Trouble at the Flat Earth Convention

Mark Abdon

I blow in sideways with the rain, push hard on the revolving door, and tumble into the ornate hotel lobby. The concierge drops her smile to watch the little pools of water collect around my tan espadrilles. The storm had come out of nowhere, swirling green-grey clouds. The dangerous kind. I exhale with the relief of being indoors, calm and dry. I remove my jacket, straighten my rain-splotched clothes, and regain my poise.

No, I don’t — I don’t have poise. Never have. I’m not that kind of girl.

I blush pink and sort of kick at the loose liquid with my shoe. Try to spread it out. But then I remember why I’m at the hotel in the first place. I tap into my journalistic professionalism, detach, and bury my embarrassment.

I’m getting good at this. The burying. I can feel my mind frisk at the edges of memory. The Event. The 9-1-1 call. Another puddle. A crimson one blooming from my mother’s left wrist, the click-clack stretcher exiting her apartment for the hospital. That was just a week ago. I haven’t seen her since. I’m going ‘no contact’. I bury. I soldier on. It’s working.

I sling my wet coat over my arm as I read the signage:

Hot Wax Candle Convention — 21st Floor.

Midwestern Flat Earth Society Convention — Basement.

I pull out my miniature Steno Pad from my back jeans pocket and label a new page as I take the long escalator down. Another human-interest piece assigned by my aging editor for the “Around Town” column of The Indianapolis Journal, a third-rate paper with a circulation of two thousand on a good week. I’m already struggling. Possibly because I’m a human who is not interested in these crazy people. Plus, Flat Earthers are yesterday’s news. I could be writing about Senator McMichael’s embezzlement. Or DeFleur University’s blackface incident.

Instead, I’m here.

I trip hard on the skirt guard at the escalator’s end. I hadn’t looked up from my Steno pad in time. I don’t quite fall to the ground. Instead, I do a kind of stagger-stumble, my shoes slapping the slate floor of the basement. I scramble to pick up my spiral notebook.

Did anyone see?

Yes. A man and a woman gaze at me like wary gazelles from behind the registration table. Even sitting down, you can tell he’s tall, gangly. The woman is short like me, and not quite pretty — also like me. I like her blonde hair, though. She looks normal. She might be twice my age, maybe the same as my mother. My mother. I wonder what else they’d have in common? Based on this lady’s crooked grin, it doesn’t look like she’s suffering from debilitating depression. Different kinds of unwell, I guess.

They’re still wide-eyed. The two at the table. I work to keep my face neutral as I read the sign on the wall behind them: Journalists Will Be Prosecuted. I feel a specific heat in my gut.

“I’m fine!” I reassure them. The woman suppresses a smile.

“Name, please?”

“Veronica Mills.” The lie rolls off my tongue with ease, but my cheeks still bloom.

She scans the printed list with the tip of a Sheraton pen. There are maybe two hundred names. Small conference. I don’t know what I expected. She finds my entry and crosses it off neatly.

“Welcome, Veronica!” she beams. “Don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Judy. This your first convention?”

“It is,” I smile convincingly. I imagine my future story sandwiched between articles about the composition of Indiana State Fair hot dogs and which Hoosier casinos Foreigner is playing this year. “I’m excited to be here!”

The man says something I don’t quite catch, but he’s holding out a trim conference handbook. I take it and examine the contents. On the back, there’s a schedule with the times and locations of the sessions. On the front, a glossy picture of Mikka Malibu, the celebrity keynote speaker this year. The plunging neckline in her photo is substantial. Apparently, they don’t prefer everything to be flat around here.

“Head on back to the Meridian Ballroom East,” he points to the corridor behind me.  “Mingle, get to know some of these great folks, and we’ll get started in about thirty minutes. Oh! Almost forgot. Let’s get you a nametag.”

He proffers a blank sticker and a Sharpie. I almost write my real name. But I catch it fast and sort of bend the line of an ‘L’ inward to form the ‘V’. I write my mother’s name. Veronica. Should have chosen some other fake name, but I’d registered months ago.

Heart beating fast, I walk down the low-ceilinged hall, bulbous chandeliers lighting my way. An unmanned book table offers titles like Astronauts Are Asinine and This Snow Globe We Call Earth. There’s a merchandise table too. Trinkets with pictures of our planet — the north pole at the center, Antarctica a wall of ice around the edges. Coins, maps, posters. Lots of two-dimensional objects.

