For all my ambition, for all my imagination, for all the lives I had lived after that event—and had lived happily—for all of that, I was small.

And then, through my haze of anger, I noticed him glancing back over his shoulder and imperceptibly nodding, as if to say, Are you getting this?

A few of the people standing behind him had their screens out. They were recording this, had possibly recorded everything, the whole exchange.

Shoving him out of the way, I ran toward them with a mind to knock the things from their hands, dispatch them the way I had his camera, but everyone scattered and ran into the trees. I followed, fury shooting through me like the purest drug. I pursued the fastest of the bunch, the ones I had seen recording. I ignored the voices of those who lagged behind me, yelling at me to stop, they didn’t want to hurt me, but then I felt something shove me hard, a flash of pain as I fell forward, then nothing.

When I woke it was dark and everything smelled like an earthy basement full of water. I was outside, in the woods, and there was no moon or stars, and rain had turned the ground to mud. Thankfully I was close enough to the tree line that the streetlights from my makeshift city shone a beacon above the canvas, guiding me back home, but even that felt far away. I lay there and kept thinking about drowning in a teaspoon. Drowning in a teaspoon, drowning in a teaspoon. My brain whirled and the world whirled, and I went to sleep again. Drowning in a teaspoon.

Somehow, the next morning, I dragged myself back to Apartment 201, though I admit I had to crawl up the final few stairs on all fours. My head felt like it was a million pounds, and each of them was alive, rioting, roiling inside my skull. Once inside I collapsed in the bathroom—another blackout, but when I woke again I at least had the firm, man-made floor to greet me, and hot water in the bath. Unconsciousness had done its healing work, I determined, as after I bathed and changed I felt less frayed, but after putting on my Cindy getup I planted myself on the couch and did not move. For two days I watched shadows scan the walls as a day and a night passed and another day came. As the dawn light wormed its way toward late morning on the third day, a knock on the door broke my reverie.

Fear registered within me, dully, the only emotion in three days that rose above the physical headache and emotional resignation that had infiltrated every second since the confrontation. The intruders. I figured they had come knocking on my door now, the last show of politeness before ransacking everything. But when I dragged myself to the door and peeped out the peephole, I saw a strange man in a light gray suit and thick black-rimmed glasses. He carried a briefcase and looked official. “Who are you?” I said through the closed door.