Maggie's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

The visitor sat in the glass bubble chair and looked up, but Maggie could see he was not really looking. His eyes moved across the ceiling and did not catch. His jaw was tight. His hands gripped the arms of the chair like it might tip. The room was showing him everything, and none of it was landing. Maggie pushed herself up from the floor. If she could not quiet whatever was running behind his eyes, the lounge would keep sliding past him. He would leave the same man who walked in. She crossed to the couch near the chair and lowered herself onto it. The couch shifted under her, its surface moving in slow orange and pink folds, more liquid than cushion. She sat sideways so she faced him. "What's the noise in your head right now," she said. "Tell me one thing." He blinked. His mouth opened, closed. "Rent," he said. "I lost my job Tuesday. I came in here because the door was open. I thought it was a bar." His voice cracked on the last word. He looked down at his knees. The ceiling kept moving above him. He did not see it. Maggie nodded. She did not tell him it would be fine. She reached toward the river along the wall and lifted her hand, palm up. A thin ribbon of color peeled from the current, amber and turquoise braided together, and drifted across the room. It settled in her open hand and pooled there, warm, weightless. She held it out to him. "Put your worry in this," she said. "Just for a minute. You can take it back when you leave." He stared at her. The gray had climbed past her wrist now, dull against the living color in her palm. He reached out. His fingers touched the ribbon. It brightened where he touched it, then dimmed, then brightened again, matching something inside him she could not see. His shoulders came down. His grip on the chair loosened. He let out a breath he had been holding since Tuesday. He looked up. This time his eyes caught. The ceiling rolled green into pink into gold, and he tracked it. His mouth opened a little. "Oh," he said. That was all. He watched the shapes move for a long time. Maggie set the ribbon of color back into the river and it rejoined the current. The lamp behind her pulsed once, steady. She had him. He was seeing. But the ribbon in the river was still glowing brighter than the rest, holding what he had given it, and she did not yet know what would happen when he asked for it back.