Okay, the bar was right there. Right where this dry cleaner’s business is now. The two other stores on either side are the same, I swear, but the bar is gone, and this place is closed.

  I go up to the window and press my forehead to it to get a better look inside.

  Yep. There’s a counter and a cash register and things that look suspiciously like racks of clothing behind. The place looks like it’s been here for ages, too.

  But where’s the bar with Nick and the nursing students in it? My phone’s there along with my jacket, and it’s getting colder.

  October in Ohio, right? We never know what we’re gonna get. Could be eighty. Could be forty. Could rain, sleet, or snow. Could be all that in one day, frankly.

  And I guess that bars with friends inside can brown and blow away like leaf off a tree in the fall, right out of your life.

  Nope. Uh uh.

  Bars don’t do that.

  Gotta be me, right? I’m misremembering. I’m wrong. This wasn’t the place. Those fucking kidnappers dosed the woman in the sweater. Maybe they slipped me something too.

  I feel my stomach. It hurts pretty bad. He really walloped me. Maybe when that guy punched me, he had a hypodermic needle in his hand or maybe a ring with a spike coated in something? I’ve heard of that.

  I lift my shirt and look at my belly. It’s already bruising, a swollen round lump of tiny yellow, purple, and blue continents, but the skin isn’t broken anywhere.

  They’d slipped that lady a powder into her drink. Maybe I’d inhaled some, and it’s messing with my memory.

  Deep down, I know something else is going on, but I’m at a complete loss here. The bar has to be here, right? Somewhere?

  So, I pick a direction and start walking, hoping the bar will be nearby and this night could end. It's getting cold out.

  ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

  It doesn't work out that way.

  I didn’t expect it to, if I’m being honest. Not really.

  Walking uphill two blocks with no success, I just find a couple of gas stations and more closed businesses.

  When I walk back past the dry cleaner’s going downhill for three more blocks, I don’t have any luck either. On the block after that, I see one of those chain restaurants I know has a bar inside. I shrug. Maybe Nick’s in there with my phone. He could be. Probably? I walk across the parking lot toward the entrance.

  I’m getting used to the light and dark blotches swirling around in my vision. I wasn’t sure I would, but it’s amazing what people can get used to. Another friend of mine, Ramal, told me once he’s got a bunch of swimmers in his eye. Little weird thingies that he can see sometimes that aren’t really there and the eye doctor can’t do anything about. He ignores them. I wonder if what I’m looking at is remotely the same, but I can tune them out when I want like he does, which is awesome. I can’t imagine watching a movie or something with this crap getting the in way.

  When I step into the restaurant, the blotches swirl around faster. The light and the dark seem equally balanced. I’m not sure what to make of it.

  The hostess is a cute blonde with short, stylish hair and glasses. When she smiles up at me, she’s sporting no less than four dimples. I’m not sure she’s out of high school.

  “I’m here to meet somebody, but I’m not sure they’re here yet? Mind if I…?”

  She nods. “Go on in!”

  I do.

  I go to the bar first for no better reason than that's where I last saw Nick, even though this is a totally different place. It’s late and they’ve got to be getting close to closing. The stools are mostly empty and a few solitary men haunt the tables here, watching some game on the television screens, picking at their food, nursing their drinks. Two empty spots still carry the detritus of a meal, waiting to be bussed.

  Nick isn’t here, of course, nor are the future nurses, but the black in my vision grows a bit and gets darker the closer I get to all the alcohol.

  I’m worried that it’ll spike like it did under the streetlight in the park and, I don’t know, the sprinkler system will go off or something.

  Telling myself that Nick might’ve gotten a table in the restaurant proper, I leave the bar area and case the place.

  The farther I get from the bar, the more things in my vision balance out once more.

  Some laughter from a corner of the place sounds a little like Nick’s, maybe, but when I get there, I see a family of four, the two daughters probably in their mid-twenties, mom and dad in their late fifties. Dad’s grinning at some prank he’s just pulled. His kids do their best to look exasperated by his behavior, but they’re pleased too.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  It makes me miss my dad, who died when I was a kid, which makes me miss my mom, who is very much alive and would be worried about what’s going on with me.

  I’ll call her tomorrow.

  Nick’s just not here.

  I don’t know what I was expecting. It worries me I’m not being rational. Why would he be here? Some random restaurant in the general vicinity of the now nonexistent place where I left him? That’s not thinking. That’s panic.

  This means that my phone and jacket aren’t here either, which sucks because I’m cold and need to call, like, everybody. I don't know what to make of it. Any of it. I'm exhausted and confused. None of this makes any sense. I’m seeing things. Maybe somebody slipped something into my drink.

  You know what? I’m just going to go home. I’m going to sleep on all this and let whatever’s in my system run its course. In the morning, I’ll wake up, find the bar, grab my phone, and call Nick. I’ll tell him about this bizarre fucking dream I had.

  I’m on my way out the door when a tired-looking waitress in her forties stops me. “Did you forget your coat, hon?” she asks, smiles, and walks off into the kitchen.

  I walked to the bar that evening. My place is only about three more blocks from here, but I could really use a coat. It’s October and things are strange. A coat’s a good idea.

  I go back to the hostess. “You know,” I say, “the last time I was here I left my coat. Do you have a lost and found?”

  The dimples reappear as she nods. “Yep,” she says. “Can you describe it for me and I’ll go take a peek?”

  Can I describe it?

  I say, “Well, it’s dark. It’ll fit me.” I’m tallish and lanky, though I've often wished my shoulders were broader. The point is, I'm not a difficult fit. “Black…. Long? It’s got….” I gesture vaguely up and down my sides.

