“Come in, come in,” he said from his desk. His office was piled high with more paper. There were several corkboards with papers thumbtacked to them, and a whiteboard covered in frantic, illegible writing. Some of the writing was circled with arrows pointing to other parts of the writing. A window was open onto a back alley, and there was a garbage can just outside. The room smelled rich and earthy, like decay just turning to loam.

His deerskin suitcase was open on the desk beside him, between the piles of papers. Hundreds of large black flies were inside it, crawling over each other in heaving, buzzing piles. Flies were leaving the suitcase and flying out the window to the garbage can, and other flies were returning through the window. Diane felt dizzy, frightened that her fear would overtake her body, even more frightened that the flies would. Somewhere another version of herself was sitting at her bedroom window in the morning, looking out at a tree she liked, and this kept her together.

“Sit down,” said the man, continuing to tell her what she should do next like it was the most natural thing to him.

“No, I’ll stand I think,” she said. The man rolled his eyes. The flies buzzed louder.

“Suit yourself.” He swept a pile of papers off his desk and replaced it with another pile of papers from the floor.

“Where’s Josh?”

“We have much to talk about.”

“No we don’t. Where’s Josh? I’m taking Josh and I’m going home.”

“I’m sorry, Diane, but you’re not going to do that.”

He folded his hands in front of him. A fly landed on his shoulder and also folded its appendages in front of it.

“Anyway, I don’t know where Josh is precisely,” he said. “Around, I suppose. The important thing is that he’s in King City. And he’ll stay in King City. For now, at least. Until everything is right again he’ll have to stay here. I’ve worked for a long time to get him here.”

Some other version of Diane was running, although this Diane wasn’t sure whether it was for exercise or to flee. She didn’t have access to the other Diane’s emotions, only her speed. She had trouble focusing with so many versions of herself in her head.

“Where is Josh?” she said, and moved at the man with her hand up. She wanted to destroy him. She had never wanted to destroy anything before. He sprang out of his chair, face red. The flies formed a furious, pulsing black cloud between her and him.

“Attacking me won’t help,” he shouted, and the flies echoed his words with their buzzing. “Now sit down, Diane Crayton.”