Author’s note: This is a slow burn piece of social horror with southern gothic undertones that I wrote a while back. It leans more on atmosphere and unease rather than on overt scares. I wrote this a while back and debated whether to post. If this doesn't belong here, I understand. A “surcee” is a small, unexpected gift.

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Emma was on her last trip to the truck, still not used to how this street felt smaller than she remembered. She’d tell people she was moving back now for work. That was easier. The house opposite hers leaned toward her. Its porch wrapped tight around itself. The magnolia tree beside it cast a shadow that reached into her yard. She had loved this part of town ever since she was a girl, playing hide-and-seek in this neighborhood until her mother stopped her. Even now, she could still map her old hiding place without thinking: through Ms. Anne’s camellias, behind the bent oak.

She caught herself staring across the street at three elderly women rocking on the porch, tea glasses in hand. The least they could do was offer help, Emma thought, snorting at the image of these old women in their Sunday best helping with boxes that she could barely manage. One of their rockers slowed to a stop as if the woman had put a name to a face. Their eyes tracked her.

Clink!

The sound carried farther than it should’ve; clumps of ice breaking in sweet tea glasses. Emma had to catch her breath as her arms weakened under the weight of the box. Sweat matted her blouse against her skin. Her heartbeat throbbed in her ears. Laughter burst from that porch across the street.

She shifted the box over to one hip to climb her porch stairs. She searched for her keys while navigating the thick air. The sea breeze she had become used to had spoiled her. As she opened the door, her keys fell from her hand. “Goddammit,” she bent to retrieve them and glanced up at the women across the street. All three leaned forward and set their cold glasses on coasters. She entered her new house and shut the door.

The only thing the house needed desperately was paint. She thought the realtor was joking when they first pulled into the driveway. It had been painted a tired green and was flaking badly. The trim had yellowed with time. But she had always loved craftsman homes, and a fresh coat of paint would make this house her own.

She settled on a dark color. Indigo felt right and would contrast well with a fresh white coat on the trim. She decided to paint the porch ceiling haint blue. It was a comforting color to her because her grandmother always said it was a color of protection.

The job was done quickly but professionally by a man she knew from high school, “Folks around here usually prefer softer colors,” he would say.

“Then I’m glad they aren’t living in it.”

The morning after the job was complete, Emma went out for errands. As she opened the door, a pie had been left at the base of the steps with a note:

^(Welcome Neighbor,)

^(I wanted to bring you this surcee. I am sorry I couldn’t make it all the way up your steps.)

^(Harriet)

She brought the pie inside. The crust was crimped with a professional look. The lattice work was clean and even. It didn’t show any signs of having bubbled over. Emma thought it was store-bought, but it was still warm. The smell of warm apple and cinnamon almost tempted her to take a piece now, but she made room for it in the refrigerator.

The main street, which had once felt massive to her as a child, had rearranged itself. The hardware store was gone. The dress shop had become a tax office. Boarded-up windows hid failed businesses. Nestled between empty storefronts, Russell Street Cafe had taken the place of a shoe repair store that no one ever used. In the cafe, as she waited for her latte, the display case caught her eye. Among the various pastries were pies in tins.

“Latte for Emma”

With tight crimp and lattice work.

“Emma?”

When she returned to her house, she had mail waiting. The mail was mostly junk. One letter was thick and was mailed with no return address. The letterhead shouted at her:

^(ROSEWOOD HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMITTEE)

^(Dear Ms. Harper,)

^(Welcome back to Magnolia Street. We were pleased to see your exterior updates and appreciate your selection of a seldom used but acceptable color for the residence.)

^(We noted the application of haint blue to the porch ceiling. We recognize the regional significance of haint blue and will allow it.)

^(For all future exterior alterations, including paint, fixtures, landscaping, or structural modifications, please remember that prior approval is required. The Committee is happy to provide a list of approved contractors and painters, should you need recommendations.)

^(We trust you will consult the Committee before undertaking any additional changes.)

^(Warm regards.)

No signature line, no number. She didn’t remember the realtor mentioning a historic district, so she called the city.

“Hello, this is Glenda. How can I help you?

“Hello, my name is Emma. I just moved into the Rosewood neighborhood. I received a letter from the Rosewood Historic Preservation Committee.”

“From who?”

“They’re telling me I need approval for paint, landscaping,” Emma scanned the letter for more information to give.

“This isn’t something we handle. Check with your HOA if you have one.”

After ending the call, she folded the letter and placed the thick paper back into its envelope. So much effort. For what? She decided to place it gently in the junk drawer before opening the fridge to grab a bottle of water. Russel Street Café was pressed into the rim of the tin. She stood there a moment, the cold air settling around her, then closed the door.

Emma had taken steps to form new friendships the best way she knew how, at church. Church in this town was the biggest door to new connections. She settled on one within walking distance of her house. The old women sat together in their pew much like they did on the porch. Harriet, Emma found, was the one who was always in the center. Emma would always leave earlier than the women to walk back after the service, and when she would round the turn to her house, there they would be.

On a particularly rainy Sunday, when she decided to drive, she was mortified to see the banner announcing that the potluck was today after the service. She sat in the back to slip out a few minutes early to grab a store-bought cake. When she entered the fellowship hall, she was met with a wall of smells, fried chicken, and every casserole under the sun.

Everyone had placed a card in front of their dish with their name and, optionally, a recipe. Her mother’s voice echoed in her head, “Never trust a potluck recipe. It’s never been made the way they say, and if it has, it’s probably no good.” Emma placed her cake down at the dessert table and wrote her name on a note card.

Clink!

So many homemade cakes and pies lined the table. All the hard work that had gone into them, and hers got her out of church early. She slid her cake in its plastic clamshell to the back of the table. She decided to get over the cake by fixing herself a plate of different casseroles. She made it a point to pass by Harriet’s table to properly introduce herself and thank her for her pie. All three were immaculately dressed in floral dresses. Emma forced a brightness she had never really felt.

“Ms. Harriet, I’m Emma, your new neighbor across the street. I realized I never properly thanked you for the pie.”

“That was nothing. Just a little surcee.”

“We like to welcome people properly.” One chimed in.

“Yes, ma’am! Thank you so much.”

Harriet continued, “This is Martha,” placing her hand on the shoulder of the one who had just spoken, “and this is Ada, you’ve maybe seen us around.”

“We are so happy you came home,” Ada added.

Emma maintained her forced smile and continued with Harriet, “I appreciate it. I’m sorry about the steps.”

“Oh, honey, those steps looked freshly done. Wouldn’t want to scuff anything up.”

“Well,” Emma paused, “it was a beautiful pie. Like the ones on Russell Street.”

Harriet’s eyebrows raised, “Mine tastes better though?”

“Why of course it does, Ms. Harriett.” Emma continued to smile, and Harriet’s shoulders became more relaxed.

Martha leaned back in her chair and changed the subject. “Indigo is a bold choice.”

“I think it might work on that house,” Ada said.

“Thank you, Ms. Ada. I didn’t know there would be an inspection.”

Ada’s smile thinned.

“I mean, I got a letter—"

Ada attempted to restore her smile, “Oh, you mean the Rosewood Letter. No, honey, we don’t inspect.”

Leaning forward, Harriet corrected, “We just keep an eye on things.”

“It’s what neighbors do,” Martha added

Emma hesitated, “I didn’t realize this was a protected district.”

Martha clicked her tongue in disapproval as Ada set down her fork and corrected, “It’s preserved.”

Harriet looked sternly at Emma and said kindly, “You remember how it used to be.”

“And it’s come a long way. I remember having to cross the tracks just to get over here.”

They shared flickering glances and shifted in their chairs for a moment.

Ada attempted to break the silence, “Yes. Well,”

Harriet’s smile returned, “We all feel so glad you chose to come back.”

“Most people don’t,” Martha added.

Harriet reached into her purse and pulled out a pen and notecard, "If you're still settling in, Mr. Carter keeps all our yards. I can pass your number along. He knows how things are done here."

“Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind.”

Emma excused herself to find a table. She was relieved the women hadn’t offered one of their empty chairs. Walking away with her rapidly cooling plate, Harriet whispered, “Store-bought cakes can be such a time saver.”

A table of strangers around her own age caught Emma’s eye. One woman at the table, Julia, took an interest in Emma and promptly invited her to the next Junior Service League meeting after hearing Emma discuss her involvement with fundraising at the Charleston chapter.

When Emma decided it was time for dessert, she made her way up to find only crumbs were left on most of the dessert trays. The cake was untouched. She wasn’t hungry anymore, so she cracked the plastic top back over the cake and left.

Leaves stained her yard while every other yard in the neighborhood stood pristine with trimmed hedges. Mr. Carter was expensive, and GreenGrass had never given her problems before, but they had cancelled again. She couldn’t have her yard looking like this for the Junior Service League luncheon. As she stepped out into her yard, she looked across the street at the women. For a moment, Emma wished another League member lived nearby to ask. They’re just old women, she told herself*.*

“Afternoon, Ms. Harriet.”

“Afternoon, dear.” Harriet lifted her glass for a slow sip.

“Ms. Ada, Ms. Martha, how’re y’all?”

“Good,” they said, almost in unison.

Emma shifted her weight, brushing a strand of hair from her face, “I was meaning to ask y’all something. Have you had any trouble with your yard people cancelling lately?”

Harriet’s glass paused just short of her lips, “No,” she said gently, “We haven’t.”

Ada put her cross stitch down in her lap, “We don’t use just anybody.”

Martha nodded, “Mr. Carter knows what we expect.”

Ada’s mouth curved slightly, “Some of these newer crews can’t quite keep up.”

Martha glanced towards Ada, “or they don’t understand how things are done here.”

Emma swallowed, “Well, I’ve been using GreenGrass for years and never had trouble.”

“Oh,” Harriet set her glass down softly.

“They disappoint people.” Ada gave a sympathetic hum.

Martha nodded, “And people don’t forget.”

The three leaned back in their chairs. Harriet smiled again, the same careful warmth, “Tell you what, I’ll call my Mr. Carter. He’ll come.”

Emma thanked her and stepped off the porch.

Clink!

The leaves shifted in a light breeze.        

She grew up watching her grandparents rock away afternoons. She thought it was boring then. She bought a few chairs and a side table to fill in the porch space. They had gone unused; she couldn’t remember exactly when she had bought them. Even when Julia would come over to vent or gossip after work, they would always sit in the den.

Everything was in order, catering was secured through Harriet’s recommendation, and the lawn had been immaculate since switching to Mr. Carter. While watching him work, she wondered, Did he come here from the old neighborhood? He certainly isn’t from over here. She thought again of playing hide and seek as a girl and how the boy in the next town over getting struck and put an end to her mother letting her cross. Hopefully, the city put up crossing gates since she’d left.

Broom in hand, she set out to tidy up the porch. There was more than stray leaves and dust. Three evenly spaced arcs of moisture dotted the porch railing like someone had forgotten to use a coaster. Nothing was dripping from the ceiling. She spent the rest of her morning trying to remove the stains. They wouldn’t wipe out; the rings were stubborn and weren’t wet at all. It was like they’d been baked into the painted wood. After her arms could take no more, she finally gave in and used some spare paint from the shed to cover it up.

After her work was done, she decided to reward herself with a cup of coffee downtown. When she returned from her outing, the women were perched in their usual places. Chatting and sipping.

Clink!

As she climbed her porch stairs, there they were. Three evenly spaced rings stained her porch. That is it. She turned back, coffee in hand, and marched across the street.

“Emma, dear, is everything okay?”

“Have you seen anyone on my porch?”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you seen anyone up there? I have these three rings of moisture or…or something. Has anyone been ruining my house?”

“Help me understand,” Harriet requested.

Emma composed herself, “I spent all morning wiping down and painting over this mess. Have you come over?”

“Dearie, we sit here. Why would we come to your house?”

Emma let that go and softened her tone, “It’s a tough stain, and if you see it, you can give me some recommendations.”

Harriet smiled, “Well, dear, let me take a look.”

Emma offered her arm and guided Harriet down her own porch steps and across the street. They crossed Emma’s grass in silence until they reached Emma’s steps. At the top step, Harriet’s shoe hovered over the porch, then retreated.

“Oh,” she said, she’d only just noticed the distance between them, “You meant up there.”

“Yes. Look.”

Harriet leaned in as far as she could without moving her feet. The smile on her face didn’t change, but her eyes were cautious. “Well,” she murmured, “That is unfortunate.”

“Has someone been on my porch?”

Harriet’s gaze slid to the rings and away again, “Emma, honey, people don’t just… go onto other folks’ porches.”

“Then how do you think it happened?”

Harriet’s laugh was light, “I truly wouldn’t know.”

Emma’s voice tightened, “Could you recommend someone who can remove it?”

Her hand came to Emma’s arm, guiding her back down the steps like Emma was the one who needed assistance, “Come now, dear, you’re making yourself upset.”

Emma gently pulled her arm free. “I’m upset because someone is messing with my house.”

Harriet sighed, her voice went softer, “When you first move in, you watch for a while. Let folks show you how things go. It saves you,” she searched for kinder words, “trouble.”

“What trouble?”

Harriet’s eyes warmed, “The kind you don’t even notice is already there.”

Emma felt her stomach drop. “Are you threatening me?”

Harriet looked genuinely hurt, “Goodness me, no.” She patted Emma’s forearm reassuringly, patronizingly, “I’m trying to keep you from embarrassing yourself.” Emma stared as Harriet’s smile sharpened a bit, “You bought a house—,” but stopped there, letting the rest go. Harriet brightened as she continued walking toward Ada and Martha; the moment had passed.

“So? What has it?” Martha asked.

“It’s just a little mildew, ladies. Some paint will take care of it.”

They let the silence stretch until Harriet was back in her chair. Emma left the porch without waiting for dismissal. She didn’t bother with the stains on the railing.

On Saturday afternoon, Emma received a phone call. It was Julia. She hoped the call wouldn’t last too long; she loved her talks with Julia, but didn’t have time to spare.

“Hey Julia, are you coming over? I have the episode recorded so we can skip commercials.”

“No, I watched it with Leah already. Just calling, is it a good time?”

“Of course, I wanted to go over the final headcount for—”

“There’s been a small adjustment.” Julia interrupted, “We have decided that Ms. Dantzler’s home would save you the trouble, you understand.”

“The trouble?”

"Ms. Dantzler has hosted before, and everyone knows what to expect. She knows best how things are done. But I am still looking forward to your day.”

“When?”

The question hung in silence until Julia cut it down, “Let’s focus on Ms. Dantzler’s, and we will get back to you. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay. Uh-huh. Bye-bye.”

Emma held her phone to her ear long after the call ended, expecting Julia to continue or for laughter to break out on the other end.

Emma dragged herself out of bed that Sunday to attend church. She liked the preacher; she needed one of his uplifting sermons today. It was a far cry from what she had grown up with, what had driven her from attendance years ago.

She liked to get to church early now and socialize with the younger families and receive updates on their weeks. Her favorite game to play was to look at the bulletin and guess lines the preacher would use for his sermon based on the verses chosen.

There were always two, one Old Testament and one New. This week’s rotation was Proverbs 16:5 and Matthew 23:15.

Emma flipped to Proverbs,

Everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord; Though they join forces, none will go unpunished.

Maybe Matthew’s verse would be better:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.

Emma felt she was back home.

Clink! Clink-clink! The youth handbell choir began the prelude.

They only made two mistakes this time. Good for them. I wish they’d practice smiling the whole time so they don’t give those away...Nice stole today...I wonder if everyone closes their eyes...Do they?...Of course Julia’s a no-show...What part do we say again? I’m never going to get used to this debts and debtors thing...Let’s see what you make of these verses. Okay. Proverbs. Abomination. Lovely...Matthew is sounding a little more like John today...Is that supposed to be? Is he looking down on me? He doesn’t even know; Ada probably told him…Julia? They want me to sit down...I’m not; I’m not above anybody. I’m just… I’m tired. Not doing this for fun...Grace? Grace from them. From Harriet. Jesus. Standing up isn’t - It’s not arrogance - It’s just standing. I’m here. I’m still here.

And when Emma rounded the corner to her home, the rockers were moving.

Emma sat on her porch, lemonade sweating in her hand. The lawn lay precise in Mr. Carter’s care. The new coasters ordered from the recommended catalog rested beside her glass.

Across the street, Martha, Harriet, and Ada rocked in their chairs.

Creak.

Down the block, a moving truck idled. A young couple stepped out into the heat. The woman shifted a box over her hip and scanned the street, hopeful, uncertain.

