text: Brilliant white evaporates before my eyes, the tendrils languidly dribble back into the suit. I reflect the stars momentarily as the metal washes over me, then it drains away into nothing. Me jogs my body back across the heath to the bungalow, bangs in through the front door and heads upstairs. He gathers his body up from the floor and presses a point on his chest. I slump down at his feet and he wakes, pushes me to the side with a boot and stands. ‘I’m, me?’ I say, looking at my hands. ‘All fixed,’ me says. ‘No leaks, no more blind hopping about fucking with normality.’ He peers blearily at one of the screens, ‘I’m sorry, mate, I’ve gotta go,’ he says, ‘looks like 172465988-795822-8-4 has a case of rogue particles again.’ ‘Right,’ I say, rising to my feet. ‘Right,’ me says, awkwardly, ‘this path’s a hugging path, yes?’ He embraces me, patting my back and smoothing my head. ‘People hug,’ I say, dazed. ‘Good, OK, well, you gotta go,’ he says, and harries me from the room. I wander out of the bungalow and stop on the gravel of the driveway as a whirr begins behind me. I look round and the entire house blinks out of existence and a giant, silver sphere appears in its place. A tiny door opens in the side of the sphere and my clothes are unceremoniously chucked out. They land all over where the roof should be, hanging flat against thin air. ‘Sorry, mate, forgot,’ me shouts, waves, ‘bye,’ then the door closes and the sphere disappears and there’s just the bungalow with my clothes scattered all over the roof. I feel a chill breeze bite at my nethers. I am completely naked. Thankfully there’s a ladder at the side of the garage, so I rest it up against the house and clamber onto the roof. I teeter across the angled surface, tiles shifting beneath my bare feet, slipping on wet moss. I collect all my belongings together, wrap them into a tight bundle and make my way back towards the ladder, then I freeze as two people, a man and a woman, walk out of the front door and crunch out onto the gravel. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ the couple say in unison as they catch sight of me. The couple who were passed out in a bed, full of wires, not a moment ago. I turn on my heel and leg it up and over the roof and skid down the other side, skinning my feet on the tiles. I vault off the gutter and down onto a patio, tweak my ankle and hobble the length of the garden. I throw myself through a mercifully thorn-free hedge and head for the forest. Eventually I stop and pull on my clothes then double back, dodging quickly by the bungalow and jogging through the village. The winding roads eventually lead me to the station and I hop on the first train anywhere. I’m exhausted. As soon as my body makes contact with the seat I sink into unconsciousness. I see myself, and myself again, in lines, moving in and out of time with one another. The lines bend around me, arcing above and below in great, gently revolving rings and spheres. The floor is liquid, shifting hexagonal patterns constructed from various iterations of my face. One foot forward sends a ripple through the floor and faces merge and dissipate. It all moves together. Another step and the entire endless, fractal expanse, tears and reshapes and expands and contracts around me. It’s all me. I begin to run, through a black tunnel lit with my eyes, through a tulip of squirming bodies, exploding back in on itself, my features twist and blur with every step. I’m coming apart. Faster and faster. I am a part. It’s all me. Whirling in unison. The whole universe, curled up tight inside of us. Looking back at itself. Who am I? I open my eyes. ‘Here I am.