New York City, or perhaps Nowhere, 3 AM

New York City, Fall 2019, 3 AM.

It's the middle of the night, but Friday rages on. Many already stumble through the streets, heels dangling from their fingers, arms retreating into their bodies to fight off the cold on their barefoot trek home. Others dance on, skin gleaming with sweat, pressed tight against each other. But that's not why we're here. We focus our attention upon a very different scene.

Our subject is ten stories up, staring at the stars from her perch on an escape ladder. She's wrapped in dark sweats and an oversized hoodie bearing an NYU insignia, sipping a black coffee in her hands. Tiny brunette tendrils escape her messy bun of long lavender hair. She brushes a strand out of her eyes and tucks it behind one of her heavily-studded ears. The word dream curves behind her left ear in a delicate calligraphy.

The window beside her is open, but what lies within is obscured by her body. Presumably, an apartment, and a heated one at that. And yet, here she sits, outside in the cold. Both hands cup the mug, her eyes trained on the sky above. Millions of lights from below obscure any stars that might otherwise be visible, smothering the city in a flat black expanse. Only one tiny crescent breaks through. 

Our subject curls her knees into her chest, wrapping her arms and coffee around them and placing her chin atop them. She takes a sip of the coffee and stares down into the mug for a moment, then back up at the black swathe above her. She sighs- a long, heavy sigh- and squeezes her eyes closed. When they open again, a single tear dangles from her eyelashes for a moment before falling. Soon after, another trickles down her cheek. She swipes both away and gives a small sniff. Her mouth tenses, trembles, as her eyes close again and her forehead falls onto her knees. When she looks back up, the tears fall more freely. She allows them to stream down her face slowly, gently, as her gaze returns to the sky. At first glance, she appears to simply ignore them, but the bright white knuckles clutching her mug betray her. Something always does.

Deep breath in, deep breath out. A gulp of coffee. Repeat.

Eventually, she wipes her face dry again and her breathing calms to a more natural, subconscious rhythm. Her mug is empty. She blinks a few times, but cannot erase the traces of her tears so easily-- her red eyes glisten, and a small patch on her knee is still dark. She attempts to rub it dry to no avail. With another sigh, she unfurls from her position and turns to the open window beside her. Feet first, she retreats inside. The window slides shut behind her. Within minutes, tiny droplets tap at the window, racing each other to the windowsill in tiny streams.

Several minutes pass. Ten? Perhaps Thirty? We focus now upon the first floor of the same apartment building, where our subject walks through the first pair of glass doors toward the outside. She pauses to peer through the second set of doors and frown at the street beyond, where rain is falling faster than ever. She has no umbrella, only a backpack. After several moments, she tugs the hood of her hoodie over her head and slides the backpack off of her shoulders and underneath her hoodie. Finally, she pushes the second door open and steps out into the rain. The scene on this street has changed dramatically since we last saw it. No one else seems willing to endure the rain at this hour, and as such, she traipses through the puddles alone.

Her walk is short, and in less than a block, she ducks inside a doorway. The sign above the door labels this a 24-hour cafe. Through the window, we can see that she is the only customer. The barista is the only other person inside the shop. He sits behind the register, face resting in his hand, eyes closed, mouth slightly ajar. He appears to be around the same age as our subject, though we cannot confirm either's age. Twenty? Twenty-five? Eighteen?

When our subject steps through the door, a bell dings to signal her arrival. The barista gives a start and rubs the sleep from his eyes. She approaches the counter, and after a brief exchange, pays for her order. She has her pick of any table in the coffee shop and eventually opts for a small one in the back corner. The barista already hurries around behind the counter, performing the rote actions of preparing the espresso machine. His hands move about as if performing a dance he'd practiced since childhood. Scoop, tap, press, spin, click. Button. Wait.  

Meanwhile, our subject opens her tablet at her chosen table and slides a pair of headphones onto her ears. She curls up into a ball in the chair and begins scrolling around on the tablet. Her eyes barely graze the screen, nearly glazed over. A few quick taps. A heavy sigh. She pauses to stare at the screen for a few moments before raising a hand to press her fingers to her temple. A brief massage. Back to scrolling. Another pause. She rests her elbows on the table and drops her forehead into her palms, abandoning the tablet altogether. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

The barista approaches the table, full mug in one hand, small plate in the other, and slides both onto her table. With a start, she raises her head and quickly furrows her brow. The barista has already turned his back to her, but she calls him back to the table, gesturing to the plate and the pastry upon it. She picks it up and reaches out in his direction, but he waves it away and returns toward the counter without accepting it. She blinks a couple of times. Looks down at the pastry. Then at his retreating back. Back at the pastry. Finally, she returns the plate to where he originally placed it. A sip of her beverage. She picks up the pastry, examines it, then takes a bite. The corners of her mouth upturn the most minuscule bit, and she returns her attention to the tablet. The dark purple hue under her eyes is more pronounced than ever in the blue glow of the screen as she scans the text on it. 

She continues on like this for some time, alternating between the drink, the pastry, and the temple rub. The scene continues on like this for some time. Ten minutes? Fifteen? Twenty? Her, at her table, staring blankly at her screen. Him, behind the counter, alert but taskless. The darkness of the night marches on. The darkness outside lies in wait. Droplets continue to tap at the windowpane.

We have let this go on long enough.

The door dings as we step into the coffee shop. We reach back and gingerly click the door's lock, only loud enough to reach our own ear. At the counter, he gives us a nod, and we step from the entryway into the cafe. It's now that she finally notices us, and she lacks any semblance of subtlety. They always do. She freezes, stares, if only for a moment, before averting her eyes back to her tablet. She thinks we didn’t notice. That if she doesn't panic, she can escape. She is wrong. They are always wrong. We see everything.

