I need something that says, I’m ready for my funeral

  Gradie breathed iale apartment air, now livened with tropical shower sts floating on whisps of steam. Soft grey light poured out the tops and sides of the curtains, whi the light of day he saw were thick holiday-themed bs hung on nails. The steady zy light drew thick bands across the debris in the living room, and made a mockery of the spotlights that had bzed like sers in his dream, but even still, he reached over and got his pistol in his pants holster as soon as possible.

  The shower stopped suddenly. A vinyl curtain slid on pstigs. A towel came off a rack that banged on the back of the door. Feet pattered across cloth and tile. Every sound whispered to him of Sam’s wet nakedness. In this little one-bedroom just rger than an efficy, she sounded close enough to touch.

  The bathroom door swung open and a bright misty light flooded the ceiling. He smelled more tropical sts and khat somewhere u all was the st of Sam, wet and fresh. He kept looking at the ceiling so she couldn’t read anything in his face.

  “Shower is open,” she said. “And there’s a suitcase with clothes right here o the door.”

  “What kind of clothes?” he said to the ceiling.

  “Just some random stuff. You might have to wear the same pants if none of them fit but try and make your outfit look different.”

  She lingered in his lower peripherals, but he kept his eyes on the ceiling, waiting for her to walk away. If he got up and saw her standing there in a towel he would probably let something show on his face or say something without thinking.

  “Did you fall back asleep?!” she snapped.

  “No!” he rolled up into a stretd preteo study the floor.

  “Hey,” she sounded ed.

  He finally faced her. A sliver old hair peeked out from under a white t-shirt folded on her head. Her face was soft and round as white polished stone flecked with amon freckles and flushed with rose-hued warmth, while her eyes shined a deep blue-grey like distant storm clouds. She had a towel like a shag carpet ed arouhat hung down to her knees, a far cry from the nipple to upper thigh paper-thin towel he had imagined her wearing in his head. Still, he kept his eyes locked on hers.

  “You ok?” She looked at him like he was turning green.

  “What?”

  “That was your first night over in a Hardworld, right?”

  “Yeah, but I’m fine. Boss talked to me.” He looked at the wall and pressed his lips.

  She’s going to think I needed Michael to keep it together.

  She just stood there like she thought he was about to freak out or something, so he looked her in her eyes again a every dirty thought he’d had since waking pour out of his.

  “If you keep standing there, I’m gonna pull that towel off.”

  She took a step bad let her mouth hang open for half a sed. Despite the hot shower, she could get redder.

  “Wow, like you would survive that! Sorry I emascuted you by asking if you were ok!”

  She was halfway down the hall before she was done and had to yell the st few words. She yelled some more.

  “And if you jerk it in my shower, I will drop you out with a double buckshot!”

  He watched her walk the rest of the way down the hall before he stepped into the bathroom. EP buzzed his eardrums into his brain as he went through the doorway, and he almost colpsed onto the tile.

  “Fuck!”

  “Leave. Her. Alone.”

  “What, still jealous?”

  “You need a new lihat one’s used up.”

  “Ok. Hey, so do you have cameras in here?”

  “Yeah, but they ’t zoom in that much.”

  He froze, halfway undressed already. Was she serious?

  “What?”

  “Enough to see it.”

  He cackled into the mirror and she beeped off the line.

  Taking a shower felt strange, vulnerable. He left the curtain cracked so he could see the bck grip of his pistol on the back of the toilet. Fshes of st night's dreams and fragments of the two shootouts the day before kicked around in his head, and his stomach ed. He remembered the shakes afterwards, in the SUV and Sam’s Jeep, and the waves of fear that had electrified the air around him as he walked dowairs in the safe house and when the delivery driver had knocked on the door st night, and his stomach ed. These were the Self speaking to him. The nguage of the flesh.

  He responded with the song of the Spirit, remembering the gun kig in his hand, the way the enemy Hardworlders had fallen, the way he had disappeared into the night a with his teammates in the dream, reminding himself that the Otherworld was here with him, and it was eternal. His stomach settled and his breathing slowed, aried to believe it would be like that forever.

  After he showered, he ed a towel around himself and brought the suitcase, an aluminum Trek roller, in from the hall and crouched down in front of it oile.

  He pced his fingers oches and stopped. The thought began as a fleeting question and morphed into a determination. He was going to push the clothes inside.

  Since he didn’t know where Sam got the suitcase, he wouldn’t be able to push a past that fit with what the Hardworlds had already established, and he knew better than to try and push against anything ected to the team. Every time he had tried in the clubhouse, the Hardworlds had proven to be just as unyielding as the Real.

  He would have to simply push that what he wao be inside just happeo be there, which seemed impossible.

  With the clothes in the sedan that first m, he had an idea how they had ended up there, that someone had been doing undry aoo tired t them in, that his Self had seeacked in the car the day before. But did it really matter? Maybe that’s not why they were there at all, maybe the person was moving out or living out of their car. Maybe it was just a story to help him believe they would be there, and it was the belief that actually moved the universe.

  He tried to believe that the clothes in his mind would be found in the suitcase, and Philip's words floated ba.

  “You keep saying that word, ‘imagine’. I don’t imagine shit. I know that the things I need are where I hem to be.”

  But how could he know?

  He stared at the luggage for a few agonizing mirying to wrestle his mind from pyful imagination to that mundaainty that always apanied a successful push, before it dawned on him.

