HEAD CASES.

By Scott Nicholson.

FEAR GOGGLES.

By Scott Nicholson.

"G.o.d, please help me see things as they are."

A simple prayer, one that Elvin Meister thought even G.o.d could understand. Of course, G.o.d was also the same perverted architect who had built Overton from the ground up, with its threatening spires and plenty of shadowed, teeming alleys. Such a G.o.d could not be trusted, but Elvin had been taught that prayers never hurt, even if they often fell on deaf ears.

Elvin's eyes had been bothering him for some time. He'd first noticed a month ago, when the talking head on the television screen grew ears that were slightly elongated and pointy, like those of a marsupial.

"Gretta," he'd said to his wife of seven years. "Does the picture look strange to you?"

Gretta, busy in the kitchen with clattering dishes and a gurgling coffee pot, gave her usual impatient sigh and said, "The Tylers down the hall just got a flat screen and we're still stuck with an antenna," she said. "Of course the picture's strange."

She'd pa.s.sed judgment without bothering to glance at the screen, and when the man's eyes narrowed and his pupils turned a deep shade of red, Elvin decided the color aspect was shot and hurriedly flipped off the set before the image disintegrated further.

But he couldn't chalk off last week's incident to scrambled electrons or burned-out picture tubes. He'd been walking to his job at the corner deli, where he spent his days elbow-deep in sauerkraut and shredded corned beef, when the thing fluttered past his feet. He thought at first it was a pigeon, one of the thousands that strafed the city with fecal fusillades. But this one had been darker, more leathery, and vastly less feathery than its flying kin, and Elvin could have sworn, just before it disappeared into the rusted gap in an eave, that it had a long, decidedly non-avian tail. In fact, it had resembled a strip of shoe leather, coiled and quivering.

He hurried on down the sidewalk. The faces around him, those dots of eyes and gash mouths that marked the millions, seemed even more blank and washed-out than usual. Elvin fought an urge to grab a pa.s.serby, peer closely into a face, and demand acknowledgement. In Overton, you wanted to be invisible and ignored. That was the way, and the sooner you accepted it, the longer you lived.

If you could call this "living."

He'd made it through that day, convinced he was merely going through one of the phases Gretta had always ascribed to him. Moody, paranoid, given to long hours by the window, scarcely talking. These selfish fugues didn't happen as often as she claimed, but Elvin had to admit a certain truth in her words. But he couldn't discuss such things with her. There were certain matters of which one didn't speak.

Until last night.

After separate showers, him going last so she could have as much hot water as she desired, he was brushing his teeth when he stared into the grimy mirror and saw his ears exhibiting the same distorted growth as the television announcer's.

"Honey?" he'd said.

She was already under blankets, propped up on three pillows, a celebrity gossip magazine on her austere lap. Of course, she wouldn't budge from such a position and resented any suggestion that she might. "What is it now?"

He touched one ear, his inquisitive fingers rubbing the tip. It was rounded, defying the reflected image. But in the mirror, his fingers were tipped with long, yellowed, and cracked nails.

Elvin dropped his hand and it knocked against the sink. It was normal, wrinkled, with tufts of wiry hair. His hand. Not the hand in the mirror. He'd dared another glance, half expecting to see some sort of discoloration in his pupils or irises.

No. Still him, and his ears were back to normal.

But what was normal?

"What is it?" Gretta's voice rose in pitch and brittleness. Apologies were in order.

"Nothing," he said. "I was wondering if I should put toothpaste on the shopping list."

"How should I know? You're the one who brushes his teeth eight times a day."

It was true. Phobia of germs. Which Gretta didn't mind, because it saved needless kisses. He peeled back his upper lip, saw one of his incisors had grown pointed. His mouth closed with a plop, he turned out the light, and then made for bed, falling asleep without benefit of either prayers or matrimonial affection.

He could have convinced himself those were brief delusions suffered by a hapless fantasist if not for this morning's breakfast. The eggs, sunny side up, had oozed red when he probed them with the fork. Gretta, an adequate cook, had remarked on his lack of appet.i.te while she cleared the table. As she busied herself with pots and rags, Elvin slipped away and called in sick at work, then made an appointment with the eye doctor.