I poke my head into the General Session room. The small space is still too big for the fifty or so people milling about the high-top tables in the back. There’s a modest stage, a podium, pipe and drape, banners depicting a rendering of our flattened planet, and a screen flanked by two Peavey speakers. A few unsociable people are already sitting in the sturdy banquet chairs, their backs to me. The rest of the early arrivals form a crescent around the wings of the room.

Someone greets me as I enter. I jot a quick note. Attendees look fairly normal, if not unremarkable. A couple oddballs, sure. There’s a tall guy wearing a coonskin cap. A young man covered in dark body hair sports a flag-patterned tank top and denim shorts with an inseam of about four inches despite the April chill. The rest seem normal though. Lots of t-shirts with Make Earth Flat Again. Mostly white guys, I notice, though not all. I’m one of maybe ten women in the room.

No one else has a notebook. I tuck mine away. I set my phone to start recording and slip it into the pocket of my coat, still folded over my left arm. Then I pluck up my courage, approach the nearest group, and introduce myself.

First up is a trio of guys, mid-forties, slightly out of shape with ball caps and goatees. They look like they’d be into their lawns and IPAs and College Gameday. Instead, we’re chatting in the back of the room about the actors NASA has hired since the 1960’s to lie to the public. One conspiracy theory begets another. I stifle each laugh that threatens to give me away. I ask the same three introductory questions to this first group that I ask to everyone I meet that day. Is this your first conference? How’d you become a Flat-Earther? What’s the hardest part about being one?

The majority have similar answers to the first two questions. No, it isn’t their first conference. Most became Flat-Earthers through the internet — Reddit backchannels and YouTube rabbit holes. Some got there through other conspiracies like Roswell or the Illuminati. Most of them came here alone.

The last question gets interesting.

“Hardest part? Man,” muses one of the goateed men with a slight drawl, removing his hat and giving his ‘M’-shaped balding pattern a smoothing-over. “Maybe that you know the truth, but can’t get anyone else to hear it?” This is met with nods and grunts of understanding from the other two.

“Worst part for me is having to hide this part of myself. You know, to fit in,” a second one sighs. This is met with more nodding. I nod along too. To fit in.

“Think it’s the people for me,” says the third. He’s wearing a Bass Pro Shop hat and a camo Henley.

“What do you mean?” I ask, trying hard to sound casual. Not like a journalist.

“How come you ask so many questions?” His dark eyes narrow under the brim of his hat. My blood freezes. I’m caught.

“Just naturally curious,” I shrug, playing it off. “Isn’t that how we all got here?” I gesture to the small crowd around us. The room is too quiet. No one says anything. For a moment, my mind plays with the differences between curious and suspicious. But then my answer seems to satisfy him. He nods and continues.

“Haven’t talked to my mother for years,” he admits, eyes on the floor. This catches me off-guard. An involuntary shiver runs through me — I thank them for the conversation and excuse myself quickly, mumbling something about using the restroom before the conference kicks off. The ornate bathroom door is heavier than expected and I fail to open it on the first try.

Once inside, I click off my recording and scrutinize myself in the enormous mirror. I have my mother’s dark caterpillar eyebrows. And her chin. “Don’t cry,” I admonish my reflection, pointer finger extended in warning. “Get it together.” I lean on the rose quartz vanity top, my nose nearly touching the glass, my eyes narrowed, my voice low. “You’re a professional.” I stare down my reflection until the feelings pass.

Two things strike me about everyone I meet. They’re generally distrusting. They’re generally very nice.

After making the rounds and talking to maybe forty people – nearly a quarter of the conference before it even starts — the lights give a warning flash and the attendees begin filing into the rows of seats. I sit in the back-right corner and put my jacket on the seat next to me by the aisle.

“Anyone sitting here?”

I look up. It’s Judy from the registration table, warm eyes shining. I gibber something cordial as I move my jacket. In the last moments before the official start of the conference, we talk about normal things. The violent swings in April weather in Indiana, about our cats (Gertrude — hers, Hermes — mine), and the new walking path through Brookside Park. It’s easy to forget that she distrusts two millennia of science.

The music begins to die out as the lights fade.

“Welcome, all you crazy people!” an energetic thirty-something black man in a plain, black t-shirt roars into the microphone. This is met with self-deprecating laughter. This self-effacement is part and parcel of the Flat-Earther identity, apparently. “Whether you’re a first-timer or an old-timer, we’re glad you’re here! Who traveled the farthest? Anyone from outside the country?” A few hands go up. “How about anyone from the underside?” This is met with peals laughter. It takes a full ten seconds for the small crowd to settle down again.

