Writing Yourself into a Corner

Plucked right off the sidewalk, I now stood face to face with Kelly in a narrow brick alley. He looked tired.

“Close your eyes, keep one hand on the wall to your right, and follow me,” he ordered.

I did as I was told, but then stopped, with my eyes still closed. “Wait,” I said.

“What is it?” Kelly asked.

“It happened again. I was in a car with you. We’ve reset.”

“What happened?”

“I…you were telling me something…he changed his mind again.”

“Did I tell you about the Director?”

“You told me…told me about…” My head swam, and my heart began to race. I fell to me knees, my hand leaving the brick wall at my side, my stomach lurching and my eyes involuntarily opening. I puffed a breath into the cracked asphalt under my nose, then looked up. If my stomach felt uneasy before, I was positively nauseous now.

The alley was gone. Kelly and I stood in the middle of a bare square of an alley hemmed in on all sides by featureless gray stone.

Kelly swore.