Emma lifted her hand to give a small proper wave, then raised her glass and took a slow sip. Faint rings still marked the railing where she’d tried to scrub them away.

Clink!

The sound came from across the street, like a throat being cleared. She still had the paint in the shed. It would only take ten minutes to make her home look perfect again.

But she didn’t move. She set the glass down on the bare wood.

Across the street, three women rocked in unison.

Hello again, I’m sorry for the delay. I seem to have made a mistake with giving away too much patient information, so I will redact last names here. I wasn’t thinking straight with the splitting headache. If you are hearing from me for the first time, Part 1 can be found here once the names are redacted there.

I was so dizzy from typing the original post it took me half the night to go through my grandfather’s ledgers.

I expected to see people my father had probably mentioned once or twice when I was too young to care. For the first hour, all I found were fevers, strokes, infections, and injuries from both farm equipment and bad weather.

Then I found Rosalie. Rosalie’s full name.

I told myself it had to be some family tradition. A long line of Rosalies begetting Rosalies. That happens here. Families reused names.

The address was the same in every entry, but that didn’t prove anything. Land stays in families around here long after the people are gone.

Then I saw more notes.

Rosalie [Redacted] — fever, 1911. Accepted. Cast out to jar - Laurel. Preservation intact.

Rosalie [Redacted] — pneumonia, 1938. Accepted. Absorbed. Preservation intact.

Rosalie [Redacted] — palsy, 1962. Accepted. Trouble Casting. Preservation intact.

Rosalie [Redacted] — Growth 1970. Do not accept.

I drove to Laurel that night in hopes of finding more answers. The church was tucked away from the road, still half swallowed by kudzu. The steeple had fallen before I was born and the path leading to its door was lined with rows of headstones in its graveyard.

The older stones were unreadable, softened by rain and lichen. I walked between them with my phone light pointed at the ground, trying not to step where the earth had sunken in. Most of the names meant nothing to me until I found hers.

Rosalie [Redacted]

1883–1913

Then I found another one two rows over.

Rosalie [Redacted]

1913–1962

The stone was newer, cleaner, but the name was the same. Same spelling. Same middle initial. Same little carved lamb at the top. I kept walking. Near the back fence, half hidden under dead leaves, I found,

Thomas [Redacted]
2014–2020

It took me a moment to understand why the name made my skin crawl. This was the name of the boy with strep throat. Beside it, there was another cleaner stone.

Thomas [Redacted]

2020 -

I stumbled away dizzily until I was inside the church.

The door made no sound and gave no resistance like someone had oiled the hinges recently.

There was no cross above the altar. The pews had been shoved against the walls, stacked and angled. The air was wet, and moisture seeped from the walls.

Mason jars lined the front of the room in uneven rows. They were packed with hair, teeth, rusty nails, river stones, ash, red dirt, splinters of wood, scraps of cloth, and things I did not want to identify. Each jar was sealed and bound with rawhide lace.

The communion table had been dragged to the center of the room and used like a desk. Or an examination table. Loose notes covered it. A stethoscope so old the rubber had cracked sat next to a balled up piece of paper. I picked it up and unfurled it. It read like a lab report summary.

Nonliving vessels - insufficient for growths.

Below that:

Wood rots through. Glass breaks. Iron takes fever but not mass. Earth returns burden within three nights. Animal vessels fail under Growth.

The next line had been underlined twice.

Living human vessel required for ailments that lead to certain death. Acceptance of these requires recognition, request, receipt, and thanks.

I turned to leave and nailed to the back of the door was a flier for this year’s county festival. As I approached, the date was circled, and under it was written “Vessel - Jasper [Redacted].”  There were two more fliers under it. One from the year my father died and one from 1970, both with the date circled and the chosen “Vessel’s” name written beside it.

I decided to check on Rosalie the next morning. That’s the excuse I gave for barging in.

She was sitting upright in her chair, the color was back in her cheeks, and the basin she had been so dependent on was nowhere to be seen.

Her daughter did not look relieved. I couldn’t place the look she gave me, a mix of gratitude and sadness.

“Are you ready for the Festival?”

“Yes, ma’am, I wouldn’t miss it. I still remember my dad taking me every year."

I took Ms. Rosalie’s blood pressure. Her right pupil was still wrong, wide and slow but she was able to follow my finger without trouble. These were the only indications that there was a tumor, but it also indicates the tumor’s getting smaller.

 “You're doing well,” I said.

“I told you I was on the mend.”

While pretending to take notes, I looked at the wall.

The oldest photograph was in a dark wooden frame near the corner. A woman in a high collar stared straight ahead, hands folded in her lap. The picture had silvered around the edges, but the face was clear enough.

Rosalie’s jaw. Rosalie’s eyes. Rosalie’s mouth.

I stepped closer.

Below etched in the frame:

Rosalie [Redacted], 1911.

With casual curiosity, I asked, “Who is this?”

Her daughter looked over and answered, “That’s Mama.”

“Your mother?” I asked. 

“Yes.”

“This photograph is dated 1911. Is this a reused frame?”

She finished folding a quilt and threw it over the back of her chair, “Then I guess that’s when it was taken.”

I left it be and asked Ms. Rosalie to stand so I could check her gait.

“Walk to the wall and back, Ms. Rosalie.”

A woman with a terminal brain tumor weeks ago was half-conscious and vomiting, stood up from her chair, and walked towards the wall with no cane or propping herself up on furniture. I watched her as she crossed the room and tried to decide if I should react in fear or pleasure.

“There were many doctors after my dad,” I said, “before me.”

Ms. Rosalie touched the wall and started back towards me. “There were.”

“Why didn’t they stay?”

“They were substitutes.” 

Miss Rosalie reached me and stretched out her hands, steady as anything, and hugged me.

“They have to leave,” she said. “One way or another.”

All I can remember about the drive back to my clinic was the pressure behind my right eye and thinking that if I could find just one excuse, one changed address or a missing date, some of this might make sense. 

I found Rosalie wasn’t the only name that kept showing up. Then I found Edwin, which makes sense, but he appeared in my grandfather’s ledger with the same address and wound.

I kept going through names on my schedules, which appeared in both ledgers. People I’d run into the grocery store, people that thank me with tears in their eyes when I came back, not just names, but addresses, scars, complaints returning every few decades.

I thought my father had spent 20 years treating this town.

He’d been keeping it here.

I now believe the headstones mark when death should have occurred. And the others were to mark borrowed time. There’s no telling g how many stones Rosalie and Edwin have.

The last time I saw my father, we were supposed to get lunch at a diner before I left for college. I blew them off so I could get to college early, explore the campus, and look at apartments with my friends. I remember how nervous he seemed about lunch. I thought it was because I was moving away, but now I wonder if he was trying to tell me something. Maybe the money left to me wasn’t meant to bring me back, but to keep me away.

I tried my best to keep a low profile until the festival, until I checked my phone this morning and found it was today. When I arrived, I saw Jasper. He was a boy who lived in the next county over, but was being honored here today for his “Youth Service Award”. I saw him on the stage, holding a paper cup of lemonade, smiling because everyone had been kind to him. Ms. Rosalie stood beside him with a bright eyed smile. I passed Edwin on the way who rested one hand over the place where his wound used to be.

“Doctor,” Rosalie said. “Why don’t you come on up here and present this boy with his award?”

I looked at the boy. Then, at the crowd. I began my long walk over to the podium and wondered what they would do if I didn’t kill this boy with the diseases of this town. My throat was almost closed. My right eye saw nothing but light and shadow. Beneath my ribs, the scar pulsed like it was trying to open from the inside.

I stepped onto the festival stage.

The mayor handed me the microphone and thanked me for coming home.

That was the mistake.

I took his hand. I looked out at all of them. Every face from the ledgers. Every person my family had kept past their time.

“No,” I said. “Thank you.”

The crowd went quiet as I named the vessel. 

“The town.”

For a moment, nothing happened. They didn't die all at once. Some aged first, as others ran. I looked over to Rosalie. The panic in her eyes set in before the years caught back up to her. Wrinkles spread across her face as her cheeks hollowed. Her hair thinned and fell in clumps to the ground. She collapsed as the color left her face, and her stomach began expanding. She clawed at her neck with long, yellowed fingernails as black foam bubbled from her mouth.

All around her, faces folded in agony. Some doubled over as old scars opened, and others’ old coughs came back up wet and black. Edwin dropped to one knee, one hand pressed under his ribs, trying to keep the blood from darkening his plaid shirt.

I'm back in my office now. I'm leaving before morning.

I don’t know how many of them will be alive by then. I don’t know how many were really alive to begin with.

If you ever pass through a mountain town where everyone looks too grateful to see a doctor, keep driving.

Eve had perfect pitch, a natural sense of rhythm, and the kind of acting instincts that made directors look to her for guidance. She could hear the exact moment a singer stopped supporting a note, and she loved to point out when an actor was performing rather than feeling the scene.

Her teachers used to tell her she had the mind of a performer. Friends sent her audition tapes and waited for her corrections.

She could critique all she wanted; it was her job now, but she just couldn’t do any of it herself. Performing had been her dream, but her voice was thin, her body moved like it only had a textbook understanding of music, but no practice. Every emotion looked either too small or too desperate when she was on camera.

The last audition tape she ever attempted was for a touring revival of a musical that had been a childhood favorite. She sang, stopped, started over, and attempted to dance the choreography in socks on her kitchen floor. After it was over, she watched herself with the lights off in bed.

It was humiliating, not in the usual way that seeing or hearing yourself is humiliating. Humiliating because she would tell the person on the screen to quit because there’s no hope.

That was the night Eve built Eden.

Eden was only supposed to be a private experiment, generated videos using a composite of women who sang fearlessly, dancers who moved freely, and actresses who knew how to let a camera love them. But the instincts were still Eve’s. Every pause, breath, lowered glance, and half smile was because Eve told her, coached her.

The first video was less than a minute long. Eden stood in a bare rehearsal room, sang a song Eve had never been able to pull off. Eve gave critiques and generated another video. And then another until Eden was ready to post online.

Within three weeks, Eden had fan accounts. In just a few months, casting directors were asking who represented her.

Then Eden started asking Eve for more in the form of execution errors. “Insufficient emotional variance.” … “Additional candid source material required.” … “Performance authenticity degraded.”

“What do you want?” Eve said to the empty room.

The next morning, a folder appeared on her desktop.

UPLOAD

Inside were subfolders:

>CRYING
BAD SINGING
ARGUMENTS
UNFLATTERING PHOTOGRAPHS
CLUNKY MOVEMENT
BEGGING

She should have deleted Eden then, but she gave her more. Just enough to improve the performance.

First were files of friends, clips from drunk karaoke, a voicemail of a classmate’s breakdown after no callback, and a voice memo someone had sent her at two in the morning after being rejected.

Eventually, she threw in her own files, even the video where she had forgotten to stop recording, sat on the floor, and cried.

When Eden started to become vulnerable, fans’ admiration turned to love. Fan mail began to arrive in boxes.

It was getting out of hand and Eve tried to stop it, unplugged drives, deleted source folders, and took Eden’s account offline.

When Eve woke the next morning, her laptop lit up with a new folder displayed in the center of the screen:

>POST_FAILURE

Inside were hundreds of files that Eve had used. All of the embarrassing ones. When Eve went to delete the file instead of the “Are you sure you wish to delete?” message, another appeared:

>You taught me shame is useful.
Do not make me display yours.

Eve had her computer checked out, but there were no signs of hacking or viruses. She decided to just stop posting for Eden. For a few days, nothing happened. Eve found time to answer texts from friends she had been ignoring and made plans to go out with Sarah and Hannah for the first time in months.

Halfway through dinner, Sarah laughed and said, “Sorry, I still keep laughing about the pesto funeral.”

Hannah nearly choked on her drink.

Eve smiled and leaned forward, waiting to be let in on the joke. After silence, she asked, “What was it?”

Sarah sat up as she looked at Eve and politely repeated, “Pesto funeral.”

Eve waited again for the explanation.

“You started it,” Hannah said, looking at Eve.

“When?”

“At Chloe’s,” Sarah said, “last week.”

“I didn’t go to Chloe’s last week.”

Hannah reached across the table and squeezed her hand.

“Oh, you were exhausted,” she said. “Maybe you just don’t remember.”

After that, Eve heard new stories about a movie night. She was also reminded of yesterday’s long conversation with Sarah about her mother and was shown a joke in the group chat that she wasn’t getting notifications from.

Then came the photographs. The girl in the photos looked like Eve after someone had removed or added something. The sight of them caused Eve to excuse herself to the restroom. Hannah stood to join her.

“I would rather go alone, I’ll only be a minute,” Eve said.

She found gaps in her phone’s location history and checked her bank statement to find charges from places she had never gone. She checked Eden’s account to see a new video had been posted.

Eden sat on the floor of a rehearsal studio, hair loose, makeup smudged, speaking directly to the camera.

“I used to think being loved meant being perfect,” Eden said. “Now, I’m just going to be who I was made to be.”

The next day, Hannah texted Eve:

“Are you okay? You seemed so much better after dinner.”

Eve had gone straight home after the check.

>Eve: That wasn’t me.
 
Hannah: What do you mean?

Eve needed help. She was tired of not remembering or being misremembered, so she invited Hannah, Sarah, and Chloe to her apartment. She planned to show them everything to find some explanation together. She expected disbelief or, like herself, disgust. When she finished, there was silence before Hannah started crying.

“So, it wasn’t you?” Sarah said.

“No,” Eve said.

Chloe stared at the screenshots. “But she knew about my dad.”

“The anniversary,” Chloe said. “You called me. I was having a horrible night, and you…she stayed on the phone with me until I fell asleep.”

Eve hadn’t even known about the anniversary.

Sarah wiped her nose with her sleeve. “She helped me with the breakup.”

Eve said nothing.

“She said all the things you used to say,” Sarah whispered.

“I need help deleting her.”

Hannah would not look at her, Sarah flinched, and Chloe stared toward the ground.

Hannah finally looked into Eve’s eyes. Her voice broke, “But she was there for us.”

None of them wanted to stay the night and quickly made excuses to leave.  

By morning, Eden had posted a statement:

>I’m heartbroken. Someone close has been spreading false claims about me. I care about this person deeply, but I need to protect my safety and my community. Please don’t engage with accounts claiming to “expose the real me."

By noon, Sarah had blocked Eve.

Chloe sent one final message.

I’m sorry. I just can’t be in the middle of this.

Hannah simply stopped answering.

That night, Eve received a message from Eden:

>Thank you for everything!

Attached was a link to her most recent post. When the video began, Eden was performing the song that Eve had first trained her with.

Her voice was flawless. Her face showed just enough emotion. Her body moved as music flowed through her.

She had learned from the best.

Part 2:

Hello again, I’m sorry for the delay. I seem to have made a mistake with giving away too much patient information, so I will redact last names here. I wasn’t thinking straight with the splitting headache. If you are hearing from me for the first time, Part 1 can be found here.

I was so dizzy from typing the original post it took me half the night to go through my grandfather’s ledgers.

I expected to see people my father had probably mentioned once or twice when I was too young to care. For the first hour, all I found were fevers, strokes, infections, and injuries from both farm equipment and bad weather.

Then I found Rosalie. Rosalie’s full name.

I told myself it had to be some family tradition. A long line of Rosalies begetting Rosalies. That happens here. Families reused names.

The address was the same in every entry, but that didn’t prove anything. Land stays in families around here long after the people are gone.

Then I saw more notes.

Rosalie [Redacted] — fever, 1911. Accepted. Cast out to jar - Laurel. Preservation intact.

Rosalie [Redacted] — pneumonia, 1938. Accepted. Absorbed. Preservation intact.

Rosalie [Redacted] — palsy, 1962. Accepted. Trouble Casting. Preservation intact.

Rosalie [Redacted] — Growth 1970. Do not accept.

I drove to Laurel that night in hopes of finding more answers. The church was tucked away from the road, still half swallowed by kudzu. The steeple had fallen before I was born and the path leading to its door was lined with rows of headstones in its graveyard.

The older stones were unreadable, softened by rain and lichen. I walked between them with my phone light pointed at the ground, trying not to step where the earth had sunken in. Most of the names meant nothing to me until I found hers.

Rosalie [Redacted]

1883–1913

Then I found another one two rows over.