“Well, we’ve got an exciting line-up of speakers and topics for you this afternoon, and back by popular demand, we’ll follow up all the great content with a plated dinner and dancing!” This is met with exuberant cheers. I survey the room. Vigorous clapping, literal tears of joy, nervous shaking. There’s nowhere else these people would rather be. This is their Super Bowl.

After a few more introductory comments, he gives up the microphone to Mikka Malibu. She’s beaming, practically emitting light. Her silken hair and skin are the same shade of lush brown. Light gleams on every beautifully rounded, buoyant feature. Nothing angular like my chin. Someone shouts her catch-phrase — They don’t pay me enough for this! — from a reality TV show about living in a trailer park.

Her keynote speech is entitled “Stay Curious”. I study the under-clothed woman on the platform in front of me. I go to pull my jacket tighter before realizing it’s on the chair next to me. What path through life could possibly lead someone like Mikka here? I wonder.

Judy is looking down at my note pad. She says nothing. I say nothing. I didn’t realize I’d taken it out. Habit, I guess. I close the Steno pad and stealthily rehome it in my jeans pocket. But I drop my pen in the process. I twist and reach down to retrieve it, nailing my head on the chair back in front of me as I right myself. I mutter the word ‘interesting’ to whatever Mikka is saying for cover. Something about tests she’d done with her phone regarding the curvature of large bodies of water. Judy is tactful enough to ignore me.

“What seminar you going to?” asks Judy once the emcee wraps up the end of the first session and we’re on a break.

“Oh, hadn’t really thought ahead.” I scan the list of options. The Secret Lives of Airline Pilots. Poetry from a Flat Earth. Photo Forgeries: Spotting the Big Spherical Lie. “What about you?”

“This is the hardest part, because I want to go to all of them, of course. Luckily for us, there are two back-to-back seminar slots. You can tag along with me to the first one if you like!”

 “I’d love to!” It slips from my mouth before I can stop it. Instant regret flushes my face, but Judy seems delighted. She slings her arm through the loop of mine, leading me in the direction of Circle Suite East, the first seminar room. She points out friends as we glide down the hall. Everyone waves to Judy. I understand why — she’s sweet.

Circle Suite East is set up in four rows of ten chairs each, facing forward like a classroom. People are filing in and it looks like the room might fill up. There’s a screen in the middle with the title slide declaring the name of the seminar. “The Planoterrestrial Imagination.” Underneath this is the name of the presenter, Dr. Frank W. Hiszékeny.

“Oh, you’re in for a real treat. Frank is brilliant,” says Judy, leaning into my personal space like we’re old friends. Just as I’m about to ask about his doctorate, Frank takes the stage, placing a thick collection of papers on the podium in front of him.

Applause breaks out from the audience, and I clap too. But then the lights flicker. That quiets everyone down. I look back but no one’s standing by the panel of light switches at the back wall.

“Well, here’s hoping the electricity holds! April weather in Indiana — harder to pin down than the theory of gravity!” Frank begins, using air quotes for the last three words. He’s maybe in his late forties — sports short curly red hair, big square glasses, and a green sweater vest. He shoves his hands into his pockets, then looks over his shoulder at the slide behind him. “Well, hey! That’s the same title as my new book!” He sports a broad grin. “Sorry, I’m terrible at self-promotion but my publisher says I have to do it. Seriously though, if you end up liking this seminar, there’s a lot more where that came from. Think Judy lined up a hundred copies for me.” He winks at her. “Though all one hundred copies are probably sitting in a box underneath a table somewhere in this basement.” I like Frank.

He points a clicker at his computer next to the projector and the next slide appears. I stifle a chuckle. He’s opted for the ‘glitter’ slide animation. He reads the quote for us.

“Everything you can imagine is real. That’s Pablo Picasso, maybe you’ve heard of him?” Warm laughter from the audience. “It’s a strange time when we trust our artists over our scientists, but here we are! Here’s another idea, this time from C.S. Lewis.” He clicks for the next slide — another glitter transition. “Lewis said that earthly desires always imply an object of satiation. We experience hunger? There’s food for that. We’re thirsty? Water. Right? Now he applied this to the existence of God and a just world beyond this one. We all long for a better world than this one, right? However, we can also apply this to our imaginations. For what is imagination but desire? You following so far?”