It was in the waiting room where Elvin had witnessed that simple prayer for clear vision, cross-st.i.tched into brown burlap material and hung on the wall in a simple frame. Elvin repeated the words to himself, measuring their simplicity.

"G.o.d, please help me see things as they are."

"Excuse me?" A woman across from him in a worn vinyl chair peeked over the top of her interior design magazine. Her lips quivered like two encased snakes.

He grinned and pointed to the wall. "I wonder if that's some sort of eye test," he said. "See how the letters are fuzzy? Get it? They're threads."

She frowned and returned to her magazine. Elvin was about to continue, to make the comparison between the bad lettering and the way telemarketers whispered into the phone when trying to seduce you into buying hearing aids. Instead, he decided to take the framed sign's message to heart and a.s.sume her tight lips signaled a desire for solitude.

Solitude. The most precious commodity in Overton. Elvin often thought he was the only one who held such a philosophical leaning. It wasn't the kind of thing one could talk about in coffee houses. After all, they'd all come from somewhere. And they'd all ended up here together.

"Mr. Meister," came a voice from the interior door, and he found himself shepherded through a series of halls by a thin, good-looking woman whose taut rear end somehow managed to devolve into a sack of wiggling rats by the time she deposited him in an examination room.

No blood pressure check, no inquiries into his medical history. No insurance forms, no paperwork of any kind. A most unusual office. And the room had no eye charts, no soothing instructional posters, no advertis.e.m.e.nts for prescription medicine. In fact, the room resembled the antechamber of a holding cell. It was devoid of all furniture except a single padded chair with metal armrests.

A clock hung on the wall. It was the old-fashioned kind with a twitching arm that counted off seconds. Except this one seemed stuck. The long, needle-like appendage quivered as if preparing to leap into an undetermined future, but some invisible wire held it back.

Elvin sat in the chair, trying to ignore the irritating clock.

Face. It had a face.

And it was staring at him.

He flicked his eyes to the clock. Just the dumb hands pointing to three and seven, the second hand caught in an eternal spasm. Numbers ringing a round, white background. No red eyes, no elongated ears.

A face without a mouth, no sharp, threatening teeth behind a sick grin.

He turned the chair until it was facing the opposite wall. He had no idea how long he'd been waiting. He guessed five minutes, though it could have been ten thousand hummingbird hammers of the dead second hand.

At last the door opened. A round face, a real face, the eyes swollen and distorted behind thick lenses, appeared in the crack.

"Oh, sorry, I must have the wrong room," the man said, and the door closed with a click.

Moments later, a knock came.

"Yes?" Elvin called.

m.u.f.fled, "May I come in?"

"I suppose."

The door opened and the same man appeared. He was short, wearing a plain white lab coat with oversize pockets, a piece of elastic cable dangling from one of them. A few black wires of hair crossed his bald skull. He walked with the air of a distracted man, rubbing his chin. "A most peculiar situation," the man said.

"Excuse me? Are you the doctor?"

The man, who had been pacing in front of him like a lifer in a lockdown, stopped and looked up as if he'd forgotten Elvin were there. "Doctor? Heavens, no, and you should be grateful." He leaned forward like a conspirator. "You wouldn't want the doctor. Not in this place. No, not all."

"Are you a patient?"

"No, I'm quite impatient. That's why they sent me here."

Elvin, who was used to suppressing confusion, only nodded. "This is one of those things we don't talk about, right?"

"You mean, like on the outside?"

"Yes. Where we all have to pretend everything is okay and that birds don't have teeth and snakes don't talk and my wife doesn't have worms in her hair."

"We don't talk about those things." The man resumed pacing, his hands thrust in his pockets. Elvin looked at the floor and noticed the paint on the concrete floor was actually worn. This man, or others like him, had marked the route by miles of directionless trudging "What things?" Elvin asked, trying to sound casual. He well knew what things. The kind of things one couldn't talk about.

"You've seen them, of course." A statement, not a question.

Elvin risked a glance at the clock. The second hand was moving, and perhaps had been all along. "Them?"

"The other things."

"What other things?" Elvin thought about mentioning the television announcer with the pointy ears, but then he'd have to lump himself into the same category as the bald man. After all, in the mirror, his reflection had looked every bit as supernatural. And who knew whether such things were good or evil? In Overton, the lines not only blurred, they blended together into one gray, greasy tapestry.

