A room is more than a space. 

A space is what you enter. 

A room is what you leave. 

A space, that’s where you place a sofa or a TV. 

A room, that’s where a TV comes alive and a sofa becomes comfort.

A space, that’s what contains your belongings. 

A room, that’s where you belong at your peaks and your depths. 

A space is a move away from becoming a “what’s next?” 

A room holds memories far beyond a lease. 

So, in these times, while streets empty and the world stumbles but remains on its feet

One line must remain uncrossed.  

Make room for the world, and the world won’t be lost. 

 

At first, he couldn’t tell if he was dreaming or not. Well, not even that was entirely true. It was true that he couldn’t tell if he was awake, but that was mostly due to contrasting sensations. Some hinted he was dreaming, while somewhere behind the veil of peacefulness something whispered it couldn’t last. Perhaps it was a nightmare.

Looking out the window of his girlfriend’s downtown apartment, he was set firmly in the realm of half-wake. It was a place he often enjoyed being but tonight half-wake felt too real. It made him uneasy.

The main fixture of the real combating the dreaminess lay directly below him on the sidewalk. It was a lone black umbrella at the door of the apartment complex, the owner shielded from his view. It had been there for quite some time, apparently its holder fumbling with the key pad. This wouldn’t normally have been much to concern himself with except for the small fact that it wasn’t raining.

The rest of the night wasn’t necessarily silent, but it did seem to be playing the soundtrack of a normal Sunday night. So normal in fact, if one closed their eyes, they might mistake it as white noise from a new age app. “Peaceful Urban Environment” is what it would be labeled and it would exist with all the trappings of this night, complete with a cat skittering along the alley, a car humming to a stop, and a drunk couple spiritedly arguing.  All the normalcy of city life as he knew it.

All was normal except the umbrella.

He didn’t remember when he’d woken to look out the window. He’d thought he needed to pee but he’d been sidetracked by the moonlight gliding through the curtains that billowed like a woman’s nightgown. He had always been astounded by how bright the night could sometimes be. How long had he been looking out upon the street? How long had it been until he noticed the umbrella? How long had it been there before he noticed it at all? He couldn’t remember. He had to go back to bed. He had work in the morning and his boss would have little patience for him being late again. It was probably just-

“Hey!”

It was a woman’s voice and it rose to meet him from down below. It startled him, and he immediately retreated from the window as if seeking cover after hearing a gunshot. He lay himself flat at the foot of the bed, his girlfriends feet nearly touching the side of his head.

He stayed there, silent and listening, only the clicking of the dishwasher two rooms away to hint at the passage of time. The world outside remained quiet too but he continued to hold his breath like a child home alone, awaiting a traveling salesman to move along to the next house. But just as the coast seemed to be clear, it came again.

“Hey you!”

He remained still but this time the woman’s voice persisted.

“I know you’re up there. On the fourth floor. I saw you!”

He cursed under his breath. He was on the fourth floor, but so were several other rooms. Maybe she wasn’t even talking to him. As quick as the thought had come he dismissed it. Of course she was talking to him. But was he willing to listen?

“Helloooo, I need some help out here!”

Finally he’d had enough. He lifted himself from the bed and looked out the window, seeking the woman. In no time he’d found her. She was exactly where he knew she’d be, staring up at him, her black umbrella tilted to the side.

She was Asian, that much was clear, but her age was harder to discern. Her face looked like a pool of water, swimming so that it never remained the same for too long. But a smile seemed to hold it together in consistency, cresting along her face like a pod of dolphins. Gone and back again. She made him more uneasy than the umbrella ever could have.

“What do you want?” he yelled down.

“What do I want?” she said, twirling the umbrella in her hands, “I would like to be let up, of course. I have business on your floor.”

“Do you live here?” he asked, not for the first time finding this all very suspicious.

“Do you?”

“That’s hardly your business. Now, do you live here?”

“Yes.”

“So then why do you need me to let you up?”

The woman’s smile faded for a second longer than usual, leaving only a blank face. It was back almost before he could register it, but he did. It was frightening. She seemed tiring of the back and forth. Perhaps she would move on, but somehow he knew this to be untrue.

“Would it make you feel better if I told you the name of someone in the apartment?”

“No”

“How’s your girlfriend? She sleeping well?”

