my name tag.

“Trainee?” she said, bafflement edging toward anger. “Trainee? Well, who else is going to be popping in? Hair and makeup? Catering? So, who invited this child?”

I heard from behind me a creak. I assumed it was Saligia fidgeting on her stool.

Silverio pulled a manilla folder from inside his jacket. It seemed unlikely to me that a smoking jacket would have interior pockets that large, but Silverio Moreno was prone to the unlikely.

He placed it on the table. Rubber-stamped to the front was Property of Human Resources, the Network.

When he opened it up, he read aloud: “Rosalinda Aguilar.” He paused, looking up at me. “Meet Ida Mayfield, Vice President in charge of something or other, the Network.”

“Pleased to meet you,” I said, turning to the woman. I could see from her scowl that the feeling was not mutual.

“This is the reason I called Rose in today,” Silverio said, pulling a sheet of paper from the folder.

Silverio? Was he the one who spoke to Aunt Marta? She’d keel over if she knew that she had taken a message from the Silverio Moreno.

“Our Rose scored a 1200 on the Fitzroy Scale,” he continued. “That is amazing!” He turned and gave me a little bow. Then he addressed Dr. Hetzel. “You have everyone take these tests, Lydia—why didn’t you tell me about Rose and her amazing score?”

“I’ll admit it is an unprecedented score,” Dr. Hetzel said, not sure where she should look.

“And so what does that mean?” asked Ida, only mildly curious. But not me. I was very curious. I mean, to the best of my knowledge, I wasn’t particularly good at anything. “What might one do who has a score of 1200 points on the Fitzgibbon Quiz?”

“Fitzroy,” Dr. Hetzel corrected.

Ida Mayfield pivoted her entire body to face Dr. Hetzel. Clearly she was not used to being corrected.

I watched from the corner of my eye how Silverio’s lips were beginning to curve, ever so slightly. He found this all entertaining.

Before I could learn what the Fitzroy stuff was all about—I didn’t even remember taking the test—we were suddenly joined by another member of the production.

Michael entered our circle of light, somewhat out of breath, and placed a thick stack of papers on the table in front of Ida Mayfield.

“Michael Larkin, I’m guessing,” Ida said. “You’re late. And they speak so well of you. Please,” she pointed to the one empty chair. “We saved you a seat.”

Michael looked around the table and nodded to Silverio and Dr. Hetzel. When he saw me, his nod slipped a bit off axis. I thought he might say something, but Ida cleared her throat impatiently, so he took a seat.

Ida leaned forward a bit, in that predatory manner of hers, and poor Michael froze in her gaze.

“Yes,” Ida said after an uncomfortable interlude. “I remember you from the show.” Michael smiled. And then stopped smiling. Cautious. “I don’t tune in to your little TV show too often,” Ida continued. “Sy and Saligia, well, we’ve crossed paths before. But now I recognize your face, Mr. Larkin. You’re one of the show’s two mind readers, correct? Other than Saligia, that is. You’re bigger. On the TV, I mean.”

I could tell Silverio was having a hard time stifling a laugh.

“We call them Readers,” Dr. Hetzel said, but Ida wasn’t listening to her.

“So, Michael, bring us up to date on the incident,” Ida said. “You’ve put together a report I understand?”

Michael nodded and muttered, “Um, yes.” He looked across the table at the stack of papers he had placed beside Ida. They were not quite within his reach, so he was reduced to pointing.

“Ah.” Ida tilted her head down an inch. She slid Michael’s report closer and began slowly turning the pages.

The incident, that was why we were all here. Well, I still wasn’t sure why I was included. Incident. That was the word everyone kept using. I was here in this very studio Wednesday night. I saw when that terrified contestant suddenly dropped to her knees in front of the camera and screamed so loud that the sound man flung off his headphones in pain. Then, she (the contestant) leaped to her feet and ran past the cameras and out the door.

Beyond that, nothing but rumors. Rumors I did not share with Fran. Rumors of that distraught woman flinging herself out the window at the end of the hallway. Falling 29 stories. To her death. And to the best of my knowledge, death didn’t happen any more. Not since the Changes.

I watched Ida read. Watched and waited. I wanted to know what really happened to the contestant. I wanted to know a lot more. There were so many secrets about this show. Secrets that, for some reason, a trainee wasn’t allowed to know.

“Comprehensive,” Ida said, leafing through the pages. “But a bit dry. Let’s take a look at the video from Wednesday night’s show. I believe I handed off the tape I brought with me to one of your tech people.”

The sudden and awkward silence was broken by Silverio’s laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Ida demanded.