We approach the counter, aware that her eyes are now trained to our every move. She pretends she isn't watching, but she most certainly is. We begin to place an order. She makes slow, deliberate movements. Pick up the bag, slide the headphones in. Now the tablet. No sudden movements.

She stills. Planning her next move. What does she think gives her the best chance of escape? We've seen it all before. Will she run? Or perhaps crawl? If we’re lucky, she’ll ask our barista for help. That’s always good fun.

In one swift movement, she stands and darts toward the door. She thinks she can get to the door before we can. She chose wrong. Not that there was a right choice. 

Before she can get more than a few feet, we are directly in front of her, blocking her path. She gasps and nearly falls backward, but we catch her by the throat.

Snap.

She goes limp and collapses with a dull thud. 

-

1 year prior

“Where am I?” She clutched her arms to her chest, her head swiveling around to take in the absolute blackness surrounding her. 

“Nowhere.” She jumped at our response, eyes wide, still darting around to locate the voice coming from all around her.

This continued for several moments before we finally materialized in humanoid form before her. Vaguely humanoid, at least. A dark, featureless shadow, but with two arms and two legs nonetheless.

She screamed and stumbled over her own feet, practically throwing herself backward. The darkness propelled her forward, upright, back toward us. She tried first to back away, then to run away, but the darkness refused. We refused. 

“Your attempts to escape are futile. You can go nowhere, because you are already nowhere.” 

Finally, she froze and turned to face us. “What does that mean?”

“It means that you are dead.” 

Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open ever so slightly. “Dead? What do you mean, dead? How am I dead?”

“Murdered. Stabbed to death at 4 in the morning on the way home.”

A mangled snort escaped her lips. “I’m dreaming, right? I drank too much and now I’m having some messed up lucid dream, yeah? And who are you, a goddamn demon?”

“No one.”

“Right. I’m dead, you’re no one, we’re nowhere. Got it. Totally believable.”

She left us no choice. Just like all the others. So utterly predictable. So positively boring.

With a scream, she collapsed, writhing. Screaming into the abyss for no one to hear. We quietly observed, motionless, as she continued to convulse, spasming and screaming and spasming some more. Until finally she stilled, staring at us while taking heaving gasps. The darkness pushed her upright once more.

“Now, do you understand the situation?”

She gulped, still gaping at us, and nodded. “S-so, if I’m… dead, why did I end up here? Er… nowhere? Is nowhere purgatory?”

“It is neither heaven nor hell, nor purgatory. It is neither a waiting room for souls, nor is it their final destination. It exists independent of all space and time, or in another sense, perhaps it does not exist at all. You make that determination on your own.”

“Does that mean you don’t exist either?”

“You catch on quickly.” 

She chewed on her lip, brow furrowed. “So… if this isn’t purgatory or hell, why am I here?”

“Your greatest dream in life was to perform in the pit orchestra of a Broadway musical.”

She froze. “How did you-”

“Individuals who find themselves nowhere are offered a deal. Would you like to hear it?”

Moments passed in silence. Finally, she nodded.

“You get one year. Make the dream happen, none of this ever happened. You never died. All of this is erased from existence and your memory.”

“And… if I fail?”

A grin slowly engulfed the entire cavity where our face should be, until only giant, sharp, rotted teeth remained. “Let’s just call it… a fate worse than hell.” She cowered, taking several steps backward, but the darkness shoved her back toward us until she was mere inches away.

“Do we have a deal?”

-

We crouch to check for a pulse and are met with cold nothingness. The barista collects the plates from her table and wipes it down, removing all traces that she was ever there. 

We stand over her, observing the toll the past year has taken on her body, if one could even call it that. The baggy clothes conceal a rail-thin frame. She hasn’t eaten in days. Up close, the bags under her eyes are blisteringly swollen and purple. 

It always comes on slowly, the emptiness. First, the loneliness. Next, the insomnia. Finally, the paranoia. Eventually, in one way or another, our subjects all find their way here. And we always collect on our deal.

“What’s the story with that one?” Our barista leans against a table beside us.

“Murdered on the way home from a performance. Dreamed of being on Broadway.”

“Don’t they all?” He shakes his head. “How close did she get?”

“Too close. If not for the insomnia, she might have been the first.”

“But that’s why it’s designed the way it is.” He frowns, all too familiar with our methods.

We give a harsh, grating chuckle, and the barista cowers from us ever so slightly. “Correct.”

We observed all year as our subject struggled to make her dreams a reality. It’s astonishing what humans can achieve when their lives are on the line. Mere days before, she had barely practiced her craft, content to live on pennies, take only easy jobs. After, she rarely left her apartment, violin music echoing out the window at all hours of the day and night. But, of course, as it always does, that incited the loneliness. And once the loneliness has been unleashed, they’re as good as ours, standing at the brink of complete emptiness, just waiting to fall in. 

Insomnia already set in by the time of her audition. Fully-rested and of her right mind, she might have made it. But alas, after multiple sleepless nights, running on coffee alone, she botched both the audition and all hope of survival. Just as they always do.  

“Pity. She tried so hard.”

We stand over the figure for several moments longer, before it finally disappears and the last traces of her vanish from the world. To anyone outside of this cafe, she died exactly one year ago. Any memories to the contrary slipped away alongside her body. 

Our job complete, we nod to our barista and set back off into the night, returning to mere shadows once more. With us, the cafe and barista too disappear. Or perhaps they lie in wait for our next subject to arrive. Perhaps they never existed at all.

I suppose you make that determination on your own.