She was surrounded by the horrors of war. Vines and huge, flat leaves hung like death shrouds over bodies dangling from the trees, the explosions of shells that rocked the ground around her, the screams of pain from the soldiers as they went down. The horrible slithering things around her were people, mutilated bodies dragging themselves through the dirt, faces contorted with pain. Some were almost unharmed, while others were missing arms and legs. One man pulled himself forward with his fingernails, his face blank with shock, his entrails dragging behind him like huge twisting snakes. Another man thrust his hand up towards her in a pleading sign for help, and as she reached for him he fell face forward in the dirt, his lungs expelling a huge burst of dark blood at her feet.

Soldiers ran about in total confusion, firing machine guns at anything and everything. The bullets passed smoothly through her body. The shouts became louder, and then louder as the planes screamed overhead. She pressed her palms to her ears but still it was louder until it seemed her very eardrums would split under the pressure, exploding inward with two tiny pops entirely unnoticed by anyone except herself.

Then it was completely silent, and she knew she had left that world as suddenly as she had been thrust into it. She stood in a vacuum of silence so complete she could hear the beating of her own heart. There was blackness around her again, swallowing her every move, every thought. She knew that the little Jessie side of her was still missing, and that this new part of her was the only thing that kept her sane. In the world she had just left, nothing was as it seemed except the smell of death. That world had helped to shape the man. But that was not the beginning.

She found herself in a gigantic room, well lit from the ceiling. Everything was huge, even to her, as if she were a mouse looking at a giant’s house. Someone was moving around, and she knew it was the man’s mother, knew it just as she knew her own mother. She struggled to find the shape of the woman (it was fuzzy and unclear, like looking through unfocused binoculars) and suddenly the image sharpened.

Mother stood in front of her. Flesh hung from her in rolls, bunching around her chin, sagging from her arms. There was something wrong with her. She swayed slowly, from one side to the other, and Jessie could smell the sweet-sour stench of old booze. Her hair was long and knotted, and her clothes did not quite fit together right, as if her shirt was buttoned in the wrong holes and her pants were on backward. It was not only the booze, Jessie could tell. There was something else wrong with her, something inside her head.