“The Changes left us her in San Antonio with some technical challenges,” Silverio explained. “We can send our show out to our local home audiences, and even out to you folks in LA. But, sadly, no recording. Live broadcast is all we can do.”

“I understand your limitations,” Ida said, with a thin smile. “That’s why I came with a recording of the show. The Network keeps archives of all the programming at the LA offices.” Ida looked around the room. “Didn’t someone gave the tape to your director?”

“That would be Hal,” Silverio said. “And I don’t think you fully understand our limitations.”

Saligia slipped off her stool and stepped into the circle of light. She faced the tech booth half way up the wall.

“Hal?” she called out. “Are you up there?”

I looked up to the glass window. I could make out the bluish face of Hal, lit by a video monitor. His hair in wilder disarray than usual.

“Indeed I am, Saligia,” answered Hal’s amplified voice.

Saligia smiled. “If you could, please, explain to Ms. Mayfield why you can’t play the tape she provided.”

“How does one explain the Changes?” I was fairly sure Hal had given his voice some assertive reverb. “The fact is, I haven’t seen a video deck capable of recording or playback since, well, October or November of 2020. Disappeared the same week as all my hunting rifles.” From his dim silhouette I saw him lift his hands in a shrug. “I’m surprised that you folks in LA still have that sort of gear.”

“As am I,” Silverio said, leaning toward Ida. “Why hasn’t the Network provided us with some recording decks?”

“Not my department,” Ida muttered. She looked down at the table and took a deep breath. “I forget how primitive you people are in these rural markets.” She turned to Silverio, lowering her voice. “And, if you ask me, that man up there’s been drinking.”

“I don’t judge,” Silverio said. “Not when we ask someone to come into work on his day off.”

“Dysfunction to the left and right,” Ida said.

“I should point out,” Michael said, “that our production staff moved swiftly in devising a plausible story when we came back from the commercial break.”

“A seven-minute commercial break,” Ida said. “But, you’re right. Pulling a replacement woman from the audience and dressing her in similar attire is to be commended. Quick thinking to have her facing away from the camera as she and that man were escorted through the doors. But, how did this happen?” Ida turned to Dr. Hetzel. “Don’t we have safeguards in place?”

Dr. Hetzel sighed. “It is the first time something like this happened. The truth is, until now no reincorporated contestant with severe mental issues has ever appeared in our arrival pods.”

“That you know of,” Ida said.

“Her’s were clearly deep repressed memories,” Dr. Hetzel said with a sad shake of her head.

Reincorporated contestant? Arrival pods? This was exactly the sort of information I wanted to learn. But I was getting too much too fast.

“Now,” Ida said, looking around the table. “What’s the story with this Reader who couldn’t meet with us? What’s her name, this mind-reading partner of Michael’s?”

“Bianca,” Dr. Hetzel said.

“It is my understanding that she was able to perform her duties quite fine Thursday and Friday. And now I’m to understand she’s taken a leave of absence?”

Dr. Hetzel nodded.

Ida looked at her clipboard. “Our surveys show this Bianca is very popular, particularly with the female viewers. And now we have to replace her?” She looked across at Dr. Hetzel. “All because of some sort of psychic bruising nonsense?”

“Even if we put aside Bianca’s deep emotional trauma,” Dr. Hetzel said, “there is a more pragmatic issue. Bianca’s fear of another incident has destroyed her trust in the process. She can no longer make herself receptive. And as such, she is useless as a Reader.”

“She seemed to comport herself well enough Thursday and Friday,” Ida said.

“Bianca was scared,” Saligia said. “She couldn’t connect and she was pretending.” Saligia sighed. “The poor woman was just acting.”

And there it was again. The jargon I didn’t think I was supposed to be hearing. Receptive. Psychic bruising.

One thing I hadn’t told Fran was that when Connie screamed, Bianca, the Reader, who was psychically connected to her, screamed as well. Screamed and then collapsed. Fran wouldn’t have seen, because Bianca wasn’t on camera at the time.

Could it all be real? Television wasn’t supposed to be real. Well, not television shows like this.

This was one of the important things I needed to know.

Fran wouldn’t approve, but I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut any longer.

“Wait a minute. You’re not suggesting that this psychic stuff is real?”

Ida snapped her head around to stare at me. I felt blood rushing to my face. Ida shifted her attention to Silverio.

“This distinguished neophyte of yours is greener than I had been led to believe. You’re putting her on air tomorrow night? Lord help us all!”

“What?” I gasped. “Tomorrow night?”