He looked away from the woman for a moment. His girlfriend was fast asleep, peaceful as he’d seen her in quite some time. Maybe the most peaceful he’d seen her since she’d started her treatment. She was young so he’d hoped that it would be easier for her body to fight. The disease didn’t seem to care about her age though. It didn’t seem to care much about anything except for killing her. He hated it almost as much as he loved her. She looked so beautiful.

He looked back out the window, almost unaware that he was nodding.

“Now , can I come up?”

This time she said it in exasperation, as if he was just wasting her time. She seemed to have the time to waste, but she was bored of it.

“I—you still haven’t told me what you need”

He all of a sudden felt very tired, as if he had been for a long run and had finally sat down upon the couch after a shower. How much longer could he leave her outside?

“I have told you. I’d like to be buzzed up.”

“Yes, but you don’t live here-“

“I do”

“But then you must have the code.”

He could hardly keep his eyes open. He wanted to just get back in bed with his girlfriend, hold her tightly. Kiss her cheek just to hear her sigh as she always did when she was sleeping and he kissed her. It was the sound of safe and he wanted nothing more than to hear it now.

“You have the code. And you’re the only one up.”

Without realizing it, he was at the landline by the bedside table. He was still amazed that such things existed. It was perhaps his girlfriends favorite thing about the apartment. She loved it just like she loved records, old issues of the New Yorker, and Meg Ryan. She often told him that she’d been born in the wrong age. Or she was lost in time. He often told her he was happy she’d gotten lost here with him.

He dialed “732” and he heard the buzzer outside sound. He rushed to the window, forgetting his exhaustion. The woman was already gone and he heard the metallic click of the front door as it clicked shut.

What had he done?

He leapt from bed, nearly bumped into the side table as he always did, but avoided it with a stumble. He slid along the hallway wall, regained his balance, and then sprinted across the linoleum and to the door. He jiggled the deadbolt a couple times to reinforce that the door was indeed locked. On the sixth re-lock, there was a ding from the hallway. The elevator was opening onto the fourth floor.

Through the peephole he couldn’t see the elevator, but he could hear the doors creak open. There was soon the casual clicking of heels. He held his breath. Before he knew it, she had entered his view, her face nearly engulfing the frame. Her face was younger than he’d imagined it would look. Her eyes looked older. She smiled once again and waved with just her fingers as if she knew he were right behind the door. For a moment he was worried she would knock. He was worried she would ask to come in. More than anything, just like being buzzed up, he was worried he would let her.

But she didn’t knock. She turned from the door without a word and walked down the hall to another door, where he knew an old couple and their yippy corgi puppy named Milo lived. She placed her black umbrella in the hallway rack and grasped the door-handle. It opened with one pull and she walked in. However, before closing the door, she took one last look down the hall. He might’ve imagined the wink. Then the door closed.

In the morning, there were paramedics in the hall.

Mr. Martin, the man across the hall, had died.

When he asked how, the over-worked woman in scrubs answered hastily that it had been peaceful in his sleep. It was a heart-attack she’d said, not even trying to mask her annoyance.

Mrs. Martin was holding Milo. She was sobbing. Milo was yipping and shaking in her arms.

He wanted to tell someone about the woman. He felt uneasy about it; about his role in it all.

“C’mon hun, what is it?”

His girlfriend wrapped her arm around him, pulled him in for a kiss. She had energy today. It was a good day in that regard. He kissed her back.

“Nothing, let’s go get some coffee,” he said with a smile.

There was no black umbrella in the hallway rack so he was hardly sure there was anything to tell at all, even if he’d wanted to.

Alan had had too much to drink and he knew it. The gig had run later than he’d imagined, well past the nine o’clock ETA he’d given to his girlfriend. Normally, this wouldn’t have been a problem. Sharon, Alan’s girlfriend of two years, could be trusted to be fairly understanding and often found Alan’s fuck-ups oddly charming. With a smile that was equal parts meek and debonair, something he’d worked to perfect all his life, Alan would finish her off with a few pecks on the cheek. All was forgiven.

But tonight, Alan’s phone had died. His return would be unannounced and thus, unexpected. No time to soften the blow. He’d forgotten to charge his quickly dying hunk of plastic. He was convinced he was one of the last few people in the world to own a blackberry and now he was reaping the consequences.

He was the drummer for the locally famous “Train Wreckreation”. They’d had a house gig tonight, Alan’s least favorite gig besides birthday parties (of any age). At twenty six, Alan had felt too old for the house show as soon as he’d walked in. It was a number of things that led to this realization, not least of which were the Christmas lights strung from the ceiling which illuminated the blowup sex doll. This hung from a rope as the basement’s most elegant décor. The smell of mildew and beer did nothing to help.