I looked around the room. I wasn’t certain we were. But thirty or forty faces beamed up at Frank. That’s when it dawned on me. He was one of their heroes.

Click. Glitter transition.

“So, if our imaginations are pointers to what is real, then what we should find in our fictional worlds would be example after example of planoterrestrialism.” He pauses. “That means ‘flat earth,’ Bob,” he says, pointing at a bald man in the front row, who throws back his head in a bark of laughter.

Another glance around the room. A few people are actually taking notes now. I take out my Steno pad and jot a few things down myself.

Frank’s presentation then speeds through an impressive number of 20th and 21st century representations of a flat earth in the fictional realm. S. Fowler Wright’s 1932 novel Beyond the Rim. C.S. Lewis pops up again with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Ted Chiang’s Nebula Award Winner, The Tower of Babylon. Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, of course. The 2017 Marvel film Thor: Ragnarok. He goes in-depth into each of these, noting commonalities along the way, citing them as proof that our imaginations have latched onto reality once again.

As the presentation wraps up, I jot down a note to double-check Lewis to make sure he wasn’t secretly a flat-earther. But I stop mid-sentence and look up. Frank has paused for effect, giving greater weight to his final thought. He’s gripping the podium and leaning toward us.

“What will you dare to imagine next?” he asks.

Frank’s closing question jars something loose, and my own imagination takes off running, against my will.

In a flash, two scenarios unfold. In the first, I’m leaving peonies under the dark clouds that hover over my mother’s grave. I can just read the date after the dash. This year. I try to see the look on my face, but it’s obscured.

But then the scene disappears and I’m at my mother’s apartment. We’re sipping green tea on her couch, legs folded in, talking like we’re old friends. I can still see the scars on her wrists. The scene isn’t happy so much as placid and warm.

I shake my head and join late to the applause that fills the room. I blink away the thoughts, focus on my breathing, and write in my Steno pad, just to connect me to something concrete. I scan the room one more time. Several people stand, including the aforementioned Bob.

After the clapping subsides, I peruse my program for the seminars offered in the second slot. “Which one you heading to next?” I ask Judy, faking a smile.

For the first time today, I notice she’s not smiling. Judy’s mouth shrinks into a tight ‘o’ and sort of rolls to one side. “Grief and Loss.” Her body seems to diminish with the words, mousy and mild.

Dutifully, I frown and nod. However, this social nicety, this mirroring takes a turn as the title of the seminar works through me. I feel a ‘flight or fight’ response run through my body and I tamp down the instinct to bolt. Instead, I follow my journalistic instincts. “Mind if I join you again?”

Her gaze meets mine, and she gives a weak smile. “Might be nice to have someone by my side when the waterworks start,” she says, indicating the tears already beginning to fill her eyes. I follow her out into the hall, then into the next conference room, Circle Suite West.

This room is even smaller than the last. Almost claustrophobic. There’s no stage, no PA system. Just twenty chairs in the shape of a disc. A flat one. Judy and I take seats on the far side of the room and wait for the others. The ceiling is lower in here.

Moments later, I find myself in the middle of something akin to group therapy. The facilitator — a towering woman named Jackie, shaped like an upside-down light bulb with brunette pigtails — has asked each of us to name something we’ve lost since becoming Flat-Earthers. My job. My husband. My confidence. My trust in the universe. My faith in God. The answers vary widely. They do not expound. There is power in the naming of things.

“My daughter,” says Judy, when it comes to her turn. I have no time to sink down into empathy. Instead, I panic, because I’m next and I don’t have a clue what to say. So I lie. Sort of.

“My mother,” I murmur, eyes downcast. Then Judy’s hand is on my lap, grasping mine. In spite of myself, I feel hot tears threatening the edges of my eyes. I use my free hand to dab them in a preemptory strike.

That’s when the sirens go off. Even in the basement, we hear them. Our phones emit the droning tone of the emergency message service in unison. Sure enough. Tornado Warning.

Moments later, the concierge from upstairs bounces into the room and confirms it. She instructs us to stay put. We’re in the basement, in a room with no windows. We’re already in the safest place we could be. She warns us that other guests will be joining us, given the emergent situation. All nod. All understand.

As if on cue, wide-eyed travelers begin flooding into the hallway, begin filling our little room. The whole group of them looks like they’ve come from Florida or California, judging by the shorts and Birkenstocks, which aren’t really an April thing in Indiana. They bustle with movement, a perfect foil to the atmosphere in here just moments ago. They’re talking loudly, chattering excitedly to quell the fear. Some have their luggage with them. Some are charging their phones, calling loved ones, assuring them of their safety.