“Not to worry,” Dr. Hetzel said to me. “We have our standard orientation. We’ll just need to accelerate our normal schedule. Michael will help you along, isn’t that right?”

“Of course,” Michael said, though he appeared quite doubtful. And I could not ignore the patronizing edge to his voice.

I sat there, baffled and paralyzed as the meeting ended and people headed out of the room.

Everyone but me and Silverio. He was still in his cozy slump.

“What just happened?” I finally brought myself to ask.

“You are dazzled by good fortune, is what happened,” he told me. “Your brain will catch up soon enough. And don’t be nervous. Stage fright is a fairytale dreamt up by cowards.” He grinned. “You’re going to be wonderful!”

“On TV?”

“And best of all, Rosalinda Aguilar, Trainee,” he said, unpinning my name tag and throwing it into the shadows, “you’ve been promoted.”

He placed a lanyard around my neck from which dangled a more official ID that had my name, followed by the designation, Associate Producer.

“It comes with this,” he added, placing a key on the table in front of me. “A master key into every room of La Vida Tower.”

Was he serious? I held the key lightly, half expecting him to laugh and snatch it away.

“No secrets can hide from you any more,” Silverio whispered in my ear. And, after a pat on my shoulder, he left the studio.

Please, if you would, indulge me.

Close your eyes and imagine nothing. Nothing but darkness. Stillness and silence. Take a deep breath and just be in this moment of peace.

And then?

A glow from all around. But faint. Not bright enough to make out details. Could it be the cautious light at the very dawn of creation coming to warm the sky? Yes. I think so. And if you strain to listen, you can just hear a low tone. It sounds like a bow caressing a violin string—as soft and sly as a breeze that sends dandelion fluff to tumble across your cheek. That lovely note brings to mind a voice—a voice so close to human that you tilt your head in concentration just in case it turns into a word. And then the bow changes direction, plowing along the string with force. Light surges from everywhere. Yellow. Rich. Warm. The bow now dances—not too fast—from string to string. Music, languid and resonant. The entire world breathes in and out with this music, as bright light gently pulses from above and below, coloring in the details of the prairies, the jungles, the swelling curve of the ocean’s rolling surface. Look there! Clouds and birds…the entire natural world brought into being, just like that.

How can this glorious reality exist every second of every day and yet we dismiss it as commonplace? It is gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous, when we look at it closely: the mundane profundity of existence.

But, wait. The music. Did it falter? Was that a note in a different key? Has the rhythm changed? Then changed again? That fingering can’t be right. A squeal, a growl—not music at all. This yowling atonal racket is knotted and wadded and thrown down at the ground time and again. It fumbles and jitters like hiccups. Or uncontrollable sobbing. The music has degenerated into an unstable bestial cacophony as if some impassioned simian were orgasmically sawing away upon that delicate musical instrument with spasm after spasm after spasm.

You just want it to stop. Even if you found the initial novelty intriguing, it can no longer be endured. But it just keeps building. The din now edged far beyond madness.

Are you still with me?

Wonderful.

That was what the Changes were like.

A beautiful symphony ruined by a monkey copulating with a Stradivarius.

Of course, the tumultuous time of the Changes has ended. Might it return? I don’t know. But I made it through, mostly intact. And, if you’re reading this (my story), you did as well.

Congratulations!

By the way, please, call me Sy. Silverio Moreno is how I sign my business contracts. But, friends? They call me Sy. That’s been me since I was a boy. Sy, like “sigh,” what the girls and the boys were supposed to do when I approached. Especially the boys. Clutch a hand to a chest and sigh. You know, because I was so dreamy. Or so I wished. Though, in reality, the lads weren’t gasping at the sight of my chiseled jaw or boudoir eyes. This forced me to discover other ways to attract attention. Humor. Endearing eccentricities. Even outrageous behavior, if I took a particular shine to you.

Eventually I realized that the best way to get noticed was to come into your home five nights a week. Through your television set.

Brilliant, wouldn’t you agree?

I should add a point of clarification. This wasn’t narcissism—well, not simple narcissism. My main goal was to advance social progress. And to those who would consider the work of producing and appearing in a game show as an inauspicious vehicle with which to achieve such elevated goals, let me just say, you work with what you’ve been given. Besides, I had a plan. An audacious plan! And all a man with a plan really needed was a tall enough soapbox to climb upon, clear his throat, and begin to flex his visionary muscles.

Let me just say, in our post-apocalyptic world brought about by the Changes, human society could use as many visionaries as it could get.

Ah, the Changes.

What a time!