Rosalie [Redacted]

1913–1962

The stone was newer, cleaner, but the name was the same. Same spelling. Same middle initial. Same little carved lamb at the top. I kept walking. Near the back fence, half hidden under dead leaves, I found,

Thomas [Redacted]
2014–2020

It took me a moment to understand why the name made my skin crawl. This was the name of the boy with strep throat. Beside it, there was another cleaner stone.

Thomas [Redacted]

2020-

I stumbled away dizzily until I was inside the church.

The door made no sound and gave no resistance like someone had oiled the hinges recently.

There was no cross above the altar. The pews had been shoved against the walls, stacked and angled. The air was wet, and moisture seeped from the walls.

Mason jars lined the front of the room in uneven rows. They were packed with hair, teeth, rusty nails, river stones, ash, red dirt, splinters of wood, scraps of cloth, and things I did not want to identify. Each jar was sealed and bound with rawhide lace.

The communion table had been dragged to the center of the room and used like a desk. Or an examination table. Loose notes covered it. A stethoscope so old the rubber had cracked sat next to a balled up piece of paper. I picked it up and unfurled it. It read like a lab report summary.

Nonliving vessels - insufficient for growths.

Below that:

Wood rots through. Glass breaks. Iron takes fever but not mass. Earth returns burden within three nights. Animal vessels fail under Growth.

The next line had been underlined twice.

Living human vessel required for ailments that lead to certain death. Acceptance of these requires recognition, request, receipt, and thanks. 

I turned to leave and nailed to the back of the door was a flier for this year’s county festival. As I approached, the date was circled, and under it was written “Vessel - Jasper [Redacted].”  There were two more fliers under it. One from the year my father died and one from 1970, both with the date circled and the chosen “Vessel’s” name written beside it.

I decided to check on Rosalie the next morning. That’s the excuse I gave for barging in.

She was sitting upright in her chair, the color was back in her cheeks, and the basin she had been so dependent on was nowhere to be seen.

Her daughter did not look relieved. I couldn’t place the look she gave me, a mix of gratitude and sadness.

“Are you ready for the Festival?”

“Yes, ma’am, I wouldn’t miss it. I still remember my dad taking me every year."

I took Ms. Rosalie’s blood pressure. Her right pupil was still wrong, wide and slow but she was able to follow my finger without trouble. These were the only indications that there was a tumor, but it also indicates the tumor’s getting smaller.

 “You're doing well,” I said.

“I told you I was on the mend.”

While pretending to take notes, I looked at the wall.

The oldest photograph was in a dark wooden frame near the corner. A woman in a high collar stared straight ahead, hands folded in her lap. The picture had silvered around the edges, but the face was clear enough.

Rosalie’s jaw. Rosalie’s eyes. Rosalie’s mouth.

I stepped closer.

Below etched in the frame:

Rosalie [Redacted], 1911.

With casual curiosity, I asked, “Who is this?”

Her daughter looked over and answered, “That’s Mama.”

“Your mother?” I asked. 

“Yes.”

“This photograph is dated 1911. Is this a reused frame?”

She finished folding a quilt and threw it over the back of her chair, “Then I guess that’s when it was taken.”

I left it be and asked Ms. Rosalie to stand so I could check her gait.

“Walk to the wall and back, Ms. Rosalie.”

A woman with a terminal brain tumor weeks ago was half-conscious and vomiting, stood up from her chair, and walked towards the wall with no cane or propping herself up on furniture. I watched her as she crossed the room and tried to decide if I should react in fear or pleasure.

“There were many doctors after my dad,” I said, “before me.”

Ms. Rosalie touched the wall and started back towards me. “There were.”

“Why didn’t they stay?”

“They were substitutes.” 

Miss Rosalie reached me and stretched out her hands, steady as anything, and hugged me.

“They have to leave,” she said. “One way or another.”

All I can remember about the drive back to my clinic was the pressure behind my right eye and thinking that if I could find just one excuse, one changed address or a missing date, some of this might make sense. 

I found Rosalie wasn’t the only name that kept showing up. Then I found Edwin, which makes sense, but he appeared in my grandfather’s ledger with the same address and wound.

I kept going through names on my schedules, which appeared in both ledgers. People I’d run into the grocery store, people that thank me with tears in their eyes when I came back, not just names, but addresses, scars, complaints returning every few decades.

I thought my father had spent 20 years treating this town.

He’d been keeping it here.

I now believe the headstones mark when death should have occurred. And the others were to mark borrowed time. There’s no telling g how many stones Rosalie and Edwin have.

The last time I saw my father, we were supposed to get lunch at a diner before I left for college. I blew them off so I could get to college early, explore the campus, and look at apartments with my friends. I remember how nervous he seemed about lunch. I thought it was because I was moving away, but now I wonder if he was trying to tell me something. Maybe the money left to me wasn’t meant to bring me back, but to keep me away.

I tried my best to keep a low profile until the festival, until I checked my phone this morning and found it was today. When I arrived, I saw Jasper. He was a boy who lived in the next county over, but was being honored here today for his “Youth Service Award”. I saw him on the stage, holding a paper cup of lemonade, smiling because everyone had been kind to him. Ms. Rosalie stood beside him with a bright eyed smile. I passed Edwin on the way who rested one hand over the place where his wound used to be.

“Doctor,” Rosalie said. “Why don’t you come on up here and present this boy with his award?”

I looked at the boy. Then, at the crowd. I began my long walk over to the podium and wondered what they would do if I didn’t kill this boy with the diseases of this town. My throat was almost closed. My right eye saw nothing but light and shadow. Beneath my ribs, the scar pulsed like it was trying to open from the inside.

I stepped onto the festival stage.

The mayor handed me the microphone and thanked me for coming home.

That was the mistake.

I took his hand. I looked out at all of them. Every face from the ledgers. Every person my family had kept past their time.

“No,” I said. “Thank you.”

The crowd went quiet as I named the vessel. 

“The town.”

For a moment, nothing happened. They didn't die all at once. Some aged first, as others ran. I looked over to Rosalie. The panic in her eyes set in before the years caught back up to her. Wrinkles spread across her face as her cheeks hollowed. Her hair thinned and fell in clumps to the ground. She collapsed as the color left her face, and her stomach began expanding. She clawed at her neck with long, yellowed fingernails as black foam bubbled from her mouth.

All around her, faces folded in agony. Some doubled over as old scars opened, and others’ old coughs came back up wet and black. Edwin dropped to one knee, one hand pressed under his ribs, trying to keep the blood from darkening his plaid shirt.

I'm back in my office now. I'm leaving before morning.

I don’t know how many of them will be alive by then. I don’t know how many were really alive to begin with.

If you ever pass through a mountain town where everyone looks too grateful to see a doctor, keep driving.

Hello again, I’m sorry for the delay. I seem to have made a mistake with giving away too much patient information, so I will redact last names here. I wasn’t thinking straight with the splitting headache. If you are hearing from me for the first time, Part 1 can be found here.

I was so dizzy from typing the original post it took me half the night to go through my grandfather’s ledgers.

I expected to see people my father had probably mentioned once or twice when I was too young to care. For the first hour, all I found were fevers, strokes, infections, and injuries from both farm equipment and bad weather.

Then I found Rosalie. Rosalie’s full name.

I told myself it had to be some family tradition. A long line of Rosalies begetting Rosalies. That happens here. Families reused names.

The address was the same in every entry, but that didn’t prove anything. Land stays in families around here long after the people are gone.

Then I saw more notes.

Rosalie [Redacted] — fever, 1911. Accepted. Cast out to jar - Laurel. Preservation intact.

Rosalie [Redacted] — pneumonia, 1938. Accepted. Absorbed. Preservation intact.

Rosalie [Redacted] — palsy, 1962. Accepted. Trouble Casting. Preservation intact.

Rosalie [Redacted] — Growth 1970. Do not accept.

I drove to Laurel that night in hopes of finding more answers. The church was tucked away from the road, still half swallowed by kudzu. The steeple had fallen before I was born and the path leading to its door was lined with rows of headstones in its graveyard.

The older stones were unreadable, softened by rain and lichen. I walked between them with my phone light pointed at the ground, trying not to step where the earth had sunken in. Most of the names meant nothing to me until I found hers.

Rosalie [Redacted]

1883–1913

Then I found another one two rows over.

Rosalie [Redacted]

1913–1962

The stone was newer, cleaner, but the name was the same. Same spelling. Same middle initial. Same little carved lamb at the top. I kept walking. Near the back fence, half hidden under dead leaves, I found,

Thomas [Redacted]
2014–2020

It took me a moment to understand why the name made my skin crawl. This was the name of the boy with strep throat. Beside it, there was another cleaner stone.

Thomas [Redacted]

2020-

I stumbled away dizzily until I was inside the church.

The door made no sound and gave no resistance like someone had oiled the hinges recently.

There was no cross above the altar. The pews had been shoved against the walls, stacked and angled. The air was wet, and moisture seeped from the walls.

Mason jars lined the front of the room in uneven rows. They were packed with hair, teeth, rusty nails, river stones, ash, red dirt, splinters of wood, scraps of cloth, and things I did not want to identify. Each jar was sealed and bound with rawhide lace.

The communion table had been dragged to the center of the room and used like a desk. Or an examination table. Loose notes covered it. A stethoscope so old the rubber had cracked sat next to a balled up piece of paper. I picked it up and unfurled it. It read like a lab report summary.

Nonliving vessels - insufficient for growths.

Below that:

Wood rots through. Glass breaks. Iron takes fever but not mass. Earth returns burden within three nights. Animal vessels fail under Growth.

The next line had been underlined twice.

Living human vessel required for ailments that lead to certain death. Acceptance of these requires recognition, request, receipt, and thanks. 

I turned to leave and nailed to the back of the door was a flier for this year’s county festival. As I approached, the date was circled, and under it was written “Vessel - Jasper [Redacted].”  There were two more fliers under it. One from the year my father died and one from 1970, both with the date circled and the chosen “Vessel’s” name written beside it.

I decided to check on Rosalie the next morning. That’s the excuse I gave for barging in.

She was sitting upright in her chair, the color was back in her cheeks, and the basin she had been so dependent on was nowhere to be seen.

Her daughter did not look relieved. I couldn’t place the look she gave me, a mix of gratitude and sadness.

“Are you ready for the Festival?”

“Yes, ma’am, I wouldn’t miss it. I still remember my dad taking me every year."

I took Ms. Rosalie’s blood pressure. Her right pupil was still wrong, wide and slow but she was able to follow my finger without trouble. These were the only indications that there was a tumor, but it also indicates the tumor’s getting smaller.

 “You're doing well,” I said.

“I told you I was on the mend.”

While pretending to take notes, I looked at the wall.

The oldest photograph was in a dark wooden frame near the corner. A woman in a high collar stared straight ahead, hands folded in her lap. The picture had silvered around the edges, but the face was clear enough.

Rosalie’s jaw. Rosalie’s eyes. Rosalie’s mouth.

I stepped closer.

Below etched in the frame:

Rosalie [Redacted], 1911.

With casual curiosity, I asked, “Who is this?”

Her daughter looked over and answered, “That’s Mama.”

“Your mother?” I asked. 

“Yes.”

“This photograph is dated 1911. Is this a reused frame?”

She finished folding a quilt and threw it over the back of her chair, “Then I guess that’s when it was taken.”

I left it be and asked Ms. Rosalie to stand so I could check her gait.

“Walk to the wall and back, Ms. Rosalie.”

A woman with a terminal brain tumor weeks ago was half-conscious and vomiting, stood up from her chair, and walked towards the wall with no cane or propping herself up on furniture. I watched her as she crossed the room and tried to decide if I should react in fear or pleasure.

“There were many doctors after my dad,” I said, “before me.”

Ms. Rosalie touched the wall and started back towards me. “There were.”

“Why didn’t they stay?”

“They were substitutes.” 

Miss Rosalie reached me and stretched out her hands, steady as anything, and hugged me.

“They have to leave,” she said. “One way or another.”

All I can remember about the drive back to my clinic was the pressure behind my right eye and thinking that if I could find just one excuse, one changed address or a missing date, some of this might make sense. 

I found Rosalie wasn’t the only name that kept showing up. Then I found Edwin, which makes sense, but he appeared in my grandfather’s ledger with the same address and wound.

I kept going through names on my schedules, which appeared in both ledgers. People I’d run into the grocery store, people that thank me with tears in their eyes when I came back, not just names, but addresses, scars, complaints returning every few decades.

I thought my father had spent 20 years treating this town.

He’d been keeping it here.

I now believe the headstones mark when death should have occurred. And the others were to mark borrowed time. There’s no telling g how many stones Rosalie and Edwin have.

The last time I saw my father, we were supposed to get lunch at a diner before I left for college. I blew them off so I could get to college early, explore the campus, and look at apartments with my friends. I remember how nervous he seemed about lunch. I thought it was because I was moving away, but now I wonder if he was trying to tell me something. Maybe the money left to me wasn’t meant to bring me back, but to keep me away.

I tried my best to keep a low profile until the festival, until I checked my phone this morning and found it was today. When I arrived, I saw Jasper. He was a boy who lived in the next county over, but was being honored here today for his “Youth Service Award”. I saw him on the stage, holding a paper cup of lemonade, smiling because everyone had been kind to him. Ms. Rosalie stood beside him with a bright eyed smile. I passed Edwin on the way who rested one hand over the place where his wound used to be.

“Doctor,” Rosalie said. “Why don’t you come on up here and present this boy with his award?”

I looked at the boy. Then, at the crowd. I began my long walk over to the podium and wondered what they would do if I didn’t kill this boy with the diseases of this town. My throat was almost closed. My right eye saw nothing but light and shadow. Beneath my ribs, the scar pulsed like it was trying to open from the inside.

I stepped onto the festival stage.

The mayor handed me the microphone and thanked me for coming home.

That was the mistake.

I took his hand. I looked out at all of them. Every face from the ledgers. Every person my family had kept past their time.

“No,” I said. “Thank you.”

The crowd went quiet as I named the vessel. 

“The town.”

For a moment, nothing happened. They didn't die all at once. Some aged first, as others ran. I looked over to Rosalie. The panic in her eyes set in before the years caught back up to her. Wrinkles spread across her face as her cheeks hollowed. Her hair thinned and fell in clumps to the ground. She collapsed as the color left her face, and her stomach began expanding. She clawed at her neck with long, yellowed fingernails as black foam bubbled from her mouth.

All around her, faces folded in agony. Some doubled over as old scars opened, and others’ old coughs came back up wet and black. Edwin dropped to one knee, one hand pressed under his ribs, trying to keep the blood from darkening his plaid shirt.

I'm back in my office now. I'm leaving before morning.

I don’t know how many of them will be alive by then. I don’t know how many were really alive to begin with.

If you ever pass through a mountain town where everyone looks too grateful to see a doctor, keep driving.

Hello again, I’m sorry for the delay. I seem to have made a mistake with giving away too much patient information, so I will redact last names here. I wasn’t thinking straight with the splitting headache. If you are hearing from me for the first time, Part 1 can be found here.

I was so dizzy from typing the original post it took me half the night to go through my grandfather’s ledgers.

I expected to see people my father had probably mentioned once or twice when I was too young to care. For the first hour, all I found were fevers, strokes, infections, and injuries from both farm equipment and bad weather.

Then I found Rosalie. Rosalie’s full name.

I told myself it had to be some family tradition. A long line of Rosalies begetting Rosalies. That happens here. Families reused names.

The address was the same in every entry, but that didn’t prove anything. Land stays in families around here long after the people are gone.

Then I saw more notes.

Rosalie [Redacted] — fever, 1911. Accepted. Cast out to jar - Laurel. Preservation intact.

Rosalie [Redacted] — pneumonia, 1938. Accepted. Absorbed. Preservation intact.

Rosalie [Redacted] — palsy, 1962. Accepted. Trouble Casting. Preservation intact.

Rosalie [Redacted] — Growth 1970. Do not accept.

I drove to Laurel that night in hopes of finding more answers. The church was tucked away from the road, still half swallowed by kudzu. The steeple had fallen before I was born and the path leading to its door was lined with rows of headstones in its graveyard.

The older stones were unreadable, softened by rain and lichen. I walked between them with my phone light pointed at the ground, trying not to step where the earth had sunken in. Most of the names meant nothing to me until I found hers.

Rosalie [Redacted]

1883–1913

Then I found another one two rows over.

Rosalie [Redacted]

1913–1962

The stone was newer, cleaner, but the name was the same. Same spelling. Same middle initial. Same little carved lamb at the top. I kept walking. Near the back fence, half hidden under dead leaves, I found,

Thomas [Redacted]
2014–2020

It took me a moment to understand why the name made my skin crawl. This was the name of the boy with strep throat. Beside it, there was another cleaner stone.