A few of the Flat Earthers begin to do the same, but only a few. Maybe because they’re hearty Midwesterners who don’t panic at a tornado when holing up in a hotel basement. Or maybe they don’t have anyone to call. Or maybe they don’t believe in tornados. I’m not really sure how weather systems fit into the larger Flat Earther framework.

I adjust my position, the Steno pad uncomfortable in my jeans. Judy doesn’t move an inch. She doesn’t look up.

“You’re not CIA are you?”

“Pardon?”

“Just making sure you’re not spying on us,” she says with a wan smile. “They do that sometimes.”

“No, I’m not CIA.”

“Journalist?”

It’s an awkward moment. My neck is hot.

“Yes.”

The room is filled with the sound of a dozen phone conversations. Coastal strangers calling their friends, calling family. Words of concern and care. People that would miss them if they were gone.

“Write something nice about us?” There are streaks down the woman’s face where the tears have already run. I assume these are from earlier.

“I will,” I promise, and I mean it.

I can’t be sure, but even in the basement I think I hear a muted version of the classic tornado sound, the high-speed freight train. People on phones are plugging their opposite ears with their index fingers to counter the rise in decibels.

“No one you want to call?” I offer.

Cow-eyed, Judy looks up at me and shakes her head. “You?”

Now I shake mine. Across the room, I watch two young children fasten themselves to their father, each wrapping around a leg for safety. He’s on the phone, maybe to his wife.

“I’m sorry about your daughter,” I speak up. Judy half-smiles and shrugs.

“I’m sorry about your mom,” returns Judy, placing a hand on my back, gently rubbing in comfort like sunscreen, showing her age. Then pauses. Half-grins, half-winces. “That was real, right?”

I nod.

“Betting it wasn’t Flat Earth related, but can I ask what happened?”

My mind flies through options. I could shut her down. I could make something up. I could tell her the truth. Or part of the truth. I look at Judy’s earnest face. A face that would believe anything. And nothing.

“She’s unwell,” I say, succinctly generalizing all the volatile years. Judy says nothing to this, but her expression is soft. “She’s actually in the hospital right now.”

“Oh. Should you call to let her know you’re okay? I hear worry can affect the prognosis sometimes,” observes Judy, with platonic pats on my thigh.

“She’s in a ward of the hospital that can’t take phone calls.” I feel self-conscious about both the words themselves and the volume at which I must say them. As if this new association somehow incriminates me even more than joining a Flat-Earther grief group on false pretenses. I briefly close my eyes and see my mother’s gooey scarlet blood. The consistency stays with me even more than the color.

“Oh,” says Judy.

“My real name’s Libby by the way,” I blurt. I don’t know why I say this. “Libby Reitz. Veronica Mills is my mother’s name.”

“Still Judy,” states Judy. We shake hands as if meeting for the first time and smile like bashful schoolchildren.

Then, for a while, we say nothing. We watch the phone-callers moving their mouths, giving minute by minute updates, erupting with platitudes. The interlopers are a continual flurry of activity.

Most of the Flat-Earthers are still sitting around the circle, which has moved in closer, become tighter. They are not calling out. They are pressing in. Here in this room are the people who understand them. A new family to replace those lost. No, not lost. Rather, places of belonging from which they have been ejected. Flat circles drawn, and they are outside. Othered. Barred, as if by flaming swords of cherubim. Many hold hands. Looking around the huddled bunch, I see a hollowed-out sorrow — and yet a robust gratitude as well.

“What happened with your daughter?”

Judy says nothing and looks through me.

“I won’t write about it,” I promise, unsure of how much this could mean to Judy at this point, given our rocky start.

“At first, she wanted me to read all these books and articles. And I read them. But I didn’t trust them. I told her as much. She got angry. Called me regrettable things. Ignorant. Regressive.” She smiles at this, but it wavers. “Stopped visiting. Then stopped calling.”

I don’t know what to say to this. So I say nothing.

“I have a grandson in Illinois. I’ve seen the pictures.” The tears follow predetermined paths down her cheeks. I reach across and squeeze her hand. Then I feel the hot flow of tears down my own face. One daughterless mother and one motherless daughter. I shake my head at this — crying with this stranger in a circle of strangers surrounded by more strangers. I feel very self-conscious. I feel the judgment of the surrounding Californians and Floridians.