It lasted barely over a year, but what a thrill ride! Exciting. Well, exciting for those of us who enjoy thrill rides. Reality in constant flux!

People loved to talk about the big stuff. The Atlas Mountains inverting into a majestic canyon, or the Massive Marshmallow of Melbourne that vanished as inexplicably as it appeared…but not before smooshing oodles of Australians.

Personally, I favored those smaller episodes of weirdness. The quirky and not so tragic.

Take February 17, 2021. The day that never happened. Every location on Earth skipped from Tuesday to Thursday. Every location but the front bedroom of a small house in Fort Stockton, Texas. And ever since, it has lagged one day behind the rest of the world. For a six dollar admission fee, you could walk in and visit yesterday. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to see in that little room. Sure, you could look out the grimy window and see yesterday’s crowd of the curious standing in line to take a peek, but other than that…well, one day in Fort Stockton was much the same as another. Still, it was technically time travel.

At some point during all this unruly chaos, the insanity just stopped. Some of the impossibilities went away, while others, like that bedroom in Fort Stockton, stayed with us. Aluminum foil remains lighter than air. Carrots are blue. Orange juice is alcoholic. Stuff like that.

And then there’s the perplexing matter of the decreased population. The millions upon millions of human beings who just went away, never to return. But where to? In my rainbow and unicorn moments, I’d say to Cancun. But on darker days, I imagine some crowded and murky pit where the stone walls are licked by eternal hellfire.

But I’m veering off topic.

I was going to tell you a story. My story.

Let me begin with the city of San Antonio, Texas. That friendly city with the small town feel where I produced my very first game show. The year, 2025. We all had done our best to put the Changes behind us and were busying living our lives the best way we could.

I might have been a TV celebrity with a visionary plan—a secret visionary plan—but I still had a job to do. I wouldn’t remain relevant in show business if I wasn’t able to give my viewers the best entertainment possible.

No matter who you were—rich or poor—or where you lived in the city of San Antonio, at seven o’clock in the evening, Monday through Friday, I guarantee you were in front of a television screen for the full thirty minutes of Serpientes y Escaleras.

The most popular show on TV.

Sure, you could nitpick. “Sy,” you might say, “don’t you mean the only show on TV?” While technically true, the fact was, no one had to watch. They could read a book, schedule a ukulele lesson, any number of diversions. But they didn’t.

They tuned in to watch our contestants compete against one another.

You see, people needed something to rally around. Some shared communal experience. It’s what televisions does so well. Whether you were alone in a penthouse apartment with a massive home entertainment system, or sitting shoulder to shoulder in some seedy bar with a hushed crowd watching an antiquated RCA set held together with wire and packing tape, you were all the same, all one. The audience. My audience. I saw you, every weekday night. Well, in my mind’s eye, that is. I imagined an enormous wall of all your ghostly faces inclined, mouths agape, taking in the human drama of Serpientes y Escaleras.

We broadcasted it live from high atop La Vida Tower, the tallest building in town.

I mentioned a penthouse earlier. Well, I had one of those. The entire top floor of La Vida Tower was all mine. Directly beneath my penthouse, on the two floors below, were the production offices and studios for Serpientes y Escaleras.

My humble empire will be the setting to begin the story.

Now I need an opening scene to get the action rolling.

But what? So much has happened.

How about a tasty flashback? Who wouldn’t want to hear about the time I rode a wholly mammoth—bareback, mind you—through the Davis Mountains? Or, I could jump ahead in time and provide a sort of teaser. Like that space battle, or maybe my tussle with a cold-blooded serial killer, resurrected from the dead!

No. It’s best to build up to those things.

Ham.

Let’s begin with ham.

It was a late Saturday afternoon in my grand penthouse. Usually the weekend was a time for unwinding. Joviality. Pursuing hobbies between bouts of napping and snacking. But not this Saturday.

My entire production crew had suffered through an unusual and stressful week, and there was really no place in La Vida Tower one could escape the tension. I recalled the advice of a guru from my college years. I inhaled deeply, filling my lungs from the bottom up. Trying to realign the ol’ chakras.

Cooking also helped to relax me. So I busied myself in the kitchen. My penthouse was done in what interior designers liked to call an open plan, meaning there were no walls. The entire top floor of La Vida Tower spread out all around me. This allowed me to prepare dinner while keeping an eye on any unusual activity way over in the dining area.

On the night I begin my story, two women sat at the massive table. First, there was Saligia Jones. My dear Sal! She was the true star of Serpientes y Escaleras—the show’s hostess. Tonight, though, she sat stiff and awkward in her chair, her eyes focused on nothing at all. Across from her sat Ida Mayfield, who was busy scribbling notes in a large black binder. Ida was one of the more humorless of the Network’s executives. She had arrived late yesterday evening on that special train that was too special even for me. And, don’t forget, I had a penthouse.