  She looks skeptical, but probably just doesn’t want to confront me by saying anything. I notice the light blotches are a bit more prevalent now than the dark ones. I take a moment and really look at them. They’re not like the little swimmer thingies people get in their vision sometimes. They don’t look like worms or paramecia. It’s not quite looking at the coat of a dalmatian with the dark and light spots wrestling. I don’t know. Never seen anything like them before and, like I said, the weirdest part about them is that they don’t hamper my vision like actual light would. The brightest or darkest spots, blotches, swatches, whatever, I can tune them out, kinda, so that I see them, but see through them like they aren’t really there. Maybe they aren’t.

  The light swirls flash, pushing the darkness away for a moment.

  “I’ll go take a look,” the hostess says with a shrug.

  Huh.

  Something is going on with me. I mean, a fricking car hit a sofa, which hit me and launched me into a chandelier before I fell down some stairs and didn’t die or break a bone.

  The blonde with the dimples comes back with her hands full of something black and a dubious expression. She holds it up. It’s a long dress coat, black, and someone’s added chains around the hips. It’s what I’d wear to convince folks I was a gothic vampire.

  “Yep,” I say. “That’s it.”

  “Sir,” she says, handing it over. “Are you sure? The buttons are on the wrong side?”

  I look at her, not getting it.

  “This is a lady’s coat?”

  How did I not know that? I was today years old when I discovered…. Whatever. I need a damn coat. “It was mom’s. I know it’s weird, but I like to put it on sometimes now that she’s gone.” I’m blushing. Great.

  She looks at the chains.

  “Mom was weird too.” I smile, take it from her, and put it on with a wink.

  She giggles.

  ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

  I feel a little weird about it, okay? Here I’ve stolen a coat, a lady’s coat, and now I’m cross-dressing, walking down a street in the town where I live but do not at all recognize.

  Maybe the woman this coat belongs to wouldn’t mind me borrowing it, despite the chains. I mean, she’s probably not a nun. Well, maybe from one of the stricter sects. Joking aside, I promise I’ll return it tomorrow.

  Somewhere in the universe, my Uncle Pat is smiling.

  My mom told me that my uncle was flamboyantly gay back when that kind of behavior could get you beat up and killed. He’s so awesome. Funny. Insightful. He told me once that sometimes a bully forgets that a gay man is still a man, and he occasionally likes to feel instructive. “A dude might be a little light in the loafers,” he used to tell me. “But that doesn’t mean he’s limited to being Fred Astaire. Jackie Chan is just as graceful.”

  Pat is my dad’s brother. Dad had a black belt in karate. Uncle Pat has three black belts in various fighting styles and instruction in a few others. I haven’t been in a fight since I was in junior high. The guy’s clock got cleaned because I horsed around regularly with my dad and my uncle in our backyard and learned a bunch of stuff. Instructive, like I said.

  I’m relieved that my apartment building is still here and that my fob works to get me inside. When I get to my floor, my key opens my door.

  But none of this stuff inside is mine. I don’t have a folding screen with Japanese mountains on it. My television is bigger and so is my coffee table.

  When the woman comes out of the hallway to the bathroom in a towel, drying her hair, I don’t recognize her either.

  She sees me.

  We look at each other.

  I’m scared.

  She’s scared.

  I watch her realize she doesn’t know me and there’s only one reason I’d break in like this, so I say, “OhmyGodsosorry,” and start running right before she screams.

  I make for the door to the stairs. Elevator's too slow. I’ve used them a hundred times rather than wait for the elevator, but these stairs are different. The landing is shorter, and I’m going too fast.

  I hit the rail and start to go over.

  My apartment’s on the fifth floor and the stairwell yawns below. Then I’m over. The dark in my vision has almost completely overwhelmed the light. Fitting. I’m going to die.

  So, I Push.

  I can’t describe it better than that. It’s not pushing. Not really. It feels more like pushing than anything else. Whatever it is, I do it and the light doohickeys explode.

  I stop in midair. Hauled up by my armpits.

  My coat’s caught on something, pulling away from me. I have to struggle to keep my arms down. Some of my chains have caught on the end of the metal post on top of the outside banister.

  I’m slipping, and if I don’t do something, I’m going to fall.

  If I'm careful, maybe I can climb down and out of my coat. Maybe get a hand on a stair? From there, I bet I can drop onto the flight just below and be okay.

  The coat is upside down now and my right arm is farther out of its sleeve than my left, so I start with that one. I get a good grip on the fabric.

  The armpit of the coat is a hook for my left arm. It’s caught me good, though I hear the material beginning to strain. My right comes all the way out, but the left won’t budge, and I’ve slid too far down already. Lifting myself to get free seems like the thing to do, but when I try, I hear the coat tear.

  This sends me into a panic. I scramble down the coat, grabbing fistfuls of it as I descend, but when I run out of material and snap out of it, I see I’ve gone past the lip of the stairs and I’m dangling there with nothing within reach.

  The coat jerks when some of the chains are torn out.

  The colors in my vision are almost totally black again like they were when I first started to fall, so I Push again.

  I’m also kicking my legs like I’m a kid on a swing set.

  There’s another soundless flash and the coat tears free with a sickening ripping noise. My feet sting when they clap onto the cheap linoleum and I’m stumbling down the stairs, bleeding off my momentum from the brief drop. Hey, at least I'm upright and I’m okay.

  I pull the coat back on, such as it is, and then I’m through the door at the base of the stairs and out into the night, which is once more filling with the sounds of sirens.