A dry chuckle. The boots shifting and scraping. The voice was young or old, he couldn’t tell.

“That’s the spirit, Theo.”

At the sound of his name, a chill snaked his spine. Theo said nothing.

“You comfortable in there?”

“How do you know who I am?”

“Don’t you remember?” A pause. “I guess you don’t. You told me. When you first got here. Oh, we had ourselves a nice talk.”

He willed his mind to remember, but it was all blackness. He wondered if the voice was really there at all. This voice that seemed to know him. Maybe he was just imagining it. It would happen sooner or later, in a place like this. The mind did what it wished.

“Don’t feel like talking now, do you? That’s all right.”

“Whatever you’re going to do, just do it.”

“Oh, we’ve done it already. We’re doing it right now. Look around you, Theo. What do you see?”

He couldn’t help it: he looked at his cell. The cot, the hole, the dirty window. There were bits of writing on the walls, etchings in the stone he’d puzzled over for days. Most were senseless figures, neither words nor any kind of image he recognized. But one, situated at eye level above the hole, was clear: RUBEN WAS HERE.

“Who’s Ruben?”

“Ruben? Now, I don’t believe I know any Ruben.”

“Don’t play games.”

“Oh, you mean Ru-ben.” Another quiet laugh. Theo would have given his life to reach through the wall and smash the speaker’s face. “Forget Ru-ben, Theo. Things did not work out so nicely for Ru-ben. Ru-ben, you might say, is ancient history.” A pause. “So tell me. How you sleeping?”

“What?”

“You heard me. You like that fat lady?”

His breath caught in his chest. “What did you say?”

“The fucking fat lady, Theo. Come on. Work with me here. We’ve all been there. The fat lady inside your head.”

The memory burst inside his brain like a piece of rotten fruit. The dreams. The fat lady in her kitchen. A voice was outside the door and it knew what his dreams were.

“I have to say, I never did like her very much myself,” the voice was saying. “Yakkity yakkity yakkity, all day long. And that stink. What the hell is that?”

Theo swallowed, trying to still his mind. The walls around him seemed closer somehow, squeezing him in. He put his head in his hands.

“I don’t know any fat lady,” Theo managed.

“Oh, sure you don’t. We’ve all been through it. It’s not like you’re the only one. Let me ask you something else.” The voice dropped to a whisper. “You carve her up yet, Theo? With the knife? You get to that part yet?”

A swirl of nausea. His breath caught in his chest. The knife, the knife.