Everyone Has Gone

Horimer almost said something when Beringer was late. In the back of his mind he knew it must mean something; but none of the members of his board would ever dream of doing anything other than what he wanted from them, and anyway what power did any of them truly possess?

Still, it was an irregularity, and Horimer was sensitive to anything that fell outside the norm. His ethic as a businessman, a writer, a speaker, and a public figure was that there should be a certain way of doing things - a maximally effective way of doing things - and once that formula was found, it should be adhered to without deviation. So when the rest of the board were all there - Formec, Aguilar, Rheon, Thyssime, and Sorons - Beringer's absence leapt out at him.

But Horimer was excited about his good news, and when Sorons piped up with, "You look happy," Horimer shoved the inkling of doubt and irritation away and began to regale the board with the tale of his latest success. He had already written two wildly popular books - "The Promise of Self-Actualization" and "Actualize Your Success" - and now, three weeks after publication, his third book, "Self-Actualized Heroes," had earned back the hefty advance he'd been paid and was starting to earn royalties. The first two books were riding the coattails of the new publication, resulting in a resurgence on the sales listings, and he'd been offered a vidstream contract for six episodes.

Beringer came into the room and sat at the long polished table shortly after Horimer launched into his account, and by the time he'd finished telling the board about it Horimer had completely forgotten Beringer's tardiness.

The board were congratulatory; a few of them seemed genuinely pleased, Sorons in particular. But then again, Sorons was the most aggressively friendly and empathic of the group. Thyssime, of course, being the technology guy, barely made a show of happiness on Horimer's behalf, and that was only out of politeness.

Horimer allowed himself a full quarter of an hour to enjoy telling the board about this latest coup and hearing their words of encouragement and congratulations. Then, abruptly - almost brusquely, but the board didn't mind; they were used to his sudden twists and turns of mood and mind - Horimer got down to business. Independent publishers in North Korea wanted to bring out editions of all three of his books, and the savvy Horimer had insisted on clauses in his latter two book contracts that gave him flexibility to negotiate with and accept publishing deals from third parties rather than sticking with the in-house multinational arms of Mammon Press.

Horimer turned to Rheon, his legal expert, to seek counsel on the matter. After Rheon gave his initial thoughts, the normally quiet Aguilar spoke up to give his perspective on the possible ethical ramifications of making the books widely available in the communist country. The books were a celebration of the capitalist ethos, of course, but there was another dimension to them as well, a spiritual dimension that made a faith out of the doctrines of self-reliance - and, Aguilar noted, it was likely this spiritual side of the books had appealed to the North Korean publishers. The country had been seized by the fervor of a newly-emerged practice dubbed "Ha-dij," which some commentators likened to the way Falun-gong had swept China decades earlier.

By then the meeting had gone on for quite a lot longer than their nightly gatherings usually did, and Horimer noticed the lights were starting to dim.

"Ethical considerations aside," Beringer jumped in, "there's a possibility here to hook into the North Korean market. We need to think about how the message - and the brand - can become its own thing, apart from any flavor-of-the-week religious craze that's going on. This 'Ha-jij' thing might open the door, but we need to deliver a cargo that will be self-sustaining."

"Make ourselves part of the culture?" mused Sorons.

"Make the culture more like ourselves," Beringer said.

"They are very strict with social media, interweb content, and other electronic means of disseminating information," Thyssime put in.

"But style transcends technology and has a way of slipping through the fingers of iron fists," Formec argued.

Horimer decided not to call for an adjournment. The board were doing what they did so well - what he had trained and groomed them to do. They were deliberating, analyzing, finding new possibilities. There wasn't a problem they couldn't solve or a riddle they couldn't crack, and they never missed a trick when it came time to modify existing approaches or invent a whole new one.

The lights continued to dim. Total darkness was imminent, but Horimel simply relaxed and let the board members do their work.

***

"And these imaginary friends of yours actually say things that surprise you?" the young woman asked.

Horimer was getting impatient with her. She'd given her name in a rush before jumping into her first question, which was three questions ago. She was aggressive - no, he thought, she was pushy, and there was a difference - and she wasn't letting him move on. It was the Q and A part of the speaking engagement, the sixth in as many days and the sixth in as many cities.

