The Glass House by David Rotenberg

she’d never been introduced to the idea let alone the reality of synaesthetes—that the ground she walked on was the solid terra firma that she thought it was before she met the likes of Martin Armistaad. That the world was a real place with real rules. Not the shifting miasma of Martin Armistaad, Viola Tripping—and Decker Roberts.
    Yslan watched herself on the screen take a breath and then say calmly, “Thanks for taking this meeting, Mr. Armistaad.”
    He opened his arms and then laced his fingers behind his head, shimmying down in his chair so that his pelvis was aimed more directly at her face. “What can I tell you, Ms. Hicks? My social calendar is very full, but I was able to sneak it in—as I did the last time we met.” He smiled, the antecedent for his “it” obvious to both of them. He was missing a front tooth.
    â€œThank you for seeing me again.”
    â€œNot a problem.” More scratching.
    â€œIn your early essays you state that all your thinking is purely mathematical. That there are natural cycles in the world that are generated from the mathematical reality of pi.”
    He stared at her. No more scratching.
    â€œDo you still believe that, sir?” To her ears, she sounded way too much like Jodie Foster—no, Clarice Starling.
    â€œYes . . . and no, Ms. Hicks. I think I believe, as you are learning, that there is something else at work in the universe. Something that Hamlet sensed when he saw the ghost of his murdered father, something that great artists see—something other.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œNot yet you don’t.” He smiled again then added, “Do you?”
    â€œNo. Not personally. No I don’t see ‘something other.’ ”
    â€œThat’s why you are here, isn’t it, Ms. Hicks. You could read my writing online—everything I’ve written is immediately in the public domain. You see, I’m not allowed to charge for anything I write in here—am I?”
    â€œI guess not.”
    â€œI’m not.” This last was very hard. Angry. “So I ask again, Ms. Hicks, be honest with yourself and answer my question: Why exactly are you here?”
    â€œTo understand what I can about how you worked.”
    His surprisingly thin tongue licked his lips, leaving a glistening sheen as he whispered, “Liar.”
    â€œTell me how it works, Mr. Armistaad.”
    â€œFine,” he said. Then just as Yslan was about to speak again, Armistaad added, “I close my eyes, Ms. Hicks, and the clearing comes into view, then I am there and this world aligns—with the other world, that is.”
    She snapped off the video and closed her iPad as Emerson pulled the car to a stop in front of a smallish whitewashed building.
    â€œThis the hospital?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œNo? I thought we—”
    â€œAs I said before, it’s a long-term facility.” He looked at Yslan’s grim face. “At least it’s not a hospice.”
    After taking a deep breath, Yslan said, “Yeah, we can be grateful for that.”
    Emerson nodded and got out of the car.

13
VISITING HARRISON
    FIVE YARDS OUTSIDE HARRISON’S ROOM , Yslan smelled the sharp aroma of cheap antiseptic. She breathed through her mouth and opened the door.
    Leonard Harrison was propped up by pillows in a wheelchair facing the window of his small room. A thick leather belt around his upper chest that buckled behind the backrest stopped him from falling forward. He had a large bandage on his forehead. There was a food tray attached to the wheelchair. Like a highchair tray, she thought.
    A large African-American nurse was finishing cleaning Harrison’s face with a soft cloth.
    The baby food on the tray—apricot—brought the terrible reality home to her. Apricot baby food for Leonard Harrison’s lunch. She recalled periodically sticking her head into his office around noon—he