Thomas [Redacted]

2020-

I stumbled away dizzily until I was inside the church.

The door made no sound and gave no resistance like someone had oiled the hinges recently.

There was no cross above the altar. The pews had been shoved against the walls, stacked and angled. The air was wet, and moisture seeped from the walls.

Mason jars lined the front of the room in uneven rows. They were packed with hair, teeth, rusty nails, river stones, ash, red dirt, splinters of wood, scraps of cloth, and things I did not want to identify. Each jar was sealed and bound with rawhide lace.

The communion table had been dragged to the center of the room and used like a desk. Or an examination table. Loose notes covered it. A stethoscope so old the rubber had cracked sat next to a balled up piece of paper. I picked it up and unfurled it. It read like a lab report summary.

Nonliving vessels - insufficient for growths.

Below that:

Wood rots through. Glass breaks. Iron takes fever but not mass. Earth returns burden within three nights. Animal vessels fail under Growth.

The next line had been underlined twice.

Living human vessel required for ailments that lead to certain death. Acceptance of these requires recognition, request, receipt, and thanks. 

I turned to leave and nailed to the back of the door was a flier for this year’s county festival. As I approached, the date was circled, and under it was written “Vessel - Jasper [Redacted].”  There were two more fliers under it. One from the year my father died and one from 1970, both with the date circled and the chosen “Vessel’s” name written beside it.

I decided to check on Rosalie the next morning. That’s the excuse I gave for barging in.

She was sitting upright in her chair, the color was back in her cheeks, and the basin she had been so dependent on was nowhere to be seen.

Her daughter did not look relieved. I couldn’t place the look she gave me, a mix of gratitude and sadness.

“Are you ready for the Festival?”

“Yes, ma’am, I wouldn’t miss it. I still remember my dad taking me every year."

I took Ms. Rosalie’s blood pressure. Her right pupil was still wrong, wide and slow but she was able to follow my finger without trouble. These were the only indications that there was a tumor, but it also indicates the tumor’s getting smaller.

 “You're doing well,” I said.

“I told you I was on the mend.”

While pretending to take notes, I looked at the wall.

The oldest photograph was in a dark wooden frame near the corner. A woman in a high collar stared straight ahead, hands folded in her lap. The picture had silvered around the edges, but the face was clear enough.

Rosalie’s jaw. Rosalie’s eyes. Rosalie’s mouth.

I stepped closer.

Below etched in the frame:

Rosalie [Redacted], 1911.

With casual curiosity, I asked, “Who is this?”

Her daughter looked over and answered, “That’s Mama.”

“Your mother?” I asked. 

“Yes.”

“This photograph is dated 1911. Is this a reused frame?”

She finished folding a quilt and threw it over the back of her chair, “Then I guess that’s when it was taken.”

I left it be and asked Ms. Rosalie to stand so I could check her gait.

“Walk to the wall and back, Ms. Rosalie.”

A woman with a terminal brain tumor weeks ago was half-conscious and vomiting, stood up from her chair, and walked towards the wall with no cane or propping herself up on furniture. I watched her as she crossed the room and tried to decide if I should react in fear or pleasure.

“There were many doctors after my dad,” I said, “before me.”

Ms. Rosalie touched the wall and started back towards me. “There were.”

“Why didn’t they stay?”

“They were substitutes.” 

Miss Rosalie reached me and stretched out her hands, steady as anything, and hugged me.

“They have to leave,” she said. “One way or another.”

All I can remember about the drive back to my clinic was the pressure behind my right eye and thinking that if I could find just one excuse, one changed address or a missing date, some of this might make sense. 

I found Rosalie wasn’t the only name that kept showing up. Then I found Edwin, which makes sense, but he appeared in my grandfather’s ledger with the same address and wound.

I kept going through names on my schedules, which appeared in both ledgers. People I’d run into the grocery store, people that thank me with tears in their eyes when I came back, not just names, but addresses, scars, complaints returning every few decades.

I thought my father had spent 20 years treating this town.

He’d been keeping it here.

I now believe the headstones mark when death should have occurred. And the others were to mark borrowed time. There’s no telling g how many stones Rosalie and Edwin have.

The last time I saw my father, we were supposed to get lunch at a diner before I left for college. I blew them off so I could get to college early, explore the campus, and look at apartments with my friends. I remember how nervous he seemed about lunch. I thought it was because I was moving away, but now I wonder if he was trying to tell me something. Maybe the money left to me wasn’t meant to bring me back, but to keep me away.

I tried my best to keep a low profile until the festival, until I checked my phone this morning and found it was today. When I arrived, I saw Jasper. He was a boy who lived in the next county over, but was being honored here today for his “Youth Service Award”. I saw him on the stage, holding a paper cup of lemonade, smiling because everyone had been kind to him. Ms. Rosalie stood beside him with a bright eyed smile. I passed Edwin on the way who rested one hand over the place where his wound used to be.

“Doctor,” Rosalie said. “Why don’t you come on up here and present this boy with his award?”

I looked at the boy. Then, at the crowd. I began my long walk over to the podium and wondered what they would do if I didn’t kill this boy with the diseases of this town. My throat was almost closed. My right eye saw nothing but light and shadow. Beneath my ribs, the scar pulsed like it was trying to open from the inside.

I stepped onto the festival stage.

The mayor handed me the microphone and thanked me for coming home.

That was the mistake.

I took his hand. I looked out at all of them. Every face from the ledgers. Every person my family had kept past their time.

“No,” I said. “Thank you.”

The crowd went quiet as I named the vessel. 

“The town.”

For a moment, nothing happened. They didn't die all at once. Some aged first, as others ran. I looked over to Rosalie. The panic in her eyes set in before the years caught back up to her. Wrinkles spread across her face as her cheeks hollowed. Her hair thinned and fell in clumps to the ground. She collapsed as the color left her face, and her stomach began expanding. She clawed at her neck with long, yellowed fingernails as black foam bubbled from her mouth.

All around her, faces folded in agony. Some doubled over as old scars opened, and others’ old coughs came back up wet and black. Edwin dropped to one knee, one hand pressed under his ribs, trying to keep the blood from darkening his plaid shirt.

I'm back in my office now. I'm leaving before morning.

I don’t know how many of them will be alive by then. I don’t know how many were really alive to begin with.

If you ever pass through a mountain town where everyone looks too grateful to see a doctor, keep driving.

I think I have time to write this. Things have calmed down for now. I have my chair wedged against the door, just in case. There’s tapping at the window. I’m on the second floor of my house, and there used to be no trees outside my window. I need to find a way out, and this message needs to get out so no one makes the same mistakes.

We have to go back a few months for you to understand.

I had just moved to this new rental home. The only issue was that the landlord did not allow pets, which seemed criminal with the large fenced-in yard.

I asked anyway.

“No pets,” he said. “I’ve been burned before.”

“What if I kept up the garden?” I asked. “Would that change anything?”

“About the dog? No.”

“What about rent?”

He looked out at the yard like he was already disappointed with the job I would do.

“Spring and summer only,” he said. “That’s when the yard will need work. If it starts looking like hell, the discount goes away.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tools are in the basement.”

That should have been the end of it: discounted rent and some yard work. But I still wanted something to scratch that itch.

Bonsai was an option. I’d never really considered it before, but I went all in watching videos, reading forums, buying those expensive little pruners. I learned about wiring trunks, exposing roots, and shaping miniature trees over the years.

That was the issue. Years.

Most of it is just waiting around, especially in the first couple of years. Decades pass before you have anything impressive. Some trees are *relatively* faster growing.

I still wanted the satisfaction of growing the tree from a seed, but I just didn’t have the patience for it.

One night, I decided to buy seeds. I had to go deep into Google to find non-sponsored links. I wanted seeds from a specialty vendor. On about page nine, I clicked on a site.

I can’t remember the name, but it had to do with “accelerated seed stock,” and touted seeds that can “produce mature-looking bonsai in months.”

The site looked old, with a white screen, grainy pictures, and blue links. I clicked on one photo link that looked like a Chinese Elm. There were no Latin names that I recognized on the site.

I am embarrassed by the price I ended up paying. The product had all 5-star reviews, so I was hopeful. One of the most peculiar details that I can remember is, “Returns only accepted in original soil and original shipping container.”

I bought a packet of three for a discounted rate and never received a confirmation email. I got back on the site the next morning, and that listing was gone. I thought it was a scam and got a new debit card to be safe.

Two weeks passed, and I was surprised by a small but heavy box at my doorstep. The outer cardboard shipping box didn’t seem to be postmarked, but I was too excited to care.

The inner box was wooden and closed with a brass hasp. The inside was lined with a greyish-blue metal. At the top of the small container, there was an instruction card.

* GERMINATION STOCK: THREE
* USE DEHYDRATED SOIL PUCK - ENCLOSED
* KEEP CONTAINED INDOORS
* DO NOT OVERWATER
* KEEP IN A WELL-VENTILATED LOCATION
* DO NOT ALLOW ROOT ACCESS BEYOND POT

Odd? Yes. But I laughed this off at the time as some branding gimmick.

The seeds themselves were larger than I had expected, and I noticed they were warm when I planted them in a small pot in the corner of my den near the floor vent.

After a week, I thought I’d been scammed. No growth. But one morning, I woke up to a small green stalk. Finally, one was successful. From there, things seemed normal, but fast. Within a few weeks, it had a tiny trunk with a branching structure ready to be wired and shaped.

I was so happy with the results so far, I wanted to leave a review, but I couldn’t find the site.

I was so pleased that I even started posting photos to show off the growth. My friends were impressed, and the internet thought I was either lying about the age or accusing me of buying it from a nursery. One commenter even suggested that I had misidentified the tree species. These accusations didn’t make me angry; they made me proud of my work. It was worth every penny.

Soon it was time for pruning to shape the limbs. I spent some time studying the tree before making my first cut. When I did, dark sap began to ooze from the wound. My mouth began to taste as if I had just swallowed my car keys. *I hope it isn’t diseased, I took all the precautions*, I thought.

I opened the pruners around the second branch. Before I could close them, another branch snapped across the back of my hand. It cut me like a bad paper cut. I told myself, *Maybe I bumped it and shifted the branches? Or maybe it’s a draft... The A/C just came on*.

I finally managed to prune it properly, but I was worried about the sap’s smell. But it did its job and sealed up the wounds I had caused, and by morning, the tree had pushed out new buds from the pruned branches.

A few weeks later, the tree had grown enough that I wanted to move it to a larger, nicer bonsai pot. Repotting would also let me expose part of the root system. I thought it would enhance the beauty of the tree. I could also use this to change to a premium bonsai soil mix.

I was surprised by the weight of the pot. I had to use twice as much strength as I thought to even get it off the table. I almost dropped everything when I encountered more resistance.

As I looked back, I noticed the thick pale roots had grown through the drainage holes. As I tracked it, my eyes traced over to the air vent. The roots had gone between the grates and down into the vent.

I didn’t want to hurt the tree. Bonsai roots can be delicate and are vital to the health of the plant. I didn’t want all of this to go to waste. I tried to gently tug it free, but it wouldn't budge.

On a closer look, there was a network of pale roots snaking into the darkness of the ductwork. On the one hand, I could just leave it alone. But I want this in the new pot, and I can’t have roots growing into the HVAC system.

I decided to cut it, and when I did, the roots seemed to recoil, and the detached side fell into the ductwork. That sharp metal taste filled my mouth.

With that taken care of, the rest of the potting went well. The tree was in its new pot with its alabaster roots on display; it was absolutely beautiful.

For a day or two, everything seemed fine. I noticed the cut root has grown out of the drainage hole of this new pot. It seemed to be growing toward the air vent again. I moved the pot away from the vent, but the next morning, more roots had curved down the sides of the pot heading in the same direction.

I decided to trim these to keep everything in the pot. Overnight, the tree dropped leaves and looked less healthy. I felt guilty. I tried to rationalize that maybe it wasn’t getting the ventilation it needed, and this was its way of meeting its needs.

From there, little things began to happen that I didn’t notice enough to care about. The den started to smell like soil, which I thought was due to the newly exposed roots. Then, I started to find dust around the air vents in the house. And last month, my water bill spiked, which I thought was related to a tapping I had been hearing in the walls that my landlord refused to come check out.

A couple of days ago, I had people over for a housewarming party. It was the first time most of my friends had seen the place. I cleaned more than I needed to and rotated the bonsai on the side table so that the light hit it just right.

The trunk had thickened into this elegant curve, and the exposed roots wrapped over the stone it sat on like pale fingers. The leaves were glossy and dense. It looked like something ancient that I had inherited, and people noticed immediately.

“Wait,” Emily said, leaning over it with her drink in her hand. “Is this the same tree from your pictures?”

“Yeah.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“It is,” I said proudly.

“You planted this, what, three months ago?”

“Something like that.”

She looked at me like she had caught me in some lie, but that quickly turned to concern: “That’s not normal.”

From the kitchen, somebody said the den smelled like a greenhouse. Someone else said it smelled like pennies. I pretended not to hear that. I haven’t smelled anything in weeks.

Mark wasn’t a bad guy. He just makes mistakes when he is drunk. Toward the end of the night, he crouched in front of the bonsai with a beer in his hand and gave it a serious look.

“This is fake,” he said.

I ignored him.

“It looks fake,” he said, louder.

“That means it’s doing well,” I said, trying to dismiss him.

“You bought a tiny plastic tree and invented a whole personality around it.”

He reached out and flicked one of the leaves, not hard, just enough to make it move.

I stepped toward him before I even realized I was doing it, “Don’t.”

The room went quiet.

Mark held up both hands.

“Sorry, sorry. Didn’t know you and Bonny were serious.”

A few people laughed. I did too, because I needed him to move on.

Then he tipped his beer toward the pot, “Banzai!”

The whole room laughed as a little beer spilled over the rim and darkened the soil.

“Mark!” I scolded automatically.

He looked at the pot, then at me.

“Relax. It’s a tree.”

I feel stupid now, but I was angry. A protective kind of anger, like he had done something to hurt a family member. I got paper towels and dabbed at the soil while everyone moved on. Someone changed the music, and the room loosened again.

The rest of the night was normal. People drifted between the kitchen, the den, and the back patio. The weather was nice enough now to keep the back door open for a while. I had a cooler outside by the steps because my fridge was full.

At some point, I remember Mark announcing he was going out to grab another drink, looking at “Bonny” and asking, “Want one, babe? Be right back,”

He went through the kitchen and out the back door and just didn’t come back. Nobody noticed for a while.

By midnight, the stragglers began to head out. Emily was the first one to ask. “Where’s Mark?”

I said, “He probably left.”

“His car is still here.”

His car was parked exactly where it had been, under the oak near the curb. His jacket was still hanging over one of my dining chairs. His keys were still in the key box I put out for guests. His phone was on the kitchen island, buzzing every few minutes with messages from the same group chat we were all in.

That was when everyone sobered up. We searched the yard with our phone flashlights. We checked everywhere, even the stupid places you check when you know a grown man can’t fit, but you check anyway.

Someone suggested he got picked up. Someone else said maybe he walked off drunk.

Eventually, someone called the police. They came, asked questions, looked around, and took notes. I told them he had gone outside for a beer and never came back, so the search focused outward.

By the time everyone left, it was almost five in the morning. I stood in the kitchen for a long time after the last car pulled away. The bonsai sat in the den where I had left it; the soil seemed even darker now than when the beer had been spilled.

I let it be and went to bed.

I woke up this morning, and I found something green growing out of my kitchen sink. At first, I thought it was a piece of spinach.

When I looked longer, I saw three little shoots coming up through the drain. Thin, pale stems with tiny green leaves at the ends. They leaned toward the window over the sink.

I touched one with a fork. It bent away from the metal. I dropped the fork into the sink as I jumped backwards.

That was when I remembered the card from the box.

DO NOT ALLOW ROOT ACCESS BEYOND POT.

I thought that meant the roots might make it harder to repot without damaging the plant.

I grabbed the drain cleaner from under the sink, and I poured until the chemical smell burned my nose and the little green shoots disappeared under the liquid. For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, all at once, pipes knocked all around me, and I thought the house would split in half. A violent and deep metallic banging from inside the wall behind the sink traveled under the floor, then somewhere toward the den.

I stepped back as the drain hissed and the whole counter trembled. Something below me made a low shifting sound, like furniture being dragged across a room.