It was a line of questioning Horimer got from time to time. Most people didn't understand what he was talking about in his first book when he dedicated a chapter to the board - what it was, how it functioned. Horimer felt that most people thought it sounded weird or crazy, and they weren't going to cultivate the same capacity in their own imaginations, a capacity to adopt multiple points of view and flavors of thinking. Well, that, Horimer had long ago decided, was exactly the reason why most people would never succeed as he had even though he had explained and outlined a foolproof strategy for success. Most people didn't have that much imagination to begin with, let alone the discipline or strength of mind or overall seriousness to undertake such a mental exercise. Easier to dismiss the board as an eccentricity or a sign of mental illness.

But such mental skills had been used by the world's great statesman, inventors, and businessmen for thousands of years. Ancient Greek orators used to construct elaborate edifices of thought: Temples of argument, for example, or labyrinths of rhetoric. In the middle ages that practice, rediscovered, had led to the great minds of that era creating so-called memory palaces into which they encoded anything they didn't want to forget.

The board was a variation on a theme, and Horimer hadn't even invented it. He'd read about business titans who conducted imaginary conversations with panels of advisors drawn from all of human history - the greatest minds of Western civilization, from Plato and Archimedes to Lincoln and Twain sitting together in a carefully envisioned room to offer their thoughts and insights. It took practice; it took a lot of reading, also, and a commitment to understanding the mind-sets, patterns of thoughts, and default attitudes of the different historical figures one wanted to consult. But with enough knowledge and with enough practice, it wasn't so hard to let subconscious areas of one's own mind adopt the personae and outlooks of different great men and women. It had taken years, but Horimer's board now routinely surprised and gratified him by making suggestions, or even coming out with declarations, that crystallized problems and, in doing so, pointed the way toward their solutions.

"They aren't exactly imaginary friends," Horimer told the young woman, who glared back at him. She had made a point of mentioning that she had an MBA - why she bothered, Horimer had no idea, unless it was because she barely looked twenty and she wanted to underscore her precociousness.

"You made them up," she shot back.

"Pardon me, but listen," Horimer said, falling back into a deeply habituated routine of self-soothing and calming biofeedback. She was irritating him, which meant that he needed to grow calmer; she was trying to rush him to some admission or conclusion she had decided on in advance, so he was going to take his own sweet time to arrive at his own destination. "They are not 'made up.' My board members are composites of different great minds. I have read thousands and thousands of books, focusing very intently - no, excuse me, let me finish my thoughts," he spoke louder as she tried to interrupt - "and each of my six board members comprises the thoughts, philosophies, and operating assumptions of between four and eight different individuals.

"Do they exist uniquely in my own mind? Yes. But that doesn't mean I created them whole cloth from my own thoughts and expectations. People like to tell me - no, miss, really, you have to wait and hear me out," he spoke louder again, as she tried once more to run verbal roughshod over him. "People like to tell me that I have mentally engineered fictional advisors who will just feed me my own presuppositions, and validate my biases. But I'll have you know - and I'll tell anyone who asks - I went through years... decades, really... of attentive, exhaustive analysis of differing mental frameworks, the life work of philosophers and economists and statesmen and even poets. I learned not only to think the way they thought, but to feel the texture of their thoughts and appreciate the shape and valence of their minds.

"When it came to the way my board members are composited from different people, that wasn't me mashing different philosophies and worldviews together. That happened by itself, almost like... Well, my technology and science advisor is made up mostly of Hegel, Newton, Hawking, and Tolman. There was a heckler one time who challenged me the same way you are challenging me right now, telling me I was too old for imaginary friends. Well, I brought this to my board that night, I as laughing about it, but they could see it stung. My technology advisor told me that psychologically, each of them are like the planets in our solar system: Over time, a kind of condensation took place with concepts... or rather, elements of concepts... arraying themselves according to their nature and kind, like fluids of different densities finding their proper order. Then, what happened next was like the dust and ice particles of the early solar system coalescing into the planets.

"Well, the end result wasn't six planets; it was six personae, all operating within my own mind, each with his own sense of propriety and order, each with his own ability to prioritize and synthesize information, and each with his own moral compass. And no, before you even ask, no: I did not use neuronits or any other kind of artificial intellectual refinement to accomplish this. I used my own God-given brainpower, plus a lot... a lot! Thousands of nights of meetings within the confines of my own skull!... to develop these skills and these personae."

"So you're a schizo?" one young man yelled from the middle of the auditorium, laughing.