But I’m getting off track.

Ham.

I pulled it from the oven and slid it on to a scarlet ceramic platter. Magnificent! The homey aroma wrapped around me like one of grandma Moreno’s Christmas sweaters. I placed all of the food on a rolling cart. I tried to remain upbeat as I steered the sumptuous dinner-for-three across the dense-piled ocher carpet, meandering around the casual clusters of overstuffed sofas.

Life would run much smoother without intrusions from the Network heads. Don’t get me wrong, I was a big boy who knew how to handle them. But Sal did not do well whenever they arrived in town, usually unannounced. Their meddlesome presence threw her into an agitated state.

And, dammit! Sal and I worked with the Network, not for them.

Of course Ida and her colleagues didn’t see things that way, which explained why Ida had seated herself at the head of my dining table. She didn’t even look up as I came to a stop alongside her. I carved three generous slices of ham and transferred them to her plate. Then I added some potatoes and roasted chayote squash. Ida’s pink lipstick and the matching nail polish did nothing to soften her features which, though not what one would call masculine, were nonetheless devoid of feminine warmth.

I continued along with the cart, pausing to place some food on both my plate and that of the still unresponsive Sal.

When I took a seat, I found myself fidgeting and wondering if there might be some plausible excuse to dart back to the kitchen.

The funny thing was, I considered myself to be the king of the uncomfortable silence. People were supposed to squirm around me. It was a wonderful tool to gain and then maintain the upper hand.

But Ida was not like other people.

She made even me nervous. Me, Silverio Moreno!

“I trust you had a pleasant journey, Ida,” was the opening sally of my small talk, I’m not proud to admit.

Her eyes rose to meet mine. She blinked like one of those pet shop lizards. It was only when she placed her glasses on her face that she seemed to regard me—and only grudgingly so—as a fellow sentient being.

“I thought you’d know me well enough by now, Sy, to realize I detest travel. Especially to these tedious backwater towns where everyone is gasping in the thin air of their cultural vacuum.”

“My dear Ida, your visits never last long enough for you to enjoy the subtle charm of our quaint town.” I chuckled softly, hoping to soften her mood. “I was once like yourself. Back before the Changes. Always on the move. Constantly gadding about. However, these days it seems I’ve become a provincial homebody like the rest of the citizens of the Alamo City.”

My congeniality was wasted. Her eyes remained trained on me, but her voice rose a bit in volume and timber.

“Things are out of control! What happened Wednesday night will have repercussions for some time to come.”

I sipped some sparkling water to allow Ida to take a couple of breaths before I spoke. “With the unpredictability of live television,” I began, “one should expect the occasional—”

“Don’t give me that crap. This wasn’t some act of God. You know we don’t allow mentally ill contestants on this show. You folks are not equipped. Besides, it’s awful for ratings.”

“Sometimes the grim and tragic make for the best television,” I explained. That sounded great! I love when an unrehearsed statement had the flavor of wisdom. When Ida failed to respond, I reminded her how popular our show was.

“It’s not hard to be the most popular show in town when you’re the only show in town,” she shot back.

“What I meant,” I said, trying to hide my frustration, “was elsewhere, as well. I mean, as I understand things, we’re quite popular even in Los Angeles. You told me that yourself.”

Ida blinked at me. Then she returned to her notes.

I looked over at Sal, ready to give (or maybe even receive?) some moral support. But she was just looking down at her plate of food.

Her shoulders were lifted just an inch higher than usual. No one else would have noticed, but I knew she was all clenched together inside, like a house on the bayou shuttered and readied to wait out the coming tropical storm.

Sal never changed. People said the same of me, but they were just being polite. I could see the erosion of the years grinding away almost every day when I looked in the mirror. However, time seemed not to touch Sal. Her face never wrinkled nor sagged. Her slender hands remained sure and strong, and the clear skin of her face held smooth and firm. True, she could be sullen, or wildly animated, but she almost always carried herself with an aristocratic bearing, as though under close scrutiny by a rapt audience.

Sal had the aloof and vaguely mature beauty of a perfume model.

But that facade didn’t always hold during times of high drama.

And we had just been through some drama indeed.

In fact, I saw her flinch when Ida abruptly slammed shut her binder.
“How did this happen?” she demanded. “Where in the vetting process did this slip through? Saligia?”