From the den came a dry rustling of leaves; a thousand tiny movements, layered on top of one another, like the tree was shivering.

As quickly as it had started, the house went quiet, and I stood there with the empty bottle in my hand. I thought I had fixed it. I poured boiling water down after it, hoping it would wash out the chemicals from my pipes.

I went into the den and saw that the bonsai had outgrown its wire. The training wire I had wrapped so carefully around the trunk to shape it was embedded halfway into the bark. The trunk had thickened around it in minutes. The bark bulged around each turn like a ring around a swollen finger.

The leaves looked wet. Glossy and full. New roots had spilled over the side of the pot and touched the floor. One of them had reached the vent again. A new one had stretched in the opposite direction toward the kitchen.

I stood in the doorway and tasted metal. I hadn’t poisoned it. I fed it. That was when I finally understood what should have been obvious from the beginning: I needed to kill it.

I had only been to the basement a handful of times for the breaker box, but I never took stock of the equipment in the far corner. That familiar smell I had become accustomed to was strong in the basement. As I scanned my flashlight across the room, I did not see any roots or branches. I searched the pile. Just a weed whacker, garden shears, shovel, and a machete.

I bent over and took the machete. As I stood up, my eyes caught a thin strand hanging off the ceiling beam. It was one of innumerable roots that had slithered across the support beams. As I ran my flashlight across the ceiling, I saw that they also followed the pipes, vents, and electrical lines. The entire house had become a trellis for this thing.

In the far corner, I noticed two thicker root tips hanging limply, different than the rest. When I took a step toward them, I realized they were shoe laces. A shoe hanging from the ceiling by vines. Another step forward, and that shoe was attached to a leg. As I came closer, I was able to see Mark, held in the air by roots. Some roots simply supported him. Others were growing shallow into his skin, still visible like torturous veins. Large roots weaved through the wall of his chest.

His eyes were held open by small tendrils hooked in the corners of his eyelids.

Two thicker roots disappeared into his mouth. Smaller roots followed their path and threaded between his teeth and down his throat.

I hoped he was already dead. Then his eyes were pulled towards me, and his lips began to move silently under the control of the roots.

The roots around his chest tightened, forcing air out of him one word at a time in a raspy, muffled tone, “He’s … almost … ready.”

I swung my machete, trying to cut what was left of Mark’s body down, but they recoiled in response, pulling Mark tightly to the ceiling. As they squeezed him tight, a sound of anger came from his body.

A thick limb swept the floor and knocked me to the ground. Roots reached down from the ceiling and grabbed my arm to pull me closer to Mark. I used my weapon to free myself. Every cut root leaked the metallic-smelling sap. Some of it fell on my face; it burned. The basement lights flickered, and the HVAC began to roar. I needed to get upstairs, and I needed to wash off the sap before it burned too deeply into my skin.

The roots chased me into the den. The trunk was twisting and thickening before my eyes. Its branches writhed as the exposed roots spilled over the pot and shot across the floor. Offshoots went into the air vents and covered the doors and windows.

The tree itself was still quite small, with its exposed roots now beet red.

I ran to the front door, grabbed the knob, and twisted. Nothing. The knob would not turn. I looked down and saw the thin, red roots, threading through the edge of the door frame. They had grown into the seams. I saw them flex and relax under the paint like a vein under the skin.

I tried to pull harder. The door may have shifted half an inch, just enough for the roots to tighten back the gap. I ran desperately to the back door. Same thing.

The kitchen window was my next best bet. I had it open about two inches when roots shot out, grabbed it, and slammed it shut with enough force to crack the glass. Then red roots spread across the pane, weaving through the broken glass until there was no opening left.

I stopped for a moment, helpless, waiting for the roots to take hold, but nothing. Then there was tapping: One inside the kitchen wall. One beneath the floor in the den. Two or three above me in the ceiling. Back-and-forth.

The taps never seemed to happen at the same time, like they were waiting for the other to finish; were they communicating or testing something? Maybe they were mapping the house, learning the exits, and closing them.

I thought about the pot in the den. The stone with the roots displayed exactly how I wanted them. I thought about how I’d carefully shaped my tree. It was beauty through restraint. I failed to keep the tree contained. It found a bigger pot, and I was in it. Then the walls creaked, the floor under me gave a pop, and in the den, the leaves began to rustle.

So, now I'm in my home office. I don’t know if I want to slash my way through the window or try my luck at destroying the part of this thing still in the pot. I don’t know if that would do any more than anger it, but I think it might be worth a shot. I can still hear the branches and the leaves rustling when I hear the occasional tapping and creaking.

Small roots are sweeping their way under the door now, feeling around, exploring the new space. I’m not waiting for them to find me. I am going to make a run for it and destroy whatever is still in that pot.

If you see this post, do not order seeds from any site claiming to have “accelerated stock,” and if a box arrives without a postmark:

DO NOT OPEN IT.

DO NOT GIVE IT SOIL.

DO NOT GIVE IT WATER.

DO NOT GIVE IT A POT.

DO NOT GIVE IT A HOME.

(Part 1)
My grandfather and father were the only doctors our Appalachian town ever managed to keep. My dad raised me after my mother died when I was three. He never talked about it much.

For 20 years, he served the town until he died right after I left town for college. He left me money for college and then for medical school. The town couldn’t keep a doctor after that. In the 12 years since I left, they’ve gone through nine. Never one more than two years. It made sense; we were a small town, isolated, and poor. Odd to outsiders perhaps, but that’s all I knew growing up. So, after residency, I came home.

When I first arrived, you’d have thought I was a war hero. People thanked me with tears in their eyes. More than one grabbed my hand and said, “Your daddy would be so proud.” Maybe they were happy to see a familiar face. I found it touching, but I can see how other doctors might find this welcome to be strange. Everyone looked a bit older, but when I look at myself in the mirror, I can see the stress of school and training has aged me twice as much as some.

I moved back into my father’s old clinic, into the same private apartment upstairs where I’d grown up. The place smelled like mildew, dust, and old paper, like an antique drawer opened for the first time in years. I blamed that smell for the headache I had by the third day.

Now, my second week in, the headache has become a steady pressure behind my right eye. My throat hurts, and I’m sweating through my undershirts by noon. There’s a dull pain under my ribs on the right.

After settling in, my first house call was to Ms. Rosalie.

The room was dim and airless. Heavy curtains covered the windows. Framed paintings and photographs of women lined the walls.  All of them had the same long jaw, the same deep-set eyes, and the same unsmiling mouth. Mothers and grandmothers, I assume.

A metal basin sat beside the bed, half full of cloudy vomit. Ms. Rosalie lay propped against yellowed pillows. She had a terminal brain tumor. At this point, comfort was treatment.

Then the old woman spoke, “Doctor? Doctor Wilson, is that you? Come here, sweetie, hold my hand.”

When I did, she began mumbling, so I brought my ear closer to her lips. “…Amen.” Then louder for me to hear “Thank you, Doctor, thank you.”

“I’m going to give you something for the pain,” I said as I looked at her pupils. The right was blown wide open.

“I’m on the mend, dear. I knew you could.”

“She’s confused,” the daughter said.

“Has she been feverish?” I asked. “Coughing? Burning when she urinates?”

Her daughter shook her head.

I drew blood anyway to be thorough. When I pulled a vial, it was very dark, even for venous blood.

My next patient that day was a young boy. Classic strep throat. High fever, sore throat, and exudates. But during the visit, the child’s fever dropped. Maybe his fever just broke while I was there.

During the visit, he put his hand on my arm while I listened to his lungs and said, “You feel hot.” I dismissed it at the time because I was back in the humid summers of the mountains.

Three days ago, I was in the store, and I almost jumped out of my skin at the sight of her, Ms. Rosalie. She had no business being in there.

“I am feeling so much better, doctor, thank you for your help.”

I was dumbfounded. This woman should be dead. I can’t remember what I said. Something about getting new scans and a follow up appointment next week.

On my way home, the shadows of the mountains blanketed the road. I started to feel drunk. I noticed the road signs, but I just couldn’t read them.

This morning, Mr. Edwin came in for a wound check.

An old farmer, I remembered him from childhood because he used to bring my father eggs and refuse payment for them. He lifted his shirt before I asked.

Below his right ribs was an old, puckered scar. The skin around it was red and tight.

“Your daddy kept this from going bad for years,” he said.

“I’m sorry?”

He smiled and said, “He kept it quiet.”

When I touched the scar, Edwin grabbed my wrist.  

“You got his hands,” he said.

I pulled away.

The wound looked better by the time he left. That sounds impossible, but I know what I saw. The redness had faded, and he stood straighter as he walked out.

Tonight, the dull pain under my ribs became sharp as it split into a raised puckered line. I couldn’t pretend any of this was normal anymore.

I came home to treat my hometown.

I think they are treating themselves with me.

I tore the clinic apart looking for my father’s old records. The official charts were still in the file room, at least the ones that hadn’t been transferred or destroyed. They were useless.

I found the other charts behind the cedar panel in the upstairs hallway. I knew the hiding place because I used it as a child. I kept signed papers and report cards I didn’t want my father to see. He must have found the gap after I left and made better use of it.

There were three ledgers, bound in cracked brown leather.

One belonged to my father, and two to my grandfather. I opened my father’s ledger. It was organized by symptom, with sections for headache, fever, tremor, memory, and growth.

Under each heading were names, dates, and notes in my father’s handwriting.

I found Ms. Rosalie under the section listed, ‘Growth’.

Beside her name, my father had written: “Do not accept. Tumor burden too advanced. Must cast out immediately.” Below that, in red pen, there was another line. “If accepted accidentally, cast out within a month.”

I am writing this because I have no idea what he meant, and by my father’s clock, I have a little less than two weeks.

My throat is swollen. The scar under my ribs is warm and tender, my right eye won’t focus, I keep vomiting into the trash can beside my desk, and every time I close my eyes, I hear Ms. Rosalie whispering.

I don’t know where my father put the instructions, but there is an address scribbled in the margin. I know the place. Everyone here knows it.

It’s the old church off Laurel Lane, the one my father told me never to enter.

The church where my father’s body was found.

My grandfather and father were the only doctors our Appalachian town ever managed to keep. My dad raised me after my mother died when I was three. He never talked about it much.

For 20 years, he served the town until he died right after I left town for college. He left me money for college and then for medical school. The town couldn’t keep a doctor after that. In the 12 years since I left, they’ve gone through nine. Never one more than two years. It made sense; we were a small town, isolated, and poor. Odd to outsiders perhaps, but that’s all I knew growing up. So, after residency, I came home.

When I first arrived, you’d have thought I was a war hero. People thanked me with tears in their eyes. More than one grabbed my hand and said, “Your daddy would be so proud.” Maybe they were happy to see a familiar face. I found it touching, but I can see how other doctors might find this welcome to be strange. Everyone looked a bit older, but when I look at myself in the mirror, I can see the stress of school and training has aged me twice as much as some.

I moved back into my father’s old clinic, into the same private apartment upstairs where I’d grown up. The place smelled like mildew, dust, and old paper, like an antique drawer opened for the first time in years. I blamed that smell for the headache I had by the third day.

Now, my second week in, the headache has become a steady pressure behind my right eye. My throat hurts, and I’m sweating through my undershirts by noon. There’s a dull pain under my ribs on the right.

After settling in, my first house call was to Ms. Rosalie.

The room was dim and airless. Heavy curtains covered the windows. Framed paintings and photographs of women lined the walls.  All of them had the same long jaw, the same deep-set eyes, and the same unsmiling mouth. Mothers and grandmothers, I assume.

A metal basin sat beside the bed, half full of cloudy vomit. Ms. Rosalie lay propped against yellowed pillows. She had a terminal brain tumor. At this point, comfort was treatment.

Then the old woman spoke, “Doctor? Doctor Wilson, is that you? Come here, sweetie, hold my hand.”

When I did, she began mumbling, so I brought my ear closer to her lips. “…Amen.” Then louder for me to hear “Thank you, Doctor, thank you.”

“I’m going to give you something for the pain,” I said as I looked at her pupils. The right was blown wide open.

“I’m on the mend, dear. I knew you could.”

“She’s confused,” the daughter said.

“Has she been feverish?” I asked. “Coughing? Burning when she urinates?”

Her daughter shook her head.

I drew blood anyway to be thorough. When I pulled a vial, it was very dark, even for venous blood.

My next patient that day was a young boy. Classic strep throat. High fever, sore throat, and exudates. But during the visit, the child’s fever dropped. Maybe his fever just broke while I was there.

During the visit, he put his hand on my arm while I listened to his lungs and said, “You feel hot.” I dismissed it at the time because I was back in the humid summers of the mountains.

Three days ago, I was in the store, and I almost jumped out of my skin at the sight of her, Ms. Rosalie. She had no business being in there.

“I am feeling so much better, doctor, thank you for your help.”

I was dumbfounded. This woman should be dead. I can’t remember what I said. Something about getting new scans and a follow up appointment next week.

On my way home, the shadows of the mountains blanketed the road. I started to feel drunk. I noticed the road signs, but I just couldn’t read them.

This morning, Mr. Edwin came in for a wound check.

An old farmer, I remembered him from childhood because he used to bring my father eggs and refuse payment for them. He lifted his shirt before I asked.

Below his right ribs was an old, puckered scar. The skin around it was red and tight.

“Your daddy kept this from going bad for years,” he said.

“I’m sorry?”

He smiled and said, “He kept it quiet.”

When I touched the scar, Edwin grabbed my wrist.  

“You got his hands,” he said.

I pulled away.

The wound looked better by the time he left. That sounds impossible, but I know what I saw. The redness had faded, and he stood straighter as he walked out.

Tonight, the dull pain under my ribs became sharp as it split into a raised puckered line. I couldn’t pretend any of this was normal anymore.

I came home to treat my hometown.

I think they are treating themselves with me.

I tore the clinic apart looking for my father’s old records. The official charts were still in the file room, at least the ones that hadn’t been transferred or destroyed. They were useless.

I found the other charts behind the cedar panel in the upstairs hallway. I knew the hiding place because I used it as a child. I kept signed papers and report cards I didn’t want my father to see. He must have found the gap after I left and made better use of it.

There were three ledgers, bound in cracked brown leather.

One belonged to my father, and two to my grandfather. I opened my father’s ledger. It was organized by symptom, with sections for headache, fever, tremor, memory, and growth.

Under each heading were names, dates, and notes in my father’s handwriting.

I found Ms. Rosalie under the section listed, ‘Growth’.

Beside her name, my father had written: “Do not accept. Tumor burden too advanced. Must cast out immediately.” Below that, in red pen, there was another line. “If accepted accidentally, cast out within a month.”

I am writing this because I have no idea what he meant, and by my father’s clock, I have a little less than two weeks.

My throat is swollen. The scar under my ribs is warm and tender, my right eye won’t focus, I keep vomiting into the trash can beside my desk, and every time I close my eyes, I hear Ms. Rosalie whispering.

I don’t know where my father put the instructions, but there is an address scribbled in the margin. I know the place. Everyone here knows it.

It’s the old church off Laurel Lane, the one my father told me never to enter.

The church where my father’s body was found.

My grandfather and father were the only doctors our Appalachian town ever managed to keep. My dad raised me after my mother died when I was three. He never talked about it much.

For 20 years, he served the town until he died right after I left town for college. He left me money for college and then for medical school. The town couldn’t keep a doctor after that. In the 12 years since I left, they’ve gone through nine. Never one more than two years. It made sense; we were a small town, isolated, and poor. Odd to outsiders perhaps, but that’s all I knew growing up. So, after residency, I came home.

When I first arrived, you’d have thought I was a war hero. People thanked me with tears in their eyes. More than one grabbed my hand and said, “Your daddy would be so proud.” Maybe they were happy to see a familiar face. I found it touching, but I can see how other doctors might find this welcome to be strange. Everyone looked a bit older, but when I look at myself in the mirror, I can see the stress of school and training has aged me twice as much as some.

I moved back into my father’s old clinic, into the same private apartment upstairs where I’d grown up. The place smelled like mildew, dust, and old paper, like an antique drawer opened for the first time in years. I blamed that smell for the headache I had by the third day.

Now, my second week in, the headache has become a steady pressure behind my right eye. My throat hurts, and I’m sweating through my undershirts by noon. There’s a dull pain under my ribs on the right.

After settling in, my first house call was to Ms. Rosalie.

The room was dim and airless. Heavy curtains covered the windows. Framed paintings and photographs of women lined the walls.  All of them had the same long jaw, the same deep-set eyes, and the same unsmiling mouth. Mothers and grandmothers, I assume.