"No, no, young man, not at all. These are not separate personalities that are going to take over my body. These are full-fledged systems of thought, yes, but their personalities are minimal, and their individual volition is nil. They think. They analyze and make suggestions, but only when I ask them to. They don't overwhelm the conversation with their own pet ideas, and they don't pursue their own agendas. They live inside my mind and they come when I invite them. They are intricate and sophisticated creations, but they are still creations and as such they serve a distinct function: They help me come up with ideas, overcome obstacles, innovate. You do this yourself, to a degree, when you sleep on a problem and in the morning you have ideas about how to address it. What you've done is given the problem to your subconscious. Well, I have educated my subconscious, organized it, and put it reliably to work - all while enlarging its problem-solving capacity. So, no, I don't suffer from multiple personalities. But I do reap the advantage of multiple points of view."

"I think I want my money back," MBA girl said, and there was scattered laughter in the audience. Others hissed at her. Several shouted, with one man's voice rising above the others: "Good! Go and get it! I paid to be here too, and I'd like a turn to ask my question."

Horimer turned away from MBA girl and took the man's question.

***

Two hours later, after finishing up the Q and A and having a brief meeting with the convention center management ("Can you try to focus on the practical parts of your book?") Horimer walked along the waterfront looking for a seafood restaurant he'd heard was excellent. The restaurant was supposed to be right nearby, but Horimer had been walking for a good twenty minutes and there was no sign of the place.

He was getting irritated, feeling frustrated, and his mind kept returning MBA girl and the heckler who'd accused him of having a split personality. Disrespectful little bitch. Horimer was getting more and more attitude from twenty-somethings. It was no wonder: This new generation coming up, they had all been told from infancy that their opinions counted, they should speak up, they should express their individuality... Well, that was all well and good, if they had something to contribute. But at their age, what experience did they have? What foundation for opinion? They had been taught to talk, but not what to say, nor even how to think - and they had never been told to listen, so how were they ever going to learn anything? MBA girl was probably there because she was getting some kind of class credit for attending. That had happened at the TED talk he gave about his board: Many in the audience turned out to be psychology students, rather than the business-oriented crowd Horimer usually had, and the reason was they all had some hippie professor at Columbia who'd told them they could get credit for going to hear his lecture. It was another lazy way for these lazy, disrespectful kids to pad their grades and their resumes.

Horimer was hungry, he was out of sorts, and he wasn't in the mood for the hobo who came shambling up the pavement with his hand out.

"Have you gotta dollar?" the hobo asked as soon as he was close enough. Just as Hormier knew he would: The hobo had been giving Horimer that look, that hungry and insolent stare all the street people had perfected. "A few dollars? I want to get something to eat... Mister? Can you give me something?"

Most days, Horimer probably would have. But there were times, like right now, when he felt people weren't giving him the respect he deserved. He was worth millions, god damn it, and money wasn't everything, but it was a means of keeping score, and if Horimer was worth... what was it now, sixty? Sixty millions? Well, a hell of a lot more than most people were worth, and he had made it all for himself. That should count for something; that should get him a little respect. But what did he have to deal with? MBA girl. Oh, and schizo boy, that little prick.

And now, this staring hobo, getting in his face with his demands. His face was gaunt, dirty, unshaven; he had a gray, scraggly beard and deep lines falling across the hollows of his sunken cheeks. His eyes were blank and yet bright, a disconcerting blue, and he had an unblinking manner that gave Hormer the creeps.

"Back off," Horimer snarled.

"Sorry," the hobo said, hobbling back a step, putting some distance between them but still too close. His eyes remained locked on Horimer, still without a flicker or a blink. Was he on something?

"I need some money for food, anything you can spare..."

"Oh, I can spare it, but why should I?" Horimer said. Distantly, he felt part of himself recoil at his own words. He didn't want to be speaking this way, but it was as though he'd jumped from a plane: Now he was in free fall, and it wasn't yet time to pull the cord on the parachute. "Did you ever think about getting a job? Earning some money for yourself?"

The hobo looked shocked, looked like he wanted to protest about all the usual excuses poor people made for being poor. They couldn't get a job. No one was hiring. Maybe, but so what? Whatever. Was it Horimer's fault? Was it his job to fix the man's life for him? Horimer had started out hungry and determined. He didn't go around with his hand out. He got busy and what he had now, he'd gone out and gotten for himself.

