It was 6:49 p.m. when Larkin unlocked 4A and stepped inside the dark, stuffy apartment. He shut the door, flipped the lock, and leaned back, closing his eyes. The walkup seemed to sigh around him, settling in for the evening as its tenants returned home, and Larkin wondered what kind of day Doyle’s neighbors had lived. Had it been a day worth remembering—drinks at the neighborhood bar with friends to celebrate a raise, a promotion, an engagement—or had it been the kind of day that made you stand alone in the dark, following the calendar backward day-by-day as you tried to pin down that exact moment where your life went sideways?

Chaos theory stated that among the apparent randomness of surrounding chaos and complexity was a pattern, interconnectedness, repetition. So where in Larkin’s timeline had a butterfly flapped its wings too hard and disturbed the sensitive conditions that made up his life? And what outcome was he even questioning? His HSAM? His career choice? His failed marriage? His sleeplessness—the alarm clock numbers glowing 3:21 a.m. and Larkin acknowledging how easily, how quietly, he could slip away young, leave behind a handsome face, and people would politely remark: it’s just so tragic.

Except when Larkin found himself standing in the bathroom, medicine cabinet open, tearing the contents out as he searched for the confiscated Xanax, craving the pills because the chemical high was better than feeling like the walking dead, a very small voice asked, Do you really want to be dead?

—Larkin vomiting on the bathroom floor, and when he sat up on his knees, Doyle stood before him in the same brown tweed suit he’d worn when they first met, offering a hand and glowing smile as he introduced himself: “Ira Doyle. It’s a pleasure.”—

Larkin slammed the cabinet shut on the still-jumbled associations. He stared at his reflection in the dark, illuminated only by light pollution filtering in through the small window to his left.

Do you really want to be dead?

“No….”

Larkin wasn’t a religious man, he didn’t subscribe to the concepts of a higher being, that he was a pawn in a game of fate—his story already predetermined and his self-will a concept in name only. But he also refused to believe that every misfortune, every injustice, every heartache was the product of unpredictability—that he was nothing more than meat meant to eat, fuck, and die. The answer was something in between, something nuanced, a sort of interconnectedness that lacked proper language.

Everett Larkin was a nobody.

But maybe everyone was a nobody.

And it was only in the exploration of one’s self, the discovery of where one’s heart lay beyond the veil, that we became somebody.

“Somebody,” Larkin repeated aloud. He reached into his pocket, retrieved his cell, and placed a call. He remained in the dark bathroom as the line rang.