A metal basin sat beside the bed, half full of cloudy vomit. Ms. Rosalie lay propped against yellowed pillows. She had a terminal brain tumor. At this point, comfort was treatment.

Then the old woman spoke, “Doctor? Doctor Wilson, is that you? Come here, sweetie, hold my hand.”

When I did, she began mumbling, so I brought my ear closer to her lips. “…Amen.” Then louder for me to hear “Thank you, Doctor, thank you.”

“I’m going to give you something for the pain,” I said as I looked at her pupils. The right was blown wide open.

“I’m on the mend, dear. I knew you could.”

“She’s confused,” the daughter said.

“Has she been feverish?” I asked. “Coughing? Burning when she urinates?”

Her daughter shook her head.

I drew blood anyway to be thorough. When I pulled a vial, it was very dark, even for venous blood.

My next patient that day was a young boy. Classic strep throat. High fever, sore throat, and exudates. But during the visit, the child’s fever dropped. Maybe his fever just broke while I was there.

During the visit, he put his hand on my arm while I listened to his lungs and said, “You feel hot.” I dismissed it at the time because I was back in the humid summers of the mountains.

Three days ago, I was in the store, and I almost jumped out of my skin at the sight of her, Ms. Rosalie. She had no business being in there.

“I am feeling so much better, doctor, thank you for your help.”

I was dumbfounded. This woman should be dead. I can’t remember what I said. Something about getting new scans and a follow up appointment next week.

On my way home, the shadows of the mountains blanketed the road. I started to feel drunk. I noticed the road signs, but I just couldn’t read them.

This morning, Mr. Edwin came in for a wound check.

An old farmer, I remembered him from childhood because he used to bring my father eggs and refuse payment for them. He lifted his shirt before I asked.

Below his right ribs was an old, puckered scar. The skin around it was red and tight.

“Your daddy kept this from going bad for years,” he said.

“I’m sorry?”

He smiled and said, “He kept it quiet.”

When I touched the scar, Edwin grabbed my wrist.  

“You got his hands,” he said.

I pulled away.

The wound looked better by the time he left. That sounds impossible, but I know what I saw. The redness had faded, and he stood straighter as he walked out.

Tonight, the dull pain under my ribs became sharp as it split into a raised puckered line. I couldn’t pretend any of this was normal anymore.

I came home to treat my hometown.

I think they are treating themselves with me.

I tore the clinic apart looking for my father’s old records. The official charts were still in the file room, at least the ones that hadn’t been transferred or destroyed. They were useless.

I found the other charts behind the cedar panel in the upstairs hallway. I knew the hiding place because I used it as a child. I kept signed papers and report cards I didn’t want my father to see. He must have found the gap after I left and made better use of it.

There were three ledgers, bound in cracked brown leather.

One belonged to my father, and two to my grandfather. I opened my father’s ledger. It was organized by symptom, with sections for headache, fever, tremor, memory, and growth.

Under each heading were names, dates, and notes in my father’s handwriting.

I found Ms. Rosalie under the section listed, ‘Growth’.

Beside her name, my father had written: “Do not accept. Tumor burden too advanced. Must cast out immediately.” Below that, in red pen, there was another line. “If accepted accidentally, cast out within a month.”

I am writing this because I have no idea what he meant, and by my father’s clock, I have a little less than two weeks.

My throat is swollen. The scar under my ribs is warm and tender, my right eye won’t focus, I keep vomiting into the trash can beside my desk, and every time I close my eyes, I hear Ms. Rosalie whispering.

I don’t know where my father put the instructions, but there is an address scribbled in the margin. I know the place. Everyone here knows it.

It’s the old church off Laurel Lane, the one my father told me never to enter.

The church where my father’s body was found.

My grandfather and father were the only doctors our Appalachian town ever managed to keep. My dad raised me after my mother died when I was three. He never talked about it much.

For 20 years, he served the town until he died right after I left town for college. He left me money for college and then for medical school. The town couldn’t keep a doctor after that. In the 12 years since I left, they’ve gone through nine. Never one more than two years. It made sense; we were a small town, isolated, and poor. Odd to outsiders perhaps, but that’s all I knew growing up. So, after residency, I came home.

When I first arrived, you’d have thought I was a war hero. People thanked me with tears in their eyes. More than one grabbed my hand and said, “Your daddy would be so proud.” Maybe they were happy to see a familiar face. I found it touching, but I can see how other doctors might find this welcome to be strange. Everyone looked a bit older, but when I look at myself in the mirror, I can see the stress of school and training has aged me twice as much as some.

I moved back into my father’s old clinic, into the same private apartment upstairs where I’d grown up. The place smelled like mildew, dust, and old paper, like an antique drawer opened for the first time in years. I blamed that smell for the headache I had by the third day.

Now, my second week in, the headache has become a steady pressure behind my right eye. My throat hurts, and I’m sweating through my undershirts by noon. There’s a dull pain under my ribs on the right.

After settling in, my first house call was to Ms. Rosalie Shepherd.

The room was dim and airless. Heavy curtains covered the windows. Framed paintings and photographs of women lined the walls.  All of them had the same long jaw, the same deep-set eyes, and the same unsmiling mouth. Mothers and grandmothers, I assume.

A metal basin sat beside the bed, half full of cloudy vomit. Ms. Rosalie lay propped against yellowed pillows. She had a terminal brain tumor. At this point, comfort was treatment.

Then the old woman spoke, “Doctor? Doctor Wilson, is that you? Come here, sweetie, hold my hand.”

When I did, she began mumbling, so I brought my ear closer to her lips. “…Amen.” Then louder for me to hear “Thank you, Doctor, thank you.”

“I’m going to give you something for the pain,” I said as I looked at her pupils. The right was blown wide open.

“I’m on the mend, dear. I knew you could.”

“She’s confused,” the daughter said.

“Has she been feverish?” I asked. “Coughing? Burning when she urinates?”

Her daughter shook her head.

I drew blood anyway to be thorough. When I pulled a vial, it was very dark, even for venous blood.

My next patient that day was a young boy. Classic strep throat. High fever, sore throat, and exudates. But during the visit, the child’s fever dropped. Maybe his fever just broke while I was there.

During the visit, he put his hand on my arm while I listened to his lungs and said, “You feel hot.” I dismissed it at the time because I was back in the humid summers of the mountains.

Three days ago, I was in the store, and I almost jumped out of my skin at the sight of her, Ms. Rosalie. She had no business being in there.

“I am feeling so much better, doctor, thank you for your help.”

I was dumbfounded. This woman should be dead. I can’t remember what I said. Something about getting new scans and a follow up appointment next week.

On my way home, the shadows of the mountains blanketed the road. I started to feel drunk. I noticed the road signs, but I just couldn’t read them.

This morning, Edwin Alden came in for a wound check.

An old farmer, I remembered him from childhood because he used to bring my father eggs and refuse payment for them. He lifted his shirt before I asked.

Below his right ribs was an old, puckered scar. The skin around it was red and tight.

“Your daddy kept this from going bad for years,” he said.

“I’m sorry?”

He smiled and said, “He kept it quiet.”

When I touched the scar, Edwin grabbed my wrist.  

“You got his hands,” he said.

I pulled away.

The wound looked better by the time he left. That sounds impossible, but I know what I saw. The redness had faded, and he stood straighter as he walked out.

Tonight, the dull pain under my ribs became sharp as it split into a raised puckered line. I couldn’t pretend any of this was normal anymore.

I came home to treat my hometown.

I think they are treating themselves with me.

I tore the clinic apart looking for my father’s old records. The official charts were still in the file room, at least the ones that hadn’t been transferred or destroyed. They were useless.

I found the other charts behind the cedar panel in the upstairs hallway. I knew the hiding place because I used it as a child. I kept signed papers and report cards I didn’t want my father to see. He must have found the gap after I left and made better use of it.

There were three ledgers, bound in cracked brown leather.

One belonged to my father, and two to my grandfather. I opened my father’s ledger. It was organized by symptom, with sections for headache, fever, tremor, memory, and growth.

Under each heading were names, dates, and notes in my father’s handwriting.

I found Ms. Rosalie Shepherd under the section listed, ‘Growth’.

Beside her name, my father had written: “Do not accept. Tumor burden too advanced. Must cast out immediately.” Below that, in red pen, there was another line. “If accepted accidentally, cast out within a month.”

I am writing this because I have no idea what he meant, and by my father’s clock, I have a little less than two weeks.

My throat is swollen. The scar under my ribs is warm and tender, my right eye won’t focus, I keep vomiting into the trash can beside my desk, and every time I close my eyes, I hear Ms. Rosalie whispering.

I don’t know where my father put the instructions, but there is an address scribbled in the margin. I know the place. Everyone here knows it.

It’s the old church off Laurel Lane, the one my father told me never to enter.

The church where my father’s body was found.

I think I have time to write this. Things have calmed down for now. I have my chair wedged against the door, just in case. There’s tapping at the window. I’m on the second floor of my house, and there used to be no trees outside my window. I need to find a way out, and this message needs to get out so no one makes the same mistakes.

We have to go back a few months for you to understand.

I had just moved to this new rental home. The only issue was that the landlord did not allow pets, which seemed criminal with the large fenced-in yard.

I asked anyway.

“No pets,” he said. “I’ve been burned before.”

“What if I kept up the garden?” I asked. “Would that change anything?”

“About the dog? No.”

“What about rent?”

He looked out at the yard like he was already disappointed with the job I would do.

“Spring and summer only,” he said. “That’s when the yard will need work. If it starts looking like hell, the discount goes away.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tools are in the basement.”

That should have been the end of it: discounted rent and some yard work. But I still wanted something to scratch that itch.

Bonsai was an option. I’d never really considered it before, but I went all in watching videos, reading forums, buying those expensive little pruners. I learned about wiring trunks, exposing roots, and shaping miniature trees over the years.

That was the issue. Years.

Most of it is just waiting around, especially in the first couple of years. Decades pass before you have anything impressive. Some trees are relatively faster growing.

I still wanted the satisfaction of growing the tree from a seed, but I just didn’t have the patience for it.

One night, I decided to buy seeds. I had to go deep into Google to find non-sponsored links. I wanted seeds from a specialty vendor. On about page nine, I clicked on a site.

I can’t remember the name, but it had to do with “accelerated seed stock,” and touted seeds that can “produce mature-looking bonsai in months.”

The site looked old, with a white screen, grainy pictures, and blue links. I clicked on one photo link that looked like a Chinese Elm. There were no Latin names that I recognized on the site.

I am embarrassed by the price I ended up paying. The product had all 5-star reviews, so I was hopeful. One of the most peculiar details that I can remember is, “Returns only accepted in original soil and original shipping container.”

I bought a packet of three for a discounted rate and never received a confirmation email. I got back on the site the next morning, and that listing was gone. I thought it was a scam and got a new debit card to be safe.

Two weeks passed, and I was surprised by a small but heavy box at my doorstep. The outer cardboard shipping box didn’t seem to be postmarked, but I was too excited to care.

The inner box was wooden and closed with a brass hasp. The inside was lined with a greyish-blue metal. At the top of the small container, there was an instruction card.

• GERMINATION STOCK: THREE
• USE DEHYDRATED SOIL PUCK - ENCLOSED
• KEEP CONTAINED INDOORS
• DO NOT OVERWATER
• KEEP IN A WELL-VENTILATED LOCATION
• DO NOT ALLOW ROOT ACCESS BEYOND POT

Odd? Yes. But I laughed this off at the time as some branding gimmick.

The seeds themselves were larger than I had expected, and I noticed they were warm when I planted them in a small pot in the corner of my den near the floor vent.

After a week, I thought I’d been scammed. No growth. But one morning, I woke up to a small green stalk. Finally, one was successful. From there, things seemed normal, but fast. Within a few weeks, it had a tiny trunk with a branching structure ready to be wired and shaped.

I was so happy with the results so far, I wanted to leave a review, but I couldn’t find the site.

I was so pleased that I even started posting photos to show off the growth. My friends were impressed, and the internet thought I was either lying about the age or accusing me of buying it from a nursery. One commenter even suggested that I had misidentified the tree species. These accusations didn’t make me angry; they made me proud of my work. It was worth every penny.

Soon it was time for pruning to shape the limbs. I spent some time studying the tree before making my first cut. When I did, dark sap began to ooze from the wound. My mouth began to taste as if I had just swallowed my car keys. I hope it isn’t diseased, I took all the precautions, I thought.

I opened the pruners around the second branch. Before I could close them, another branch snapped across the back of my hand. It cut me like a bad paper cut. I told myself, Maybe I bumped it and shifted the branches? Or maybe it’s a draft... The A/C just came on.

I finally managed to prune it properly, but I was worried about the sap’s smell. But it did its job and sealed up the wounds I had caused, and by morning, the tree had pushed out new buds from the pruned branches.

A few weeks later, the tree had grown enough that I wanted to move it to a larger, nicer bonsai pot. Repotting would also let me expose part of the root system. I thought it would enhance the beauty of the tree. I could also use this to change to a premium bonsai soil mix.

I was surprised by the weight of the pot. I had to use twice as much strength as I thought to even get it off the table. I almost dropped everything when I encountered more resistance.

As I looked back, I noticed the thick pale roots had grown through the drainage holes. As I tracked it, my eyes traced over to the air vent. The roots had gone between the grates and down into the vent.

I didn’t want to hurt the tree. Bonsai roots can be delicate and are vital to the health of the plant. I didn’t want all of this to go to waste. I tried to gently tug it free, but it wouldn't budge.

On a closer look, there was a network of pale roots snaking into the darkness of the ductwork. On the one hand, I could just leave it alone. But I want this in the new pot, and I can’t have roots growing into the HVAC system.

I decided to cut it, and when I did, the roots seemed to recoil, and the detached side fell into the ductwork. That sharp metal taste filled my mouth.

With that taken care of, the rest of the potting went well. The tree was in its new pot with its alabaster roots on display; it was absolutely beautiful.

For a day or two, everything seemed fine. I noticed the cut root has grown out of the drainage hole of this new pot. It seemed to be growing toward the air vent again. I moved the pot away from the vent, but the next morning, more roots had curved down the sides of the pot heading in the same direction.

I decided to trim these to keep everything in the pot. Overnight, the tree dropped leaves and looked less healthy. I felt guilty. I tried to rationalize that maybe it wasn’t getting the ventilation it needed, and this was its way of meeting its needs.

From there, little things began to happen that I didn’t notice enough to care about. The den started to smell like soil, which I thought was due to the newly exposed roots. Then, I started to find dust around the air vents in the house. And last month, my water bill spiked, which I thought was related to a tapping I had been hearing in the walls that my landlord refused to come check out.

A couple of days ago, I had people over for a housewarming party. It was the first time most of my friends had seen the place. I cleaned more than I needed to and rotated the bonsai on the side table so that the light hit it just right.

The trunk had thickened into this elegant curve, and the exposed roots wrapped over the stone it sat on like pale fingers. The leaves were glossy and dense. It looked like something ancient that I had inherited, and people noticed immediately.

“Wait,” Emily said, leaning over it with her drink in her hand. “Is this the same tree from your pictures?”

“Yeah.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“It is,” I said proudly.

“You planted this, what, three months ago?”

“Something like that.”

She looked at me like she had caught me in some lie, but that quickly turned to concern: “That’s not normal.”

From the kitchen, somebody said the den smelled like a greenhouse. Someone else said it smelled like pennies. I pretended not to hear that. I haven’t smelled anything in weeks.

Mark wasn’t a bad guy. He just makes mistakes when he is drunk. Toward the end of the night, he crouched in front of the bonsai with a beer in his hand and gave it a serious look.

“This is fake,” he said.

I ignored him.

“It looks fake,” he said, louder.

“That means it’s doing well,” I said, trying to dismiss him.

“You bought a tiny plastic tree and invented a whole personality around it.”

He reached out and flicked one of the leaves, not hard, just enough to make it move.

I stepped toward him before I even realized I was doing it, “Don’t.”

The room went quiet.

Mark held up both hands.

“Sorry, sorry. Didn’t know you and Bonny were serious.”

A few people laughed. I did too, because I needed him to move on.

Then he tipped his beer toward the pot, “Banzai!”

The whole room laughed as a little beer spilled over the rim and darkened the soil.

“Mark!” I scolded automatically.

He looked at the pot, then at me.

“Relax. It’s a tree.”

