Vanilla-framed monitors all at once start a continuous, irritating loud beep, piercing his eardrums. Jerking his hand from her grip, backing away from the bed, from his mother. Palming his ears. Blocking out the noise. Feeling as if his eardrums are going to burst. He wants to scream but can’t. Something isn’t right. Looking up at the mint-colored wall where a flat-screen TV is mounted, an episode of Matlock playing, but there is no volume. Only the redline tone, the continuous beep. Removing his hands from his ears, reaching for the remote attached to his mother’s bed, he thumbs the button to ring the nurse. Nothing. Turning around. Stepping over the waxed tile floor to the door. The handle is hot. It won’t turn—stuck. He can’t leave. He pounds his fists on the hard slab of door. Screams, “Nurse? Nurse! I demand this door be opened immediately. Nurse?” Then the knob begins to turn. The door opens. Jack steps through the opening, into a bathroom. A wooden vanity in the distance. Mirror over a salt-blue sink. It is the bathroom from the home he grew up in. Approaching the sink, in the mirror Jack’s features are covered in whiskers. He’s a young man again. Running his hands over his cheeks. Feeling the growth there. He never grew a beard before, was always clean shaven. He must shave. On the sink sits a can of shaving cream. A straight razor. Reaching down to turn on the hot water, cupping his hands, catching the water, he splashes his face to relax the whiskers. Steam rises from the liquid. Fogs the mirror. Distorts his reflection. Reaching for the shaving cream, he fills his hand with a dollop of white fluff, smooths it onto his face. Picks up the razor and begins long, even strokes along his jawline and chin. Rinsing off the razor under the flow of hot water. Continuing to shave his neck until the razor doesn’t glide. It nicks the skin of his throat. Blood starts to ooze, then gush down his neckline.

He drops the razor, can’t get the blood to stop. Reaching for a box of tissues that sits off to the side, he hears a door creak open, looks to his right, into a living room. He’s in his old house. Long brown vinyl couch beside the door. Large pickle jar on the orange-carpeted floor beside the couch. The jar is full of silver coins—spare change from the tips his mother earns at the greasy-spoon diner where she waits tables. Watching the door open. In walks a clean-cut man, his hair slicked and parted on the side, white T-shirt and khaki pants, work boots. He kneels down and picks up the jar. Cradles it to his chest as if he has caught a football. Turns and runs.