  He couldn’t do it. These clothes were pletely uo his Self. It was too much of a jump. Pushing outes, as Michael had called it, was still far beyond him. He needed something ected to his Self, but he couldn’t get any of his Self’s clothes from his house. Could he?

  It became a puzzle in his head. How do I get the Hardworlds to give me the clothes I want? He looked at it from different angles, shifted his Self around in time and space to see what would work, until…

  He pulled out his phone and made a quick phone call, then started to shave.

  When he leaned out the bathroom door, Sam was dressed and sitting on the couch. She had on bck Piloti rag shoes, charcoal and grey acid wash jeans, and a leather jacket over a houndstooth button-up. Bojo was on the couext to her rolling around.

  She looked over at him, impatiend weariness floating off her gre like the steam that had carried her st to him earlier.

  “Boy, if that towel so much as slips—”

  “ you get my clothes? They’re outside.”

  “What?” She looked at him like she was trying to figure out how he was making fun of her.

  “I had some dry ing dropped off.”

  “You what!” Her face shifted from fusion to shock breaking at the edges into a ughter she tried to suppress.

  There was a silence as he tried to think of how to expin, but he really just wao keep watg her.

  “You god damned fug idiot,” EP said, like loading a magazine. Gradie gave Sam a slowly unveiled, overly pained smile, heavy with the gums, and to his relief, she busted out ughing. It was a wonderful sound. A dorky cackle.

  Catg herself, she shot up and stomped towards the front door.

  “Oh my god, what the fuck did you do! Zoey, are there really clothes out there?!”

  “I should have put a fug parental lo your phone,” EP hissed.

  Sam stopped with her hand on the door handle aher in her waistband.

  “Uh,”

  “You’re clear,” EP said, defeated.

  Sam stepped out the door and said something that got broken up by the distand the outside noise, but even the broken sound of her voice floating ba was enough to bind up his chest. He tried to beat down a smile.

  “Ok, are you fug with me?” Sam said, holding up the pstic ed clothes by the hanger.

  “Gotta look good,” Gradie said, with anoofy smile and a flurry of eyebrow raises.

  “This is not funny!” Sam said, ughing.

  “You could have blown this fug op,” EP said.

  “Holy shit e on,” Gradie ughed at the ceiling, as if EP lived in some goblin hovel above the drywall. “We had fug takeout dropped off st night!”

  “That’s because this is my house!” Sam said, colleg herself. “Now your self is ected to My house!”

  “So? What, are the crash test dummies going to randomly hack my dry ers or something?”

  “Minimize tact between Selves as much as possible,” EP said. “Did Max fet to tell you that? I guess I’ll have to remind him.”

  “Ok. Whatever. I get dressed now?”

  There was an awkward silence, until Sam realized she had been staring at him.

  “Here you go! Hurry the fuck up please!” She came towards him boung the hanger owo outstretched fingers.

  “You know,” EP said. “I’m actually gonna do you a favor and not tell him about this. Just because having him shoot you in the face right before an op would kind of kill the mood.

  “You just say you would miss me.” He took the clothes from Sam and she shook her head.

  “Please tell me it’s a suit!”

  “Don’t ruin the surprise!” he said with mock panid went bato the bathroom.

  It was one of his Self’s weekend suits. His ers had gotteo dropping them off at various apartments and hotels around the city, and he paid a little extra for the venience. You couldn’t put a pri looking as good as possible, as soon as possible. It was just the kind of pointless extra mile his Self would go. One of many on a path that ultimately led nowhere. As he buttohe st button, he realized that his Self was miserable, direless. The success with the crypto and the day trading had only made him more afraid of failure in other areas. He hadn’t written a single word in—

  He shook it all off and looked in the mirror.

  That’s not me.

  He searched his owill he could see the Otherworld blinking back, then stepped out the door.

  It was a bck suit and a charcoal shirt, with a bd emerald tie he had been told brought out the flecks of green and gold in his eyes. His hair was slicked back with a pomade that smelled of bay rum, and most of his curls were tamed into slight waves, but one lock twisted into three-quarters of a circle over his right eyebrow. He couldn’t remember a time when he had looked this good.

  Sam ughed at the ceiling when he walked out of the bathroom.

  “art of that outfit is gonna help you blend in?”

  “I’ll be like, a distra.” He smiled.

  She got up with a sigh and shook her head at him.

  “One day yonna realize you’re not the main character of this movie. Here, make yourself useful.”

  She shouldered her satchel and poio her toolbag. Gradie got his trench off the hook.

  “No rain today,” Sam said. “Please throw that irash. It’s bad enough being seen with Max’s jumpsuits.”

  “You never know.”

  “You do if you look at the doppler,” EP said in his ear.

  He folded the jacket and put it under his arm anyicked up the tool bag. Sam locked the door behind them and marched dowairs without looking at him once.

  “I thought you were supposed to limit your expectations and your intel, stay open to possible outes?”

  “You ’t push the weather,” EP ughed.

  That made no sense, and not the same type of no sense as everything else.

  “The twins said most jobs start in the rain, cause it’s like a natural liminal moment to—”

  “That’s on old wives’ tale and pletely different than pushing it once you’ve dropped in.”

  “You sure?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you try and make it rain? Take your time, by the way. Bail might take a while.” She beeped off the line.

  “Good, cause I’m fug hungry!” Sam shouted in the parking lot.

  you see the threads weaving through reality? Do they lead to other less realized ones, or only into the irreality of imaginatioime, Gradie and Sam prepare to greet the day, and an old head reminisces. episode, In the Day.