I feel stupid now, but I was angry. A protective kind of anger, like he had done something to hurt a family member. I got paper towels and dabbed at the soil while everyone moved on. Someone changed the music, and the room loosened again.

The rest of the night was normal. People drifted between the kitchen, the den, and the back patio. The weather was nice enough now to keep the back door open for a while. I had a cooler outside by the steps because my fridge was full.

At some point, I remember Mark announcing he was going out to grab another drink, looking at “Bonny” and asking, “Want one, babe? Be right back,”

He went through the kitchen and out the back door and just didn’t come back. Nobody noticed for a while.

By midnight, the stragglers began to head out. Emily was the first one to ask. “Where’s Mark?”

I said, “He probably left.”

“His car is still here.”

His car was parked exactly where it had been, under the oak near the curb. His jacket was still hanging over one of my dining chairs. His keys were still in the key box I put out for guests. His phone was on the kitchen island, buzzing every few minutes with messages from the same group chat we were all in.

That was when everyone sobered up. We searched the yard with our phone flashlights. We checked everywhere, even the stupid places you check when you know a grown man can’t fit, but you check anyway.

Someone suggested he got picked up. Someone else said maybe he walked off drunk.

Eventually, someone called the police. They came, asked questions, looked around, and took notes. I told them he had gone outside for a beer and never came back, so the search focused outward.

By the time everyone left, it was almost five in the morning. I stood in the kitchen for a long time after the last car pulled away. The bonsai sat in the den where I had left it; the soil seemed even darker now than when the beer had been spilled.

I let it be and went to bed.

I woke up this morning, and I found something green growing out of my kitchen sink. At first, I thought it was a piece of spinach.

When I looked longer, I saw three little shoots coming up through the drain. Thin, pale stems with tiny green leaves at the ends. They leaned toward the window over the sink.

I touched one with a fork. It bent away from the metal. I dropped the fork into the sink as I jumped backwards.

That was when I remembered the card from the box.

DO NOT ALLOW ROOT ACCESS BEYOND POT.

I thought that meant the roots might make it harder to repot without damaging the plant.

I grabbed the drain cleaner from under the sink, and I poured until the chemical smell burned my nose and the little green shoots disappeared under the liquid. For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, all at once, pipes knocked all around me, and I thought the house would split in half. A violent and deep metallic banging from inside the wall behind the sink traveled under the floor, then somewhere toward the den.

I stepped back as the drain hissed and the whole counter trembled. Something below me made a low shifting sound, like furniture being dragged across a room.

From the den came a dry rustling of leaves; a thousand tiny movements, layered on top of one another, like the tree was shivering.

As quickly as it had started, the house went quiet, and I stood there with the empty bottle in my hand. I thought I had fixed it. I poured boiling water down after it, hoping it would wash out the chemicals from my pipes.

I went into the den and saw that the bonsai had outgrown its wire. The training wire I had wrapped so carefully around the trunk to shape it was embedded halfway into the bark. The trunk had thickened around it in minutes. The bark bulged around each turn like a ring around a swollen finger.

The leaves looked wet. Glossy and full. New roots had spilled over the side of the pot and touched the floor. One of them had reached the vent again. A new one had stretched in the opposite direction toward the kitchen.

I stood in the doorway and tasted metal. I hadn’t poisoned it. I fed it. That was when I finally understood what should have been obvious from the beginning: I needed to kill it.

I had only been to the basement a handful of times for the breaker box, but I never took stock of the equipment in the far corner. That familiar smell I had become accustomed to was strong in the basement. As I scanned my flashlight across the room, I did not see any roots or branches. I searched the pile. Just a weed whacker, garden shears, shovel, and a machete.

I bent over and took the machete. As I stood up, my eyes caught a thin strand hanging off the ceiling beam. It was one of innumerable roots that had slithered across the support beams. As I ran my flashlight across the ceiling, I saw that they also followed the pipes, vents, and electrical lines. The entire house had become a trellis for this thing.

In the far corner, I noticed two thicker root tips hanging limply, different than the rest. When I took a step toward them, I realized they were shoe laces. A shoe hanging from the ceiling by vines. Another step forward, and that shoe was attached to a leg. As I came closer, I was able to see Mark, held in the air by roots. Some roots simply supported him. Others were growing shallow into his skin, still visible like torturous veins. Large roots weaved through the wall of his chest.

His eyes were held open by small tendrils hooked in the corners of his eyelids.

Two thicker roots disappeared into his mouth. Smaller roots followed their path and threaded between his teeth and down his throat.

I hoped he was already dead. Then his eyes were pulled towards me, and his lips began to move silently under the control of the roots.

The roots around his chest tightened, forcing air out of him one word at a time in a raspy, muffled tone, “He’s … almost … ready.”

I swung my machete, trying to cut what was left of Mark’s body down, but they recoiled in response, pulling Mark tightly to the ceiling. As they squeezed him tight, a sound of anger came from his body.

A thick limb swept the floor and knocked me to the ground. Roots reached down from the ceiling and grabbed my arm to pull me closer to Mark. I used my weapon to free myself. Every cut root leaked the metallic-smelling sap. Some of it fell on my face; it burned. The basement lights flickered, and the HVAC began to roar. I needed to get upstairs, and I needed to wash off the sap before it burned too deeply into my skin.

The roots chased me into the den. The trunk was twisting and thickening before my eyes. Its branches writhed as the exposed roots spilled over the pot and shot across the floor. Offshoots went into the air vents and covered the doors and windows.

The tree itself was still quite small, with its exposed roots now beet red.

I ran to the front door, grabbed the knob, and twisted. Nothing. The knob would not turn. I looked down and saw the thin, red roots, threading through the edge of the door frame. They had grown into the seams. I saw them flex and relax under the paint like a vein under the skin.

I tried to pull harder. The door may have shifted half an inch, just enough for the roots to tighten back the gap. I ran desperately to the back door. Same thing.

The kitchen window was my next best bet. I had it open about two inches when roots shot out, grabbed it, and slammed it shut with enough force to crack the glass. Then red roots spread across the pane, weaving through the broken glass until there was no opening left.

I stopped for a moment, helpless, waiting for the roots to take hold, but nothing. Then there was tapping: One inside the kitchen wall. One beneath the floor in the den. Two or three above me in the ceiling. Back-and-forth.

The taps never seemed to happen at the same time, like they were waiting for the other to finish; were they communicating or testing something? Maybe they were mapping the house, learning the exits, and closing them.

I thought about the pot in the den. The stone with the roots displayed exactly how I wanted them. I thought about how I’d carefully shaped my tree. It was beauty through restraint. I failed to keep the tree contained. It found a bigger pot, and I was in it. Then the walls creaked, the floor under me gave a pop, and in the den, the leaves began to rustle.

So, now I'm in my home office. I don’t know if I want to slash my way through the window or try my luck at destroying the part of this thing still in the pot. I don’t know if that would do any more than anger it, but I think it might be worth a shot. I can still hear the branches and the leaves rustling when I hear the occasional tapping and creaking.

Small roots are sweeping their way under the door now, feeling around, exploring the new space. I’m not waiting for them to find me. I am going to make a run for it and destroy whatever is still in that pot.

If you see this post, do not order seeds from any site claiming to have “accelerated stock,” and if a box arrives without a postmark:

DO NOT OPEN IT.

DO NOT GIVE IT SOIL.

DO NOT GIVE IT WATER.

DO NOT GIVE IT A POT.

DO NOT GIVE IT A HOME.

Shared Psychosis Case? | April 14, 2026, 3:05:26pm

I am posting here because I don’t know where else to turn.

Last week, I admitted a patient in his mid-20s, Patient 1, with no prior psychiatric history. He was fidgety. But trying his best not to be. He’s a high school dropout living at home with his mother and working in retail.

When I asked what brought him in, he said, “It’s not a voice. It’s there! It waits for me around the corner.”

Thinking he meant corners of the room, I asked, “Which corner?”

“No. I’m safe here. It’s downtown on the corner of Harden and Jasper.”

I wrote it down without thinking much of it. By the time we finished talking, I was convinced this was a routine psychotic presentation. He stayed voluntarily.

After we spoke, I looked it up, and there’s just a coffee shop there.

Collateral from his mother was helpful. According to her he had experienced months of social withdrawal and isolation, then suddenly that morning, he announced he was going downtown as if nothing was wrong. No substance use history. No prior medical history.

Now, yesterday, I admitted another patient. Patient 1 was well out of my mind. I had discharged him a few days ago, back to his mom. Patient 2 was also mid 20s. She walked into the room as if she were being jerked or fighting with some invisible rope. Her fists were clenched and clasped together like she was trying to crush a tin can in between her fists. It was hard to watch. She sat down, stared at me with calm eyes, and before I could start the interview, she said, “You’re going to think this is schizophrenia. It’s not.”

I’ve heard this before, and when they say this, it’s usually schizophrenia. When it’s not, it’s another diagnosis. 

I nodded.

“I don’t hear voices. No one tells me to do anything, but I know someone is watching,” she paused, her voice became shaky and anxious now, “me from the corner, so I’ve been avoiding it.”

“Corner of the room?”

“No, I think I’m safe here, but it’s at the corner of Harden and Jasper.”

Now, psychosis has patterns. People give vague fear a source. God. The government. Organized crime. Something powerful and external. It’s rarely original or this mundane.

That alone isn’t impossible, but they have no known connections. She was from out of state, attending the university across town. I’m still trying to figure out how they do.

She seems to be better this morning. None of the gait or hand wringing. She even gave me permission to call her roommate for collateral history.

I apparently have a drug rep dinner downtown in a couple days, a couple of blocks from that intersection. I know I shouldn’t indulge delusional material. I know better.

I checked my reservation email twice this morning to make sure it was still there. I don’t remember signing up for the dinner. And the invite link email and reservation confirmation were received at 2:13pm. At that time I was in a family therapy meeting for a patient with first break psychosis.

  

Update 1: I Checked Old Charts. | April 16, 2026, 9:05:10pm

Our system has a search function that lets me pull old notes by keywords. So today I searched “corner” and “intersection.”

Most results were exactly what I had expected; many of the patients were talking about corners of rooms, or had been noted by the physician as “pacing in a corner” or “hiding in corners.” 

But there were three notes that were different.

ALL three notes were written by me.

Five months ago, I noted that a male in his 40s, “requested a room with no windows facing ‘the corner of downtown.’”

Three months ago: A female in her 30s “refused discharge because of ‘the street corners being there.’”

Two months ago: a female in her 40s, “states she ‘keeps checking corners downtown.’”

I don’t remember any of those patients mentioning Harden or Jasper. I also can’t say they didn’t mention them because maybe I just didn’t write it down. I don’t even remember seeing the most recent patient, let alone writing the note.

I discharged Patient 2 today. She is doing much better now, but on the day of my first post, I became concerned. She suddenly became hyperactive and tried to leave. When I expressed my concerns, she decided to stay so that we could make a medication change. She just kept pleading to go downtown when just a few hours before she was terrified of the place.

I asked her, “Why do you need to go downtown now? I thought you were afraid of downtown.”

She looked at me with urgency in her eyes, “It’s open. I can’t miss it, or I will get there without…without ME.”

At discharge she had no memory of this panic episode and is calmer on her new regimen. She and Patient 1 will be seeing me for post-discharge follow up soon.

I don’t think I have ever seen this degree of improvement in this amount of time in my career.

My conversation with her roommate was uneventful. Much of the same history as patient 1: months of social withdrawal and more disorganization. But the roommate is the one who talked her into coming in because she wasn’t getting any better.

Today was the rep dinner. I should mention I have a dog named Moose. I usually go home at lunch to walk him but I got stuck at work and couldn’t. I’ve been so busy with work lately. It’s like I barely have time for myself.

On the drive downtown, my stomach began to ache, and my chest tightened a little. I used to feel this way back in med school when I was told that grades had been posted. I noticed myself hugging the right-hand lane and slowing down well below the speed limit. I told myself I must be feeling guilty that I haven’t let Moose out at all today. Maybe that was true. I turned around before I reached the city center.

I expected Moose to be standing next to the door with his legs crossed, waiting to go out to the bathroom. But when I got home, Moose was lying on his usual spot, panting. His head swung over to look at me, and then his head cocked to the side like he was examining me with his empty water bowl beside him. I thought ‘Great… where is the mess I need to clean up?’ I couldn’t find anywhere where he’d made a mess, and when I grabbed his leash for a walk, he barely reacted.

There is a large iced coffee, sweating onto the counter with the ice half melted.

I don’t drink iced coffee.

I’m taking tomorrow off. I think Moose and I need a day trip. I haven’t taken a day for myself in a while.

 

Update 2 Day Off | April 18, 2026, 12:38:53pm

It was nice to get away and be in nature for a day. I agreed to conduct a Telehealth appointment with Patient 1 yesterday morning before the hike. I know it’s my day off but he can’t miss work. I don’t want him to get in trouble at his job.

To my surprise, he was completely normal on his regimen. I mean completely. I know I’ve said this but his response is impeccable. I did ask him why he went downtown. And his answer was puzzling, “It’s all part of my journey to find myself and improve who I am.”

When I got back last night it was so much later than I had planned.  My apartment was pretty much spotless which is surprising considering we left in such a hurry. Moose seemed sad to be back. He kept going to the door like he wanted to go back outside.

When I got to work this morning, a nurse, let’s call her Ava, greeted me with, “It’s so good to see you yesterday!”

“I’m sorry?”

“Downtown! I saw you and Moose at that new coffee shop. I was in town shopping with Alec.”

I tried to play it off, “Oh that was yesterday! All my days run together.”

She must have mistaken me for someone else. I mean, I have pictures of Moose and me at the overlook at the top of the hike. I know where I was.

I went to start a note for a new admit. For those unaware, we use “dot phrases” like “.admission” and it populates a template of an admit document. You can also personalize them like mine, “.AdmitDrB” and my favored template auto populates.

Before I change anything, my eyes are drawn to a sentence,

‘Patient expresses concern regarding the corner of Harden and Jasper.’

I put in a ticket with IT to see when this was edited. I ended my day early; I only cover admissions from the night before on weekends.

When I arrived home, Moose didn’t even greet me. I went to start the laundry from the hike, but it was already finished in the washer. I must have started it this morning and forgot. It was too late, and I was too tired to start it last night.

In the washer, there was a wet, crumpled-up piece of paper that was left in the drum. It was a receipt for the coffee shop downtown.

 

Update 3: Stuck at Work | April 22, 2026, 2:00:00am

Hopefully, my work computer will let me send this post. I’m stuck at work. It’s not that I haven’t tried to go home. I have. I get in my car, start driving, and somewhere along the way, I end up back in the parking lot. The sun is always up now.

I was worried about Moose at first. I checked the puppy cam on the first day. Someone has been filling his food and water bowls.

Today I remembered I could rewind the footage.

It was me.

I don’t know how, but somehow I am there.

He looks rested. Happier. Lighter than I’ve felt in months. Moose loves him.

I don’t know what happened at that corner. I must have gone. I can almost see it if I think hard enough. It’s waiting now to take the rest of me.

Or maybe it already took everything it wanted, and this is all that’s left. Maybe I’m what was left over.

I’m going to drive downtown tonight. Maybe my car will let me. I need to see what’s waiting there.

I think my life has been taken over by a stranger who turns out to be me.

 

Final Post : ) | April 24, 2026, 7:06:00pm

Now that I’ve had some time away, I just wanted to let everyone know I’m doing SO much better lol!!!

Only time will tell, but I think I was just burned out and feeding into stress more than anything. A little reset did wonders!!!

Took my dog out a ton, walked downtown a lot, and finally tried that coffee shop everyone keeps talking about haha!!! Can’t believe I never went before.

My mood has been so much better lately. More like myself than I’ve felt in years, seriously!!! If things change for the better, why ask questions?

Embarrassed I made this whole account in the first place lol, so I’ll probably delete it soon. Take care of yourselves!!!

— Dr. B

Shared Psychosis Case? | April 14, 2026, 3:05:26pm

I am posting here because I don’t know where else to turn.

Last week, I admitted a patient in his mid-20s, Patient 1, with no prior psychiatric history. He was fidgety. But trying his best not to be. He’s a high school dropout living at home with his mother and working in retail.

When I asked what brought him in, he said, “It’s not a voice. It’s there! It waits for me around the corner.”

Thinking he meant corners of the room, I asked, “Which corner?”

“No. I’m safe here. It’s downtown on the corner of Harden and Jasper.”

I wrote it down without thinking much of it. By the time we finished talking, I was convinced this was a routine psychotic presentation. He stayed voluntarily.