And there it was. The facade breaking. A twitching at the corner of Sal’s mouth.

“This talk makes my head feel so compressed,” Sal said in a raspy whisper. She hated confrontation, especially from the Network brass. With a pitiable moan she raised up both hands and held them a few inches out from her temples as if she wore an invisible fishbowl on her head. After dragging in a deep breath, she announced, “I’m going for air.”

She stood up, assembled a couple of sandwiches from some dinner rolls and ham, and then made her way to the ladder that led up to the deck on the roof.

I could hardly blame her. Besides, the show was my responsibility. Being the boss had its sobering and lonely moments. The last few days had been some of the heaviest I’ve experienced in some time.

The thing is, I was not by nature the leader type. In fact, I blundered into the whole TV empire thing by accident. That was why I needed to employ bravado or distraction when others simply used savvy.

Then there was the little matter of the Changes. It had shattered and scrambled the world. No one in San Antonio even knew what was out there beyond the wastelands surrounding us. There were no radio broadcasts, no Internet, and even though the only thing remotely resembling an intact government beyond this city was a television network that was kind enough to broadcast my humble offering of entertainment, the people working for that entity—the Network—were astonishingly stingy with sharing any useful information. You could ask them important questions all day long only to received stony silence—and that often was delivered with a patronizing expression of pity.

But, as I said, I was the captain of the good ship Serpientes y Escaleras, so I put on my best game face and prepared the defense of my team. I would remind Ida that we, citizens of this “tedious backwater town,” were expected to stumble, at times, if not given a comprehensive understanding of the rules of the game.

Ida was watching impassively as Sal’s slippered feet disappeared from sight at the top of the ladder, after which the hatch in the ceiling settled back flush with the masonry.

I was still mentally constructing my stirring speech, when Ida turned her attention back to me.

“There needs to be a full report on this incident by tomorrow afternoon,” she said. “And maybe your staff could display enough gumption to show their faces. I don’t care if it is the weekend.” Ida dropped a knob of butter on her potatoes. “I mean, good lord, Sy, we’re in damage control here!”

She leaned far over her plate, as if anticipating me to challenge her.

I nodded, deciding to give Ida the last word. At least for the moment.

Ida soon left for one of the suites the Network provided their executives down on the fifth floor of La Vida Tower. I cleared the table and did some washing up in the kitchen. With a quick adjustment to the master dimmer switch, I brought down the light to all the fixtures in the penthouse until they matched the ambient glow from the city out the windows. Afternoon had given way to a lovely sunset. I walked over to where my 500-gallon fish tank cast a rippling of turquoise light across the floor. Cleo, my blue-ringed octopus, drifted up to the glass as I used a delicate net to transfer from a smaller tank two frisky and fat shrimp and dropped them in with her. Cleo, however, ignored her tasty new companions. She seemed as listless and dispirited as I felt.

I grabbed a bottle of rum and a short highball glass and climbed up to the roof. If you think it takes skill to ascend a ladder with only one hand, you’d be right.

It was a cool night, and some stars glinted from between drifting scraps of low clouds. Scattered among the potted flowers and herbs were dozens of Sal’s little bamboo cages holding her menagerie of crickets. Their metallic chirps created a smooth wall of noise that never failed to sooth me.

I walked past Sal’s humble wooden hut—really little more than a pigeon coop. In her flimsy sanctuary she kept a cot, a desk, and some books. Over near the gas grill, I lowered myself into one of the redwood Adirondack chairs. I placed the bottle and glass on the wooden deck.

That was when I heard it. The familiar squeak of rusty hinges as Sal peered out from behind the door of her little wooden shack. Realizing that we were alone, she came over and sat in the chair beside me. Together we looked off into the distance as the gibbous moon began lifting over the horizon.

The situation seemed grim. But one thing had not changed. Sal and I were still the awesome duo of television visionaries that had set the airwaves afire! Our show gave people a firm rock on which to stand—a solid foundation after the unsettling and shifting sand we all fumbled through during the Changes.

My gift to all those in range of our broadcast tower: Serpientes y Escaleras! Five nights a week, fifty-two weeks a year.

What we gave to our audience was a sense of purpose. The Changes left so many feeling impotent, powerless. But we gave them hope—a sort of vicarious hope—through one lucky contestant who, each and every show, won a prize of unimaginable value.

We served a purpose. And, dammit, we weren’t going anywhere. That unpleasant tragedy which had brought Ida Mayfield sniffing around our home was no small thing. Of course not. But we were survivors, Sal and I.

