A Normil Day

Rick Normil

I felt chilled and fragile and a bit headachy, but as far as I could tell, I was still in one piece. I sat up and said, "Ugh, what happened?"

Then I noticed that nobody was looking at me. And by that, I mean something deeper and more visceral than just being ignored. I wasn't being overlooked. I was being not-seen.

And my body was walking over to bother the cops about some guy lying on the ground. Without me, or any input from my brain.

The universe is officially conspiring to make sure that I never get the hang of Thursdays.

I heard me—who didn't sound a thing like what I think I sound like—say, "Hey, Mister, can I have a look at that?"

The policeman didn't even glance at him. "Nope."

In the meantime, Jenna, who was getting that I-smash-through-walls-in-pursuit-of-goals look, followed me—my body, I mean. I moved in front of her. "Hey. Jenna, can you hear—"

When people walk through you, it's sort of the sensation you get from crunching a hot cinnamon candy, except without any taste and all over your body. Plainly, Jenna couldn't hear me. Equally plainly, I wasn't just invisible. I was intangible.

I—the other me, my body—was arguing with the police. There was a man on the ground, civilian, white, maybe forty-something, and he'd been carrying some sort of unknown device. Seems I, or not-me—you know what I mean, call him Fake Rick—wanted a look at it. And he was going at it with a weird mixture of belligerent and whiny, saying things like, "Aw, c'mon, it's for a story!" I wished to hell he'd shut up.

Fortunately for me, Jenna had flipped over into fear-her-wrath mode. "Hospital. Now."

Fake Rick said, "But—"

I wouldn't've. But that's because I have some minimal fear of God, and Jenna getting her determination on looks quite similar in poor light. "Now."

I tried to walk through him as she steered him past me. Actually, I did walk through him. What I didn't manage to do was pop happily back into my own body.

Hadn't thought it would work. But it was worth a shot.

The next thing that was worth a shot—although I didn't think it would work, either—was to try the thing.

The thing is small, black, and plastic. It flips open like an old cellphone—I think the casing is actually appropriated from one—but it has only one button, bright red and recessed so you'd have a hard time setting it off by accident. It's saved my life a few times.

I hate it. It's like wearing a T-shirt that says, Hello, my name is Rick Normil. My life is so messed up I have to have a superhero on call.

Problem is—hello, my name is Rick Normil. My life is so messed up I have to have a superhero on call.

I sat on the steps of St. Mary's Regional, where my body had been taken (under protest), and pushed the button. Then I set the thing on the ground a few feet away from me. I had a strong suspicion—

For a moment or so, I thought I might be wrong. The thing stayed where it was, solid as ever. Then an ambulance came screaming past, and I glanced up for a moment—and when I looked back, the thing was just a fuzzy outline of itself.

In other words, not real. Just an artifact of my imagination. It, like my wallet and my camera, existed because I expected to be carrying them.

I spent a mentally taxing few seconds working very hard not to doubt the existence of my clothes. Then I stood up.