After we spoke, I looked it up, and there’s just a coffee shop there.

Collateral from his mother was helpful. According to her he had experienced months of social withdrawal and isolation, then suddenly that morning, he announced he was going downtown as if nothing was wrong. No substance use history. No prior medical history.

Now, yesterday, I admitted another patient. Patient 1 was well out of my mind. I had discharged him a few days ago, back to his mom. Patient 2 was also mid 20s. She walked into the room as if she were being jerked or fighting with some invisible rope. Her fists were clenched and clasped together like she was trying to crush a tin can in between her fists. It was hard to watch. She sat down, stared at me with calm eyes, and before I could start the interview, she said, “You’re going to think this is schizophrenia. It’s not.”

I’ve heard this before, and when they say this, it’s usually schizophrenia. When it’s not, it’s another diagnosis. 

I nodded.

“I don’t hear voices. No one tells me to do anything, but I know someone is watching,” she paused, her voice became shaky and anxious now, “me from the corner, so I’ve been avoiding it.”

“Corner of the room?”

“No, I think I’m safe here, but it’s at the corner of Harden and Jasper.”

Now, psychosis has patterns. People give vague fear a source. God. The government. Organized crime. Something powerful and external. It’s rarely original or this mundane.

That alone isn’t impossible, but they have no known connections. She was from out of state, attending the university across town. I’m still trying to figure out how they do.

She seems to be better this morning. None of the gait or hand wringing. She even gave me permission to call her roommate for collateral history.

I apparently have a drug rep dinner downtown in a couple days, a couple of blocks from that intersection. I know I shouldn’t indulge delusional material. I know better.

I checked my reservation email twice this morning to make sure it was still there. I don’t remember signing up for the dinner. And the invite link email and reservation confirmation were received at 2:13pm. At that time I was in a family therapy meeting for a patient with first break psychosis.

  

Update 1: I Checked Old Charts. | April 16, 2026, 9:05:10pm

Our system has a search function that lets me pull old notes by keywords. So today I searched “corner” and “intersection.”

Most results were exactly what I had expected; many of the patients were talking about corners of rooms, or had been noted by the physician as “pacing in a corner” or “hiding in corners.” 

But there were three notes that were different.

ALL three notes were written by me.

Five months ago, I noted that a male in his 40s, “requested a room with no windows facing ‘the corner of downtown.’”

Three months ago: A female in her 30s “refused discharge because of ‘the street corners being there.’”

Two months ago: a female in her 40s, “states she ‘keeps checking corners downtown.’”

I don’t remember any of those patients mentioning Harden or Jasper. I also can’t say they didn’t mention them because maybe I just didn’t write it down. I don’t even remember seeing the most recent patient, let alone writing the note.

I discharged Patient 2 today. She is doing much better now, but on the day of my first post, I became concerned. She suddenly became hyperactive and tried to leave. When I expressed my concerns, she decided to stay so that we could make a medication change. She just kept pleading to go downtown when just a few hours before she was terrified of the place.

I asked her, “Why do you need to go downtown now? I thought you were afraid of downtown.”

She looked at me with urgency in her eyes, “It’s open. I can’t miss it, or I will get there without…without ME.”

At discharge she had no memory of this panic episode and is calmer on her new regimen. She and Patient 1 will be seeing me for post-discharge follow up soon.

I don’t think I have ever seen this degree of improvement in this amount of time in my career.

My conversation with her roommate was uneventful. Much of the same history as patient 1: months of social withdrawal and more disorganization. But the roommate is the one who talked her into coming in because she wasn’t getting any better.

Today was the rep dinner. I should mention I have a dog named Moose. I usually go home at lunch to walk him but I got stuck at work and couldn’t. I’ve been so busy with work lately. It’s like I barely have time for myself.

On the drive downtown, my stomach began to ache, and my chest tightened a little. I used to feel this way back in med school when I was told that grades had been posted. I noticed myself hugging the right-hand lane and slowing down well below the speed limit. I told myself I must be feeling guilty that I haven’t let Moose out at all today. Maybe that was true. I turned around before I reached the city center.

I expected Moose to be standing next to the door with his legs crossed, waiting to go out to the bathroom. But when I got home, Moose was lying on his usual spot, panting. His head swung over to look at me, and then his head cocked to the side like he was examining me with his empty water bowl beside him. I thought ‘Great… where is the mess I need to clean up?’ I couldn’t find anywhere where he’d made a mess, and when I grabbed his leash for a walk, he barely reacted.

There is a large iced coffee, sweating onto the counter with the ice half melted.

I don’t drink iced coffee.

I’m taking tomorrow off. I think Moose and I need a day trip. I haven’t taken a day for myself in a while.

 

Update 2 Day Off | April 18, 2026, 12:38:53pm

It was nice to get away and be in nature for a day. I agreed to conduct a Telehealth appointment with Patient 1 yesterday morning before the hike. I know it’s my day off but he can’t miss work. I don’t want him to get in trouble at his job.

To my surprise, he was completely normal on his regimen. I mean completely. I know I’ve said this but his response is impeccable. I did ask him why he went downtown. And his answer was puzzling, “It’s all part of my journey to find myself and improve who I am.”

When I got back last night it was so much later than I had planned.  My apartment was pretty much spotless which is surprising considering we left in such a hurry. Moose seemed sad to be back. He kept going to the door like he wanted to go back outside.

When I got to work this morning, a nurse, let’s call her Ava, greeted me with, “It’s so good to see you yesterday!”

“I’m sorry?”

“Downtown! I saw you and Moose at that new coffee shop. I was in town shopping with Alec.”

I tried to play it off, “Oh that was yesterday! All my days run together.”

She must have mistaken me for someone else. I mean, I have pictures of Moose and me at the overlook at the top of the hike. I know where I was.

I went to start a note for a new admit. For those unaware, we use “dot phrases” like “.admission” and it populates a template of an admit document. You can also personalize them like mine, “.AdmitDrB” and my favored template auto populates.

Before I change anything, my eyes are drawn to a sentence,

‘Patient expresses concern regarding the corner of Harden and Jasper.’

I put in a ticket with IT to see when this was edited. I ended my day early; I only cover admissions from the night before on weekends.

When I arrived home, Moose didn’t even greet me. I went to start the laundry from the hike, but it was already finished in the washer. I must have started it this morning and forgot. It was too late, and I was too tired to start it last night.

In the washer, there was a wet, crumpled-up piece of paper that was left in the drum. It was a receipt for the coffee shop downtown.

 

Update 3: Stuck at Work | April 22, 2026, 2:00:00am

Hopefully, my work computer will let me send this post. I’m stuck at work. It’s not that I haven’t tried to go home. I have. I get in my car, start driving, and somewhere along the way, I end up back in the parking lot. The sun is always up now.

I was worried about Moose at first. I checked the puppy cam on the first day. Someone has been filling his food and water bowls.

Today I remembered I could rewind the footage.

It was me.

I don’t know how, but somehow I am there.

He looks rested. Happier. Lighter than I’ve felt in months. Moose loves him.

I don’t know what happened at that corner. I must have gone. I can almost see it if I think hard enough. It’s waiting now to take the rest of me.

Or maybe it already took everything it wanted, and this is all that’s left. Maybe I’m what was left over.

I’m going to drive downtown tonight. Maybe my car will let me. I need to see what’s waiting there.

I think my life has been taken over by a stranger who turns out to be me.

 

Final Post : ) | April 24, 2026, 7:06:00pm

Now that I’ve had some time away, I just wanted to let everyone know I’m doing SO much better lol!!!

Only time will tell, but I think I was just burned out and feeding into stress more than anything. A little reset did wonders!!!

Took my dog out a ton, walked downtown a lot, and finally tried that coffee shop everyone keeps talking about haha!!! Can’t believe I never went before.

My mood has been so much better lately. More like myself than I’ve felt in years, seriously!!! If things change for the better, why ask questions?

Embarrassed I made this whole account in the first place lol, so I’ll probably delete it soon. Take care of yourselves!!!

— Dr. B

Shared Psychosis Case? | April 14, 2026, 3:05:26pm

I am posting here because I don’t know where else to turn.

Last week, I admitted a patient in his mid-20s, Patient 1, with no prior psychiatric history. He was fidgety. But trying his best not to be. He’s a high school dropout living at home with his mother and working in retail.

When I asked what brought him in, he said, “It’s not a voice. It’s there! It waits for me around the corner.”

Thinking he meant corners of the room, I asked, “Which corner?”

“No. I’m safe here. It’s downtown on the corner of Harden and Jasper.”

I wrote it down without thinking much of it. By the time we finished talking, I was convinced this was a routine psychotic presentation. He stayed voluntarily.

After we spoke, I looked it up, and there’s just a coffee shop there.

Collateral from his mother was helpful. According to her he had experienced months of social withdrawal and isolation, then suddenly that morning, he announced he was going downtown as if nothing was wrong. No substance use history. No prior medical history.

Now, yesterday, I admitted another patient. Patient 1 was well out of my mind. I had discharged him a few days ago, back to his mom. Patient 2 was also mid 20s. She walked into the room as if she were being jerked or fighting with some invisible rope. Her fists were clenched and clasped together like she was trying to crush a tin can in between her fists. It was hard to watch. She sat down, stared at me with calm eyes, and before I could start the interview, she said, “You’re going to think this is schizophrenia. It’s not.”

I’ve heard this before, and when they say this, it’s usually schizophrenia. When it’s not, it’s another diagnosis. 

I nodded.

“I don’t hear voices. No one tells me to do anything, but I know someone is watching,” she paused, her voice became shaky and anxious now, “me from the corner, so I’ve been avoiding it.”

“Corner of the room?”

“No, I think I’m safe here, but it’s at the corner of Harden and Jasper.”

Now, psychosis has patterns. People give vague fear a source. God. The government. Organized crime. Something powerful and external. It’s rarely original or this mundane.

That alone isn’t impossible, but they have no known connections. She was from out of state, attending the university across town. I’m still trying to figure out how they do.

She seems to be better this morning. None of the gait or hand wringing. She even gave me permission to call her roommate for collateral history.

I apparently have a drug rep dinner downtown in a couple days, a couple of blocks from that intersection. I know I shouldn’t indulge delusional material. I know better.

I checked my reservation email twice this morning to make sure it was still there. I don’t remember signing up for the dinner. And the invite link email and reservation confirmation were received at 2:13pm. At that time I was in a family therapy meeting for a patient with first break psychosis.

  

Update 1: I Checked Old Charts. | April 16, 2026, 9:05:10pm

Our system has a search function that lets me pull old notes by keywords. So today I searched “corner” and “intersection.”

Most results were exactly what I had expected; many of the patients were talking about corners of rooms, or had been noted by the physician as “pacing in a corner” or “hiding in corners.” 

But there were three notes that were different.

ALL three notes were written by me.

Five months ago, I noted that a male in his 40s, “requested a room with no windows facing ‘the corner of downtown.’”

Three months ago: A female in her 30s “refused discharge because of ‘the street corners being there.’”

Two months ago: a female in her 40s, “states she ‘keeps checking corners downtown.’”

I don’t remember any of those patients mentioning Harden or Jasper. I also can’t say they didn’t mention them because maybe I just didn’t write it down. I don’t even remember seeing the most recent patient, let alone writing the note.

I discharged Patient 2 today. She is doing much better now, but on the day of my first post, I became concerned. She suddenly became hyperactive and tried to leave. When I expressed my concerns, she decided to stay so that we could make a medication change. She just kept pleading to go downtown when just a few hours before she was terrified of the place.

I asked her, “Why do you need to go downtown now? I thought you were afraid of downtown.”

She looked at me with urgency in her eyes, “It’s open. I can’t miss it, or I will get there without…without ME.”

At discharge she had no memory of this panic episode and is calmer on her new regimen. She and Patient 1 will be seeing me for post-discharge follow up soon.

I don’t think I have ever seen this degree of improvement in this amount of time in my career.

My conversation with her roommate was uneventful. Much of the same history as patient 1: months of social withdrawal and more disorganization. But the roommate is the one who talked her into coming in because she wasn’t getting any better.

Today was the rep dinner. I should mention I have a dog named Moose. I usually go home at lunch to walk him but I got stuck at work and couldn’t. I’ve been so busy with work lately. It’s like I barely have time for myself.

On the drive downtown, my stomach began to ache, and my chest tightened a little. I used to feel this way back in med school when I was told that grades had been posted. I noticed myself hugging the right-hand lane and slowing down well below the speed limit. I told myself I must be feeling guilty that I haven’t let Moose out at all today. Maybe that was true. I turned around before I reached the city center.

I expected Moose to be standing next to the door with his legs crossed, waiting to go out to the bathroom. But when I got home, Moose was lying on his usual spot, panting. His head swung over to look at me, and then his head cocked to the side like he was examining me with his empty water bowl beside him. I thought ‘Great… where is the mess I need to clean up?’ I couldn’t find anywhere where he’d made a mess, and when I grabbed his leash for a walk, he barely reacted.

There is a large iced coffee, sweating onto the counter with the ice half melted.

I don’t drink iced coffee.

I’m taking tomorrow off. I think Moose and I need a day trip. I haven’t taken a day for myself in a while.

 

Update 2 Day Off | April 18, 2026, 12:38:53pm 

It was nice to get away and be in nature for a day. I agreed to conduct a Telehealth appointment with Patient 1 yesterday morning before the hike. I know it’s my day off but he can’t miss work. I don’t want him to get in trouble at his job.

To my surprise, he was completely normal on his regimen. I mean completely. I know I’ve said this but his response is impeccable. I did ask him why he went downtown. And his answer was puzzling, “It’s all part of my journey to find myself and improve who I am.”

When I got back last night it was so much later than I had planned.  My apartment was pretty much spotless which is surprising considering we left in such a hurry. Moose seemed sad to be back. He kept going to the door like he wanted to go back outside.

When I got to work this morning, a nurse, let’s call her Ava, greeted me with, “It’s so good to see you yesterday!”

“I’m sorry?”

“Downtown! I saw you and Moose at that new coffee shop. I was in town shopping with Alec.”

I tried to play it off, “Oh that was yesterday! All my days run together.”

She must have mistaken me for someone else. I mean, I have pictures of Moose and me at the overlook at the top of the hike. I know where I was.

I went to start a note for a new admit. For those unaware, we use “dot phrases” like “.admission” and it populates a template of an admit document. You can also personalize them like mine, “.AdmitDrB” and my favored template auto populates.

Before I change anything, my eyes are drawn to a sentence,

‘Patient expresses concern regarding the corner of Harden and Jasper.’

I put in a ticket with IT to see when this was edited. I ended my day early; I only cover admissions from the night before on weekends.

When I arrived home, Moose didn’t even greet me. I went to start the laundry from the hike, but it was already finished in the washer. I must have started it this morning and forgot. It was too late, and I was too tired to start it last night.

In the washer, there was a wet, crumpled-up piece of paper that was left in the drum. It was a receipt for the coffee shop downtown.

 

Update 3: Stuck at Work | April 22, 2026, 2:00:00am

Hopefully, my work computer will let me send this post. I’m stuck at work. It’s not that I haven’t tried to go home. I have. I get in my car, start driving, and somewhere along the way, I end up back in the parking lot. The sun is always up now.

I was worried about Moose at first. I checked the puppy cam on the first day. Someone has been filling his food and water bowls.

Today I remembered I could rewind the footage.

It was me.

I don’t know how, but somehow I am there.

He looks rested. Happier. Lighter than I’ve felt in months. Moose loves him.

I don’t know what happened at that corner. I must have gone. I can almost see it if I think hard enough. It’s waiting now to take the rest of me.

Or maybe it already took everything it wanted, and this is all that’s left. Maybe I’m what was left over.

I’m going to drive downtown tonight. Maybe my car will let me. I need to see what’s waiting there.

I think my life has been taken over by a stranger who turns out to be me.

 

Final Post : ) | April 24, 2026, 7:06:00pm 

Now that I’ve had some time away, I just wanted to let everyone know I’m doing SO much better lol!!!

Only time will tell, but I think I was just burned out and feeding into stress more than anything. A little reset did wonders!!!

Took my dog out a ton, walked downtown a lot, and finally tried that coffee shop everyone keeps talking about haha!!! Can’t believe I never went before.

My mood has been so much better lately. More like myself than I’ve felt in years, seriously!!! If things change for the better, why ask questions?

Embarrassed I made this whole account in the first place lol, so I’ll probably delete it soon. Take care of yourselves!!!

— Dr. B