I looked inward, to where I kept my resolve. I took a deep breath. Optimism is a muscle, of sorts. And, like any muscle, you dare not let it lie idle. I can imagine nothing more unattractive than flabby optimism.

“What happened to us, Sy?” Sal whispered. I turned to look at her face bathed in moonlight.

“Pardon?”

“People used to respect us,” she said, her lips hinting at but failing to make a smile. “There were even flashes of fear. But now, we’re so…domesticated.”

Silverio Moreno, domesticated? Sal knew me better than that.

“I have a plan, Sal,” I told her, waving my hand to chase away her unease of the Network visit. “Remember?” But even I could hear the uncertainty, the flabbiness in my words.

“I know,” she said. She looked down at the bottle of liquor beside me, the seal still unbroken. “Your plan.”

Optimism, I reminded myself. Optimism!

It was my job to lift Sal’s spirits. I couldn’t leave her hanging. The Electric Harangue, someone once had called my energetic pep talks. Or was it the Dynamic Diatribe?

Actually, in retrospect, neither descriptor sounded flattering.

No matter.

“The Plan,” I said with the old fire in my voice. “Yes, Sal. The Plan! It is so close I can feel its breath on my cheek. I have almost every piece needed to fully implement it. Don’t lose hope!”

But before I could dial up my haranguery to a hard boil, she interrupted. It was almost a whisper.

“It’s late, Sy. Go to bed.”

With that, she stood and retreated to her hut. Quietly she closed the plywood door, abandoning me to the pulsating night-song of the crickets.

Something began to build in me, shifting from my mind to my chest. My plan. It soon was burning as bright as the sun at noon—humming louder than a million crickets. And this (still not fully formed) plan of mine was going to happen in ways I could not even begin to fathom.

I didn’t know it was providence or pure ignorant chance that brought me to that place and that time, but it was obvious (certainly to me) that I had an obligation to become that agent of change that the world, still scrambled and broken, needed.

If you, dear reader, thought the time of the Changes flew far beyond the limits of comprehension, keep reading. Things are about to take off!

My optimism had returned. It was far from enfeebled or flabby. The surging vigor of my confidence could only be likened to the bunched-up and distended pectorals of an oiled bodybuilder. Arrogant, unapologetic, and thrillingly indecent.

Excelsior!: the Newsletter of the All-Seeing Eye Society
Vol. III; No. 9
September 1st, 2025

Welcome to the All-Seeing Eye Society!

We meet every Wednesday evening at 9pm in the Paisano Ballroom of the Piedmont Building, located at 112 E. Houston Street, San Antonio, Texas. You’ll find us in the basement.

During our last general meeting on August 27th, we had seven new visitors! Each one happily signed up for membership. Which, of course, comes with a subscription to Excelsior!

Allow me to make a personal request of those longtime card-carrying All-Seeing Eye Society members who we haven’t seen in a while: please come to the next meeting to help us guide these novitiates into the Light! Or, at least, attend the crucial quarterly meeting on September 24th.

So, let me just take this opportunity to say a few things to our newer members. More than just a welcome. A validation.

Greetings!

You’ve always known you’re different, correct? Those around you seem to simply accept the world the way it is—and by that, I mean the way it has become. Despite this vexing complacency of most other people, you refuse to sit idle. You’re different. Special.

In short, you are like us!

Welcome home!

It is, of course, the Changes that has brought us together.

No one needs the Changes described to them. We all have had our own experiences.

As for the meaning of the Changes…ah, that’s where so many disagree. Obviously, each new member of the All-Seeing Eye Society would like to know what the ASES believes in concerning the Changes—our agreed upon dogma.

If only it were that simple. But it isn’t.

We have discovered that it is most useful to give a basic rundown of what the ASES does NOT believe.

• The Changes DO NOT represent a form of divine retribution.
• We ARE NOT enchanted by some sort of shared hallucination.
• Prayer and sacrificed WILL NOT return the world to its previous state.
• There IS NO charismatic guru or “wise one” who has the answer.

However, it is hoped that by discussions and open inquiry we might, as a group, come to understand the underlying nature and meaning of the Changes.

So, the Changes.

That wondrous and terrible year when reality itself broke down.

Many people set the date that the Changes began as Saturday, July 17, 2020 when Yo-Yo Ma treated the world to Bach’s Cello Suite No. 5, in C Minor on Ricky Powell’s Variety Hour. Who doesn’t remember that ill-fated night when the famous musician, mid-performance, miraculously turned into a kangaroo?

Some say, a large wallaby.