Mikka Malibu bounces into the room and strikes up a conversation with a group near the door. She has an energy about her that seems to draw in the crowd. Maybe her perfectly round breasts are magnetic.

“Have you been to see your mom yet?” Judy’s question is innocent enough.

“No.”

“Can I ask why, dear?” I can feel the pain of her own story being projected onto mine. As if I’m the villain here.

“I can’t take the roller coaster ride anymore.” I’d never put it so simply. It felt good.

But Judy says nothing. Instead, she dons a tight frown.

“It’s the manipulation I can’t stand,” I say, overcome with the urge to explain myself, to win Judy over to my side. “She’s had a long history of depression. All my life. But after I moved out, things got worse.”

Still, Judy says nothing. Her face is neutral now, though. She’s listening.

“And the last five years, she’s been experimenting with getting off  her meds, because she says they make her life feel like grayscale. Except then she nosedives. I mean, really low. This is her third attempt on her own life.” I scoff at my next thought. “Or cry for attention, depending on how you look at it. And you know what happens every time?” I look up at Judy through warm liquid. “She says it wouldn’t have happened if I were around more. As if I’m to blame.”

As my last word falters, I feel a warm hand on the broadest part of my back. The room blurs over. I wipe my eyes with my sleeves, but it’s no use. Judy produces a tissue — from where, I don’t know. She continues to rub my back, this stranger with dubious critical thinking skills. I accept it. The comfort of it. The notion that a response to the pain of another supersedes most social boundaries.

The volume of the room begins to subside. The sirens outside die down. The conference crashers from the coasts trickle back upstairs a few at a time. The tall moderator announces that we won’t try to resume the session and that we should head to dinner instead. Mikka is working her way around the room. She’s getting closer to Judy and me.

“Can I ask just one more question?”

“Shoot.”

Judy says nothing for a beat. Then: “Did your mother stay by you through your roller coaster years?”

What could I possibly say to this? Such a leading question! Judy would make a horrible journalist. I feel anger. The anger of being judged by a stranger. Even if that stranger has a point. That point also flies in the face of my ‘no contact’ plan.

“Unless she’s abusive,” Judy adds after I say nothing to this.

“No, not abusive,” I say. “Just…” What? Manipulative? Sure. Exhausting? Needy? Worse. A warning. A contagion. I can’t turn out like her.

“What are you two talking about over here? You look so serious!” Mikka Malibu finds  us at last. Peering around, the rest of the room has emptied out. Empty chairs. Mikka. Judy. Me.

It’s Judy that asks the question.

“Mikka, have you, um, lost touch with any family members?” Judy’s face is open, honest.

The starlet doesn’t hesitate.

“Oh, sure!” Mikka is still bubbly, even when divulging this loss. She tosses her perfect chestnut hair over her shoulder, then continues. “My parents tried to talk me out of going on that show. They begged me not to go! Now look at me!” She strikes a pose, hands on hips, chin to the side, inviting us to literally look at her. Impressive, sure. Perhaps the best money can buy, I can’t help but wonder behind an arched brow.

“Did your parents come around?”

“Who knows? Haven’t talked to them in years,” Mikka says with a shrug. “C’mon, you guys are going to be late for dinner!” With that, she bounces out the door.

I’m still contemplating all of this when I notice Judy looking at me. She has a queer look on her face.

“Would you want to get coffee with me sometime? As friends?”

“Umm —”

“I need the practice,” she hurries on, sounding desperate. “I don’t have any friends outside of this room. None to speak of, anyway. And you’re about my daughter’s age. Maybe if you and I can…” Her body hunches over again, blond hair sliding across her face as she recedes. “Never mind. Dumb idea.” She shoos it away, a hand in the air.

“You need practice talking to a normal person?”

She laughs at this. Then sobers. “Yeah, I guess that’s it.” She chews the flesh of her lower lip, rolling it between her teeth.

We exchange numbers and promise we’ll keep in touch. I’m not sure we will. I don’t stay for the dinner. Or dancing. I ride the escalator back up to ground level without incident. I have no clue what I’m going to write for this story, but my gut says that I’m going to be surprised by my own writing for the first time in a long time.

Walking out of the hotel, the earth feels different. The skies are still swirling green-gray and spitting sideways. The tornado hasn’t leveled any buildings, but the town looks messy all the same, downed tree limbs and overturned trash cans. I head to my car, then drive toward the hospital. If I hurry, I can catch the tail-end of visiting hours.