He turns in a circle, orienting himself. The streetlamps glow, but the houses are all dark. A dog barks a few blocks away, but otherwise it is quiet. “What the hell,” he says. “What the hell is going on?” He retrieves the knife and walks stiffly through the open door of his condo.

In the kitchen, the oven clock burns red with the numbers 3:47. He slides the blade carefully into its slot in the butcher block. As he does, something fits into place in his mind. A tattered image. From the dream that possessed him when he sleepwalked outside. The more he tries to pin it down, the more it unravels. Before it escapes him fully, he hurriedly opens a drawer and pulls out a pad and pen and scratches down what he can remember.

Then he flips the light switch and blinks hard in the yellow wash of the kitchen and sees the tiny, detailed loops and swirls he scratched onto the paper. It looks so familiar and alien at the same time. Like handwriting in a foreign language he should be able to recognize. It meant something a minute ago, and now? Nothing.

He wavers over the pad with his pen poised, and when nothing comes to him, he heads for the stairs. And then circles right back to the kitchen. He’s black-brained and exhausted but jittery enough that he knows sleep won’t come without some help, so he digs through the cabinets and pulls down a bottle of Dewar’s, splashes a coffee cup full, and drinks.

There was a time in his life when everything felt like an addition. He was gaining more muscle when he went to the gym. He was gaining more credibility when he sat in a classroom as a student and gaining more money when he later stood at the front of it as a teacher. He was gaining more knowledge when he tromped through the woods or hunched over a microscope in a lab. He was gaining more love when he married Nora, when they had Mia. As if his life were ever-expanding. As if his purpose were getting fuller, bigger.

That ceased to be true after their daughter vanished. That day on the calendar felt like a fulcrum point when everything sharply tipped. Life is now about depletion. If he posts on social media, he does so with a mild disgust and the feeling he’s lost a few particles of his soul. If he drinks—which he does every evening—he counts, with every sip, the brain cells lost.