What is not so generally known is that the Changes had been recorded months earlier at the Sudbury Observatory. The technicians working that day noted a “massive neutrino surge.” But as the general populous had little interest in neutrinos, nothing of consequence was made of the event.

A series of weird happenings were reported over the weeks that followed the “Sudbury Event,” but they were relegated to those tabloids only read by the more gullible.

It took Ricky Powell’s broadcast to get people to realize something was very very wrong.

Of course, from the beginning, various groups of people gathered in more private settings to talk about their unlikely and fantastical experiences.

Edible typewriters! Sentient walnuts! Invisible lederhosen! All seemingly appearing from nowhere.

Such marvels!

Our little group was formed during those chaotic times. We would gather to share stories of the amazing things we had seen during the previous week.

Although there is reason to dispute the exact date and time when the Changes truly began, there is no real dispute that by the morning of February 10th of 2022, the Changers were over.

So, from the “Sudbury Event” to the final cessation of all overt unnatural events and extraordinary behavior, that gave us, poor beleaguered humanity, roughly eighteen months of absurdity; a time of giddy excitement for some, and interminable and ceaseless calamity for others.

Crazy stuff happened all across San Antonio back then. A three-minute loss of gravity isolated to the football field of Harlandale High School during a well-attended game. The infestation of giant sloths in the mezzanine level of North Star Mall. The disappearance of the tallest building in town, which reappeared a few days later in a slightly modified architectural style. An outbreak of spontaneous human combustion along Alamo Street during the Battle of the Flowers Parade. Flying turtles nesting in the live oak trees of Brackenridge Park. All paintings in the McNay Museums’ Hamon Gallery suddenly found to be encased in a particularly ripe Gorgonzola cheese. Squirrels gifted with the power of speech, though their vocabulary was limited to profanity and indelicate slurs. The disappearance of the letter “P” from all street signs. And on and on.

Each of these wonders has been witnessed by the sober and level-headed members of the All-Seeing Eye Society.

And so, for the last three years, we of the ASES have struggled to comprehend a world that is now fundamentally different than the one we were born into.

True, many of the more extraordinary anomalies vanished for good once the Changes ended. Some, though, have decided to stay with us. For instance, only last week, I was informed by one of our more intrepid members who had journeyed far beyond the blight of the Great Expanse, that there exists a swampy oasis where those adorable flying turtles can still be found. How nice to know! I’ve missed those majestic and whimsical creatures.

And, of course, there are those things the Changes took from us—just eradicated from the world. Such as microwave ovens, wicker furniture, Siamese cats, stenographers, genital warts, differential calculus, and so on.

It’s a mixed bag. Like the subjectivity of art, one cannot always predict who will enjoy or despise specific elements of this post-Changes world.

However, I’m fairly certain most of us are charmed when we encounter, even today, our proud seven-fingered postal employees, musical tulips, floating swimming pools, or anything in the color slurkle.

Whether these weird attributes of our fair town are to be found elsewhere around the globe, that remains a question we’re still trying to unravel. We are currently quite isolated from the rest of the world. Other cities exist. Apparently. The train which stops at the station downtown comes from New Orleans—we are told—and continues westward to Los Angeles. Unfortunately, we humble citizens of San Antonio, Texas are not allowed passage. Just another irksome challenge for our ASES researchers in the struggle to make sense of this world.

So, please, members of the ASES, be you new or old, keep showing up on Wednesday nights to add your insights and experiences as we all continue this fascinating inquiry. Our meeting room in the basement of the Piedmont Building is maintained as a safe space to foster meaningful fellowship amongst like-minded souls.

Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mentioned that we still need people to volunteer to provide snacks for our upcoming meetings in October (if you are interested, please alert Ms. Maribel V., our volunteer supervisor). And, of course, mark your calendars for our big meeting on Wednesday, September 24th, when we’ll open up the nomination for a new slate of officers to run for the December elections. Don’t forget to show up early for coffee and pastries!

Francis K., Membership Coordinator
All-Seeing Eye Society

A murky ambient composition I created with the Digitakt, 100music Blackbox, Hologram Microcosm, Korg MS-20 mini, and the Soma Lyra 8. Effects pedals/devices used were the Zoom MS-70CDR, Korg NTS-1, and the Pro Co RAT2. All samples used in the DT and BB were acquired by a Zoom H4n. (I particularly like the cow I recorded on an aspen-shaded mountain in Colorado who has been sequenced to sing along with the MS-20 in a short passage.) DAWless performance recorded on the Zoom L8. Additional mixing and final mastering on Ableton. The audio-reactive visuals were generated in real time via Resolume Arena which I programed so as to mangle a random series photos I shot.