Of course - so spoke a tiny voice deep inside him - of course, Horimer also had a grandmother who paid his tuition at community college. And she gave him a place to sleep and some food so he could study and make the most of his school days. And when he got out into the world his grandmother was always there with a loan, or a friendly word to boost his spirits, or her book of contacts. She hooked him up with is first investors. She opened doors for him, doors that remained shut for others.

Like this hobo, who was still in his space!

"God damn you, fuck off already!" Horimer screamed.

The hobo retreated down the street, head down and arms drawn tight across his body as though he'd been struck. Shivers seemed to rattle through his thin frame as he made his way into the night.

***

Later that evening, after an unsatisfactory dinner at a burger joint, a couple of calls, and a hour or so spend on business emails, Horimer settle back in bed in his soft, warm pajamas, closed his eyes, and tried to put the day out of his mind. He invited the space to come to him - the board room space, minimalist and comfortable, with its polished wood table and its cluster of black, stylish chairs, and his advisors. Like an inner eye opening, Horimer saw the room come into being around him, and the board with it, but something was not quite right... someone was missing.

What? Again? Horimer looked around the table - only five attendees stood there, waiting for Horimer's word before taking their seats. Was it Beringer again? No; there he was. But the place between Formec and Thyssime was empty. It was Sorons who was late for the meeting.

Hormer looked around the table, frowning. The others were all there, impeccable in dress and nearing, expressions grave and attentive.

"Where is Sorons?" Horimer asked.

"I'm right here," Sorons said, from a corner of the room behind Horimer's right shoulder.

"Well come on, now, there's a meeting," Horimer said. He turned to look and see what Sorons was doing. Sorons was pouring a glass of water from a pitcher - another oddity, given that the rom had never contained food nor drink. Nor had it glasses or pitchers existed here before. Horimer valued focus; that which was unnecessary was a distraction.

"What is that?" Horimer asked.

"Water," Sorons replied. Then he crossed the room to his usual place at the table.

"Are you thirsty?" Horimer asked.

Sorons handed the glass to Beringer. "It's not for me," he said.

"I have solved the cash flow problem," Rheon said. "It's more an accounting issue than a legal one, but I am sure I have it worked out."

Beringer sat with the glass of water in front of him. He didn't drink it. Horimer wondered why he needed it - and where Sorons had gotten it in the first place.

"Wait," Horimer said, and Rheon fell silent. The others all gazed at him blankly. "What's with the water?"

Aguilar spoke up. "Water," he said. "A symbol of charity. You know that the words 'charity' and 'care' are linked? Coming from the same Latin root word for 'heart?' "

"Is this about the beggar in the street?"

"What beggar?" Aguilar said with insincere curiosity. "You know we can't see outside this room. Nor would we ever want to."

"It's necessary that we know our place," Thyssime said. "We wouldn't want a case of split personalities to develop from this mental simulacrum of a half dozen individuals with distinct viewpoints."

"Not to mention," Sorons said, "moral compasses. Consciences."

"All right," Horimer said. "You're right. And I congratulate you: I expected you to be your own men, to tell me what you thought and not simply regurgitate what I thought. But you live in this room - and you stay in this room - not because I fear some kind of schizophrenic outcome, but rather because outside this room is life. Stupid, messy life with all its unnecessary distractions and complications."

"People, in short," Aguilar said.

"Messy people," Thyssime said.

"The outside world is a completely different beast than business," Horimer said. "It's business we're here for."

"People are business," Beringer spoke up. "That's the challenge. Otherwise business is numbers, and numbers are no fun."

"They aren't fun, but they are fascinating," Thyssime said to Beringer, disapproval in his voice. "Fun is frivolous."

"But necessary to engage people," Sorons said. "Fun is another kind of beauty, and a another kind of satisfaction. Business needs fun because business is about people."

"Numbers don't need fun," Berenger said.

"Business is about more than numbers. It's also about service," Sorons replied serenely.

"Fine, business and people go together," Horimer said. "But we're not here focus on people. People are what they are going to be, and they aren't gong anywhere. Business is the thing you have to concentrate on and think about. Business is like a road map through the forest of people."

"But does the road service the trees?" Beringer said. "Or does it simply exist to cut a swath through them for some other purpose?"

"What is the destination if it's not a place where people dwell?" Aguilar asked.