The man stopped pacing and went to the door. "You know."

As the door closed behind the man, Elvin stood. The clock had marked off seven minutes. Elvin looked at the worn strip on the floor. He stepped into the middle of it, turned and faced the bare wall. One step, two, three, and he was at the stack of cold concrete blocks. Turning, six steps the other way to the opposite wall. There was no future in it, and barely a present. He retreated to the chair.

After five more minutes, he went to the door and tried the handle. Locked. Gretta would be worried.

No. She didn't worry about anything. Especially him.

He knocked.

After a moment, the door opened. It was the balding man with the thick gla.s.ses. "Yes?"

"May I come out?" Elvin said.

"You mean, may you come in?"

Elvin looked behind him. Come to think of it, the door had opened inside the room when he'd entered, and now it swung to the outside. He peered past the man, trying to remember what the hall had looked like. "I have an appointment."

"With the doctor?"

"Yes. Where's the nurse who brought me here? Can I see her?"

"I don't know whether you can see her or not. What's the condition of your eyes?"

"My eyes are fine."

"That's what they all say. I said it once myself." As if to make a point, the man removed his gla.s.ses and rubbed the lenses with the hem of his lab coat. Naked, his eyes were milky and dull.

"What are you in for?" Elvin said. The man was obviously a patient of some sort. Mental breakdown, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse. The options were unlimited.

"I'm in for life," the man said. "This is Overton."

Elvin had developed an itch just above his elbow. He scratched idly. Something fell to the floor. He looked around the legs of the chair. Scales, like those from a reptile, lay scattered like confetti.

"Ah," the myopic man said. "You're changing."

"I don't know where those came from." In the small room, Elvin's breathing seemed far too loud for his lungs.

"No blood under your fingernails," he replied, nodding. "That's good. There's still time."

Elvin glanced at the clock. It was stuck again, back where it had been when he first noticed it. At least it was still faceless. "Time for what?"

"Fitting," the man said. "The doctor will be along shortly." The man hurried from the room, the door closing firmly behind him. Swinging the wrong way again.

But which was the right way? In or out, doors worked both ways. Seeing or not seeing, the thing was the same. If your eyes were closed, and your pupils turned red, would you notice? Would they still be red in the dark?

He tried to stand, to run for the door, knowing it would be locked. Or worse, that it would open onto a world where the skins and faces and veils that disguised the monsters inside would have all fallen away. A world where Gretta had double rows of sharp teeth and a long, curling anteater's tongue flicking behind them. One where the pigeons no longer pretended to wear feathers and gave way to rough scales. One where the dog at the end of a leash was now a dragon, snorting and roaring fire. Where the customers at the delicatessen wanted their meat fresh and raw.

With great effort, he forced his legs to stiffen and for gravity to yield. He stepped forward and found himself in the worn groove of those who had walked before. He walked in their footsteps yet again, going nowhere and getting there, time after time.

A knock at the door stopped him. He was two steps from the chair. Should he return and sit? Or would that be the expected behavior? If it was the expected behavior, would he be better off submitting to it or defying it?

He had no opportunity to decide. The door opened, swinging outward this time, the hinges on the opposite jamb now. It was the bald man with the thick gla.s.ses.

"I thought you said the doctor would see me now," Elvin said, feeling awkward standing in the walking track.

"I see you."

"You're the doctor?"

"We are each a patient," he said, fumbling in his lab-coat pocket. He pulled the elastic cord from it. "Would you please sit?"

Elvin eyed the door and sat. He could always call for help if necessary. But what would respond? The nurse with the twitching skin, which probably housed a thousand vermin beneath it? The snake-lipped woman in the waiting room? The dozens, thousands, walking the false concrete of Overton, hiding their true natures?

He sat. The doctor stretched the cord on the floor.

"Whatever you do, don't step across this line," the doctor said. He leaned close and raised an index finger. "Keep your head still and look at this."

Elvin watched the finger ease back and forth in the air. He focused on the blistered whorl, skin that peeled itself as he watched, an absurd banana stripping away to reveal milk-white fruit beneath.

"Focus on the finger," the doctor urged in a calm voice.