Alan had attempted to drink enough beer to leave this feeling behind. However, no amount of beer could help him leave behind the nagging feeling that he might be too old to be in a floundering band. He knew his mom would agree.

The lights ahead of Alan were flickering as if they’d auditioned for the Michael Jackson Thiller video but hadn’t gotten the role. The parking lot blinked, highlighting a lone red 97 accord. Alan would’ve passed without a second thought but a motion from beside the car caught his eye. Turning to face the lot, Alan was struck by the strangest of scenes.

A man, crouched over a man-hole cover had shifted himself, whispering intently. Alan, startled by the unexpected presence, took a step back. He surveyed the scene, ready to flee if the man made any sudden movement. Alan even put a hand in his pocket, gripping his wallet tightly. He was prepared to pretend he had a gun, or knife at the very least.

But the man made no sudden move. In fact, he hardly moved at all, seeming wholly uninterested in Alan, if he even knew Alan was there. Instead, the man was transfixed with the puffs of steam emerging from the slotted metal cap at his feet. He let it hit his face, wriggle along his beard, before breathing it in deeply. He whispered the whole while.

In was the whispering that kept Alan frozen to his spot on the sidewalk. The man looked the part of the homeless, all the way from his tattered “Philadelphia Water Department” neon vest to his finger-less gloves. He had a stained Looney Tunes beanie, a water bottle slung to his back, and a funnel attached to the belt loop of his blackened blue jeans. All signs for Philly normality were there; the whispering should’ve been no more than icing on the cake.

But the whispering didn’t seem to ramble.

If anything, he seemed to be conversing with the steam, pausing to listen and taking its thought into account before adding his own. In Alan’s experience, you could often find people talking to others that weren’t there, but it was rare to see them listen.

Before he knew it, Alan was approaching the man. He wanted to be a part of this conversation between mist and man, and this curiosity superseded any danger that this might put him in. By all accounts, it was a stupid move, which he realized even as his legs brought him closer. It was a move in which, if Alan had read in a newspaper about a man who got stabbed by a homeless guy after approaching him at night, he would’ve tried to feel sympathy but would ultimately feel the man had gotten what was coming to him. Alan approached all the same, finally coming to a crouch opposite the man.

The whispering had stopped upon Alan’s approach, although the man did not look up. He now had his hands outstretched to the steam, as one might warm himself at a bonfire. Alan did the same.

They sat this way for a moment, unspeaking and unmoving. The steam puffed in the odd rhythm of a coughing chain smoker.

The man was the first to speak.

“Do you hear it too?”

His voice was gravely. He lifted his head slowly to look Alan in the eyes. Alan’s heart started beating like a rabbit’s. He had forgotten briefly about the danger of the moment. Now he remembered it all.

Alan did not run though. He locked eyes with the man who’s brown pupils seemed to crinkle within their hollow, veiny pockets.

“Hear what?”

“The whispers. If you listen, they speak.”

Alan continued to look at the man, gauging how much insanity seemed to lurk behind his eyes. To his surprise, they looked clear despite the strangeness. The man stopped twiddling with his beard and gave a nod towards the mist. Give it a try is what he seemed to say without speaking. So Alan did.

Leaning forward onto the balls of his feet, Alan turned his ear towards the steam and waited. And he waited and he waited . The night seemed to hold its breath, save the exhales of the sewer.

Then he heard it.

Like the first voices to break you subconscious from its morning dreams, they began to surface. At first they were undecipherable, unknowable, and foreign. Alan continued to listen, captivated.

“What are they saying?”

Alan looked at the homeless- looking man, but only saw him press his finger to his lips. Most of the finger was lost in the brambles of his beard.

The whispers continued to trickle out with the mist, as natural and calming as a babbling brook.

“Alann…”

Had he imagined it? Was he listening too intently. Was his mind playing tricks on him?

No, he heard it again, this time as if it were a choir heard from outside of the church.

“Alann…”

“Are you hear-“ began Alan, but he didn’t get a chance to finish.

Without noticing, the man had stood up. He was now draping the reflective “Philadelphia Water Department” vest over Alan’s shoulders.

“Take care, Alan,” said the man, though Alan did not remember sharing his name, “and remember, just because the mist whispers something, it doesn’t make it true.”