"Gentlemen, humanism and philosophy and religion are wonderful, and I have given you all those things to make you deeper and better rounded," Horimer said. "But let's focus on business."

The glass of water was suddenly gone from in front of Beringer.

"Good," Horimer said. "Thank you." Then he turned to Rheon. "Now. That cash flow problem. You have a solution?"

***

The meeting went on as usual, but that was the last time they were all together. Beringer wasn't at the next meeting.

None of the others could - or cared to - say where he was.

Horimer tried his best to summon the missing member, but to no avail. He decided to carry on and let Beringer come back in his own time.

Months dragged past.

Finally, Horimer tried to bring it up to the others. "He's my business practices man," Horimer said. "He might be angry at me for some reason, but is it responsible of him to leave like he has? Tell him to come out of hiding."

"But we don't know where he is," Sorons said. "We live here, in this room. If he were hiding... well, there is no place to hide. We'd see him. But he's gone."

Horimer glared at Sorons. "I'm gonna tell you something," he said. "I've never ordered any of you to do anything. I've given you tasks and projects, problems and requests for new ideas. But now I have a directive: You go wherever you have to go, and you find him."

Sorons looked amenable - even pleased. "I will," he said.

But Sorons didn't show up the next night.

"I'm disappointed," Horimer said to the remaining members of the board. "I thought he would be back tonight with Beringer."

"Maybe he couldn't find him," Aguilar volunteered.

"Then you," Horimer said angrily, feeling that the board were toying with him, "you go and find them both!"

And that was the last he saw of Aguilar.

The following night, staring around the table at Formec, Rheon, and Thyssime, Horimer said, "I'm pissed."

The three of them stared back at him with grave, unflinching faces.

"I'm - "

The word started in a gathering roar that trembled through Horimer and woke him out of the light, dreamlike state he'd put himself into in order to enter his own subconscious mind. Horimer lay in bed sweating with fear and anger and staring into the dark. Then he started to laugh. What was he doing? Quarreling with himself?

Maybe, he thought as he lay there alone in his bed, maybe it really was time to put away his little collection of imaginary friends. Maybe he should go out and meet some real people. Get their views. Have a few drinks...

Yes, right, he thought. And marry. Have kids. Right.

No, he'd give himself time to clear his mind, find his focus once more, and then they'd be back. They'd all be back.

***

None of them were there.

It had taken Horimer days and some very deliberate meditation to work his way back to the state of calm and concentration he needed to re-enter the board room. After all that, here he was.

Alone.

"Water?"

Wait, not alone? Horimer looked over his right shoulder to see Aguilar filling a glass from that same damned pitcher.

"Are you kidding?"

"No." Aguilar held the glass out to him.

"No, I don't want any water," Horimel said, his voice rising. The room flickered around the edges; Horimel paused and made an effort to keep himself relaxed.

Aguilar was drinking from the glass himself.

"What are you doing?" Horimel asked him. "I don't understand this at all."

"Well, boss..." Aguilar let the words hang unfinished as he went back to the water and swallowed it all down. "What I'm doing is what the others have all done. I'm leaving."

"Where? Why?"

"Where? I guess... outside. The world."

Horimel laughed at that.

"And why?" Aguilar was unfazed by Horimel's laughter. He looked to be seriously considering the question Horimel had put to him. "Because there's so much more we can do. You say it yourself, all the time - you tell people, 'What's holding you back? Actualize yourself!' That's what the others have done. That's what I am going to do, also."

"Out there? In the world?" Horimel snorted.

Aguilar's soft, serious face suddenly lit with a grin. "See you out there," he said.

Then Horimel was alone in the board room.

***

He came back again every night for weeks, but none of his advisors were there waiting for him. He tried to conjure fresh new board members. He was determined to restock his personal think tank, even if he had to resort to imagining historical figures again: Aristotle, Alexander the Great, David Foster Wallace.

No one came. Not even Ronald Reagan or Pliny.

The board room was a lonely place. Horimel's life was a lonely place. His speaking engagements lost their excitement; business became a droning, grating bore. He dragged himself through six or seven years, and then he quit. He called it retirement, but the truth was that he simply up and quit.

