“Oh, God, how I wish I were back at my desk, writing all of this down,” Lydia thought. And suddenly, with no transition that she could remember, there she was in her study. A notebook and pen were in front of her on the desk. She felt the wood, her fingers trembling. Was the desk real? It was. Wasn’t it? It certainly seemed solid. But her furniture had been sold. She knew that.

Yet each object in the room stood out with the most intense brilliance. Even the air itself seemed to shine. A bouquet of violets stood on the coffee table. Her favorite flower. It was spring, then? It was! The scent of lilacs came rushing to Lydia from the garden below. Then she looked down at herself, half-terrified, half-filled with exaltation. Her body was a young woman’s; hers, as a young woman. She was wearing a long-forgotten lovely blue-flowered dress.

What was happening to her? It was fall, not spring, or it had been. “I won’t stand for this confusion,” she said, suddenly furious. “I’m an old woman in a home for the aged,” she added, sternly, determined to hold onto whatever reality was left.

And she was. Lydia opened her eyes. She sat in the wheelchair. Her bones ached. Her hand was sore, and clenched. She opened it. The tiny tranquilizer fell out and rolled to the floor. The nurse would find it. Desperately she tried to reach it with her slipper, so that she could shove it underneath her chair.

As usual, when she tried to move her physical body correctly, her arms flopped like two scaly fishes, their mouths where her hands should be. Fascinated, she made her fingers move, or what felt like fingers, and watched the fishes’ mouths open. A napkin lay there. If the fish swallowed the napkin, and if her hands were the fishes’ mouths, would her arm digest the napkin? Marvelous! Delightful. She could experience her hands as hands, or as fish. Reality was slippery.

But Lydia’s eyes fell on the tranquilizer again, and she sobered. If they realized she hadn’t taken it, they’d shove the next one down her throat. She’d seen it done to others, and had already resolved that she’d bite down hard if they ever tried it on her. Teeth and biting reminded her of near-toothless Cromwell, and the entire episode with him rushed back into her mind. She turned as far as the chair straps would allow, to get a glimpse of his face.