“I don’t think so,” said Diane, feeling herself here and elsewhere. Without Jackie the feeling of becoming more people and less of a person was worse. Without Jackie she had no one to lean against, to touch, to reinforce with physical contact that she, the Diane in King City, the Diane looking for Josh, was the only Diane that mattered.

Another version of herself was eating shredded wheat at the counter of an unfamiliar kitchen, trying to decide what to do about some information she had just received by phone. Another version of herself was driving and had to swerve. She had only seconds to swerve. Her heart pounded and she wondered if she would swerve in time, and if she would be able to regain control after she had. The version of herself that was dead was still dead and had been for a long time, a blank spot sitting in the way of her other thoughts.

“All right,” said the City Hall receptionist. Tears poured down her face. Her body shook.

“Are you okay?” Diane asked.

The woman looked up. Her eyes were red and hollowed out by the sheer quantity of salt water passing through them.

“No. I don’t think I am.”

She looked back down and continued to type on her switched-off computer.

“What’s wrong?” Diane wanted to help, but the woman did not respond.

A man who looked identical to the large oil painting above her stuck his head from around the corner down the hall.

“What did I say about trying to interact with anyone else?” He sounded tired and annoyed. “Get down here.”

His head disappeared, and Diane couldn’t remember what he had looked like. She could remember the painting, though, and grafted the painting’s features on that blank in her mind.

“I have to go,” Diane said to the woman at the desk.

The woman didn’t seem to hear or see Diane anymore. She typed away on her useless keyboard.

Diane went down the hall. The building was bigger on the inside. There were many doors, some marked with abstruse letter and number combinations. Most were unmarked. She could hear no one else in the building besides the weeping woman and the man down the hall. Nothing except the roar of the copier, an avalanche of paper tumbling from its maw. Had it been the copier they had been hearing since coming to King City? That distant, ceaseless roar? She dismissed the thought.

The hallway continued in seemingly unending bends. Left turn after left turn. Strangely labeled door after unlabeled door. Then a door marked MAYOR.