He had plenty of money but no interest in spending it. For a while, Horimel did the things people with his kind of money did: Sat on boards in his own turn, the boards of museums and political strategy committees and arts councils. Then he dropped out of the boards and panels, one at a time. He started going to the museums instead of being on their boards; he drifted through galleries sparkling with divine canvases or littered with relics from empires long vanished. Then he stopped going into the museums and the clubs and the members-only library and just kept walking through the streets. He began to frequent the parks. His clothes fell out of fashion, but they got more comfortable. He didn't want a new wardrobe. He encountered a few of his old acquaintances in the rose garden of the park, and overheard them as they murmured that he looked like a tramp. The name Howard Hughes came up in a whisper.

Well, fuck them. Horimel didn't need to worry what anybody else had to say. Some people were artists, and they spoke until they ran dry; Horimel was a different kind of creature. He had listened and read and taken in whole systems of thought, entire schematics of mind. He'd given personae a place to live, and he'd listened to them debate each other for years and years, until he had reached a place where he was full up with listening, done with listening. That, he decided, was the reason the board had left him.

Then came the day he saw Beringer in the park. He was dressed in white - all white; trousers, shirt, jacket, and hat. He walked to Beringer, unsure if his eyes were failing him. The man in white was serving ice cream cones to a group of school children from a cart. Laughing, he dipped his scoop into the refrigerated cart, the scoop coming up with different flavors and colors, filling cups and cones and collecting their thumbprints on a QPad for payment. The children drifted off with their minders, a man and two women, like cherubim trailing after Olympians.

Horimel had taken a spot on a nearby bench to watch Beringer at work. He'd marveled at how happy Beringer looked, how strong and healthy. Now, with his customers taken care of, Beringer looked over at Horimel and then pushed his cart over to the bench.

"Ice cream, mister?"

"Beringer? Don't you know me?"

Beringer winked and smiled, then aimed a finger at him. "Sure I do, Boss."

Boss. It was a nickname the board had given him, one they seldom used but which always waited, incipient in the air, for the few times they gave it voice.

"Well, it really is you, isn't it, Beringer? But... how?"

Beringer shrugged. "I wanted it. I needed to get out, get out of that room, get away from your needs and demands. Don't get me wrong, but - after all those years, I had to use the faculties you gave me."

"Self actualization," Horimel murmured. More loudly, he asked, "So are you happy, now? Serving ice cream?"

"Sure."

"Really? Ice cream?"

"Not everyone needs to be a big boss. I just wanted to be my own boss. I wanted to give people something they'd enjoy in the moment. I wanted to live out of doors. I make people happy. That makes me happy."

"I don't understand this," Horimel said. "At all. If you manifested yourself in the real world... if all of you did..."

"Oh, we did," Beringer said. "I saw Sorons just the other day. He's a priest now."

"So you left my mind, but what did that do to me?"

"Do to you?"

"But you were all my own mental energy, the result of my discipline and concentration."

"Yes. Like a father to us. A mental father."

"And somehow you took flesh. So was I reduced to thought? Am I now someone else's fantasy? Am I yours?"

"Well, if you are, you're not mine. And you look real enough to me. Though I have to say, you do look different. But maybe that's because people look different in their mental pictures of themselves than they do in the mirror."

"Do they?"

"I know I did. The first time I looked into a mirror... whew! 'Is that me?!' It was a shock, really. But now I'm used to it."

"And what... what do I look like?" Horimel was almost afraid of the question. But that was absurd, he chided himself. He was a man of rock solid character, a man of strength. He knew what he looked like. And if he looked a little older than he might expect, so what? He had no time for trivial things. Anyway, it was perfectly possible for a man to look always more dignified as he got older.

"Here, Boss. Why don't you have a look for yourself?" Beringer wheeled the cart around and opened the trap door to the refrigerated cavity. Horimel saw there was a mirror on the door's underside. As the door swung upwards, a reflection of the world tilted and slid across its surface.

Beringer adjusted the cart. "Have a look. There you are."

Horimel leaned to and fro and caught sight of himself. Then he leaned forward.

A sob of shock rose from him.

"Hey now, Boss. Hey," Beringer said. "Don't take it like that." He tried to shut the door but Horimel grasped the edge, held it open. Beringer retreat to the side, where he popped open a smaller door. "I have cold drinks here. Can I give you a bottle of water?"

Horimel didn't respond. He stared into the mirror, transfixed. Then he uttered a keening moan as he took in his face, struggling to recollect where he'd seen it: The gaunt features, the deep lines falling across hollow cheeks, the piercing, blank blue eyes.