Alan would have asked him to clarify, but he was already whispering the words he was hearing hiss from below.

He didn’t, he couldn’t, he wouldn’t allow himself to miss anything important.

It was a miracle he got the email in the first place considering he rarely checked anyways.

Maybe it was the water trickling down his office window like shiny spiderwebs, but today Dan found the 17 unread emails a bit too much. Like the window, he wanted it washed clean. So he did just that. Starting with the obvious spam from Staples (oh how he regretted sharing his information with them by now), he then dredged his way though the countless work emails that did not relate to him in the slightest. He’d considered requesting to be removed from some of the group emails, ones regarding committees he did not belong to and events he did not plan on attending. But this forthrightness was not how Dan operated so he did nothing of the sort. Besides, he told himself during his sifting, he wasn’t even sure he knew who to contact despite his wishes.

He had to admit that he did feel significantly better as the number dwindled from fourteen, to five, and then finally to one. The final email he kept for a reason. Saint Gabriel’s Postal blinked in his inbox like a swiveling lighthouse.

It had been years since Dan had thought back on his college days and perhaps even longer since he had heard from his alma mater. They had contacted him in his early years out, asking if he was interested in pledging some money, or perhaps if he had any interest in attending the homecoming basketball game. Dan informed them as pleasantly as he could muster that since he had never attended a game during his tenure he would not be taking up as a fan in his late thirties. The young, college student on the other end would continue to press the issue.  Dan knew they only meant to enhance their commission, maybe upgrade from stale cliff-bars for a couple of days, but nonetheless, Dan felt inconvenienced so he took it out on them. If he recalled correctly, the last few calls had ended with curses masked with pleasantries and a prompt hang up. No wonder they no longer called.

Dan clicked on the email. It expanded to fill his computer screen.

Dear Daniel Toring,

                There is a package awaiting you at the Saint Gabriel’s Post Office. Tracking Number: 13629001. You have seven days (Until 10/19) to pick it up before it is placed in storage. Remember to have photo ID readily available upon pickup.

                We appreciate your cooperation and hope to see you soon!

                Thanks,

                Saint Gabriel’s Postal Staff

Dan fought down some anger at his full name being used in the email. He hardly let his mother call him by his full name, and the postal service certainly didn’t know him like that.

Once the initial anger had subsided, Dan was able to take a step back and contemplate the  email further.

It was a strange experience,reading the email, as though Dan were falling somehow. He felt off balance, despite his seated position .

Surely it was a mistake, one which a quick phone call would rectify. But as he reached for the phone, hand resting on the black lump of plastic, he stopped himself.

Saint Gabriel’s wasn’t much out of the way on his commute home. He, of course, had not strayed  from the shrubby pretentiousness of Saint Gabriel’s campus. Despite what his misgivings and lack of donations would imply, moving away would have meant moving on and somewhere deep down Dan had not been ready for that after graduation. If you had inquired about why he had taken a job so close to school, he would have told you that it was just the job he happened to attain but he also would have been lying. He had liked staying close to his familiar surroundings, and he had assumed his classmates would have done the same. They had not.  They had married, and they had grown, and they had forgotten. So Dan had played along with this charade.

But today he would go back.

He fumbled into his worn dress pants for his wallet. Dan pulled the sad excuse of leather out, letting it slap to the table like a fish on a hook. Rummaging through its folds finally revealed what he was looking for. A grotesque mirage stared back at him from the reflective plastic. What had once been a nineteen year old with a charming grin had been deformed by the wearing years. Now it looked up at him like a goblin, only his eyes bearing a semblance of recognition. But it was still an ID and probably would work.

Before he knew it, Dan was in the car headed for Saint Gabriel’s. It hadn’t taken much to get out of work early, just a few tried and true jokes with his perfunctory boss and he was off with nothing more than a wave. Now, in his beat to shit sedan, he watched the windshield wipers chase off rain droplets. He didn’t feel he was in any particular hurry, but he kept finding himself glancing up at the dash, surprised by its readings.

He made the drive in good time, blessed at having left work early enough to beat the traffic. He waited in a small line of cars at the university gate that separated them and the public parking lot, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel the whole while. Finally, he pulled up to a man in a vibrant red coat which Dan felt would have been far more suited for snow than rain. He flashed the guard his card and a grin. The gatekeeper, as Dan decided to refer to him (for that is how he would have described his occupation were he to ever be in this man’s shoes and red snow jacket) hardly had looked at the identification before waving him in. Security clearance to this parking lot seemed fairly low.

Dan pulled into an open parking spot, turned off the car, and jettisoning out of the sedan as quick as possible, the engine still making noise as he hit the door. The postal office was hidden behind several large bushes, a cause for many angry calls from faculty and staff alike but not so many that anything was ever done about it. Thankfully,Dan knew just the way; one of the perks of having attended Saint Gabriel.

He got to the door, preparing to enter. However, as he swung it open, immediately he began having feelings of regret. What was he doing here? Surely they would know he was not a student? He should just go.

But he had already committed to opening the door, so he simply entered sheepish and unsure.

“Can I help you?”

The burly man behind the counter hardly looked up from his work, which currently seemed to be overly applying packing tape to a brown package.

“Yeah,” said Dan, the words coming slow as if he were in a foreign restaurant making sure he used the appropriate inflection, “I guess I was wondering if I could pick up a package. It said you had it here.”

“Name,” said the man, putting on the finishing touches in a manner unbecoming of a finishing touch.

“Oh, Toring, sir”

“Otoring, otoring” he began to mumble under his breath, his hands thumbing through the smaller packages like files.

“Oh no, I’m sorry, it’s just Toring!”

Dan needed to get out of here before they realized he was an impostor.

The man looked up, his bald head and face teaming up for a collective furrow.

“Can you spell it, Mr. Toring?”

Dan could, so he did.

The man nodded and began flicking through the packages like the pages of riveting thriller once again. Eventually he realized it wasn’t in the smaller litany of packages and he receded to the back room, leaving Dan to his own musings and Alanis Morrisette’s “Ironic” which played from a dinky yellow radio in the corner, halfheartedly.

Finally, the man emerged with a package which he hefted into Dan’s arms. Dan, who had his ID prepared for inspection, was shocked by it’s weight. The man went back to his taping without another word. Dan was left to interpret that their business was through. He pocketed his goblin ID and left.

Later that night, butter knife in hand, Dan stared down at the package. He was nervous to open it.  Originally he had assumed their was just a mix-up. Maybe they had mistakenly mixed up Dan with a freshman named Dan Torace, or Teller perhaps. But no, he sat looking at his very name scribbled upon the package in familiar writing.

His mother’s writing.

She was fine last he’d heard, living out her retirement with his father  in a coastal town he always forgot the name of.  It had been a while since he’d gotten a care package from her, probably not since college, but he knew this was what sat before him. How it had been lost in transit all these years was baffling, and he wondered what would be inside. Brownies, perhaps a subway gift card, maybe even a note from his parents. It had been so long since he’d called her, hadn’t it? When was the last time?

He lowered the knife to the package but something stopped him. He was interested in what this time-traveling package had to offer, but he realized he had a phone call to make first , one that he hoped what not get lost in the wormhole this time.

“Why do you hurt?” the mind asked the body.

“I don’t hurt,” responded the body, “why do you ask?”

“I ask because I feel it is so. Why lie to me? I am only concerned”

“Strange,” said the body, “I feel fine and I’m not lying. I promise”

“Promises can be broken,” replied the mind

“So can minds, and so can bodies, but for now we are not.”

“For now?”

“Please rest,” said the body, “I am okay”

“Am I okay? What if it is me that is broken?” said the mind.

“Broken minds don’t ask if they are broken. You’re okay”

“How do you know?”

“Broken bones don’t ask if they are broken either. You’re probably just sprained”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’ll heal”

His life seemed a series of vignettes. It was a patch-work project, cobbled together by someone with the most sporadic of plans. Sometimes he wished to give the creator direction. Sometimes he wasn’t sure he could. But nonetheless, he wished every night in the comfort of a swirling bed. He wished because swimming in even the most beautiful of dreams eventually becomes tiring.

The chairs whine in protest, skittering along the tile floor. Air conditioner whirs, projector hums, dry erase markers squeak, and pencils tap.

The room sings of education, both missteps and triumphs. It serenades of assessments, adulation, advancement, and are-you-kidding-me’s. It yammers on about books, bravery, baffling remarks, and nothing broken but personal bests. A classroom of so many varying voices, all coming together for a purpose obscured but never lost.

The door creaks.

“Good morning, Mr. Jaromin.”

The quiet morning is over. The next song begins to play.